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Confused about what I am supposed to take away from point 2. Rebuilding costs about the same as building. Okay. So? And how do you conclude from 1 and 2 that "

Confused about what I am supposed to take away from point 2. Rebuilding costs about the same as building. Okay. So? And how do you conclude from 1 and 2 that "Really the solution is not more housing"? I was with you on point 1 (housing and transport go hand in hand. That makes sense). Detroit, along with every other city in the world has been trying to create their own Silicon Valley and ignite a revolution but its just not that easy to do. Just google innovation and government and read a few books worth of text on the various theories of what the problem is. (Not enough VC, not enough tech talent, not enough money, not enough infrastructure etc etc).

Gibbon1 8y ago
The point is that it's not nimbyism that's primarily driving housing costs here. Because first off rebuilding costs which isn't effected by nimbyism. Because hey this place I'm living in burns down the neighbors can't prevent or slow down rebuilding. And no one's preventing developers from building multifamily in SOMA. And they are. In both cases you can't pencil in affordable housing due to $500-1000 sqft building costs. A point why the city allows developers to building large multifamily SOMA and not in the Sunset is because transportation. The reason I called out the argument as propaganda is because it has everything to do with the axe developers have to grind. And nothing to do with affordable housing. Developers hate having to work the process to get permits because that doesn't add to their bottom line. My response to your point about Detroit and other cities wanting some of the tech bro action is that they aren't getting the love because the river of money is only being pointed towards the cities that the elites want to live in. SF, LA, New York, etc. The solution is to force them to redirect a bunch of that development money to other cities.
- projectramo 8y ago
  I guess I am unsure of the rules, but I thought the way that the nimbyism mechanism worked to reduce supply is by adding restrictions on density (can't build houses that are very tall) and cost (requiring lots of permits and old houses to look the same and so forth). It seems that nimbyism would increase the cost of building and rebuilding at about the same rate. (I don't see much of a difference between the two in the middle of a big city). So if San Francisco were allowed to build large sky scrapers like NYC, in theory, we would see the housing prices fall. NYC also has housing problems of course. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-percent-of-manhattans-buildings-could-not-be-built-today.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-...
  - Gibbon1 8y ago
    Personally I think developers want it both ways, don't want to be bothered with building regulations and planning. And also don't want to have to factor in their share of the transportation and infrastructure costs. So they oppose both and then bitch about the result. Not sympathetic. NYC is also relying on long term preexisting infrastructure that hasn't been upgraded to meet demand. NYC also has the problem that the replacement tunnels to NJ have been canceled by Gov Christie in 2009 and by Trump in 2016. When I talk about the transportation stuff taking a long time I'm serious. The central subway was in early planning stages in the late 90's, ground broken 10 years later.

Gibbon1 8y ago

The point is that it's not nimbyism that's primarily driving housing costs here. Because first off rebuilding costs which isn't effected by nimbyism. Because hey this place I'm living in burns down the neighbors can't prevent or slow down rebuilding. And no one's preventing developers from building multifamily in SOMA. And they are. In both cases you can't pencil in affordable housing due to $500-1000 sqft building costs. A point why the city allows developers to building large multifamily SOMA and not in the Sunset is because transportation. The reason I called out the argument as propaganda is because it has everything to do with the axe developers have to grind. And nothing to do with affordable housing. Developers hate having to work the process to get permits because that doesn't add to their bottom line. My response to your point about Detroit and other cities wanting some of the tech bro action is that they aren't getting the love because the river of money is only being pointed towards the cities that the elites want to live in. SF, LA, New York, etc. The solution is to force them to redirect a bunch of that development money to other cities.

projectramo 8y ago
I guess I am unsure of the rules, but I thought the way that the nimbyism mechanism worked to reduce supply is by adding restrictions on density (can't build houses that are very tall) and cost (requiring lots of permits and old houses to look the same and so forth). It seems that nimbyism would increase the cost of building and rebuilding at about the same rate. (I don't see much of a difference between the two in the middle of a big city). So if San Francisco were allowed to build large sky scrapers like NYC, in theory, we would see the housing prices fall. NYC also has housing problems of course. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-percent-of-manhattans-buildings-could-not-be-built-today.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-...
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  Personally I think developers want it both ways, don't want to be bothered with building regulations and planning. And also don't want to have to factor in their share of the transportation and infrastructure costs. So they oppose both and then bitch about the result. Not sympathetic. NYC is also relying on long term preexisting infrastructure that hasn't been upgraded to meet demand. NYC also has the problem that the replacement tunnels to NJ have been canceled by Gov Christie in 2009 and by Trump in 2016. When I talk about the transportation stuff taking a long time I'm serious. The central subway was in early planning stages in the late 90's, ground broken 10 years later.