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Most people in the middle of the city won’t get their dream home, there can only be so many penthouses. But at least they’d be able to afford to live there, and

by ericd 8y ago

Most people in the middle of the city won’t get their dream home, there can only be so many penthouses. But at least they’d be able to afford to live there, and not be shut out of the economic opportunities that cities provide. And as another commenter mentioned, the current density of SF is incredibly low. One and two story buildings cover much of the area. Even if it just looked like Paris (wall to wall 5 story buildings), SF could house many times the number of people it currently does. Zoning rules and NIMBYism are the main reasons for the housing crisis.

Mirioron 8y ago
Sure, but that's what you think. We can't really tell that people would be fine en masse living in Soviet style apartment blocks for example. I look at average apartment sizes in the US and they're pretty big when compared to Eastern Europe. Building permits and zoning laws definitely cause a lot of problems, but the trend of housing being unaffordable for young people in cities seems to be happening everywhere. I think there are other problems at play as well, and one of them is simply housing density vs job density. Jobs are often more densely packed than housing and this will drive up prices.
- ericd 8y ago
  I agree that not everyone will want to live in small apartments. And not everyone has to, they can decide what tradeoffs are right for them. If they want a big house with a yard and they're fine commuting 1.5 hours to work across perpetually jammed bridges, that's still an option. I live in the SF Bay Area, and I've spent a decent amount of time studying this problem. These debates are raging in the city council meetings, with homeowner groups fighting against city councils who were elected on a platform of trying to get more apartments built. I agree that job vs. housing density disparity is the cause of many of the problems. The way you fix the disparity is that you boost the housing density - you upzone near transit (SB 50 in the CA state legislature is trying to do this across the state), you increase property tax rates to discourage people from waiting for the land to appreciate without doing anything useful with it (ideally by gradually phasing out prop 13), and you streamline the redevelopment process by making it such that if you comply with a clear set of rules, you can start building with the knowledge that homeowners associations won't bog you down in endless lawsuits. And in my dreams, you change the zoning to mixed use commercial/residential so that you can colocate offices, restaurants, stores, and residential, making everything way more walkable and easing the burden on road infrastructure.
mcguire 8y ago
Out of curiosity... Paris: 27€/m^2 ($30/m^2) SF: $4.95/ft^2 ($53/m^2)
- ericd 8y ago
  Yeah, Parisian apartments are even cheaper than this implies, since SF apartments tend to be larger than the average Parisian apartment. So the rent that most people pay is generally a good bit less than half.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    Now, if we could get the population density up to that of Manila or Mumbai, anyone who wanted to live there could afford it without any difficulties.

by ericd 8y ago

Mirioron 8y ago

Sure, but that's what you think. We can't really tell that people would be fine en masse living in Soviet style apartment blocks for example. I look at average apartment sizes in the US and they're pretty big when compared to Eastern Europe. Building permits and zoning laws definitely cause a lot of problems, but the trend of housing being unaffordable for young people in cities seems to be happening everywhere. I think there are other problems at play as well, and one of them is simply housing density vs job density. Jobs are often more densely packed than housing and this will drive up prices.

ericd 8y ago
I agree that not everyone will want to live in small apartments. And not everyone has to, they can decide what tradeoffs are right for them. If they want a big house with a yard and they're fine commuting 1.5 hours to work across perpetually jammed bridges, that's still an option. I live in the SF Bay Area, and I've spent a decent amount of time studying this problem. These debates are raging in the city council meetings, with homeowner groups fighting against city councils who were elected on a platform of trying to get more apartments built. I agree that job vs. housing density disparity is the cause of many of the problems. The way you fix the disparity is that you boost the housing density - you upzone near transit (SB 50 in the CA state legislature is trying to do this across the state), you increase property tax rates to discourage people from waiting for the land to appreciate without doing anything useful with it (ideally by gradually phasing out prop 13), and you streamline the redevelopment process by making it such that if you comply with a clear set of rules, you can start building with the knowledge that homeowners associations won't bog you down in endless lawsuits. And in my dreams, you change the zoning to mixed use commercial/residential so that you can colocate offices, restaurants, stores, and residential, making everything way more walkable and easing the burden on road infrastructure.

mcguire 8y ago

Out of curiosity... Paris: 27€/m^2 ($30/m^2) SF: $4.95/ft^2 ($53/m^2)

ericd 8y ago
Yeah, Parisian apartments are even cheaper than this implies, since SF apartments tend to be larger than the average Parisian apartment. So the rent that most people pay is generally a good bit less than half.
- mcguire 8y ago
  Now, if we could get the population density up to that of Manila or Mumbai, anyone who wanted to live there could afford it without any difficulties.