22 ms·

Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell developers they can build homes

264 points by RickJWagner 7y ago

edoo 7y ago
They forget the human cost. Increasing density decreases quality of life. The people are the product of the cities in the commercial sense. The well being of the people is lost in the drive for infinite growth.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Not being able to afford a house decreases quality of life infinitely more than some increased density.
  - edoo 7y ago
    If you can't afford a house there maybe you should consider moving somewhere more affordable.
    - Excel_Wizard 7y ago
      Different strokes for different folks. Some people like living in dense cities. No reason not to build for them if they apparently enjoy it.
    - fimdomeio 7y ago
      Which also has a human cost if you have social connections with the other humans around you.
    - ch4s3 7y ago
      This may not have occurred to you, but a lot of people simply can't afford to move and leave the safety net of friends and family. They may also lack skills that would help them secure employment elsewhere. There people are especially vulnerable. With respect to quality of life, there are far denser cities with much higher quality of life. Building more homes for the middle income families and individuals absolutely helps everyone, except landlords.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      Right but there's no reason for that if you just allow developers to build up. You can live a few blocks from work, next to some nice allocated park land, and if you want to visit nature, take a train. That's far more humane than demanding your fellow citizens commute hours from the outskirts every day so your real estate investment performs better. If you want to live somewhere greener perhaps consider the commute for yourself?
    - EliRivers 7y ago
      Having to move away from your family, friends, job and the life you know also decreases quality of life. A lot.
    - Lazare 7y ago
      If you don't like the density, maybe consider moving somewhere with lower density?
      - edoo 7y ago
        Already did. I never realized how bad I had it.
      - throwawaysea 7y ago
        Often times the density hawks are the newcomers, asking to be accommodated. This is true in the bay are and Seattle, for example. So I don’t think it’s fair to ask the incumbents who make up a community to leave.
    - marcinzm 7y ago
      If you don't like the increasing density then maybe you should consider moving somewhere less dense.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      Neither of you are incorrect as it's about preferences, but the real problem is one of balance. A city needs all kinds of people. Affordability and density needs to be moderated so that there's enough diversity in families and employment to function well. Also some of the most affordable areas in the USA are also the most sparse.
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        > A city needs all kinds of people to function and affordability and density needs to be moderated so that there's enough diversity in families and employment to function well. I don't necessarily see how one follows the other. So long as there's diversity in, for instance, bedroom count on units, what difference does it make if the units are stacked horizontally as they are today or vertically? To be clear, I'd love your thoughts, I'm not sure myself. > Also some of the most affordable areas in the USA are also the most sparse. Indeed because building up is expensive, so it requires demand. There's no demand in the middle of Idaho even comparable to what SF has. Further, I'm proposing scrapping constraints on new development, not taking peoples 2 story Sunset units via eminent domain and throwing up SoMa style 50 story skyscrapers. I think it's not an unreasonable place to start by doubling all height restrictions across all of SF. No more of this prime real estate on 17th and Brannan (the SFMTA bus lot redevelopment) getting wanged by a 4 story cap. That should be 20+ no question.
        watwut 7y ago
        > What difference does it make if the units are stacked horizontally as they are today or vertically? One difference is how far things end up to be after. If they are spaced vertically, everything ends up far from everything. Not enough people living in the geographic area means that stores wont be there, playgrounds will be empty, school will be far away. Visiting friends means longer drives, commute to work means longer drive.
        joking 7y ago
        4 - 5 floor is the sweet spot for balancing cost and price, if you go up from there the cost per sq meter increases. The places where economically is worth to go higher than that, is where the land is very expensive and you have to recover that cost having more units.
    - mamon 7y ago
      You actually can have both: dedicate some parts of the city for single-family homes for upper-middle class,other parts for high rise buildings. That's how many cities in Europe look like: high density central districts, then some suburbs. The choice is then: do you prefer short commute and living in apartment, or a bit longer commute, but your own big house.
  - dominotw 7y ago
    Wouldn't the world simply increase population where this is still the case even if we build more housing though?
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      Tends to go the other way. Fertility is strongly negatively correlated with development, of which housing is a component. America's birth rate is already well below replacement (1.8 births per woman), and relies heavily on immigration to maintain a steady population. There's a stark graph of page "4074" (page 4, figure 1-E in the PDF) of fertility rate vs HDI. [1] I bet if you build more housing you'd have fewer kids still. It's in a way counterintuitive, but very pronounced and well-studied. [1] http://ijp.mums.ac.ir/article_7680_7828694c3909aa70d156fb9c8a2cb9ed.pdf http://ijp.mums.ac.ir/article_7680_7828694c3909aa70d156fb9c8...
      - dominotw 7y ago
        > Fertility is strongly negatively correlated with development, of which housing is a component. America's birth rate is already well below replacement Wouldn't this imply america already has affordable housing ? Why are there endless articles in news that this isn't the case.
        arcticbull 7y ago
        HDI is a composite score of which housing is an element. It includes all sorts of things like access to water, access to health care, etc, etc. I'm suggesting that continuing to develop the US through the addition of housing units would likely not lead to an increase in population but rather a decrease as tends to happen with development more broadly. I'm unaware of any studies which correlate specifically housing with fertility in isolation. Maybe I confused you with two definitions of "development" in the same context -- developing houses, and human development / HDI of which housing is diffuse factor. See [1] for more info if you're curious. [1] http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi
- GhettoMaestro 7y ago
  You’re tone deaf. CA is in the midst of their worst homeless crisis ever. Density is a long ways behind my concerns for the middle-class homeless whom have been priced out of any meaningful housing options.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    Is “middle-class homeless[ness]” a significant/common occurrence, absent mental illness or drug addiction as complicating factors (excluding those as changing housing supply/demand point is likely not the solution there)? That would indeed be depressing but also fairly surprising to me. What would “middle class” mean if it didn’t include secure housing as a significant part of the definition?
    - bluGill 7y ago
      In San Francisco what the rest of the US considers middle class incomes are not enough to afford a place to live.
- nugget 7y ago
  Don’t many people love cities specifically because of density and the diversity of opportunities that usually follows?
  - Nursie 7y ago
    There's a trade-off though, if it comes at the cost of smaller and worse living accomodation for themselves. And you have to be careful that the transport and other infrastructure can keep up. Transport in particular always seems to get ignored.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      Right but lets focus on one problem at a time. With more people in the city, you have a bigger tax base, meaning more tax revenue, meaning you can spend more to improve infrastructure like public transit. The population of SF has only increased by 111K (14%) in the last 20 years. Imagine what we could do with twice as many people contributing tax revenue?
      - bluGill 7y ago
        It isn't just tax base. If you have a lot of people taking transit you can recover the costs of the system just from riders paying their fare, and the riders are saving money over the cost for insuring a car for a year. Less dense areas cannot do this, both because people need to go farther (less dense means you have to go farther to get there), and because there are less riders. Dense areas need less taxes in general: the cost difference of a big pipe vs a small one isn't nearly as much as the amount the big pipe can carry. However this is more than made up by the fact that the more people to spread it out with means many services that were not affordable are now cheap and those cheap things add up (you don't need a library, and at farm density you can't afford one - but at city density it is cheap per person so you pay a little more), you need to ask if those extras you can have are worth it.
        throwawaysea 7y ago
        I am not so sure that dense areas need fewer taxes. Some of the most heavily taxes areas are dense cities.
- marcinzm 7y ago
  You opinion on density is just that, your opinion, not everyone agrees. Density means a larger selection of jobs, increased variety in entertainment (ie: more likely to find something you personally love), increased selection of medical professionals, increased variety in food, ability to avoid driving commutes, kids who can self-manage without being driven everywhere, etc. To some people that's worth more cramped living, to others it's not. Quality of life is taken as a whole and not based on part of the whole.
  - dominotw 7y ago
    > You opinion on density is just that, your opinion, not everyone agrees. Sure but curious why that comment is downvoted and yours is not? Disagreeement != downvote.
    - epistasis 7y ago
      It's not stated as opinion, and has some ridiculous statements like this in it: > The well being of the people is lost in the drive for infinite growth. There is no drive for infinite growth, that I have found. People are just trying to have enough housing for everyone, yet this "infinite growth might happen therefore we are going to impose housing austerity" is the attitude that has been prevalent in older suburban homeowners, and that's exactly how we got into this mess of a housing crisis. Categorically dismissing the large number of people that choose to live in cities because they prefer them is ridiculous. If it really were worse, prices would be lower in the cities than outside them. More people want what cities have to offer than are allowed to access them.
      - dominotw 7y ago
        > There is no drive for infinite growth, that I have found. What about Carbon emission projections. Isn't that proof of 'drive for infinite growth' ?
        dnate 7y ago
        no, thats just growth
- zozbot234 7y ago
  You can always get to "decreased density" simply by moving away from the urban core. The jobs might not be as good, but that just goes to show that increased density does not necessarily involve a human cost.
  - rb808 7y ago
    Similarly the people who complain of unaffordable housing can simply move to places where they are affordable. Same logic
- achenatx 7y ago
  there is no drive for "infinite growth". However so far the population keeps increasing at about .7% per year. Housing has to keep up to keep prices stable. If not, where do you suggest the people live?
  - edoo 7y ago
    .7% growth is an exponential rate. Cities are corporations and the ones that push density are looking for money.
- sujNansnam 7y ago
  Higher density construction makes more room for low density everywhere else.
arcticbull 7y ago
The whole topic of conversation around housing affordability is backwards. Specifically, housing affordability is 100%, entirely, a problem of artificial constraints on supply by city councils. (1) Americans consider housing to be an investment. An investment is only an investment if you expect a positive return over time. We generally want that investment to match or exceed inflation. (2) That's antithetical to the idea of affordable housing. It's either affordable or an expensive, appreciating asset. It literally cannot be both at the same time. The only reason it's worked thus far is the broad-based expansion of the US economy and of specific population centers like SF has masked the problem for many, many years. Especially in conjunction with 30-year mortgages requiring 2% down. That's some serious leverage. We don't talk about the lack of affordable AAPL shares do we? That's insane, it's an investment, we want it to go up. The less affordable, the better! (3) Renters tend to be younger, transient and not vote. Owners tend to be older, wealthier, have deep roots in the community, and vote their asses off. They also aren't huge fans of change. They vote their interests: whatever keeps their, on average, largest investment performing well. If you want cheap housing forget rent control. Allow developers to build up as high as the infrastructure can sustain. Allow smaller units, too, micro-apartments like whatever that place is on Mission, Panoramic. It's time to re-think the idea of housing as an "investment." We need to re-focus the narrative to make housing much more utilitarian. This is reflected in major housing markets around the world, like Tokyo. They don't consider housing an investment, and they have some of the most affordable housing in any major metro in the world. [1] [1] https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-costs-tokyo https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-...
- huntertwo 7y ago
  Two thoughts 1) Isn't a developer also making an investment when they build these high as hell micro-apartment apartment buildings? 2) How do you avoid a race to the bottom in terms of housing quality when you allow said micro-apartments? Do we want a culture where the poor are living in barely livable wage slave pods while the rich are living in abundant villas? I'm all for affordable housing but it seems too nuanced to allow market forces to take care of it. I think the correct solution revolves around government subsidized/funded housing but that's a whole other can of beans.
raldi 7y ago
See also: Friday's “Don’t Blame Tech Bros for the Housing Crisis” column: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/opinion/sunday/housing-crisis-silicon-valley.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/opinion/sunday/housing-cr...
- arcticbull 7y ago
  If they spent that $4.5B on lobbying for upzoining and densification the problem would likely sort itself out. Probably for a fraction of the cost.
  - WhompingWindows 7y ago
    If we divided that 4.5B by the number of tech workers, where would we be at? If there are 100,000 tech workers in the Bay Area, that'd be around $45,000 per person of lobbying for affordable housing. If those tech workers saved $500 per month, they would earn back what their companies spent on them in 90 months, or 7.5 years. Assumption, I don't know how many tech workers there truly are.
    - filoleg 7y ago
      >100,000 tech workers in Bay Area Seems pretty low of an estimate tbh. Just for scale, Google has around 45k employees in Bay Area alone. I realize that not every single one of them is an engineer. But even if just 30k of them are (completely ballpark guessing here), it seems pretty implausible that every 3rd engineer in bay area is a googler. Just did some googling, and according to this source[0], there are about 624k software developers in CA. I realize that it includes not only Bay Area, obviously, but I am willing to reasonably bet that a heavy majority of the developers are there, with a notable chunk in LA as well, something on the order of 116k. To be more specific about how I arrived to that estimate, I checked StackOverflow Jobs portal, to see how many job openings there are in LA vs Bay Area, assuming that the number of job openings proportionally correlates (positively) with actual people working in said jobs. LA had 118 openings [1], while Bay area had 518 [2]. 624,000/(518+118)*118 ~= 116,000. Yes, it is napkin level of statistics, but that's the best estimate I could think of. 0. https://www.daxx.com/blog/development-trends/number-software-developers-world https://www.daxx.com/blog/development-trends/number-software... 1. https://stackoverflow.com/jobs?l=Los+Angeles%2C+CA%2C+USA&d=20&u=Miles https://stackoverflow.com/jobs?l=Los+Angeles%2C+CA%2C+USA&d=... 2. https://stackoverflow.com/jobs?l=bay+area&d=20&u=Miles https://stackoverflow.com/jobs?l=bay+area&d=20&u=Miles
afpx 7y ago
How much do you think it will affect housing prices? Is there a model that can predict the effect? I'll be surprised if it helps a lot. Demand seems infinite.
- whack 7y ago
  > Is there a model that can predict the effect? Yes, the model is called supply and demand. When you increase the quantity supplied, the only way the extra quantity can be sold, is if the price drops. If you increase the quantity supplied without reducing the price, the extra units will never be sold. Why would they... anyone who was willing to pay the previous price, would have already done so and will already have a home in SF/Oakland. The only way to fill the new units is to entice new residents who aren't willing to pay the previous price point.
  - afpx 7y ago
    Obviously. But, are you expecting a 10% decrease in prices, or 0.5%? Why so defensive? I’m asking Because if it works, I’d like to sell the idea to skeptics. We all lean scientific here, right?
    - pertymcpert 7y ago
      It's not him/her being defensive, it's basic economics that shouldn't have to be explained...
      - afpx 7y ago
        Sometimes one has to understand intermediate economics .... For instance, in cases of inelastic demand and low liquidity (like housing), if prices are pegged at a maximum that buyers can pay, the actual equilibrium price could be much higher. In that case, a small amount of extra supply will not lower prices.
balfirevic 7y ago
I saw this tweet recently, by patio11: https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1199366332468224000 https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1199366332468224000 "Tokyo has positive population growth of about 100,000 people a year, and rents and home prices are roughly stable for last decade. How? Outconstructing NYC. And LA. And SF. And Boston. And Houston. Combined. Every year."
- iguy 7y ago
  Does anyone know how much of such construction is re-construction, and how much new stock? I have heard (but am not sure) that the pattern is more to buy some land, knock down the previous guy's house, and build your own. On a time-scale of 20-30 years, closer to how Americans regard cars (e.g. having to buy used cars is undesirable) than how they regard houses (once built they stay in use forever, although renovated).
  - alistairSH 7y ago
    A fair chunk of that rebuilding is due to more relaxed zoning which is additive instead of single-purpose. In the US, zones tend to be "single family home", "apartments", "town homes", "commercial", "retail". No overlap and the housing variants don't allow increased density without re-zoning, which is expensive. In Japan, zones are more like a maximum usage. "homes", "homes+retail", "home+retail+commercial", etc. The housing zones are less restrictive - typically single family, duplex, and low-rise apartments are all allowed in the basic residential zone. High-rise would be in a different zone, along with retail, commercial, etc.
    - iguy 7y ago
      Thanks, yes I'd heard it was more mixed. If you had to guess the proportion of construction which was new floor area (not just building 3 stories, but replacing a 1-story thing, etc.) would this be 10%, 50%, 90%? (I would blindly guess 90% for the US.)
- theobeers 7y ago
  Without disputing the main point, I wonder if he meant net new construction. He was asked about this in the replies and didn’t give a real answer. Houses in Japan have tended to be torn down and rebuilt every twenty to thirty years. It’s an unusual situation, owing to various factors, including code updates for earthquake resistance. An article on this topic: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusable-housing-revolution https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusabl...
delfinom 7y ago
Lacking from the article are the statistics for how affordable those homes are and actual occupancy. Developers overwhelmingly love upselling to "luxury homes" that are kept as investment deeds in someones closet. NYC for example is building new apartments like bloody crazy, none of them are affordable to anyone other than investors.
- shuckles 7y ago
  The quality of construction of new homes in Oakland is run of the mill new apartments. The same buildings in style and quality rent for $1,500/mo in Riverside, CA.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  The price of housing is determined by supply and demand, not the developer. Building new housing lowers prices for all preexisting housing.
  - maxsilver 7y ago
    > Building new housing lowers prices for all preexisting housing This is not true in the US. Housing in the US is valued solely by the value of the housing around it (called 'comps' or 'comparables'). Building new luxury housing raises the price for all preexisting nearby housing, because your comparables will now be based on whatever the luxury housing prices are (even if your own house is very modest, even if your own house could never fetch a similar price, even if you never try to sell your house) This is one of the big reasons you see pushback by rational, logical, well-informed residents in the US. Luxury housing usually raises all non-luxury housing costs nearby, simply by proximity. Is is effectively a form of financial pollution. Some people's wealth is so obscene, that the mere fact it exists in a physical location, punishes everyone else in proximity to that location. This is what Gentrification looks like in non-California, non-coastal cities. Wealthy people artificially inflate the value of property in an area (which they can do, because there's never any limits or restrictions on construction of any kind, so they always build the highest-cost highest-margin property possible). And regular residents are now forced to bear that cost, forever. It is possible to continue this bubble, irregardless of any actual demand for the housing, long after all real humans have checked out of the system. (See 2008 Financial Crisis). This process was not primarily driven by real people's housing needs, but by private capital's desire to store or grow their wealth, so real people have little control over it. And, in non-Californian states like mine where property taxes are not locked in, but are recalculated constantly based on "market comparables", the bill for this financial pollution will hit you instantly on your next property tax invoice. Luxury condos go up on your block? Congrats, the tax bill for your old modest home is now doubled next year. Don't like it? Your only other option is to rent the unaffordable shitty luxury crap they just built.
mr_tristan 7y ago
I'm not sure what Oakland is doing is actually a major change. It's like something just triggered the money to flow to finish a bunch of projects in the east bay. But the spigot could just turn off again. There's something broken in city planning that seems to be the largest hurdle to addressing affordability. Cities seem to want to have a box with a label on a map that doesn't change much. Then, if something changes within that box, there needs to be this big massive process. The "real fix" might be figuring out how cities can work on a smaller scale, not with these massive projects. Just look at the report for the Oakland plan: https://cao-94612.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/FINAL_DOSP-Public-Review-Draft-Plan_082819_Compressed.pdf https://cao-94612.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/FINAL_DOSP-Publ... I'm struck by how much it must have cost to even generate that plan. And, there's a ton of goals, but no feedback loop. As the plans are implemented over the next decade or two, how do they know what's going well and what isn't?
itstartsnow 7y ago
i have a plan small homes starting at 500sqft suitable for the x military also our elderly most will have small 1 room apartments to help with living costs. for every 2000 houses a collage will be built.max tuition will be $1500per semester and every 4 years tuition will go down 25% until it is free. 1st phase 150,000 homes priced approximtly 50,000 per home nothing fancy built to last all solar power stage 2 300,000 homes stage 3 electric glide monorail train coast to coast 2hr traveling speed of 2000 kmph change it starts now we the people are not asking we are demanding
MarketRateSucks 7y ago
...market rate supply.
iav 7y ago
Oakland has built less housing per capita than SF over the last 5 years, as mentioned in the article. Appears like a few big projects finished construction and 2019 was an outlier year. The article implies this bounty will continue by citing “15,000 units in development” but doesn’t mention that SF has 4x as many “in development” and many projects linger in that category for a decade and many never get built.
- hkmurakami 7y ago
  For large projects it takes 3- 5 years to get through municipal approval.
xivzgrev 7y ago
Not surprising. San Francisco seems to vote more owner friendly vs Oakland which votes more renter friendly. For SF I thought the recent proposition E was encouraging. It reduced zoning requirements on public zoned land for affordable housing. It was first proposition I’ve seen that reduces zoning requirements, it seems like a “toe in the water” for reducing complexity for addressing housing. Of course one might argue fuck toes in water we are in crisis, but given my first statement, I saw it as a trial balloon. Hopefully we see more aggressive measures in next few elections
exabrial 7y ago
How to increase the housing supply: get the government out. Places in California requires things like requiring all homes to have a high amperage outlet in the garage for charging electric cars. Do you really think people that are struggling to keep a roof over their head are driving a Tesla?
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Yes, let's get the government out, of deciding how tall houses can be. Removing the requirement for a high-amperage outlet (a tiny incremental cost during building) is like an umbrella in a hurricane. Nice to have, but totally doesn't solve the real problem.
  - ajkjk 7y ago
    I think that was an example, not the entire point.
    - exabrial 7y ago
      Lost on both of them. You should look up other useless stuff, like how many outlets are required in kitchens.
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        My argument is many of these represent small incremental costs and even if all of them were eliminated then affordability wouldn’t change in any appreciable degree. On the other hand increasing supply (even if somewhat more expensive in a per unit basis due to regulations that neither of us can really say are good, bad or cost effective) will. It’s the easy win.
- bradlys 7y ago
  > Do you really think people that are struggling to keep a roof over their head are driving a Tesla? I mean - adding an outlet for electric cars is probably $100-200 in labor+parts when constructing a new home. It's trivial to add when everything is already exposed. And, if you're in CA and buying a new home -> you can afford a Tesla or some other electric car. Alternatively - you have a 40-amp outlet. Run a washer/dryer there instead or maybe a table saw or something? The outlet will still be useful for things beyond a car. The new ruling on requiring solar on new homes is actually more problematic in terms of cost. https://fortune.com/2018/12/06/california-solar-panels-new-homes/ https://fortune.com/2018/12/06/california-solar-panels-new-h...
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
> the city passed a series of neighborhood plans in and around downtown that relaxed zoning and removed parking requirements, making it easier and cheaper to build. Wait, you mean deregulation isn’t just a republican talking point? And restrictive city (and state) governments were the problem this whole time???
- jayd16 7y ago
  Except its just as regulated, just differently. Its certainly not "the private sector policing itself." Efficient regulation that conforms to need is not the same as deregulation.
  - pitaj 7y ago
    Removing parking requirements = fewer requirements = less regulation = deregulation. Deregulation does not equal zero regulation.
- elicash 7y ago
  I don't think anybody is pro or con "regulation" in the abstract. People disagree over whether specific regulations are good or bad. Example: I live in DC and there's been recent controversy with the Historic Preservation Review Board essentially thinking solar panels are ugly. It's legit to have regulations regarding the appearance of homes if those neighborhoods want them, but at the same time is short-sighted to block solar panels. I'm sure you're for some regulations and not others, no reason to make this ideological.
- tick_tock_tick 7y ago
  I mean in this case it's hard to find any expert that doesn't agree the problem is self created from over regulation. That doesn't mean we don't need any zoning laws though.
earlINmeyerkeg 7y ago
The reason midwestern cities hardly have housing bubbles like the coastal areas do is because old housing is cheap and competes with renting. Landlords can't afford to not be lenient. Although the only change I wish to see is that tenants could more easily enforce their rights and Landlords had to follow the law. Most midwestern state governments are very laissez faire about the whole thing which is incredibly annoying. Apartment cleaning is illegal to make tenants pay for or withold a security deposit, yet they still do it anyway cause landlords know tenants aren't taking them to small claims for it. As a tenant, you need housing references. So taking your landlord to court over $100 is a surefire way to making you ineligible for further tenancy basically. Landlords don't like tenants that know and enforce their rights.
- danans 7y ago
  > The reason midwestern cities hardly have housing bubbles like the coastal areas do is because old housing is cheap and competes with renting. Sure, but isn't the reason that housing is cheaper because those cities don't have anywhere near the level of demand that coastal cities have.
  - earlINmeyerkeg 7y ago
    Yes and I'm not denying that. Also the midwest hasn't seen radical overvaluation of property that the coastal areas do. Since demand is so high there, the value of the property is not determined upon is "worth," but on someones ability to pay. You can see how that becomes a major issue when things crash. Suddenly many people lose out on the value of the place they paid for.
    - danans 7y ago
      > Since demand is so high there, the value of the property is not determined upon is "worth," but on someones ability to pay. The monetary value of the something is by definition what the highest bidder is willing to pay for it. How would you determine it otherwise?
  - mrep 7y ago
jelliclesfarm 7y ago
How can we think of housing without considering resource constraints. It’s not just space to build vertically that determines how many homes can be built..it’s traffic, infrastructure, roads, water, power, schools, essential services, public services, public spaces, community amenities..the list goes on. Urban density cannot keep on increasing. You cannot ‘keep on adding homes’. We are already having very high costs of living and this also contributes to unaffordability of Bay Area cities. The only winner is the state which can get more property tax dollars in Bay Area and other urban centers than elsewhere in California. Essentially a handful of high tech dollar fueled California cities are subsidizing the entire state. This state will implode with this ‘high density is sustainable’ and ‘build and they will come’ mantra. We are already having power outages, crumbling infrastructure, increasing water rates, more and more tolls, high rents, overcrowded schools and unending traffic jams. And the rent is nothing to sneeze at.. The high density lobby is going to incinerate my state. Having already witnessed the devastation this kind of building has caused in my home country, this breaks my heart and frankly I am terrified for the future.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  How can we think of housing without considering resource constraints. It’s not just space to build vertically that determines how many homes can be built..it’s traffic, infrastructure, roads, water, power, schools, essential services, public services, public spaces, community amenities..the list goes on. High density living is potentially more efficient than low density living (look European or some Asian cities, etc). Indeed, the US model of the low-density mega-city is the thing that has become unsustainable - commuting from city to suburb or suburb-to-suburb involves a huge amount of infrastructure that is simple to build but expensive to maintain. The problem of the US in particular is that low-density has had the upper hand for so long that efforts to produce sane high density get sabotaged in a variety of ways (look the difference in cost per mile of public transit in the US versus Europe).
  - jelliclesfarm 7y ago
    You can also think China and eastern bloc. What people want is not high density housing but high density luxury living. Every home is no less than 1200 sq ft and two cars and 2 kids if it’s a family..and a million dollar. This is not sustainable high density. It’s a scam. You can’t compare Asian and European (i have lived in both places)high density building to what is touted in the Bay Area.
jelliclesfarm 7y ago
I think there has been a very successful diversion of derision towards ‘Americans who own homes’ and ignoring the vast majority of foreigners who own properties(both rent seeking and farmland) in the Bay Area as speculative/investment properties that they have purchased sight unseen. Deriding pensioners on fixed income whose taxes actually built the infrastructure and schools and roads of the Bay Area is shameful..Whose final home is not ‘speculative property’, but their retirement nest egg. Not everyone has a pension from a public sector job. Look into pension funds, foreign investors,insurance companies, university investment funds ..and yes, Wall Street..who are literally raiding California from the other side of our state to see how this inequality and unaffordablility is caused. And the Govt in the state of California seated in Sacramento is complicit in this. On a broader scale, they are also stealing our water(example: family farms in Paso Robles can’t grow their crops like alfafa and corn because of a water moratorium because Harvard investment funds have bought acres and acres to grow grapes in vineyards..and drilling wells at the fence line which makes it legal but essentially taps into aquifers and water tables meant for the entire region. 1500 ft when water was found at 300 ft.) This is causing a divide between rural and urban causing the former to become unliveable and increasing population pressures on highly dense urban hubs.
- throwaway34241 7y ago
  What is the cause/effect here? You seem to be laying the blame at foreigners, wall street, etc for causing the housing shortage, but the cause/effect of voters/local governments prohibiting building housing -> housing shortage is pretty straightforward, I don't see why pointing it out should be "shameful". I don't think homeowners are a unified block on this issue, but specifically the local organizations that put a lot of effort into preventing housing during a serious shortage seem to reasonably deserve some criticism. In the bay area even small proposals (like allowing 1 story of apartments over shops, or some mid-density near transit) often get killed by groups that uniformly oppose all housing.
  - jelliclesfarm 7y ago
    Is it a housing shortage or an excess of population in urban centers? What are you going to do living like sardines in a can where high density housing has been approved if there is a high cost to scarce water/power/infrastructure and support services.
mrtweetyhack 7y ago
Private developers will build anything with 0 regard. Laws are in place to maintain sustainability. You could build a million new homes but what about water and waste issues?

264 points by RickJWagner 7y ago

edoo 7y ago

They forget the human cost. Increasing density decreases quality of life. The people are the product of the cities in the commercial sense. The well being of the people is lost in the drive for infinite growth.

arcticbull 7y ago
Not being able to afford a house decreases quality of life infinitely more than some increased density.
- edoo 7y ago
  If you can't afford a house there maybe you should consider moving somewhere more affordable.
  - Excel_Wizard 7y ago
    Different strokes for different folks. Some people like living in dense cities. No reason not to build for them if they apparently enjoy it.
  - fimdomeio 7y ago
    Which also has a human cost if you have social connections with the other humans around you.
  - ch4s3 7y ago
    This may not have occurred to you, but a lot of people simply can't afford to move and leave the safety net of friends and family. They may also lack skills that would help them secure employment elsewhere. There people are especially vulnerable. With respect to quality of life, there are far denser cities with much higher quality of life. Building more homes for the middle income families and individuals absolutely helps everyone, except landlords.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    Right but there's no reason for that if you just allow developers to build up. You can live a few blocks from work, next to some nice allocated park land, and if you want to visit nature, take a train. That's far more humane than demanding your fellow citizens commute hours from the outskirts every day so your real estate investment performs better. If you want to live somewhere greener perhaps consider the commute for yourself?
  - EliRivers 7y ago
    Having to move away from your family, friends, job and the life you know also decreases quality of life. A lot.
  - Lazare 7y ago
    If you don't like the density, maybe consider moving somewhere with lower density?
    - edoo 7y ago
      Already did. I never realized how bad I had it.
    - throwawaysea 7y ago
      Often times the density hawks are the newcomers, asking to be accommodated. This is true in the bay are and Seattle, for example. So I don’t think it’s fair to ask the incumbents who make up a community to leave.
  - marcinzm 7y ago
    If you don't like the increasing density then maybe you should consider moving somewhere less dense.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    Neither of you are incorrect as it's about preferences, but the real problem is one of balance. A city needs all kinds of people. Affordability and density needs to be moderated so that there's enough diversity in families and employment to function well. Also some of the most affordable areas in the USA are also the most sparse.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      > A city needs all kinds of people to function and affordability and density needs to be moderated so that there's enough diversity in families and employment to function well. I don't necessarily see how one follows the other. So long as there's diversity in, for instance, bedroom count on units, what difference does it make if the units are stacked horizontally as they are today or vertically? To be clear, I'd love your thoughts, I'm not sure myself. > Also some of the most affordable areas in the USA are also the most sparse. Indeed because building up is expensive, so it requires demand. There's no demand in the middle of Idaho even comparable to what SF has. Further, I'm proposing scrapping constraints on new development, not taking peoples 2 story Sunset units via eminent domain and throwing up SoMa style 50 story skyscrapers. I think it's not an unreasonable place to start by doubling all height restrictions across all of SF. No more of this prime real estate on 17th and Brannan (the SFMTA bus lot redevelopment) getting wanged by a 4 story cap. That should be 20+ no question.
      - watwut 7y ago
        > What difference does it make if the units are stacked horizontally as they are today or vertically? One difference is how far things end up to be after. If they are spaced vertically, everything ends up far from everything. Not enough people living in the geographic area means that stores wont be there, playgrounds will be empty, school will be far away. Visiting friends means longer drives, commute to work means longer drive.
      - joking 7y ago
        4 - 5 floor is the sweet spot for balancing cost and price, if you go up from there the cost per sq meter increases. The places where economically is worth to go higher than that, is where the land is very expensive and you have to recover that cost having more units.
  - mamon 7y ago
    You actually can have both: dedicate some parts of the city for single-family homes for upper-middle class,other parts for high rise buildings. That's how many cities in Europe look like: high density central districts, then some suburbs. The choice is then: do you prefer short commute and living in apartment, or a bit longer commute, but your own big house.
- dominotw 7y ago
  Wouldn't the world simply increase population where this is still the case even if we build more housing though?
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    Tends to go the other way. Fertility is strongly negatively correlated with development, of which housing is a component. America's birth rate is already well below replacement (1.8 births per woman), and relies heavily on immigration to maintain a steady population. There's a stark graph of page "4074" (page 4, figure 1-E in the PDF) of fertility rate vs HDI. [1] I bet if you build more housing you'd have fewer kids still. It's in a way counterintuitive, but very pronounced and well-studied. [1] http://ijp.mums.ac.ir/article_7680_7828694c3909aa70d156fb9c8a2cb9ed.pdf http://ijp.mums.ac.ir/article_7680_7828694c3909aa70d156fb9c8...
    - dominotw 7y ago
      > Fertility is strongly negatively correlated with development, of which housing is a component. America's birth rate is already well below replacement Wouldn't this imply america already has affordable housing ? Why are there endless articles in news that this isn't the case.
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        HDI is a composite score of which housing is an element. It includes all sorts of things like access to water, access to health care, etc, etc. I'm suggesting that continuing to develop the US through the addition of housing units would likely not lead to an increase in population but rather a decrease as tends to happen with development more broadly. I'm unaware of any studies which correlate specifically housing with fertility in isolation. Maybe I confused you with two definitions of "development" in the same context -- developing houses, and human development / HDI of which housing is diffuse factor. See [1] for more info if you're curious. [1] http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi
GhettoMaestro 7y ago
You’re tone deaf. CA is in the midst of their worst homeless crisis ever. Density is a long ways behind my concerns for the middle-class homeless whom have been priced out of any meaningful housing options.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  Is “middle-class homeless[ness]” a significant/common occurrence, absent mental illness or drug addiction as complicating factors (excluding those as changing housing supply/demand point is likely not the solution there)? That would indeed be depressing but also fairly surprising to me. What would “middle class” mean if it didn’t include secure housing as a significant part of the definition?
  - bluGill 7y ago
    In San Francisco what the rest of the US considers middle class incomes are not enough to afford a place to live.
nugget 7y ago
Don’t many people love cities specifically because of density and the diversity of opportunities that usually follows?
- Nursie 7y ago
  There's a trade-off though, if it comes at the cost of smaller and worse living accomodation for themselves. And you have to be careful that the transport and other infrastructure can keep up. Transport in particular always seems to get ignored.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    Right but lets focus on one problem at a time. With more people in the city, you have a bigger tax base, meaning more tax revenue, meaning you can spend more to improve infrastructure like public transit. The population of SF has only increased by 111K (14%) in the last 20 years. Imagine what we could do with twice as many people contributing tax revenue?
    - bluGill 7y ago
      It isn't just tax base. If you have a lot of people taking transit you can recover the costs of the system just from riders paying their fare, and the riders are saving money over the cost for insuring a car for a year. Less dense areas cannot do this, both because people need to go farther (less dense means you have to go farther to get there), and because there are less riders. Dense areas need less taxes in general: the cost difference of a big pipe vs a small one isn't nearly as much as the amount the big pipe can carry. However this is more than made up by the fact that the more people to spread it out with means many services that were not affordable are now cheap and those cheap things add up (you don't need a library, and at farm density you can't afford one - but at city density it is cheap per person so you pay a little more), you need to ask if those extras you can have are worth it.
      - throwawaysea 7y ago
        I am not so sure that dense areas need fewer taxes. Some of the most heavily taxes areas are dense cities.
marcinzm 7y ago
You opinion on density is just that, your opinion, not everyone agrees. Density means a larger selection of jobs, increased variety in entertainment (ie: more likely to find something you personally love), increased selection of medical professionals, increased variety in food, ability to avoid driving commutes, kids who can self-manage without being driven everywhere, etc. To some people that's worth more cramped living, to others it's not. Quality of life is taken as a whole and not based on part of the whole.
- dominotw 7y ago
  > You opinion on density is just that, your opinion, not everyone agrees. Sure but curious why that comment is downvoted and yours is not? Disagreeement != downvote.
  - epistasis 7y ago
    It's not stated as opinion, and has some ridiculous statements like this in it: > The well being of the people is lost in the drive for infinite growth. There is no drive for infinite growth, that I have found. People are just trying to have enough housing for everyone, yet this "infinite growth might happen therefore we are going to impose housing austerity" is the attitude that has been prevalent in older suburban homeowners, and that's exactly how we got into this mess of a housing crisis. Categorically dismissing the large number of people that choose to live in cities because they prefer them is ridiculous. If it really were worse, prices would be lower in the cities than outside them. More people want what cities have to offer than are allowed to access them.
    - dominotw 7y ago
      > There is no drive for infinite growth, that I have found. What about Carbon emission projections. Isn't that proof of 'drive for infinite growth' ?
      - dnate 7y ago
        no, thats just growth
zozbot234 7y ago
You can always get to "decreased density" simply by moving away from the urban core. The jobs might not be as good, but that just goes to show that increased density does not necessarily involve a human cost.
- rb808 7y ago
  Similarly the people who complain of unaffordable housing can simply move to places where they are affordable. Same logic
achenatx 7y ago
there is no drive for "infinite growth". However so far the population keeps increasing at about .7% per year. Housing has to keep up to keep prices stable. If not, where do you suggest the people live?
- edoo 7y ago
  .7% growth is an exponential rate. Cities are corporations and the ones that push density are looking for money.
sujNansnam 7y ago
Higher density construction makes more room for low density everywhere else.

arcticbull 7y ago

The whole topic of conversation around housing affordability is backwards. Specifically, housing affordability is 100%, entirely, a problem of artificial constraints on supply by city councils. (1) Americans consider housing to be an investment. An investment is only an investment if you expect a positive return over time. We generally want that investment to match or exceed inflation. (2) That's antithetical to the idea of affordable housing. It's either affordable or an expensive, appreciating asset. It literally cannot be both at the same time. The only reason it's worked thus far is the broad-based expansion of the US economy and of specific population centers like SF has masked the problem for many, many years. Especially in conjunction with 30-year mortgages requiring 2% down. That's some serious leverage. We don't talk about the lack of affordable AAPL shares do we? That's insane, it's an investment, we want it to go up. The less affordable, the better! (3) Renters tend to be younger, transient and not vote. Owners tend to be older, wealthier, have deep roots in the community, and vote their asses off. They also aren't huge fans of change. They vote their interests: whatever keeps their, on average, largest investment performing well. If you want cheap housing forget rent control. Allow developers to build up as high as the infrastructure can sustain. Allow smaller units, too, micro-apartments like whatever that place is on Mission, Panoramic. It's time to re-think the idea of housing as an "investment." We need to re-focus the narrative to make housing much more utilitarian. This is reflected in major housing markets around the world, like Tokyo. They don't consider housing an investment, and they have some of the most affordable housing in any major metro in the world. [1] [1] https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-costs-tokyo https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-...

huntertwo 7y ago
Two thoughts 1) Isn't a developer also making an investment when they build these high as hell micro-apartment apartment buildings? 2) How do you avoid a race to the bottom in terms of housing quality when you allow said micro-apartments? Do we want a culture where the poor are living in barely livable wage slave pods while the rich are living in abundant villas? I'm all for affordable housing but it seems too nuanced to allow market forces to take care of it. I think the correct solution revolves around government subsidized/funded housing but that's a whole other can of beans.

raldi 7y ago

See also: Friday's “Don’t Blame Tech Bros for the Housing Crisis” column: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/opinion/sunday/housing-crisis-silicon-valley.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/opinion/sunday/housing-cr...

arcticbull 7y ago
If they spent that $4.5B on lobbying for upzoining and densification the problem would likely sort itself out. Probably for a fraction of the cost.
- WhompingWindows 7y ago
  If we divided that 4.5B by the number of tech workers, where would we be at? If there are 100,000 tech workers in the Bay Area, that'd be around $45,000 per person of lobbying for affordable housing. If those tech workers saved $500 per month, they would earn back what their companies spent on them in 90 months, or 7.5 years. Assumption, I don't know how many tech workers there truly are.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    >100,000 tech workers in Bay Area Seems pretty low of an estimate tbh. Just for scale, Google has around 45k employees in Bay Area alone. I realize that not every single one of them is an engineer. But even if just 30k of them are (completely ballpark guessing here), it seems pretty implausible that every 3rd engineer in bay area is a googler. Just did some googling, and according to this source[0], there are about 624k software developers in CA. I realize that it includes not only Bay Area, obviously, but I am willing to reasonably bet that a heavy majority of the developers are there, with a notable chunk in LA as well, something on the order of 116k. To be more specific about how I arrived to that estimate, I checked StackOverflow Jobs portal, to see how many job openings there are in LA vs Bay Area, assuming that the number of job openings proportionally correlates (positively) with actual people working in said jobs. LA had 118 openings [1], while Bay area had 518 [2]. 624,000/(518+118)*118 ~= 116,000. Yes, it is napkin level of statistics, but that's the best estimate I could think of. 0. https://www.daxx.com/blog/development-trends/number-software-developers-world https://www.daxx.com/blog/development-trends/number-software... 1. https://stackoverflow.com/jobs?l=Los+Angeles%2C+CA%2C+USA&d=20&u=Miles https://stackoverflow.com/jobs?l=Los+Angeles%2C+CA%2C+USA&d=... 2. https://stackoverflow.com/jobs?l=bay+area&d=20&u=Miles https://stackoverflow.com/jobs?l=bay+area&d=20&u=Miles

afpx 7y ago

How much do you think it will affect housing prices? Is there a model that can predict the effect? I'll be surprised if it helps a lot. Demand seems infinite.

whack 7y ago
> Is there a model that can predict the effect? Yes, the model is called supply and demand. When you increase the quantity supplied, the only way the extra quantity can be sold, is if the price drops. If you increase the quantity supplied without reducing the price, the extra units will never be sold. Why would they... anyone who was willing to pay the previous price, would have already done so and will already have a home in SF/Oakland. The only way to fill the new units is to entice new residents who aren't willing to pay the previous price point.
- afpx 7y ago
  Obviously. But, are you expecting a 10% decrease in prices, or 0.5%? Why so defensive? I’m asking Because if it works, I’d like to sell the idea to skeptics. We all lean scientific here, right?
  - pertymcpert 7y ago
    It's not him/her being defensive, it's basic economics that shouldn't have to be explained...
    - afpx 7y ago
      Sometimes one has to understand intermediate economics .... For instance, in cases of inelastic demand and low liquidity (like housing), if prices are pegged at a maximum that buyers can pay, the actual equilibrium price could be much higher. In that case, a small amount of extra supply will not lower prices.

balfirevic 7y ago

I saw this tweet recently, by patio11: https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1199366332468224000 https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1199366332468224000 "Tokyo has positive population growth of about 100,000 people a year, and rents and home prices are roughly stable for last decade. How? Outconstructing NYC. And LA. And SF. And Boston. And Houston. Combined. Every year."

iguy 7y ago
Does anyone know how much of such construction is re-construction, and how much new stock? I have heard (but am not sure) that the pattern is more to buy some land, knock down the previous guy's house, and build your own. On a time-scale of 20-30 years, closer to how Americans regard cars (e.g. having to buy used cars is undesirable) than how they regard houses (once built they stay in use forever, although renovated).
- alistairSH 7y ago
  A fair chunk of that rebuilding is due to more relaxed zoning which is additive instead of single-purpose. In the US, zones tend to be "single family home", "apartments", "town homes", "commercial", "retail". No overlap and the housing variants don't allow increased density without re-zoning, which is expensive. In Japan, zones are more like a maximum usage. "homes", "homes+retail", "home+retail+commercial", etc. The housing zones are less restrictive - typically single family, duplex, and low-rise apartments are all allowed in the basic residential zone. High-rise would be in a different zone, along with retail, commercial, etc.
  - iguy 7y ago
    Thanks, yes I'd heard it was more mixed. If you had to guess the proportion of construction which was new floor area (not just building 3 stories, but replacing a 1-story thing, etc.) would this be 10%, 50%, 90%? (I would blindly guess 90% for the US.)
theobeers 7y ago
Without disputing the main point, I wonder if he meant net new construction. He was asked about this in the replies and didn’t give a real answer. Houses in Japan have tended to be torn down and rebuilt every twenty to thirty years. It’s an unusual situation, owing to various factors, including code updates for earthquake resistance. An article on this topic: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusable-housing-revolution https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusabl...

delfinom 7y ago

Lacking from the article are the statistics for how affordable those homes are and actual occupancy. Developers overwhelmingly love upselling to "luxury homes" that are kept as investment deeds in someones closet. NYC for example is building new apartments like bloody crazy, none of them are affordable to anyone other than investors.

shuckles 7y ago
The quality of construction of new homes in Oakland is run of the mill new apartments. The same buildings in style and quality rent for $1,500/mo in Riverside, CA.
BurningFrog 7y ago
The price of housing is determined by supply and demand, not the developer. Building new housing lowers prices for all preexisting housing.
- maxsilver 7y ago
  > Building new housing lowers prices for all preexisting housing This is not true in the US. Housing in the US is valued solely by the value of the housing around it (called 'comps' or 'comparables'). Building new luxury housing raises the price for all preexisting nearby housing, because your comparables will now be based on whatever the luxury housing prices are (even if your own house is very modest, even if your own house could never fetch a similar price, even if you never try to sell your house) This is one of the big reasons you see pushback by rational, logical, well-informed residents in the US. Luxury housing usually raises all non-luxury housing costs nearby, simply by proximity. Is is effectively a form of financial pollution. Some people's wealth is so obscene, that the mere fact it exists in a physical location, punishes everyone else in proximity to that location. This is what Gentrification looks like in non-California, non-coastal cities. Wealthy people artificially inflate the value of property in an area (which they can do, because there's never any limits or restrictions on construction of any kind, so they always build the highest-cost highest-margin property possible). And regular residents are now forced to bear that cost, forever. It is possible to continue this bubble, irregardless of any actual demand for the housing, long after all real humans have checked out of the system. (See 2008 Financial Crisis). This process was not primarily driven by real people's housing needs, but by private capital's desire to store or grow their wealth, so real people have little control over it. And, in non-Californian states like mine where property taxes are not locked in, but are recalculated constantly based on "market comparables", the bill for this financial pollution will hit you instantly on your next property tax invoice. Luxury condos go up on your block? Congrats, the tax bill for your old modest home is now doubled next year. Don't like it? Your only other option is to rent the unaffordable shitty luxury crap they just built.

mr_tristan 7y ago

I'm not sure what Oakland is doing is actually a major change. It's like something just triggered the money to flow to finish a bunch of projects in the east bay. But the spigot could just turn off again. There's something broken in city planning that seems to be the largest hurdle to addressing affordability. Cities seem to want to have a box with a label on a map that doesn't change much. Then, if something changes within that box, there needs to be this big massive process. The "real fix" might be figuring out how cities can work on a smaller scale, not with these massive projects. Just look at the report for the Oakland plan: https://cao-94612.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/FINAL_DOSP-Public-Review-Draft-Plan_082819_Compressed.pdf https://cao-94612.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/FINAL_DOSP-Publ... I'm struck by how much it must have cost to even generate that plan. And, there's a ton of goals, but no feedback loop. As the plans are implemented over the next decade or two, how do they know what's going well and what isn't?

itstartsnow 7y ago

i have a plan small homes starting at 500sqft suitable for the x military also our elderly most will have small 1 room apartments to help with living costs. for every 2000 houses a collage will be built.max tuition will be $1500per semester and every 4 years tuition will go down 25% until it is free. 1st phase 150,000 homes priced approximtly 50,000 per home nothing fancy built to last all solar power stage 2 300,000 homes stage 3 electric glide monorail train coast to coast 2hr traveling speed of 2000 kmph change it starts now we the people are not asking we are demanding

MarketRateSucks 7y ago

...market rate supply.

iav 7y ago

Oakland has built less housing per capita than SF over the last 5 years, as mentioned in the article. Appears like a few big projects finished construction and 2019 was an outlier year. The article implies this bounty will continue by citing “15,000 units in development” but doesn’t mention that SF has 4x as many “in development” and many projects linger in that category for a decade and many never get built.

hkmurakami 7y ago
For large projects it takes 3- 5 years to get through municipal approval.

xivzgrev 7y ago

Not surprising. San Francisco seems to vote more owner friendly vs Oakland which votes more renter friendly. For SF I thought the recent proposition E was encouraging. It reduced zoning requirements on public zoned land for affordable housing. It was first proposition I’ve seen that reduces zoning requirements, it seems like a “toe in the water” for reducing complexity for addressing housing. Of course one might argue fuck toes in water we are in crisis, but given my first statement, I saw it as a trial balloon. Hopefully we see more aggressive measures in next few elections

exabrial 7y ago

How to increase the housing supply: get the government out. Places in California requires things like requiring all homes to have a high amperage outlet in the garage for charging electric cars. Do you really think people that are struggling to keep a roof over their head are driving a Tesla?

arcticbull 7y ago
Yes, let's get the government out, of deciding how tall houses can be. Removing the requirement for a high-amperage outlet (a tiny incremental cost during building) is like an umbrella in a hurricane. Nice to have, but totally doesn't solve the real problem.
- ajkjk 7y ago
  I think that was an example, not the entire point.
  - exabrial 7y ago
    Lost on both of them. You should look up other useless stuff, like how many outlets are required in kitchens.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      My argument is many of these represent small incremental costs and even if all of them were eliminated then affordability wouldn’t change in any appreciable degree. On the other hand increasing supply (even if somewhat more expensive in a per unit basis due to regulations that neither of us can really say are good, bad or cost effective) will. It’s the easy win.
bradlys 7y ago
> Do you really think people that are struggling to keep a roof over their head are driving a Tesla? I mean - adding an outlet for electric cars is probably $100-200 in labor+parts when constructing a new home. It's trivial to add when everything is already exposed. And, if you're in CA and buying a new home -> you can afford a Tesla or some other electric car. Alternatively - you have a 40-amp outlet. Run a washer/dryer there instead or maybe a table saw or something? The outlet will still be useful for things beyond a car. The new ruling on requiring solar on new homes is actually more problematic in terms of cost. https://fortune.com/2018/12/06/california-solar-panels-new-homes/ https://fortune.com/2018/12/06/california-solar-panels-new-h...

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago

> the city passed a series of neighborhood plans in and around downtown that relaxed zoning and removed parking requirements, making it easier and cheaper to build. Wait, you mean deregulation isn’t just a republican talking point? And restrictive city (and state) governments were the problem this whole time???

jayd16 7y ago
Except its just as regulated, just differently. Its certainly not "the private sector policing itself." Efficient regulation that conforms to need is not the same as deregulation.
- pitaj 7y ago
  Removing parking requirements = fewer requirements = less regulation = deregulation. Deregulation does not equal zero regulation.
elicash 7y ago
I don't think anybody is pro or con "regulation" in the abstract. People disagree over whether specific regulations are good or bad. Example: I live in DC and there's been recent controversy with the Historic Preservation Review Board essentially thinking solar panels are ugly. It's legit to have regulations regarding the appearance of homes if those neighborhoods want them, but at the same time is short-sighted to block solar panels. I'm sure you're for some regulations and not others, no reason to make this ideological.
tick_tock_tick 7y ago
I mean in this case it's hard to find any expert that doesn't agree the problem is self created from over regulation. That doesn't mean we don't need any zoning laws though.

earlINmeyerkeg 7y ago

The reason midwestern cities hardly have housing bubbles like the coastal areas do is because old housing is cheap and competes with renting. Landlords can't afford to not be lenient. Although the only change I wish to see is that tenants could more easily enforce their rights and Landlords had to follow the law. Most midwestern state governments are very laissez faire about the whole thing which is incredibly annoying. Apartment cleaning is illegal to make tenants pay for or withold a security deposit, yet they still do it anyway cause landlords know tenants aren't taking them to small claims for it. As a tenant, you need housing references. So taking your landlord to court over $100 is a surefire way to making you ineligible for further tenancy basically. Landlords don't like tenants that know and enforce their rights.

danans 7y ago
> The reason midwestern cities hardly have housing bubbles like the coastal areas do is because old housing is cheap and competes with renting. Sure, but isn't the reason that housing is cheaper because those cities don't have anywhere near the level of demand that coastal cities have.
- earlINmeyerkeg 7y ago
  Yes and I'm not denying that. Also the midwest hasn't seen radical overvaluation of property that the coastal areas do. Since demand is so high there, the value of the property is not determined upon is "worth," but on someones ability to pay. You can see how that becomes a major issue when things crash. Suddenly many people lose out on the value of the place they paid for.
  - danans 7y ago
    > Since demand is so high there, the value of the property is not determined upon is "worth," but on someones ability to pay. The monetary value of the something is by definition what the highest bidder is willing to pay for it. How would you determine it otherwise?
- mrep 7y ago

jelliclesfarm 7y ago

How can we think of housing without considering resource constraints. It’s not just space to build vertically that determines how many homes can be built..it’s traffic, infrastructure, roads, water, power, schools, essential services, public services, public spaces, community amenities..the list goes on. Urban density cannot keep on increasing. You cannot ‘keep on adding homes’. We are already having very high costs of living and this also contributes to unaffordability of Bay Area cities. The only winner is the state which can get more property tax dollars in Bay Area and other urban centers than elsewhere in California. Essentially a handful of high tech dollar fueled California cities are subsidizing the entire state. This state will implode with this ‘high density is sustainable’ and ‘build and they will come’ mantra. We are already having power outages, crumbling infrastructure, increasing water rates, more and more tolls, high rents, overcrowded schools and unending traffic jams. And the rent is nothing to sneeze at.. The high density lobby is going to incinerate my state. Having already witnessed the devastation this kind of building has caused in my home country, this breaks my heart and frankly I am terrified for the future.

joe_the_user 7y ago
How can we think of housing without considering resource constraints. It’s not just space to build vertically that determines how many homes can be built..it’s traffic, infrastructure, roads, water, power, schools, essential services, public services, public spaces, community amenities..the list goes on. High density living is potentially more efficient than low density living (look European or some Asian cities, etc). Indeed, the US model of the low-density mega-city is the thing that has become unsustainable - commuting from city to suburb or suburb-to-suburb involves a huge amount of infrastructure that is simple to build but expensive to maintain. The problem of the US in particular is that low-density has had the upper hand for so long that efforts to produce sane high density get sabotaged in a variety of ways (look the difference in cost per mile of public transit in the US versus Europe).
- jelliclesfarm 7y ago
  You can also think China and eastern bloc. What people want is not high density housing but high density luxury living. Every home is no less than 1200 sq ft and two cars and 2 kids if it’s a family..and a million dollar. This is not sustainable high density. It’s a scam. You can’t compare Asian and European (i have lived in both places)high density building to what is touted in the Bay Area.

jelliclesfarm 7y ago

I think there has been a very successful diversion of derision towards ‘Americans who own homes’ and ignoring the vast majority of foreigners who own properties(both rent seeking and farmland) in the Bay Area as speculative/investment properties that they have purchased sight unseen. Deriding pensioners on fixed income whose taxes actually built the infrastructure and schools and roads of the Bay Area is shameful..Whose final home is not ‘speculative property’, but their retirement nest egg. Not everyone has a pension from a public sector job. Look into pension funds, foreign investors,insurance companies, university investment funds ..and yes, Wall Street..who are literally raiding California from the other side of our state to see how this inequality and unaffordablility is caused. And the Govt in the state of California seated in Sacramento is complicit in this. On a broader scale, they are also stealing our water(example: family farms in Paso Robles can’t grow their crops like alfafa and corn because of a water moratorium because Harvard investment funds have bought acres and acres to grow grapes in vineyards..and drilling wells at the fence line which makes it legal but essentially taps into aquifers and water tables meant for the entire region. 1500 ft when water was found at 300 ft.) This is causing a divide between rural and urban causing the former to become unliveable and increasing population pressures on highly dense urban hubs.

throwaway34241 7y ago
What is the cause/effect here? You seem to be laying the blame at foreigners, wall street, etc for causing the housing shortage, but the cause/effect of voters/local governments prohibiting building housing -> housing shortage is pretty straightforward, I don't see why pointing it out should be "shameful". I don't think homeowners are a unified block on this issue, but specifically the local organizations that put a lot of effort into preventing housing during a serious shortage seem to reasonably deserve some criticism. In the bay area even small proposals (like allowing 1 story of apartments over shops, or some mid-density near transit) often get killed by groups that uniformly oppose all housing.
- jelliclesfarm 7y ago
  Is it a housing shortage or an excess of population in urban centers? What are you going to do living like sardines in a can where high density housing has been approved if there is a high cost to scarce water/power/infrastructure and support services.

mrtweetyhack 7y ago

Private developers will build anything with 0 regard. Laws are in place to maintain sustainability. You could build a million new homes but what about water and waste issues?