5 ms·

I find it amazing that "locals" can get away with blaming "tech workers" for rising rents and homelessness. The rents and the house prices only rise because the

by chvid 7y ago

I find it amazing that "locals" can get away with blaming "tech workers" for rising rents and homelessness. The rents and the house prices only rise because the wealth that the workers generate is blocked from being used to build new houses.

gshdg 7y ago
Local renters != local property owners
q3k 7y ago
Really? Only because of that? No other reason?
- chvid 7y ago
  Yes. It is actually pretty simple. A place like SF has the choice between converting the wealth its citizens generate into more housing or higher house prices. It is a political choice.
mcv 7y ago
But why? Why isn't all that wealth being used to make the city more livable? More affordable for the poor? More diverse?
- CalRobert 7y ago
  Because making it more affordable to the poor means increasing the housing supply, which means reducing the price of homes, which existing homeowners hate.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - mcv 7y ago
    But it's the people who live there who are complaining. Besides I doubt that stepping over homeless people is good for the price of homes. Increasing the housing supply, if there's room for that, seems like a no-brainer.
- cutler 7y ago
  It's called capitalism. So long as property is a free market instead of a public asset this trend will continue. It's not just SF. We're seeing it all over the West.
  - emblaegh 7y ago
    Housing is not a free market because its supply is artificially restricted by zoning regulations meant to protect the value of current homeowners' properties.
    - atoav 7y ago
      If you wanna get a flat in Berlin it is not uncommon to find 100 other people when you look for a flat. Technically this is supply and demand at play that pushes the prices into fantasy land. Which means after years you will have locals thrown out of their flats because the prices have risen so drastically that only few landlords will take their tenants side. Markets don’t value social stabilty and don’t give a damn about who lived there for how many generations and what they did for that place. Is the rage of the displaced morally justified? Can a system that produces such results be desireable for a society as a whole?
      - ehmish 7y ago
        A good way to avoid people being displaced is to build enough housing to meet the demand, however there's lots of (probably well intentioned) efforts which undermine this goal, most of the people voting for these things which undermine this goal are the people who originally live there themselves, so in my opinion the rage isn't justified
    - panarky 7y ago
      "meant to protect the value of current homeowners' properties" It's probably not that direct. Sure, you could build up and achieve the population density of Hong Kong, but then SF would lose the "little big city" charm that makes it a great place to be. And as we see in Hong Kong, simply adding housing units doesn't necessarily reduce the price of housing. So I'd argue the primary purpose of the zoning regs is to retain what makes SF what it is, not just to maximize price per square foot.

by chvid 7y ago

gshdg 7y ago

Local renters != local property owners

q3k 7y ago

Really? Only because of that? No other reason?

chvid 7y ago
Yes. It is actually pretty simple. A place like SF has the choice between converting the wealth its citizens generate into more housing or higher house prices. It is a political choice.

mcv 7y ago

But why? Why isn't all that wealth being used to make the city more livable? More affordable for the poor? More diverse?

CalRobert 7y ago
Because making it more affordable to the poor means increasing the housing supply, which means reducing the price of homes, which existing homeowners hate.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mcv 7y ago
  But it's the people who live there who are complaining. Besides I doubt that stepping over homeless people is good for the price of homes. Increasing the housing supply, if there's room for that, seems like a no-brainer.
cutler 7y ago
It's called capitalism. So long as property is a free market instead of a public asset this trend will continue. It's not just SF. We're seeing it all over the West.
- emblaegh 7y ago
  Housing is not a free market because its supply is artificially restricted by zoning regulations meant to protect the value of current homeowners' properties.
  - atoav 7y ago
    If you wanna get a flat in Berlin it is not uncommon to find 100 other people when you look for a flat. Technically this is supply and demand at play that pushes the prices into fantasy land. Which means after years you will have locals thrown out of their flats because the prices have risen so drastically that only few landlords will take their tenants side. Markets don’t value social stabilty and don’t give a damn about who lived there for how many generations and what they did for that place. Is the rage of the displaced morally justified? Can a system that produces such results be desireable for a society as a whole?
    - ehmish 7y ago
      A good way to avoid people being displaced is to build enough housing to meet the demand, however there's lots of (probably well intentioned) efforts which undermine this goal, most of the people voting for these things which undermine this goal are the people who originally live there themselves, so in my opinion the rage isn't justified
  - panarky 7y ago
    "meant to protect the value of current homeowners' properties" It's probably not that direct. Sure, you could build up and achieve the population density of Hong Kong, but then SF would lose the "little big city" charm that makes it a great place to be. And as we see in Hong Kong, simply adding housing units doesn't necessarily reduce the price of housing. So I'd argue the primary purpose of the zoning regs is to retain what makes SF what it is, not just to maximize price per square foot.