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I encourage everyone who lives in San Francisco to join YIMBY. http://www.sfyimby.org/ http://www.sfyimby.org/ The fundamental problem in the Bay Area is a la

I encourage everyone who lives in San Francisco to join YIMBY. http://www.sfyimby.org/ http://www.sfyimby.org/ The fundamental problem in the Bay Area is a lack of affordable housing. This pushes us into higher paying tech jobs, when we may prefer to start a company. Its my dream to start a company but paying bay area rent is expensive! This is what you can do to help: - Housing Costs (Our SF politicians lack focus: Think tech cafeterias and Social Engineering vs Building Housing) What can you do: unseat Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Jane Kim, Hilary Ronen and Sandra Lee Fewer. This group votes against housing every chance they get. Aaron has introduced the silly tech cafeteria legislation. - Demand infrastructure. We must demand it. I do not want to lose our dynamism, so lets change SF

pfarnsworth 8y ago
Sorry but I disagree that affordable housing is the problem. Housing is a symptom of the problem, just like how inflation in the Bay Area is rampant over everything. Day care costs are exorbitant. Groceries, gas prices, inflation is across the board because well paid tech workers are driving up the costs. Even costs to get work done on your house or property has doubled in 6 years. The real reason is that there are too many tech companies that refuse to build equivalent headquarters in other cities. It's concentrating the wealth of companies that gather money from around the world in a tiny area, and that by definition will create inflation. If Google, Facebook, etc, created equivalent headquarters in Kansas City, in Cleveland, etc (as in, they have equal say as the main HQ and just as good projects), then I believe the wealth could be spread over the entire country or globe, and everyone would benefit. People NEED to move away from Silicon Valley. Having so many rich, tech workers living in a small area is toxic, just like Wall Street and Manhattan is toxic. Once the pressure of adding thousands of 6 figure engineers coming to the Bay Area recedes, then housing will fall to a more rational level. I've been living the in Bay Area since the dot com boom. Housing prices were always high, but never this toxic, until frankly the FANG stocks started breaking out in around 2011/2012. You can see this in the stock market as well. When these global internet companies started consolidating their power and consequently their wealth, it created a mass migration to the Bay Area of tech workers who were paid well above the average, and caused massive inflation. You want to start a company? Go somewhere else. Be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.
- harimau777 8y ago
  I think the problem is that a lot of those cities are not ones people want to live in. On the other hand, SF has amazing weather, culture, decent public transportation (at least compared to many other cities), permissive drug laws, relatively open work culture (e.g. dress code, work from home, perks), a progressive culture, etc.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Which is precisely why it's expensive to live in the Bay Area. It's hugely in demand. And the YIMBY folks don't have the ability to claw back some of the property rights of existing property owners to upzone. pfarnsworth is spot on. Either pay the market rate, or move somewhere cheaper. This is primarily the fault of large tech employers who refuse to relocate jobs elsewhere. They are causing the housing inflation with their deep pockets for worker salaries.
    - harimau777 8y ago
      If I were going to take a job in, for example, the midwest, I would expect a higher salary in order to compensate for the lower quality of life during the winter. Wouldn't that then defeat the purpose of moving a company somewhere cheaper in order to pay people less? Edit: toomuchtodo brings up a good point. I was thinking more in terms of a higher pay after adjusting for cost of living (e.g. being payed the same amount as an engineer in SF while living in Cleveland). Otherwise it seems like I would be taking both a pay cut and a cost of living cut.
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        You're making an assumption that there aren't others who would take the job without requiring a bump in pay to compensate for winters (quite a contingent of tech workers already in Chicago, for example). There are already large cohorts of tech professionals who take a pay cut (not saying they should, but they do) for the ability to work remote. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Google and Facebook are expanding rapidly in the downtown Chicago area. [1] Bay Area tech salaries are already the highest in the nation; you could make the pitch to an employer, but I think you'd be hard pressed to get a higher salary for living in the midwest (considering the much lower cost of living). Midwest workers (tech workers anywhere outside of the Bay Area really) would be thrilled to get SFBA salaries where they live. > Menlo Park, Calif.-based Facebook is negotiating to lease more than 200,000 square feet in a recently constructed office tower at 151 N. Franklin St. in the Loop, according to sources. > Meanwhile, sources said, Google plans to add more than 100,000 square feet of office space in the city’s Fulton Market district, where the company already has a large Midwest headquarters. > The new Facebook space alone would be large enough to accommodate more than 1,000 employees. [1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/ori/ct-biz-facebook-google-chicago-expansion-ryan-ori-20180601-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/ori/ct-biz...
ww520 8y ago
Does YIMBY support getting rid of rent control?
- drb91 8y ago
  Why would removing rent control increase the supply of affordable housing? Honest question. Presumably a lot of people depend on it in order to live in SF itself.
  - chroma 8y ago
    Economists agree that rent control hurts cities as much as dentists agree that sugared gum hurts teeth.[1] The main problem with rent control is what it incentivizes. Landlords have less incentive to maintain or improve their properties and more incentive to get tenants out so they can rent to new tenants at market rates. From CityLab's summary of the economic analysis of SF's rent control law:[2] > As a result of these landlord reactions, rent-controlled buildings saw a 15 percent decline in the number of renter residents, and a 25 percent decline in those living in the rent-controlled units, compared to 1994 levels. In other words, rent control had a counterproductive effect. Fewer residents mean less supply of housing, meaning higher prices overall. Rent control effectively subsidizes current tenants with money from future tenants. 1. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-01-18/yup-rent-control-does-more-harm-than-good https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-01-18/yup-rent-... 2. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/rent-control-a-reckoning/551168/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/rent-control-a-reckon...
  - stickfigure 8y ago
    Because of people like me that have ancient rent-controlled apartments in SF that would leave them if the rent went up. I have many friends in the same situation; we're not enjoying SF like we did in our 20s and 30s, but the rent is too cheap to move. Right now the market is bifurcated into the lucky ones who have absurdly cheap housing and the unlucky ones that have absurdly expensive housing. Without rent control, the equilibrium state would be something in between.
  - ww520 8y ago
    Rent control depresses housing supply. It subsidies current tenants with future tenants' increased cost. The high housing cost people complaining about is the cumulating cost of decades of rent control. It incentivizes tenants with artificial low rent to stay beyond what were needed. People with low rent hang on to the units even when they have bought houses (I actually know people doing it). It decentivizes landlords to keep the buildings as rentals. It decentivizes investors to add more housing supplies.
chroma 8y ago
I used to think that this was the solution, but it's now clear to me that the state and local governments are too incompetent to fix this problem. Over the past decade, the bay area has gotten so much worse. The cost of living has skyrocketed. Commutes have gotten longer. The homeless problem has become something out of a George Romero movie. None of these show signs of improving, and it's not due to lack of trying. The city of San Francisco spends a quarter billion dollars a year on homelessness.[1] That's $33,000 per homeless person per year![2] The city is experiencing the greatest economic success in its history, but it can barely keep Muni running. Imagine how bad things will get in a downturn. What laws do we see being passed? Plastic bag bans. Plastic straw bans. Scooter bans. Tech company cafeteria bans. Laws that demonstrate a total lack of knowledge of economics, incentives, or any sort of numerical analysis. I've given up on the bay area and am preparing to move. I know the tech jobs and community won't be as good, and I'll miss my friends, but I can no longer stand being governed by complete nincompoops. 1. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/29-million-increase-for-San-Francisco-12902707.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/29-million-incre... 2. There are approximately 7,500 homeless in SF according to http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-Point-in-Time-Count-General-FINAL-6.21.17.pdf http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-Poin...
- justinzollars 8y ago
  Sorry to see you go. Honestly we need people here that can see these problems. Your facts are spot on.
- edoceo 8y ago
  ""governed by complete nincompoops"" This will be true after you move too.
  - chroma 8y ago
    I've lived in three countries and a half-dozen states. The bay area's governance is easily the worst I've encountered.
    - 8y ago
kelp 8y ago
I'd like to add that the Bay Area affordability problem is not some unsolvable situation that we have to just be resigned to accept. But it does require getting involved somehow. If you have a decent paying job, the easiest way is to start donating to organizations like SF YIMBY, and / or political campains of pro YIMBY candidates. People such as Sonja Trauss, Christine Johnson, who are both running for SF D6. David Chiu and Scott Wiener have had a great track record in the State Assembly and State Senate. We got into this affordability situation by passing a series of laws at the state and local levels, over many years. We're never going to be as cheap as Akron OH, but we can slow the price growth, and maybe reduce it some by making it easier, and cheaper to build, by changing state and local laws to allow that. Finally, local politicians are actually quite accessible, so your voice can be heard. And groups like SF YIMBY help to amplify that voice. Fundamentally, most politicians do what they think will get them votes, so it helps to find a group of like minded individuals.
mc32 8y ago
I truly do not know what motivates Peskin and Kim. Really. Is Kim an old time socialist (Maoist?) I don't know, but I know she and Paskin (a "preservationist anti build guy" do more harm than good to the majority of renters in this city. I'm hopeful Breed will turn things around, but the BoS seem to be more interested in peripheral pet projects than focusing on thigs which affect the great majority where it matters: housing, crime and strategy (with quality of life a few rungs down --jobs are not the issue).
afpx 8y ago
I’ve read a bunch of the literature on the topic, and I’m unconvinced that supply can bring about a price drop. Housing is inelastic and will climb to the top of what the people in the area can afford, given demand. So, there’d have to be a massive increase in housing to exceed the demand (probably millions of people wanting to move there). I mean, I’m all for giving it a try, but I think people’s expectations are way too high.
- bigdubs 8y ago
  there are a couple other things to throw into the mix, housing doesnt just appear if we will it, you have to make it cheaper to build in the first place, and have some type of land value tax to encourage density. density is the answer though, demand will always be there and is harder to control
- repsilat 8y ago
  An increase in long term interest rates will also bring house prices down. That won't make an 80% mortgage more affordable, but it'll make saving for a 20% deposit easier (and will make houses cheaper for people who pay a larger fraction in cash.) Long term interest rates have been pretty stagnant recently even as the Fed has been raising the short term rate steadily, but they've only just begun winding down their QE assets so if there isn't a recession in the next few years we should see house prices ease off.
- stale2002 8y ago
  > Housing is inelastic and will climb to the top of what the people in the area can afford, given demand. Thats the opposite of inelastic. Inelastic means that as one side increases, the other side does not respond much. Food, for example, has inelastic demand in the US. If food prices get cut in half, people aren't going to eat twice as much. But even if housing demand is elastic, thats a good thing, not a bad thing. That means that if we build lots of houses, then there are lots and lots of people out there who could benefit from moving here. These people want to move here, but are unable to do so right now. We could help them so much by giving people the opportunity to move to a place, that is apparently so amazing that lots of people want to come here.

pfarnsworth 8y ago

Sorry but I disagree that affordable housing is the problem. Housing is a symptom of the problem, just like how inflation in the Bay Area is rampant over everything. Day care costs are exorbitant. Groceries, gas prices, inflation is across the board because well paid tech workers are driving up the costs. Even costs to get work done on your house or property has doubled in 6 years. The real reason is that there are too many tech companies that refuse to build equivalent headquarters in other cities. It's concentrating the wealth of companies that gather money from around the world in a tiny area, and that by definition will create inflation. If Google, Facebook, etc, created equivalent headquarters in Kansas City, in Cleveland, etc (as in, they have equal say as the main HQ and just as good projects), then I believe the wealth could be spread over the entire country or globe, and everyone would benefit. People NEED to move away from Silicon Valley. Having so many rich, tech workers living in a small area is toxic, just like Wall Street and Manhattan is toxic. Once the pressure of adding thousands of 6 figure engineers coming to the Bay Area recedes, then housing will fall to a more rational level. I've been living the in Bay Area since the dot com boom. Housing prices were always high, but never this toxic, until frankly the FANG stocks started breaking out in around 2011/2012. You can see this in the stock market as well. When these global internet companies started consolidating their power and consequently their wealth, it created a mass migration to the Bay Area of tech workers who were paid well above the average, and caused massive inflation. You want to start a company? Go somewhere else. Be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.

harimau777 8y ago
I think the problem is that a lot of those cities are not ones people want to live in. On the other hand, SF has amazing weather, culture, decent public transportation (at least compared to many other cities), permissive drug laws, relatively open work culture (e.g. dress code, work from home, perks), a progressive culture, etc.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Which is precisely why it's expensive to live in the Bay Area. It's hugely in demand. And the YIMBY folks don't have the ability to claw back some of the property rights of existing property owners to upzone. pfarnsworth is spot on. Either pay the market rate, or move somewhere cheaper. This is primarily the fault of large tech employers who refuse to relocate jobs elsewhere. They are causing the housing inflation with their deep pockets for worker salaries.
  - harimau777 8y ago
    If I were going to take a job in, for example, the midwest, I would expect a higher salary in order to compensate for the lower quality of life during the winter. Wouldn't that then defeat the purpose of moving a company somewhere cheaper in order to pay people less? Edit: toomuchtodo brings up a good point. I was thinking more in terms of a higher pay after adjusting for cost of living (e.g. being payed the same amount as an engineer in SF while living in Cleveland). Otherwise it seems like I would be taking both a pay cut and a cost of living cut.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      You're making an assumption that there aren't others who would take the job without requiring a bump in pay to compensate for winters (quite a contingent of tech workers already in Chicago, for example). There are already large cohorts of tech professionals who take a pay cut (not saying they should, but they do) for the ability to work remote. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Google and Facebook are expanding rapidly in the downtown Chicago area. [1] Bay Area tech salaries are already the highest in the nation; you could make the pitch to an employer, but I think you'd be hard pressed to get a higher salary for living in the midwest (considering the much lower cost of living). Midwest workers (tech workers anywhere outside of the Bay Area really) would be thrilled to get SFBA salaries where they live. > Menlo Park, Calif.-based Facebook is negotiating to lease more than 200,000 square feet in a recently constructed office tower at 151 N. Franklin St. in the Loop, according to sources. > Meanwhile, sources said, Google plans to add more than 100,000 square feet of office space in the city’s Fulton Market district, where the company already has a large Midwest headquarters. > The new Facebook space alone would be large enough to accommodate more than 1,000 employees. [1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/ori/ct-biz-facebook-google-chicago-expansion-ryan-ori-20180601-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/ori/ct-biz...

ww520 8y ago

Does YIMBY support getting rid of rent control?

drb91 8y ago
Why would removing rent control increase the supply of affordable housing? Honest question. Presumably a lot of people depend on it in order to live in SF itself.
- chroma 8y ago
  Economists agree that rent control hurts cities as much as dentists agree that sugared gum hurts teeth.[1] The main problem with rent control is what it incentivizes. Landlords have less incentive to maintain or improve their properties and more incentive to get tenants out so they can rent to new tenants at market rates. From CityLab's summary of the economic analysis of SF's rent control law:[2] > As a result of these landlord reactions, rent-controlled buildings saw a 15 percent decline in the number of renter residents, and a 25 percent decline in those living in the rent-controlled units, compared to 1994 levels. In other words, rent control had a counterproductive effect. Fewer residents mean less supply of housing, meaning higher prices overall. Rent control effectively subsidizes current tenants with money from future tenants. 1. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-01-18/yup-rent-control-does-more-harm-than-good https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-01-18/yup-rent-... 2. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/rent-control-a-reckoning/551168/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/rent-control-a-reckon...
- stickfigure 8y ago
  Because of people like me that have ancient rent-controlled apartments in SF that would leave them if the rent went up. I have many friends in the same situation; we're not enjoying SF like we did in our 20s and 30s, but the rent is too cheap to move. Right now the market is bifurcated into the lucky ones who have absurdly cheap housing and the unlucky ones that have absurdly expensive housing. Without rent control, the equilibrium state would be something in between.
- ww520 8y ago
  Rent control depresses housing supply. It subsidies current tenants with future tenants' increased cost. The high housing cost people complaining about is the cumulating cost of decades of rent control. It incentivizes tenants with artificial low rent to stay beyond what were needed. People with low rent hang on to the units even when they have bought houses (I actually know people doing it). It decentivizes landlords to keep the buildings as rentals. It decentivizes investors to add more housing supplies.

chroma 8y ago

I used to think that this was the solution, but it's now clear to me that the state and local governments are too incompetent to fix this problem. Over the past decade, the bay area has gotten so much worse. The cost of living has skyrocketed. Commutes have gotten longer. The homeless problem has become something out of a George Romero movie. None of these show signs of improving, and it's not due to lack of trying. The city of San Francisco spends a quarter billion dollars a year on homelessness.[1] That's $33,000 per homeless person per year![2] The city is experiencing the greatest economic success in its history, but it can barely keep Muni running. Imagine how bad things will get in a downturn. What laws do we see being passed? Plastic bag bans. Plastic straw bans. Scooter bans. Tech company cafeteria bans. Laws that demonstrate a total lack of knowledge of economics, incentives, or any sort of numerical analysis. I've given up on the bay area and am preparing to move. I know the tech jobs and community won't be as good, and I'll miss my friends, but I can no longer stand being governed by complete nincompoops. 1. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/29-million-increase-for-San-Francisco-12902707.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/29-million-incre... 2. There are approximately 7,500 homeless in SF according to http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-Point-in-Time-Count-General-FINAL-6.21.17.pdf http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-Poin...

justinzollars 8y ago
Sorry to see you go. Honestly we need people here that can see these problems. Your facts are spot on.
edoceo 8y ago
""governed by complete nincompoops"" This will be true after you move too.
- chroma 8y ago
  I've lived in three countries and a half-dozen states. The bay area's governance is easily the worst I've encountered.
  - 8y ago

kelp 8y ago

I'd like to add that the Bay Area affordability problem is not some unsolvable situation that we have to just be resigned to accept. But it does require getting involved somehow. If you have a decent paying job, the easiest way is to start donating to organizations like SF YIMBY, and / or political campains of pro YIMBY candidates. People such as Sonja Trauss, Christine Johnson, who are both running for SF D6. David Chiu and Scott Wiener have had a great track record in the State Assembly and State Senate. We got into this affordability situation by passing a series of laws at the state and local levels, over many years. We're never going to be as cheap as Akron OH, but we can slow the price growth, and maybe reduce it some by making it easier, and cheaper to build, by changing state and local laws to allow that. Finally, local politicians are actually quite accessible, so your voice can be heard. And groups like SF YIMBY help to amplify that voice. Fundamentally, most politicians do what they think will get them votes, so it helps to find a group of like minded individuals.

mc32 8y ago

I truly do not know what motivates Peskin and Kim. Really. Is Kim an old time socialist (Maoist?) I don't know, but I know she and Paskin (a "preservationist anti build guy" do more harm than good to the majority of renters in this city. I'm hopeful Breed will turn things around, but the BoS seem to be more interested in peripheral pet projects than focusing on thigs which affect the great majority where it matters: housing, crime and strategy (with quality of life a few rungs down --jobs are not the issue).

afpx 8y ago

I’ve read a bunch of the literature on the topic, and I’m unconvinced that supply can bring about a price drop. Housing is inelastic and will climb to the top of what the people in the area can afford, given demand. So, there’d have to be a massive increase in housing to exceed the demand (probably millions of people wanting to move there). I mean, I’m all for giving it a try, but I think people’s expectations are way too high.

bigdubs 8y ago
there are a couple other things to throw into the mix, housing doesnt just appear if we will it, you have to make it cheaper to build in the first place, and have some type of land value tax to encourage density. density is the answer though, demand will always be there and is harder to control
repsilat 8y ago
An increase in long term interest rates will also bring house prices down. That won't make an 80% mortgage more affordable, but it'll make saving for a 20% deposit easier (and will make houses cheaper for people who pay a larger fraction in cash.) Long term interest rates have been pretty stagnant recently even as the Fed has been raising the short term rate steadily, but they've only just begun winding down their QE assets so if there isn't a recession in the next few years we should see house prices ease off.
stale2002 8y ago
> Housing is inelastic and will climb to the top of what the people in the area can afford, given demand. Thats the opposite of inelastic. Inelastic means that as one side increases, the other side does not respond much. Food, for example, has inelastic demand in the US. If food prices get cut in half, people aren't going to eat twice as much. But even if housing demand is elastic, thats a good thing, not a bad thing. That means that if we build lots of houses, then there are lots and lots of people out there who could benefit from moving here. These people want to move here, but are unable to do so right now. We could help them so much by giving people the opportunity to move to a place, that is apparently so amazing that lots of people want to come here.