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> "Queers hate techies" (from the photo) The housing scarcity and high rents are caused by politics, by zoning, by not allowing to build enough new homes. It's

by sampo 8y ago

> "Queers hate techies" (from the photo) The housing scarcity and high rents are caused by politics, by zoning, by not allowing to build enough new homes. It's sad that techies are blamed for the problem created by the politicians and, ultimately, by the voters. Especially foreign tech workers, such as the author, bear no blame, as they cannot even vote in any US elections.

jseliger 8y ago
Yes. I was just going to post this: Personally I can emphasize with the sentiment. Even though I don’t think that 20-something programmers in Google buses are personally responsible for the disparity, but the brandless tinted Google buses are a powerful symbol for new class system. I’ve never seen so much poverty and homelessness before. There’s many major streets where wearing open shoes would be a big no-no, because of used needles lying around in plain sight. Seeing people shooting up on Market Street is pretty normal. This is a political decision, or set of decisions: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/. Anytime we want to, we can build as much housing as people want to live in; we just make doing so illegal right now.
- treis 8y ago
  You can't build housing cheap enough for chronic drug users to afford.
  - adventured 8y ago
    > You can't build housing cheap enough for chronic drug users to afford. You certainly easily can: effectively free (subsidized by tax payers). The house-the-homeless programs run during the Bush and Obama administrations dramatically reduced chronic homelessness in most of the US, pushing it to a record low per capita. San Francisco is one of the wealthiest places on earth. They intentionally choose to allow the human rights violation of mass, particularly chaotic homelessness to continue in the city. Morally they own it, period. There are obvious, highly effective solutions that have been used elsewhere.
    - treis 8y ago
      >You certainly easily can: effectively free (subsidized by tax payers). That's not building cheap housing that drug users can afford. It's just getting someone else to pay.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - crdoconnor 8y ago
    You can prevent people from becoming drug users by not jacking rents up so high that they're forced on to the streets.
    - masonic 8y ago
      I wasn't aware that drug addiction was mandatory for the not- conventionally-housed.
  - bduerst 8y ago
    Considering the majority of the homeless in SF are mentally handicapped, it turns out you can: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/03/05/san-francisco-hospital-locked-ward-mentally-ill-homeless/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/03/05/san-francisco-h... Deinstitutionalization has contributed to SF's homeless problem, as many mentally handicapped people self medicate with illegal substances.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  Does the city have the infrastructure needed to support more housing? Water, sewer, electric grid, schools, trash service, parking, transit? You can’t just replace a few blocks of single family homes with high rises and call it a day. Where do you put all this new infrastructure and who pays for it? Existing residents? More housing is necessary but insufficient.
  - pc86 8y ago
    > who pays for it? Existing residents? Yes. That's how urban living works. Current residents pay taxes, those taxes are used to rebuild/enhance the city infrastructure, which brings in more residents and more tax revenue. And I think increasing the capacity of the sewer system is sort of an assumed point when it's literally a requirement for increased high-density housing.
    - ryandrake 8y ago
      I don’t think it’s assumed at all. People just come into these conversations with overly-simplistic solutions (Just Add Housing™) and if anyone disagrees or points out that it’s actually a complicated, multi-faceted problem, they’re wrong and a NIMBY. Who pays for it all is a huge issue, and I don’t think there is an obvious universally agreeable answer. If there was it wouldn’t be fought over so fiercely. But don’t point that out here! It’s not enough to agree that the area needs more housing—you aparently have to also profess that it’s obviously the only solution, and that there are no trade offs or complexity to consider.
Wohlf 8y ago
Everyone likes a scapegoat, this is just anti-immigrant sentiment. Hating migration from within the country is only different from hating immigration from outisde the country in that the former has a class component and the latter has a race component.
- danielcarver 8y ago
  So true. I find it hilarious that the same people who want open borders want techies out of the Bay Area. They’re literally arguing for immigration in the form of open borders while simultaneously arguing against it by demanding techies (aka immigrants) leave their city.
myspy 8y ago
Kinda ironic that the tech industry is forced to bring people together at this place to do... something. Remote work, distributed working, all these ideas are what could lead a worldwide trend to distribute work, people, resources more efficiently. Also while not destroying history (old buildings/neighborhoods that are worth preserving) and nature (parks, trees, etc.).
amyjess 8y ago
That phrase particularly bothers me because in reality, the queers are likely to be techies. It's pretty widely known with in the transgender community that trans women are overwhelmingly more likely to be software engineers than have pretty much any other profession.

by sampo 8y ago

jseliger 8y ago

Yes. I was just going to post this: Personally I can emphasize with the sentiment. Even though I don’t think that 20-something programmers in Google buses are personally responsible for the disparity, but the brandless tinted Google buses are a powerful symbol for new class system. I’ve never seen so much poverty and homelessness before. There’s many major streets where wearing open shoes would be a big no-no, because of used needles lying around in plain sight. Seeing people shooting up on Market Street is pretty normal. This is a political decision, or set of decisions: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/. Anytime we want to, we can build as much housing as people want to live in; we just make doing so illegal right now.

treis 8y ago
You can't build housing cheap enough for chronic drug users to afford.
- adventured 8y ago
  > You can't build housing cheap enough for chronic drug users to afford. You certainly easily can: effectively free (subsidized by tax payers). The house-the-homeless programs run during the Bush and Obama administrations dramatically reduced chronic homelessness in most of the US, pushing it to a record low per capita. San Francisco is one of the wealthiest places on earth. They intentionally choose to allow the human rights violation of mass, particularly chaotic homelessness to continue in the city. Morally they own it, period. There are obvious, highly effective solutions that have been used elsewhere.
  - treis 8y ago
    >You certainly easily can: effectively free (subsidized by tax payers). That's not building cheap housing that drug users can afford. It's just getting someone else to pay.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- crdoconnor 8y ago
  You can prevent people from becoming drug users by not jacking rents up so high that they're forced on to the streets.
  - masonic 8y ago
    I wasn't aware that drug addiction was mandatory for the not- conventionally-housed.
- bduerst 8y ago
  Considering the majority of the homeless in SF are mentally handicapped, it turns out you can: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/03/05/san-francisco-hospital-locked-ward-mentally-ill-homeless/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/03/05/san-francisco-h... Deinstitutionalization has contributed to SF's homeless problem, as many mentally handicapped people self medicate with illegal substances.
ryandrake 8y ago
Does the city have the infrastructure needed to support more housing? Water, sewer, electric grid, schools, trash service, parking, transit? You can’t just replace a few blocks of single family homes with high rises and call it a day. Where do you put all this new infrastructure and who pays for it? Existing residents? More housing is necessary but insufficient.
- pc86 8y ago
  > who pays for it? Existing residents? Yes. That's how urban living works. Current residents pay taxes, those taxes are used to rebuild/enhance the city infrastructure, which brings in more residents and more tax revenue. And I think increasing the capacity of the sewer system is sort of an assumed point when it's literally a requirement for increased high-density housing.
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    I don’t think it’s assumed at all. People just come into these conversations with overly-simplistic solutions (Just Add Housing™) and if anyone disagrees or points out that it’s actually a complicated, multi-faceted problem, they’re wrong and a NIMBY. Who pays for it all is a huge issue, and I don’t think there is an obvious universally agreeable answer. If there was it wouldn’t be fought over so fiercely. But don’t point that out here! It’s not enough to agree that the area needs more housing—you aparently have to also profess that it’s obviously the only solution, and that there are no trade offs or complexity to consider.

Wohlf 8y ago

Everyone likes a scapegoat, this is just anti-immigrant sentiment. Hating migration from within the country is only different from hating immigration from outisde the country in that the former has a class component and the latter has a race component.

danielcarver 8y ago
So true. I find it hilarious that the same people who want open borders want techies out of the Bay Area. They’re literally arguing for immigration in the form of open borders while simultaneously arguing against it by demanding techies (aka immigrants) leave their city.

myspy 8y ago

Kinda ironic that the tech industry is forced to bring people together at this place to do... something. Remote work, distributed working, all these ideas are what could lead a worldwide trend to distribute work, people, resources more efficiently. Also while not destroying history (old buildings/neighborhoods that are worth preserving) and nature (parks, trees, etc.).

amyjess 8y ago

That phrase particularly bothers me because in reality, the queers are likely to be techies. It's pretty widely known with in the transgender community that trans women are overwhelmingly more likely to be software engineers than have pretty much any other profession.