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Here’s what I don’t get. The real struggle seems to always be against local governments and the residents. The residents all know how jacked up it is and have g

Here’s what I don’t get. The real struggle seems to always be against local governments and the residents. The residents all know how jacked up it is and have good ideas for fixes, but constantly butt heads against their city. Somehow everybody knows this, but votes in people who increase the power, scope, and responsibility of the local government which works against their interest?

bluejekyll 7y ago
Not sure what you mean exactly. A lot of the issues are people “protecting their neighborhoods” from development and preserving the “feel”. People generally are voting against policies that would raise inventory of housing, which is really the only way to reduce its cost.
- bluGill 7y ago
  There is the issue: people know how to solve the problem, but to many voters it is directly against their personal interest. They do need to watch out though: there is nothing about San Francisco (or any other area) that means the rich need to live there, or you need to move there to get rich. (unless you are into mining for wealth where you obviously need to be where your mineral is). If some other area becomes hot the people in San Francisco have the most to lose: your house that you paid so much for and work so hard to protect the value of has the farther to fall. When/if the bubble collapses those in more reasonable areas who voted for policies that keep property values reasonable (ie allowing more development and/or not driving people out) won't fall as far.
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    > people know how to solve the problem, but to many voters it is directly against their personal interest. The thing is voting to preserve the feel of their neighborhood is in their personal interest too. They like the area they live in and simultaneously want to see some of the problems solved. The issue is these are in conflict because pretty much everyone else is also making the same decisions so everyone fights to protect 'their' piece of SF hoping they're not the ones who will have to change and move (because they can't afford to in a lot of cases) to densify SF.
rtkwe 7y ago
Well to start saying everyone agrees on something is never right but it's also just that even if you know something needs to be done doesn't mean you agree/support a) the tax increases that would be needed to fund projects X/Y/Z and b) are willing to be the person that has to have their neighborhood change (NIMBYish). Supporting affordable and dense housing development somewhere in the city is easy but then someone has to either agree to have it be them that sells their house and moves or get forced to by the city to have THEIR neighborhood change. I also think there's also skepticism that allowing them actually meaningfully changes the renting situation because each individual project generally has mostly very expensive 'luxury' apartments. And the answer that 'well we'll basically have to cover all but the richest areas in these multistory dense apartment complexes to actually meaningfully impact the market' is understandably not satisfying to people who like the city they live in now.

bluejekyll 7y ago

Not sure what you mean exactly. A lot of the issues are people “protecting their neighborhoods” from development and preserving the “feel”. People generally are voting against policies that would raise inventory of housing, which is really the only way to reduce its cost.

bluGill 7y ago
There is the issue: people know how to solve the problem, but to many voters it is directly against their personal interest. They do need to watch out though: there is nothing about San Francisco (or any other area) that means the rich need to live there, or you need to move there to get rich. (unless you are into mining for wealth where you obviously need to be where your mineral is). If some other area becomes hot the people in San Francisco have the most to lose: your house that you paid so much for and work so hard to protect the value of has the farther to fall. When/if the bubble collapses those in more reasonable areas who voted for policies that keep property values reasonable (ie allowing more development and/or not driving people out) won't fall as far.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  > people know how to solve the problem, but to many voters it is directly against their personal interest. The thing is voting to preserve the feel of their neighborhood is in their personal interest too. They like the area they live in and simultaneously want to see some of the problems solved. The issue is these are in conflict because pretty much everyone else is also making the same decisions so everyone fights to protect 'their' piece of SF hoping they're not the ones who will have to change and move (because they can't afford to in a lot of cases) to densify SF.

rtkwe 7y ago

Well to start saying everyone agrees on something is never right but it's also just that even if you know something needs to be done doesn't mean you agree/support a) the tax increases that would be needed to fund projects X/Y/Z and b) are willing to be the person that has to have their neighborhood change (NIMBYish). Supporting affordable and dense housing development somewhere in the city is easy but then someone has to either agree to have it be them that sells their house and moves or get forced to by the city to have THEIR neighborhood change. I also think there's also skepticism that allowing them actually meaningfully changes the renting situation because each individual project generally has mostly very expensive 'luxury' apartments. And the answer that 'well we'll basically have to cover all but the richest areas in these multistory dense apartment complexes to actually meaningfully impact the market' is understandably not satisfying to people who like the city they live in now.