5 ms·

It's not about whether any specific person deserves to live in a specific place. There is a cost to society in effectively pricing out half of the population f

It's not about whether any specific person deserves to live in a specific place. There is a cost to society in effectively pricing out half of the population from an entire city. Is the benefit of mitigating that worth the cost? For what it's worth, I think that it probably is.

askafriend 8y ago
> It's not about whether any specific person deserves to live in a specific place. I never said anything about if someone deserves to live somewhere. A 1-bedroom apartment is a very specific type of unit and that's part of what I wanted to point out. You can also rent studios, converted rooms, or get roommates in a bigger place with more rooms. There's a lot of other options I'm leaving out too, but I reject the premise that everyone in SF absolutely requires a 1-bedroom apt as an essential. It's nice to have certainly, and having roommates isn't for everyone...but there are tradeoffs to every place you live. You can absolutely make SF work if that was your desire and you knew the tradeoffs.
- learc83 8y ago
  The price for a studio isn't going to be far behind a 1 bedroom, and rooms in houses aren't really an option for for people who aren't single in most cases. Even if you wanted to cram multiple people into one 12x12 room, most cheap rooms for rent are explicit about 1 person only. Look at median household income, San Francisco is effectively off limits to most people.
  - askafriend 8y ago
    Point taken. We definitely have a problem but I really don’t see any solution anytime soon. Even if we committed to building a ton of new supply tomorrow, it’d still take years to get approved and actually physically built. I’ll push back a little on your point back alternatives not being too far behind the price of a 1 bedroom though. I know several people with units <$1800. Some converted rooms go for <$1500.
    - learc83 8y ago
      A median price of $3,700 doesn't imply that single bedrooms cheaper than that don't exist. >don’t see any solution anytime soon There's not. But a solution 5 years from now is better than never.
    - landryraccoon 8y ago
      > Even if we committed to building a ton of new supply tomorrow, it’d still take years to get approved and actually physically built. Would you argue we shouldn't do anything about climate change because that will take years of approval and political decisions before anything gets done? I mean, yeah, it would be better to start ten years ago than today, but starting today must be better than never right?
      - askafriend 8y ago
        That’s not my viewpoint at all. I think we SHOULD build as much supply as possible. However I’m not holding my breath nor am I optimistic about the short-medium term reality.
analog31 8y ago
What is that cost? There's an enclave in my city where I can't afford to live, and I live in a neighborhood where others can't afford to live. Now in my case, the people who are shut out of my neighborhood arguably have less access to things like good schools, so in principle I'm uncomfortable with exclusionary zoning and economic segregation. But I don't know if that's the case in SF. Are the elementary schools in SF that much better than in surrounding towns?
- batbomb 8y ago
  No, the schools aren’t that good. And it’s not an enclave, the entire peninsula is extremely expensive except for a few patches (San Bruno, parts of Redwood City, Santa Clara) - and there’s not much availability in those places. The only place close to what most people outside of California would consider affordable is deep east Oakland or Richmond, after that you need to go to Tracy or Vallejo or past San José.
- closeparen 8y ago
  You have to drive several hours in extreme traffic to reach a substantially different housing market, which obviously involves air pollution, climate change, energy cost, road infrastructure, parking space, collisions, and a substantial portion of your life and productive capacity. The same situation in San Francisco plays out in its suburbs, only worse, since a meaningful growth in housing capacity would be an even bigger change for them. There's a great deal of city-by-city, neighborhood-by-neighborhood, unit-by-unit variation, but the crisis is that even the floor is so high.
- rcpt 8y ago
  > What is that cost? By some estimates it's double digit percentage points off US GDP https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/opinion/housing-regulations-us-economy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/opinion/housing-regulatio...
  - ferongr 8y ago
    Searching that opinion piece for "study", "studies" and related keywords returns no results.

askafriend 8y ago

> It's not about whether any specific person deserves to live in a specific place. I never said anything about if someone deserves to live somewhere. A 1-bedroom apartment is a very specific type of unit and that's part of what I wanted to point out. You can also rent studios, converted rooms, or get roommates in a bigger place with more rooms. There's a lot of other options I'm leaving out too, but I reject the premise that everyone in SF absolutely requires a 1-bedroom apt as an essential. It's nice to have certainly, and having roommates isn't for everyone...but there are tradeoffs to every place you live. You can absolutely make SF work if that was your desire and you knew the tradeoffs.

learc83 8y ago
The price for a studio isn't going to be far behind a 1 bedroom, and rooms in houses aren't really an option for for people who aren't single in most cases. Even if you wanted to cram multiple people into one 12x12 room, most cheap rooms for rent are explicit about 1 person only. Look at median household income, San Francisco is effectively off limits to most people.
- askafriend 8y ago
  Point taken. We definitely have a problem but I really don’t see any solution anytime soon. Even if we committed to building a ton of new supply tomorrow, it’d still take years to get approved and actually physically built. I’ll push back a little on your point back alternatives not being too far behind the price of a 1 bedroom though. I know several people with units <$1800. Some converted rooms go for <$1500.
  - learc83 8y ago
    A median price of $3,700 doesn't imply that single bedrooms cheaper than that don't exist. >don’t see any solution anytime soon There's not. But a solution 5 years from now is better than never.
  - landryraccoon 8y ago
    > Even if we committed to building a ton of new supply tomorrow, it’d still take years to get approved and actually physically built. Would you argue we shouldn't do anything about climate change because that will take years of approval and political decisions before anything gets done? I mean, yeah, it would be better to start ten years ago than today, but starting today must be better than never right?
    - askafriend 8y ago
      That’s not my viewpoint at all. I think we SHOULD build as much supply as possible. However I’m not holding my breath nor am I optimistic about the short-medium term reality.

analog31 8y ago

What is that cost? There's an enclave in my city where I can't afford to live, and I live in a neighborhood where others can't afford to live. Now in my case, the people who are shut out of my neighborhood arguably have less access to things like good schools, so in principle I'm uncomfortable with exclusionary zoning and economic segregation. But I don't know if that's the case in SF. Are the elementary schools in SF that much better than in surrounding towns?

batbomb 8y ago
No, the schools aren’t that good. And it’s not an enclave, the entire peninsula is extremely expensive except for a few patches (San Bruno, parts of Redwood City, Santa Clara) - and there’s not much availability in those places. The only place close to what most people outside of California would consider affordable is deep east Oakland or Richmond, after that you need to go to Tracy or Vallejo or past San José.
closeparen 8y ago
You have to drive several hours in extreme traffic to reach a substantially different housing market, which obviously involves air pollution, climate change, energy cost, road infrastructure, parking space, collisions, and a substantial portion of your life and productive capacity. The same situation in San Francisco plays out in its suburbs, only worse, since a meaningful growth in housing capacity would be an even bigger change for them. There's a great deal of city-by-city, neighborhood-by-neighborhood, unit-by-unit variation, but the crisis is that even the floor is so high.
rcpt 8y ago
> What is that cost? By some estimates it's double digit percentage points off US GDP https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/opinion/housing-regulations-us-economy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/opinion/housing-regulatio...
- ferongr 8y ago
  Searching that opinion piece for "study", "studies" and related keywords returns no results.