4 ms·

Hey all, I wrote this! Feel free to email me at steven.buss@gmail.com with any questions or comments. Also if you have a few bucks to spare for my campaign, ple

by buss 7y ago

Hey all, I wrote this! Feel free to email me at steven.buss@gmail.com with any questions or comments. Also if you have a few bucks to spare for my campaign, please donate at https://buss2020.org/donate https://buss2020.org/donate

iandanforth 7y ago
This needs more historical and modern context to point out that this situation isn't normal even for SF and that much better ways are found all the time, for example in Portland. I am glad though that you focus on the simple ROI calculation of election costs to investment efficiency!
dredmorbius 7y ago
Steve, thanks for tackling this and popping up. This past January, the Commonwealth featured a panel on Bay Area housing crisis, featuring Pastor Paul Bains, Fred Blackwell, Priscilla Chan, Janet Liang, Jennifer Martinez, and Erika Aguilar -- an impressive, intelligent, and motivated group of experts. https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2019-01-24/bays-future-new-solutions-housing-crisis https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2019-01-24/bays-futu... What floored me, and several friends I shared this with, though, was the collective response that there was no single silver bullet, no way to throw money at the problem to solve it. Which betrays an immense ignorance or denail of San Francisco history. Henry George's Land Value Tax is not only a concept that was developed in (and concerning) San Francisco, but literally raises money from the crux of the problem at the same time it solves it, by creating an effective incentive to increase density. Very simply put, San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area must grow their way out of this mess, and if they don't, other areas will, and are. And it's not just about outsiders -- it's SF and Bay Area natives who are and have been priced out and forced out of the area, and present residents who will find themselves and their families -- elderly parents, young children -- facing similar fates. And yes, I'm aware that Proposition 13 is political kryptonite, but it's also increasingly economic kryptonite, killing off what once made California an attractive and viable place to be. Though I've known of the initiative for decades, it's only in recent years I've realised just how toxic it truly is. I've also become increasingly aware of the economic toxicity of the tendency toward and incentives for asset inflation, most especially of real productive and essential assets -- land, housing, education, healthcare, essential utilities. Some of the most interesting research on this was conducted in the 1930s and 40s by Bernhard J. Stern, for example "Resistances to the adoption of Technological Innovations" (1937). He traces the practice across numerous innovations, from printing and transport to energy and, yes, housing, naming some very familiar names and tactics. (The post-WWII suburban boom broke the logjam for a time. Oh, and you may have heard of his research assistant, a student named Isaac Asimov.) https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/page/39 https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/pag... Markdown/text: https://pastebin.com/raw/fZajYSGa https://pastebin.com/raw/fZajYSGa You're absolutely correct that this isn't a technological problem. It is an organisational one, and a political one, and pits families and the working class against homeowners, banks, investors, and landlords. And it will destroy California, if it hasn't already.
- buss 7y ago
  You're right about everything. A LVT would go a long way to solving our problems, but it must also be paired with dramatic zoning reform to actually allow land to be redeveloped into a higher use. Doing that is illegal in the vast majority of San Francisco and the Bay Area at large. Opposition to Prop 13 is building, and I think we will see meaningful reform within 10 years. Hopefully full repeal within 20. But this is an even bigger political lift than fixing our broken Bay Area governments. If you haven't already, check out http://thecommonssf.org/ http://thecommonssf.org/, an org based in SF that's centered around LVT.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    The trick with LVT may be to find an alternate form of it that skirts Prop-13 restrictions, in the meantime. As for zoning, that's likely a chicken-egg issue, but once holding nonproductive land becomes nonviable, reversing restrictive zoning may become far more tractable. Alternatively, cracking the nut outside SF (and yes, I realise you're in the City) might be an option, where if a sufficient alternate jobs-and-housing magnet were formed, SF would be forced to follow suit. Not my first choice, but I'd take it. Tackling this as a strategic "having defined our point B, how do we get there from A" question, and finding the least-cost path seems the right approach. Finding examples of other areas which have successfully tackled the problem is another.
    - deepakhj 7y ago
      We also need to find a way to crack the nut in the city. Soma is the only place with any movement.
      - dredmorbius 7y ago
        The challenge I see is that tackling the asset-protecting interests head on may be too great a challenge. As a comparison, California in the 1950s represented an alternative to challenging development-averse and innovation-averse practices in points East -- New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and other established centres of population and industrial power. Rather than fight on home turf, innovation packed up and headed West. A classic example being RAND Corporation, which literally loaded a train with researchers and families and headed to the (then cheap) locale of Santa Monica, CA. The history of research and academic centres as being adjacent but removed from centres of commerce and power is a long one, dating back to Plato's Academy, an eponymous grove about a 30 minutes' walk outside Athens, then centre of the Western world. I've been diving a bit into the history of major research laboratories, such a DuPont, Kodak, AT&T, IBM, Xerox, and others. Similar trends. The Manhattan Project is an extreme case, with additional constraints (secrecy, not disturbing the neighbours).

by buss 7y ago

iandanforth 7y ago

This needs more historical and modern context to point out that this situation isn't normal even for SF and that much better ways are found all the time, for example in Portland. I am glad though that you focus on the simple ROI calculation of election costs to investment efficiency!

dredmorbius 7y ago

Steve, thanks for tackling this and popping up. This past January, the Commonwealth featured a panel on Bay Area housing crisis, featuring Pastor Paul Bains, Fred Blackwell, Priscilla Chan, Janet Liang, Jennifer Martinez, and Erika Aguilar -- an impressive, intelligent, and motivated group of experts. https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2019-01-24/bays-future-new-solutions-housing-crisis https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2019-01-24/bays-futu... What floored me, and several friends I shared this with, though, was the collective response that there was no single silver bullet, no way to throw money at the problem to solve it. Which betrays an immense ignorance or denail of San Francisco history. Henry George's Land Value Tax is not only a concept that was developed in (and concerning) San Francisco, but literally raises money from the crux of the problem at the same time it solves it, by creating an effective incentive to increase density. Very simply put, San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area must grow their way out of this mess, and if they don't, other areas will, and are. And it's not just about outsiders -- it's SF and Bay Area natives who are and have been priced out and forced out of the area, and present residents who will find themselves and their families -- elderly parents, young children -- facing similar fates. And yes, I'm aware that Proposition 13 is political kryptonite, but it's also increasingly economic kryptonite, killing off what once made California an attractive and viable place to be. Though I've known of the initiative for decades, it's only in recent years I've realised just how toxic it truly is. I've also become increasingly aware of the economic toxicity of the tendency toward and incentives for asset inflation, most especially of real productive and essential assets -- land, housing, education, healthcare, essential utilities. Some of the most interesting research on this was conducted in the 1930s and 40s by Bernhard J. Stern, for example "Resistances to the adoption of Technological Innovations" (1937). He traces the practice across numerous innovations, from printing and transport to energy and, yes, housing, naming some very familiar names and tactics. (The post-WWII suburban boom broke the logjam for a time. Oh, and you may have heard of his research assistant, a student named Isaac Asimov.) https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/page/39 https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/pag... Markdown/text: https://pastebin.com/raw/fZajYSGa https://pastebin.com/raw/fZajYSGa You're absolutely correct that this isn't a technological problem. It is an organisational one, and a political one, and pits families and the working class against homeowners, banks, investors, and landlords. And it will destroy California, if it hasn't already.

buss 7y ago
You're right about everything. A LVT would go a long way to solving our problems, but it must also be paired with dramatic zoning reform to actually allow land to be redeveloped into a higher use. Doing that is illegal in the vast majority of San Francisco and the Bay Area at large. Opposition to Prop 13 is building, and I think we will see meaningful reform within 10 years. Hopefully full repeal within 20. But this is an even bigger political lift than fixing our broken Bay Area governments. If you haven't already, check out http://thecommonssf.org/ http://thecommonssf.org/, an org based in SF that's centered around LVT.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  The trick with LVT may be to find an alternate form of it that skirts Prop-13 restrictions, in the meantime. As for zoning, that's likely a chicken-egg issue, but once holding nonproductive land becomes nonviable, reversing restrictive zoning may become far more tractable. Alternatively, cracking the nut outside SF (and yes, I realise you're in the City) might be an option, where if a sufficient alternate jobs-and-housing magnet were formed, SF would be forced to follow suit. Not my first choice, but I'd take it. Tackling this as a strategic "having defined our point B, how do we get there from A" question, and finding the least-cost path seems the right approach. Finding examples of other areas which have successfully tackled the problem is another.
  - deepakhj 7y ago
    We also need to find a way to crack the nut in the city. Soma is the only place with any movement.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      The challenge I see is that tackling the asset-protecting interests head on may be too great a challenge. As a comparison, California in the 1950s represented an alternative to challenging development-averse and innovation-averse practices in points East -- New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and other established centres of population and industrial power. Rather than fight on home turf, innovation packed up and headed West. A classic example being RAND Corporation, which literally loaded a train with researchers and families and headed to the (then cheap) locale of Santa Monica, CA. The history of research and academic centres as being adjacent but removed from centres of commerce and power is a long one, dating back to Plato's Academy, an eponymous grove about a 30 minutes' walk outside Athens, then centre of the Western world. I've been diving a bit into the history of major research laboratories, such a DuPont, Kodak, AT&T, IBM, Xerox, and others. Similar trends. The Manhattan Project is an extreme case, with additional constraints (secrecy, not disturbing the neighbours).