19 ms·

Changing San Francisco Is Foreseen as a Haven for Wealthy and Childless (1981)

106 points by TMWNN 8y ago

dang 8y ago
For the curious, 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13464747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13464747 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10070103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10070103
jedberg 8y ago
The solution is the same as every other time this comes up. Upzone the city. They tried this at the state level with SB827. That bill was flawed but the idea was good. The city could fix this for itself if they could get the political will to do so. Follow the lead of Minneapolis, and make R1 zoning good for up to four units, instead of single family. That one change alone would make a huge difference. People are afraid whole city blocks would be converted, but that wouldn't happen. Single family homes with good transit would slowly be sold to developers who would replace them with quads, bringing in increased taxes so that transit could be expanded, leading to more SFHs near transit, and so on. It's just that the people who have SFHs don't want to ruin the "character" of their neighborhood.
- davidw 8y ago
  Bingo. The people working on this include, but are not limited to: * https://yimbyaction.org/ https://yimbyaction.org/ * https://cayimby.org/ https://cayimby.org/ * https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/ https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/ * https://sd09.senate.ca.gov/ https://sd09.senate.ca.gov/ They need all the help they can get against monied NIMBY interests.
- njepa 8y ago
  It seems extremely unlikely that affordable housing will ever happen in the Bay Area, since that would essentially mean a crash of the housing market (maybe even by government intervention). This would of course be extremely unwelcome. As such any acceptable solution would have to be ineffective. And an ineffective solution have little chances of counteracting the inertia of current developments.
  - jedberg 8y ago
    Property values don't usually go down when you increase density. Look at NYC or Tokyo or Paris. If anything it usually makes the land value go up, especially if a developer knows they can buy it and put four units in it's place.
    - nostrademons 8y ago
      Knowing a few NIMBYs among older generations, I suspect that the real objection to densification isn't actually property values, it's character of the neighborhood. Having the single-family home you raised your children in torn down for a luxury highrise feels like a tragedy whether you get $1M or $3M for it. That's why so many senior citizens don't sell at any price - they'll take out reverse mortgages and fritter away their retirement savings so that they can stay in the home that is familiar to them, even if they could just sell it for a few million and retire someplace cheaper with a higher quality of life.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - koboll 8y ago
        On one hand, you have sentimental value. On the other hand, you have a crushing housing crisis that is causing incalculable financial strain on millions of people. I wonder which of these we should consider more important.
    - akozak 8y ago
      I suspect most housing advocates would agree that the end goal isn't more affordable land - it's getting more affordable units on the market.
    - bhupy 8y ago
      > Tokyo Do you have a source on that? Tokyo is famously known for having largely flat housing prices over the last 20 years[1]. In fact, in Japan, most houses are considered depreciating assets [2]. [1] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/laissez-faire-in-tokyo.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/la... [2] http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-are-japanese-homes-disposable-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast-3/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-are-japanese-homes-dispo...
- JamesLeonis 8y ago
  > The solution is the same as every other time this comes up. And this [1] study says it doesn't work. > Freemark reaches two startling conclusions that should at least temper our enthusiasm about the potential of zoning reform to solve the housing crisis—conclusions that, interestingly enough, he has said he did not set out to find. > First, he finds no effect from zoning changes on housing supply—that is, on the construction of newly permitted units over five years. (As he acknowledges, the process of adding supply is arduous and may take longer than five years to register.) Caveats and all, this is an important finding that is very much at odds with the conventional wisdom. > Second, instead of falling prices, as the conventional wisdom predicts, the study finds the opposite. Housing prices rose on the parcels and in projects that were upzoned, notably those where building sizes increased. [1] https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/01/zoning-reform-house-costs-urban-development-gentrification/581677/ https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/01/zoning-reform-house-cos...
  - crowdpleaser 8y ago
    We would expect parcel prices to increase with upzoing - land becomes more valuable if more people are permitted to enjoy using it. That's the behavior that encourages developers to make multi-family housing.
    - mars4rp 8y ago
      and make current land owner (house owner) extremely rich, I don't understand why they are fighting it.
      - njepa 8y ago
        Because of volatility. You don't need a "shot at getting rich" when you already are. You much rather avoid getting poor(er).
      - burfog 8y ago
        Not everybody wants to get rich. Some people, especially the old, just want to stay in a familiar place. If you change that place, it is no longer familiar. Older people often struggle with change. People with memory problems can often get by for much longer if nothing much changes. If you make changes all around them, they might need to go into a nursing home and then struggle every day in the unfamiliar situation.
- ed312 8y ago
  Why is this fundamentally considered bad? If the majority of residents in a given area want to keep the zoning as-is, why do you (or I) have any right to force them to change? I personally don't mind living in multi-story apartment buildings but I don't get the widespread notion that a city of mostly SFH = morally bad. And frankly, if increasing density actually helped property values wouldn't you expect a place like NYC to be more affordable?
  - jedberg 8y ago
    It's as morally wrong as eating meat or paying minimum wage or running your water while you brush your teeth. ie. it's not really all that bad in the grand scheme of things, but it's something that we know causes harm, generally to a vulnerable population, so we should want to do something about it.
  - orangecat 8y ago
    I don't get the widespread notion that a city of mostly SFH = morally bad Forget morality. A city with a large demand for housing that refuses to allow higher density is inevitably going to end up only being affordable to the very wealthy, with others forced to move, or out on the streets, or clinging to rent-controlled units with hostile landlords. If that's what you want, then by all means continue the current policies. And frankly, if increasing density actually helped property values wouldn't you expect a place like NYC to be more affordable? Manhattan holds a lot more people than SF, and there are reasonable cheaper options such as Queens and New Jersey.
    - woah 8y ago
      What's weird is when people bemoan poor people getting forced out when it's happening due to the low-density policies they voted for.
  - pcwalton 8y ago
    > If the majority of residents in a given area want to keep the zoning as-is, why do you (or I) have any right to force them to change? Because: (a) the "why should you be able to tell people what to do?" argument really runs the other way, as zoning is a way of telling property owners what they can and cannot do with their property; (b) rising home values cause renters to be forced out of their homes unnecessarily; (c) banning new housing in one city causes gentrification in other nearby cities (which is why for example East Palo Alto and Stockton came out in support of SB 50). > And frankly, if increasing density actually helped property values wouldn't you expect a place like NYC to be more affordable? Fortunately we have economists to study these things instead of drawing conclusions from single data points, and the economic consensus is that supply and demand does in fact apply to housing.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > Single family homes with good transit would slowly be sold to developers who would replace them with quads, bringing in increased taxes so that transit could be expanded, leading to more SFHs near transit, and so on. There's water around two-quarters of the city that means it is not possible to keep developing the extra layers of suburbia that you are describing. I mean, it should be obvious that increasing the density of a city forever, cramming more and more people in, and developing more and more, is not sustainable however you try to do it.
  - function_seven 8y ago
    He's talking about transit being expanded, not housing footprint. More tax revenue means more money available to fund more lines from SFHs that currently exist elsewhere.
    - chrisseaton 8y ago
      They're talking about a circle of multi-family homes, surrounded by single-family homes, and steadily expanding the size of the circle of multi-family homes so density increases. But it's ok because the outer circle of single-family homes becomes accessible to public transport from taxes. But as the circle of multi-family homes keeps increasing... eventually you develop the last single-family homes and hit the ocean and there's no more single-family homes. So you would lose single-family-homes.
      - function_seven 8y ago
        No. He's saying the opposite. That whole blocks won't convert en masse. That individual properties within the new zones will convert to multi-tenant, and that will drive an overall density increase and more taxes, benefiting all units in the area, even the SFHs that didn't convert. If you currently own a SFH, it's entirely up to you whether the house stays that way or not. You can remain as-is, and enjoy the transit benefits that accrue from the deeper tax base.
        8y ago
- usaar333 8y ago
  > The solution is the same as every other time this comes up. Upzone the city. I'm all for increasing density in the Bay Area, but it is very easy to overstate as that "solving the problem". You will see more people being able to live and work in SF (which is overall good for society) and have more disposable income, but you won't by any means make SF an "affordable" city full of "children". On the affordability side: * There is enormous pent-up demand to live in SF. If you drop rents $100/month, a lot more people are now willing to live there. Even more if rents drop another $100/month. * It's more expensive to build tall buildings (per sq foot of habitable space) than single family homes or townhomes. * You end up with an equilibrium point that is cheaper, but by no means on par with Central Valley pricing. On the children side: In America, there's a very strong cultural attachment for children to grow up with a significant amount of space. Single-family homes and town homes work for most; condos and apartments do not (esp. when developers in SF build very few new condos/apartments with more than 2 bedrooms) Additionally, having lived in both SF and the south bay with kids, very dense environments [1] are more annoying to raise kids in due to the difficulty of shuttling them from place to place. Combined with higher pricing per square foot and lack of a guarantee on using neighborhood schools, the needle quickly swings to choosing to live in suburbs once you have kids. [1] As in more dense than SF residential neighborhoods, which are already quite dense by US standards.
  - davidw 8y ago
    > There is enormous pent-up demand to live in SF While that's true, you do need to be careful with that argument. You get people arguing that eeeeeveryone wants to live in San Francisco. And others arguing that everyone wants to live in Boulder, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Austin, and even right here in Bend, Oregon (really!) because they're all convinced that their town is the bestest place on the planet.
    - jackmodern 8y ago
      All of those places are desirable and do have pent up demand though. If I could cheaply buy a house in SF, Seattle, or Boulder... you bet I would!!! But I can't, so I rent as cheaply as possible in SF.
- geebee 8y ago
  I am curious - how old were the houses that were getting demolished in Minneapolis? A lot of the houses that would be torn down SF are nearing 100 years old. That probably sounds comically young to people from Europe, but SF's neighborhoods are among the oldest west of the Mississippi. You put "character" in quotes... but how far would you go with this? Would you support the right of a property owner to tear down an old building in the French Quarter of New Orleans and replace it with a modern steel and glass structure? How about an old building in the left bank of Paris? The complicated thing about NIMBYism is that not all backyards are alike. I say this with full acknowledgement that SF's housing policy has created a horrendous situation. But I actually do think it's possible to build substantially more density here, close to public transportation, without tearing down the older neighborhoods.
  - davidw 8y ago
    Something that is sometimes missed in these debates is that the most egregious areas are not actually SF. I mean, NIMBYism is pretty bad there, but it's way worse in, say, Marin county, Palo Alto, and other locations that want to keep playing suburb make believe instead of acknowledging they're part of a large metro region and allowing the market to add housing.
    - deogeo 8y ago
      There's nothing wrong with not letting The Market optimize every square meter of real-estate you care about. Not to mention the selective application of what The Market entails - aren't zoning rights just as real as property rights, that The Market respects? Why not allow The Market to respond to high property prices by redirecting development elsewhere?
      - finnh 8y ago
        > aren't zoning rights just as real as property rights, that The Market respects? No. "zoning rights" are not rights, they are rules applying to property that people own _and are subject to change_ much more fluidly than the ownership itself.
- danieltillett 8y ago
  Or the solution could be to do nothing. Do we all have to live in SF? If the people living there want to spend all their money on rent or mortgage interest it is fine by me.
  - davidw 8y ago
    Eventually, yeah, there's a breaking point and industry will abandon that area. But in the meantime, excluding people from one of the most economically productive places on the planet is hugely detrimental for the 'marginal' people who end up not living and working there. The economy overall loses out a lot, too. https://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5901041/nimbys-are-costing-the-us-economy-billions https://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5901041/nimbys-are-costing-the... Also: there's a climate change argument to all of this. Forcing people out of a region that actually claims to care about it into places like, say, Phoenix or Las Vegas or Dallas or other sprawly places entirely dependent on cars... is not a win for the environment.
    - danieltillett 8y ago
      I would say the breaking point has already been reached. There are heaps of better places to live with a vastly lower costs. All we need to do is convince the VCs to fund startups in these places and we can all forget about SF.
      - davidw 8y ago
        > All we need to do is convince the VCs to fund startups in these places and we can all forget about SF And you need to make sure there's a big talent pool there, and good universities. A few places are close to that, but it's not so easy to replicate. This book talks about it some: https://amzn.to/2XAU3f0 https://amzn.to/2XAU3f0 And most of the places that are close have rampant NIMBYism problems of their own.
        fmajid 8y ago
        If anything, talent is getting more concentrated. The Boston region has lost a lot of its tech companies, for instance.
- hindsightbias 8y ago
  Or we could upzone Stanford and Palo Alto and no transit would be needed.
  - jedberg 8y ago
    We could and should, but the article was about San Francisco. And let's face it, more people want to live in SF than PA or Stanford.
  - newsoul2019 8y ago
    How about all that green space on both sides of 280 - we don't need that any more. We should also relocate all those graves in Colma being kept there by selfish NIMBY families.
- lquist 8y ago
  +1 To NIMBYers: The "character" of your neighborhood is more important than cheaper housing for everyone--disproportionately helping lower income people?
- burfog 8y ago
  That one change alone would make a huge difference, yes. It would ruin neighborhoods. I know a person with a SFH in the geographic center of San Francisco. It's RH1 zoning. She would suffer greatly from "zoning good for up to four units". Her street is peaceful. You could stand in it and play ball, not that she does. Free parking is plentiful. There are no loiterers or buses. Usually there are no pedestrians or moving cars. You'd take all that away from her. She is surrounded by transit, not that it matters to her. She is too vulnerable to safely use it. There are two different MUNI lines and several different bus routes within a distance that many people would consider to be short. Transit expansion would be completely useless for her. I don't think she'd mind shutting down the transit. She would be harmed if her environment were to change. Adjustment gets more difficult with age. Major change, like moving out of the area, might put an end to her independent living. It would also separate her from her community, particularly her church and some family.
spullara 8y ago
San Francisco described in a 1930s era book about the Gold Rush: "Despite the amazingly high cost of living and the extraordinary opportunities for frittering away money, everyone in early San Francisco was supremely confident that he would soon be able to return home with an incalculable amount of gold. Everything was conceived on a vast scale, and there was always plenty of cash available for any scheme that might be proposed, no matter how impossible or bizarre it seemed. No one hesitated to borrow money, ..."
- _bxg1 8y ago
  Wow. This could still be said today. I wonder what it is about that city.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    It’s beautiful in a perfect location with perfect climate. San Francisco will always be a desirable place to live.
    - nostrademons 8y ago
      Also located on a major fault line with alternating drought & monsoon seasons and a propensity for wildfires. It's paradise, but temporary paradise. The gold rush is deeply embedded in the Bay Area psyche. This is not a place to grow old; this is a place to seize the day and make the most of your youth. So much about the region is both wonderful and terribly fragile over time.
      - _bxg1 8y ago
        So you're arguing that the gold rush established that culture and it just never went away?
        nostrademons 8y ago
        Yes, and it's also reinforced by the Bay Area's geography and climate. The history of the Bay Area has been one of successive migrations, each of which comes seeking wealth & fortune and each of which is ultimately displaced by the next as it taps out the economic boom that started it. It started with the gold rush (1848-1855). Just as that was winding down, the railroads (1863-1890) took off, leading to widespread immigration first of white Americans fleeing the Civil War and devastation there and then of Chinese and other Asians. The 1890s and 1900s were a rough couple decades for San Francisco, between endemic corruption, a bubonic plague outbreak, and the 1906 earthquake and fire, but from 1910-1930 you had a large migration of poor white farmers ("Okies") fleeing economic consolidation and environmental destruction in the plains. From 1930-1945 you had the huge U.S. military buildup and a large migration of largely black workers; SF was both an important port and shipbuilding center. After the war Fred Terman made sure that Stanford and associated companies got a large share of the Cold War DARPA dollars; this funded HP, Shockley, Fairchild, Varian, Lockheed, Hendy Ironworks (now Northrop Grumman), Moffett Field, and most of the first-gen Silicon Valley companies. This branched off into consumer semiconductor & electronics manufacturing in the 60s & 70s, with Intel, National Semiconductor, TI, Seagate, Apple, etc. While this was going on, you had the countercultural revolution up in SF. Then you had the PC revolution in the 80s, then the dot-com boom in the 90s, and then the Internet, mobile, and sharing-economy booms of the 2000s & 2010s. Now you have a significant blockchain & AI presence up in SF. All of these are fueled by a mass migration of young people from more disadvantaged areas of U.S. like the Midwest & South, as well as a large influx of Chinese & Indian immigrants. It's always been a place where people come from far away to capitalize on the zeitgeist, and if you're not capitalizing on the zeitgeist (or supplying shovels to those who are), you're marginalized. When the zeitgeist turns, everybody who made their money in the previous iteration looks to invest in the next one. If you call the next one wrong, you fade away into obscurity.
_i____ii_______ 8y ago
San Francisco is an elephants' graveyard for ovaries and hot takes.
leptoniscool 8y ago
This wsj article suggests that Tokyo, a much larger city, has been able to keep housing costs flat by building a much larger supply than most other city: https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-housing-crisis-in-japan-home-prices-stay-flat-11554210002 https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-housing-crisis-in-japan-ho... This could work in SF I think, as there's a lot of potential for up-zoning. On the other hand, the city is surrounded by water, so it doesn't leave a lot of space to expand.
- idlewords 8y ago
  There are vast tracts of vacant land in SF, and the whole western half of the penninsula is low-density housing. What Tokyo has that the Bay Area lacks is excellent public transit, and a willingness to build at high density.
  - acchow 8y ago
    Tokyo also merged with its Prefecture in 1943. If only the Bay Area cities would amalgamate and solve housing and public transit as a unified force....
- crooked-v 8y ago
  Tokyo also has zoning that generally works on an "up to" basis, rather than prescribing narrow categories. For example, an area zoned for light retail can contain small businesses, but can also contain anything in one of the "lesser" zones, like small apartment buildings or single homes. It's a simple way to let the market build to demand for housing, as well as for upper-story residences or mixed-use business space to be extremely common.
HuShifang 8y ago
Of course, the Bay Area in general is comparable to other American metropolitan areas in terms of its number of children. https://www.kqed.org/news/11735556/map-where-do-kids-live-in-the-bay-area https://www.kqed.org/news/11735556/map-where-do-kids-live-in...
scarejunba 8y ago
SF will never be a place people will want to have children. Americans do not believe children can grow up in cities. They do not believe kids can take buses or trains. We're going to see the effect of this suffocating parenting style in a next generation that is dominated by fear and discomfort with unfamiliarity.
- spiznnx 8y ago
  Perhaps its American cities rather than American attitudes? I can't quite pinpoint why, but I would much sooner raise children in Paris than Los Angeles.
  - Aromasin 8y ago
    I know many people from various cities around Europe that would quite happily jump ship to an American city if given the opportunity (at least, prior to number 45). I think it's more of a 'the grass is always greener' situation.
- abeppu 8y ago
  But SF has its own issues beyond those of many other American cities. There are blocks and muni buses where many adults feel understandably uncomfortable with what they see during their normal commute. I see drug use and nudity and feces on the street almost daily. I've kicked needles while walking down SF sidewalks with some regularity. I'm not a parent, but in those conditions, I wouldn't want a kid I cared about to go around unchaperoned. Yes, America may have a fixation on children needing yards and minivans, but SF could become a much more appealing place to raise kids if it we could better address factors like the cost of housing, or the opioid crisis.
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    > But SF has its own issues beyond those of many other American cities. I agree with this. But this > Yes, America may have a fixation on children needing yards and minivans means that fixing those problems won't make this any likelier > SF could become a much more appealing place to raise kids if it we could better address factors like the cost of housing, or the opioid crisis
jdreyfuss 8y ago
San Francisco: on the verge of pricing everybody out since 1850

106 points by TMWNN 8y ago

dang 8y ago

For the curious, 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13464747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13464747 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10070103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10070103

jedberg 8y ago

The solution is the same as every other time this comes up. Upzone the city. They tried this at the state level with SB827. That bill was flawed but the idea was good. The city could fix this for itself if they could get the political will to do so. Follow the lead of Minneapolis, and make R1 zoning good for up to four units, instead of single family. That one change alone would make a huge difference. People are afraid whole city blocks would be converted, but that wouldn't happen. Single family homes with good transit would slowly be sold to developers who would replace them with quads, bringing in increased taxes so that transit could be expanded, leading to more SFHs near transit, and so on. It's just that the people who have SFHs don't want to ruin the "character" of their neighborhood.

davidw 8y ago
Bingo. The people working on this include, but are not limited to: * https://yimbyaction.org/ https://yimbyaction.org/ * https://cayimby.org/ https://cayimby.org/ * https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/ https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/ * https://sd09.senate.ca.gov/ https://sd09.senate.ca.gov/ They need all the help they can get against monied NIMBY interests.
njepa 8y ago
It seems extremely unlikely that affordable housing will ever happen in the Bay Area, since that would essentially mean a crash of the housing market (maybe even by government intervention). This would of course be extremely unwelcome. As such any acceptable solution would have to be ineffective. And an ineffective solution have little chances of counteracting the inertia of current developments.
- jedberg 8y ago
  Property values don't usually go down when you increase density. Look at NYC or Tokyo or Paris. If anything it usually makes the land value go up, especially if a developer knows they can buy it and put four units in it's place.
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    Knowing a few NIMBYs among older generations, I suspect that the real objection to densification isn't actually property values, it's character of the neighborhood. Having the single-family home you raised your children in torn down for a luxury highrise feels like a tragedy whether you get $1M or $3M for it. That's why so many senior citizens don't sell at any price - they'll take out reverse mortgages and fritter away their retirement savings so that they can stay in the home that is familiar to them, even if they could just sell it for a few million and retire someplace cheaper with a higher quality of life.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - koboll 8y ago
      On one hand, you have sentimental value. On the other hand, you have a crushing housing crisis that is causing incalculable financial strain on millions of people. I wonder which of these we should consider more important.
  - akozak 8y ago
    I suspect most housing advocates would agree that the end goal isn't more affordable land - it's getting more affordable units on the market.
  - bhupy 8y ago
    > Tokyo Do you have a source on that? Tokyo is famously known for having largely flat housing prices over the last 20 years[1]. In fact, in Japan, most houses are considered depreciating assets [2]. [1] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/laissez-faire-in-tokyo.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/la... [2] http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-are-japanese-homes-disposable-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast-3/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-are-japanese-homes-dispo...
JamesLeonis 8y ago
> The solution is the same as every other time this comes up. And this [1] study says it doesn't work. > Freemark reaches two startling conclusions that should at least temper our enthusiasm about the potential of zoning reform to solve the housing crisis—conclusions that, interestingly enough, he has said he did not set out to find. > First, he finds no effect from zoning changes on housing supply—that is, on the construction of newly permitted units over five years. (As he acknowledges, the process of adding supply is arduous and may take longer than five years to register.) Caveats and all, this is an important finding that is very much at odds with the conventional wisdom. > Second, instead of falling prices, as the conventional wisdom predicts, the study finds the opposite. Housing prices rose on the parcels and in projects that were upzoned, notably those where building sizes increased. [1] https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/01/zoning-reform-house-costs-urban-development-gentrification/581677/ https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/01/zoning-reform-house-cos...
- crowdpleaser 8y ago
  We would expect parcel prices to increase with upzoing - land becomes more valuable if more people are permitted to enjoy using it. That's the behavior that encourages developers to make multi-family housing.
  - mars4rp 8y ago
    and make current land owner (house owner) extremely rich, I don't understand why they are fighting it.
    - njepa 8y ago
      Because of volatility. You don't need a "shot at getting rich" when you already are. You much rather avoid getting poor(er).
    - burfog 8y ago
      Not everybody wants to get rich. Some people, especially the old, just want to stay in a familiar place. If you change that place, it is no longer familiar. Older people often struggle with change. People with memory problems can often get by for much longer if nothing much changes. If you make changes all around them, they might need to go into a nursing home and then struggle every day in the unfamiliar situation.
ed312 8y ago
Why is this fundamentally considered bad? If the majority of residents in a given area want to keep the zoning as-is, why do you (or I) have any right to force them to change? I personally don't mind living in multi-story apartment buildings but I don't get the widespread notion that a city of mostly SFH = morally bad. And frankly, if increasing density actually helped property values wouldn't you expect a place like NYC to be more affordable?
- jedberg 8y ago
  It's as morally wrong as eating meat or paying minimum wage or running your water while you brush your teeth. ie. it's not really all that bad in the grand scheme of things, but it's something that we know causes harm, generally to a vulnerable population, so we should want to do something about it.
- orangecat 8y ago
  I don't get the widespread notion that a city of mostly SFH = morally bad Forget morality. A city with a large demand for housing that refuses to allow higher density is inevitably going to end up only being affordable to the very wealthy, with others forced to move, or out on the streets, or clinging to rent-controlled units with hostile landlords. If that's what you want, then by all means continue the current policies. And frankly, if increasing density actually helped property values wouldn't you expect a place like NYC to be more affordable? Manhattan holds a lot more people than SF, and there are reasonable cheaper options such as Queens and New Jersey.
  - woah 8y ago
    What's weird is when people bemoan poor people getting forced out when it's happening due to the low-density policies they voted for.
- pcwalton 8y ago
  > If the majority of residents in a given area want to keep the zoning as-is, why do you (or I) have any right to force them to change? Because: (a) the "why should you be able to tell people what to do?" argument really runs the other way, as zoning is a way of telling property owners what they can and cannot do with their property; (b) rising home values cause renters to be forced out of their homes unnecessarily; (c) banning new housing in one city causes gentrification in other nearby cities (which is why for example East Palo Alto and Stockton came out in support of SB 50). > And frankly, if increasing density actually helped property values wouldn't you expect a place like NYC to be more affordable? Fortunately we have economists to study these things instead of drawing conclusions from single data points, and the economic consensus is that supply and demand does in fact apply to housing.
chrisseaton 8y ago
> Single family homes with good transit would slowly be sold to developers who would replace them with quads, bringing in increased taxes so that transit could be expanded, leading to more SFHs near transit, and so on. There's water around two-quarters of the city that means it is not possible to keep developing the extra layers of suburbia that you are describing. I mean, it should be obvious that increasing the density of a city forever, cramming more and more people in, and developing more and more, is not sustainable however you try to do it.
- function_seven 8y ago
  He's talking about transit being expanded, not housing footprint. More tax revenue means more money available to fund more lines from SFHs that currently exist elsewhere.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    They're talking about a circle of multi-family homes, surrounded by single-family homes, and steadily expanding the size of the circle of multi-family homes so density increases. But it's ok because the outer circle of single-family homes becomes accessible to public transport from taxes. But as the circle of multi-family homes keeps increasing... eventually you develop the last single-family homes and hit the ocean and there's no more single-family homes. So you would lose single-family-homes.
    - function_seven 8y ago
      No. He's saying the opposite. That whole blocks won't convert en masse. That individual properties within the new zones will convert to multi-tenant, and that will drive an overall density increase and more taxes, benefiting all units in the area, even the SFHs that didn't convert. If you currently own a SFH, it's entirely up to you whether the house stays that way or not. You can remain as-is, and enjoy the transit benefits that accrue from the deeper tax base.
      - 8y ago
usaar333 8y ago
> The solution is the same as every other time this comes up. Upzone the city. I'm all for increasing density in the Bay Area, but it is very easy to overstate as that "solving the problem". You will see more people being able to live and work in SF (which is overall good for society) and have more disposable income, but you won't by any means make SF an "affordable" city full of "children". On the affordability side: * There is enormous pent-up demand to live in SF. If you drop rents $100/month, a lot more people are now willing to live there. Even more if rents drop another $100/month. * It's more expensive to build tall buildings (per sq foot of habitable space) than single family homes or townhomes. * You end up with an equilibrium point that is cheaper, but by no means on par with Central Valley pricing. On the children side: In America, there's a very strong cultural attachment for children to grow up with a significant amount of space. Single-family homes and town homes work for most; condos and apartments do not (esp. when developers in SF build very few new condos/apartments with more than 2 bedrooms) Additionally, having lived in both SF and the south bay with kids, very dense environments [1] are more annoying to raise kids in due to the difficulty of shuttling them from place to place. Combined with higher pricing per square foot and lack of a guarantee on using neighborhood schools, the needle quickly swings to choosing to live in suburbs once you have kids. [1] As in more dense than SF residential neighborhoods, which are already quite dense by US standards.
- davidw 8y ago
  > There is enormous pent-up demand to live in SF While that's true, you do need to be careful with that argument. You get people arguing that eeeeeveryone wants to live in San Francisco. And others arguing that everyone wants to live in Boulder, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Austin, and even right here in Bend, Oregon (really!) because they're all convinced that their town is the bestest place on the planet.
  - jackmodern 8y ago
    All of those places are desirable and do have pent up demand though. If I could cheaply buy a house in SF, Seattle, or Boulder... you bet I would!!! But I can't, so I rent as cheaply as possible in SF.
geebee 8y ago
I am curious - how old were the houses that were getting demolished in Minneapolis? A lot of the houses that would be torn down SF are nearing 100 years old. That probably sounds comically young to people from Europe, but SF's neighborhoods are among the oldest west of the Mississippi. You put "character" in quotes... but how far would you go with this? Would you support the right of a property owner to tear down an old building in the French Quarter of New Orleans and replace it with a modern steel and glass structure? How about an old building in the left bank of Paris? The complicated thing about NIMBYism is that not all backyards are alike. I say this with full acknowledgement that SF's housing policy has created a horrendous situation. But I actually do think it's possible to build substantially more density here, close to public transportation, without tearing down the older neighborhoods.
- davidw 8y ago
  Something that is sometimes missed in these debates is that the most egregious areas are not actually SF. I mean, NIMBYism is pretty bad there, but it's way worse in, say, Marin county, Palo Alto, and other locations that want to keep playing suburb make believe instead of acknowledging they're part of a large metro region and allowing the market to add housing.
  - deogeo 8y ago
    There's nothing wrong with not letting The Market optimize every square meter of real-estate you care about. Not to mention the selective application of what The Market entails - aren't zoning rights just as real as property rights, that The Market respects? Why not allow The Market to respond to high property prices by redirecting development elsewhere?
    - finnh 8y ago
      > aren't zoning rights just as real as property rights, that The Market respects? No. "zoning rights" are not rights, they are rules applying to property that people own _and are subject to change_ much more fluidly than the ownership itself.
danieltillett 8y ago
Or the solution could be to do nothing. Do we all have to live in SF? If the people living there want to spend all their money on rent or mortgage interest it is fine by me.
- davidw 8y ago
  Eventually, yeah, there's a breaking point and industry will abandon that area. But in the meantime, excluding people from one of the most economically productive places on the planet is hugely detrimental for the 'marginal' people who end up not living and working there. The economy overall loses out a lot, too. https://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5901041/nimbys-are-costing-the-us-economy-billions https://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5901041/nimbys-are-costing-the... Also: there's a climate change argument to all of this. Forcing people out of a region that actually claims to care about it into places like, say, Phoenix or Las Vegas or Dallas or other sprawly places entirely dependent on cars... is not a win for the environment.
  - danieltillett 8y ago
    I would say the breaking point has already been reached. There are heaps of better places to live with a vastly lower costs. All we need to do is convince the VCs to fund startups in these places and we can all forget about SF.
    - davidw 8y ago
      > All we need to do is convince the VCs to fund startups in these places and we can all forget about SF And you need to make sure there's a big talent pool there, and good universities. A few places are close to that, but it's not so easy to replicate. This book talks about it some: https://amzn.to/2XAU3f0 https://amzn.to/2XAU3f0 And most of the places that are close have rampant NIMBYism problems of their own.
      - fmajid 8y ago
        If anything, talent is getting more concentrated. The Boston region has lost a lot of its tech companies, for instance.
hindsightbias 8y ago
Or we could upzone Stanford and Palo Alto and no transit would be needed.
- jedberg 8y ago
  We could and should, but the article was about San Francisco. And let's face it, more people want to live in SF than PA or Stanford.
- newsoul2019 8y ago
  How about all that green space on both sides of 280 - we don't need that any more. We should also relocate all those graves in Colma being kept there by selfish NIMBY families.
lquist 8y ago
+1 To NIMBYers: The "character" of your neighborhood is more important than cheaper housing for everyone--disproportionately helping lower income people?
burfog 8y ago
That one change alone would make a huge difference, yes. It would ruin neighborhoods. I know a person with a SFH in the geographic center of San Francisco. It's RH1 zoning. She would suffer greatly from "zoning good for up to four units". Her street is peaceful. You could stand in it and play ball, not that she does. Free parking is plentiful. There are no loiterers or buses. Usually there are no pedestrians or moving cars. You'd take all that away from her. She is surrounded by transit, not that it matters to her. She is too vulnerable to safely use it. There are two different MUNI lines and several different bus routes within a distance that many people would consider to be short. Transit expansion would be completely useless for her. I don't think she'd mind shutting down the transit. She would be harmed if her environment were to change. Adjustment gets more difficult with age. Major change, like moving out of the area, might put an end to her independent living. It would also separate her from her community, particularly her church and some family.

spullara 8y ago

San Francisco described in a 1930s era book about the Gold Rush: "Despite the amazingly high cost of living and the extraordinary opportunities for frittering away money, everyone in early San Francisco was supremely confident that he would soon be able to return home with an incalculable amount of gold. Everything was conceived on a vast scale, and there was always plenty of cash available for any scheme that might be proposed, no matter how impossible or bizarre it seemed. No one hesitated to borrow money, ..."

_bxg1 8y ago
Wow. This could still be said today. I wonder what it is about that city.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  It’s beautiful in a perfect location with perfect climate. San Francisco will always be a desirable place to live.
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    Also located on a major fault line with alternating drought & monsoon seasons and a propensity for wildfires. It's paradise, but temporary paradise. The gold rush is deeply embedded in the Bay Area psyche. This is not a place to grow old; this is a place to seize the day and make the most of your youth. So much about the region is both wonderful and terribly fragile over time.
    - _bxg1 8y ago
      So you're arguing that the gold rush established that culture and it just never went away?
      - nostrademons 8y ago
        Yes, and it's also reinforced by the Bay Area's geography and climate. The history of the Bay Area has been one of successive migrations, each of which comes seeking wealth & fortune and each of which is ultimately displaced by the next as it taps out the economic boom that started it. It started with the gold rush (1848-1855). Just as that was winding down, the railroads (1863-1890) took off, leading to widespread immigration first of white Americans fleeing the Civil War and devastation there and then of Chinese and other Asians. The 1890s and 1900s were a rough couple decades for San Francisco, between endemic corruption, a bubonic plague outbreak, and the 1906 earthquake and fire, but from 1910-1930 you had a large migration of poor white farmers ("Okies") fleeing economic consolidation and environmental destruction in the plains. From 1930-1945 you had the huge U.S. military buildup and a large migration of largely black workers; SF was both an important port and shipbuilding center. After the war Fred Terman made sure that Stanford and associated companies got a large share of the Cold War DARPA dollars; this funded HP, Shockley, Fairchild, Varian, Lockheed, Hendy Ironworks (now Northrop Grumman), Moffett Field, and most of the first-gen Silicon Valley companies. This branched off into consumer semiconductor & electronics manufacturing in the 60s & 70s, with Intel, National Semiconductor, TI, Seagate, Apple, etc. While this was going on, you had the countercultural revolution up in SF. Then you had the PC revolution in the 80s, then the dot-com boom in the 90s, and then the Internet, mobile, and sharing-economy booms of the 2000s & 2010s. Now you have a significant blockchain & AI presence up in SF. All of these are fueled by a mass migration of young people from more disadvantaged areas of U.S. like the Midwest & South, as well as a large influx of Chinese & Indian immigrants. It's always been a place where people come from far away to capitalize on the zeitgeist, and if you're not capitalizing on the zeitgeist (or supplying shovels to those who are), you're marginalized. When the zeitgeist turns, everybody who made their money in the previous iteration looks to invest in the next one. If you call the next one wrong, you fade away into obscurity.

_i____ii_______ 8y ago

San Francisco is an elephants' graveyard for ovaries and hot takes.

leptoniscool 8y ago

This wsj article suggests that Tokyo, a much larger city, has been able to keep housing costs flat by building a much larger supply than most other city: https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-housing-crisis-in-japan-home-prices-stay-flat-11554210002 https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-housing-crisis-in-japan-ho... This could work in SF I think, as there's a lot of potential for up-zoning. On the other hand, the city is surrounded by water, so it doesn't leave a lot of space to expand.

idlewords 8y ago
There are vast tracts of vacant land in SF, and the whole western half of the penninsula is low-density housing. What Tokyo has that the Bay Area lacks is excellent public transit, and a willingness to build at high density.
- acchow 8y ago
  Tokyo also merged with its Prefecture in 1943. If only the Bay Area cities would amalgamate and solve housing and public transit as a unified force....
crooked-v 8y ago
Tokyo also has zoning that generally works on an "up to" basis, rather than prescribing narrow categories. For example, an area zoned for light retail can contain small businesses, but can also contain anything in one of the "lesser" zones, like small apartment buildings or single homes. It's a simple way to let the market build to demand for housing, as well as for upper-story residences or mixed-use business space to be extremely common.

HuShifang 8y ago

Of course, the Bay Area in general is comparable to other American metropolitan areas in terms of its number of children. https://www.kqed.org/news/11735556/map-where-do-kids-live-in-the-bay-area https://www.kqed.org/news/11735556/map-where-do-kids-live-in...

scarejunba 8y ago

SF will never be a place people will want to have children. Americans do not believe children can grow up in cities. They do not believe kids can take buses or trains. We're going to see the effect of this suffocating parenting style in a next generation that is dominated by fear and discomfort with unfamiliarity.

spiznnx 8y ago
Perhaps its American cities rather than American attitudes? I can't quite pinpoint why, but I would much sooner raise children in Paris than Los Angeles.
- Aromasin 8y ago
  I know many people from various cities around Europe that would quite happily jump ship to an American city if given the opportunity (at least, prior to number 45). I think it's more of a 'the grass is always greener' situation.
abeppu 8y ago
But SF has its own issues beyond those of many other American cities. There are blocks and muni buses where many adults feel understandably uncomfortable with what they see during their normal commute. I see drug use and nudity and feces on the street almost daily. I've kicked needles while walking down SF sidewalks with some regularity. I'm not a parent, but in those conditions, I wouldn't want a kid I cared about to go around unchaperoned. Yes, America may have a fixation on children needing yards and minivans, but SF could become a much more appealing place to raise kids if it we could better address factors like the cost of housing, or the opioid crisis.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  > But SF has its own issues beyond those of many other American cities. I agree with this. But this > Yes, America may have a fixation on children needing yards and minivans means that fixing those problems won't make this any likelier > SF could become a much more appealing place to raise kids if it we could better address factors like the cost of housing, or the opioid crisis

jdreyfuss 8y ago

San Francisco: on the verge of pricing everybody out since 1850