4 ms·

I was also just in San Francisco (also from Brooklyn!) and noticed this as well. Downtown SF has all the look and feel of a global city, think Manhattan or Toky

I was also just in San Francisco (also from Brooklyn!) and noticed this as well. Downtown SF has all the look and feel of a global city, think Manhattan or Tokyo. Once you get into the western half of the city it seems like a nice quaint European city half it's size. I definitely understand why rich land owners want to "preserve the character of the neighborhoods" but you can't have it both ways. The most puzzling thing was that I did see a few new residential constructions going up and they were also of the 1-3 story variety.

pmiller2 8y ago
The reason those buildings are 1-3 stories is that most of the city has a zoning limit restricting building to ~4 stories at most.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  Prop 13 also allows people to sit on their land because they can still afford the property tax for ridiculously expensive houses. If Prop 13 did not exist, NIMBYs would not have the resources to keep stalling development.
  - masonic 8y ago
    Many of them would be selling out and moving to less expensive areas had Prop 5 passed, but the Democrat machine opposed it.
    - bobthepanda 8y ago
      Why fix a regressive tax with an even more regressive subsidy? Prop 13 has had such far reaching negative impacts.
CPLX 8y ago
> I definitely understand why rich land owners want to "preserve the character of the neighborhoods" Yeah, see that's the part that confused the hell out of me actually. I actually don't know if I understand that. I mean I'll freely admit it, some parts of SF are gorgeous and unique. Let's not bulldoze the painted ladies. In fact maybe let's save large sections of some lovely neighborhoods with Victorian houses and quaint hilly streets and so on. The parks and the coastline are a treasure. But like the city is actually pretty big, and huge sections of it are just ugly. I went all the way through outer sunset on the way to the beach and it's just endless blocks of small unremarkable houses, all with garage doors as their primary streetside element. There's no reason to keep this stuff. Or even if you want to remember it fondly you could keep half of it and carve out a square mile or so of it and build apartment buildings and house like 200,000 more people. I mean, I went to a meeting in SOMA and drove by a Best Buy, surrounded by a large suburban style parking lot. Like seriously WTF guys, you're keen on preserving the character a fucking big box store surrounded by surface parking? You could house tens of thousands of people on that same lot AND KEEP THE BEST BUY AND THE PARKING SPACES on the first two floors if you really felt like it. The whole city just feels insane to me. Like you'll go by a dozen blocks of crappy postwar 3 story commercial buildings that have no aesthetic value to anyone. Street after street where the entire first floor of every building is garage doors. I mean, guys, you don't have to DO anything to to fix a lot of the basic problem, just literally stop preventing people from building the housing that the market is desperately begging to be supplied. It doesn't have to turn into Manhattan. Paris is one of the most dense cities in the world and it has charm for miles. Why is everyone hanging onto these lame low rise districts that have no obvious redeeming features? This is madness.

pmiller2 8y ago

The reason those buildings are 1-3 stories is that most of the city has a zoning limit restricting building to ~4 stories at most.

bobthepanda 8y ago
Prop 13 also allows people to sit on their land because they can still afford the property tax for ridiculously expensive houses. If Prop 13 did not exist, NIMBYs would not have the resources to keep stalling development.
- masonic 8y ago
  Many of them would be selling out and moving to less expensive areas had Prop 5 passed, but the Democrat machine opposed it.
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    Why fix a regressive tax with an even more regressive subsidy? Prop 13 has had such far reaching negative impacts.

CPLX 8y ago

> I definitely understand why rich land owners want to "preserve the character of the neighborhoods" Yeah, see that's the part that confused the hell out of me actually. I actually don't know if I understand that. I mean I'll freely admit it, some parts of SF are gorgeous and unique. Let's not bulldoze the painted ladies. In fact maybe let's save large sections of some lovely neighborhoods with Victorian houses and quaint hilly streets and so on. The parks and the coastline are a treasure. But like the city is actually pretty big, and huge sections of it are just ugly. I went all the way through outer sunset on the way to the beach and it's just endless blocks of small unremarkable houses, all with garage doors as their primary streetside element. There's no reason to keep this stuff. Or even if you want to remember it fondly you could keep half of it and carve out a square mile or so of it and build apartment buildings and house like 200,000 more people. I mean, I went to a meeting in SOMA and drove by a Best Buy, surrounded by a large suburban style parking lot. Like seriously WTF guys, you're keen on preserving the character a fucking big box store surrounded by surface parking? You could house tens of thousands of people on that same lot AND KEEP THE BEST BUY AND THE PARKING SPACES on the first two floors if you really felt like it. The whole city just feels insane to me. Like you'll go by a dozen blocks of crappy postwar 3 story commercial buildings that have no aesthetic value to anyone. Street after street where the entire first floor of every building is garage doors. I mean, guys, you don't have to DO anything to to fix a lot of the basic problem, just literally stop preventing people from building the housing that the market is desperately begging to be supplied. It doesn't have to turn into Manhattan. Paris is one of the most dense cities in the world and it has charm for miles. Why is everyone hanging onto these lame low rise districts that have no obvious redeeming features? This is madness.