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It's sad, the point about the bay area. We could have done a lot more but nobody wants to make any sacrifices. I hope in the next decade the state will take a

It's sad, the point about the bay area. We could have done a lot more but nobody wants to make any sacrifices. I hope in the next decade the state will take a larger role and force local communities to drastically increase housing, density, and transit rights of way.

twblalock 7y ago
I've lived in the Bay Area for most of my life and I have zero confidence the situation will improve. It would have happened by now if it was going to. The transit situation in particular will not improve because people prefer cars. People have little experience with public transit, and the experience they do have was bad, so they don't see themselves using it on a regular basis. They want to live in suburbs and drive cars, and they will try very hard to prevent anyone from increasing the density of housing or transit anywhere near their houses. Those people vote, so a state government that tries to push for more public transit and housing density would not do well in the next election.
briandear 7y ago
Houston doesn’t have a housing problem, nor particularly good transit. It also doesn’t have zoning and a local government that pulverized developers by charging them fees for things already paid for by property taxes like building schools or forcing them to have “low income” units which end up making housing more expensive. Texas also doesn’t have rent control, nor excessively reactionary building height restrictions, nor does Texas have Prop 13 incentives that reduce housing market liquidity. “Transit” and “Density” isn’t the problem in the Bay Area — it’s that it’s excessively punitive to attempt to build anything there. If you were to be able to afford available land, cities such as Mountain View want to milk developers to pay for things that the city should be paying for themselves out of normal tax revenue. I remember when Steve Jobs wanted to build Apple Park and some fool on city council wanted Apple to provide WiFi for the city for free: Jobs said that it isn’t Apple’s job to provide city services — Apple pays their property taxes, if Cupertino wanted free WiFi, then Cupertino should do it. There are also cases where if a developer wanted to build some houses; they’d also have to give the city a free park and dedicate a certain number of houses for “low income.” That isn’t a developer’s problem. If the city wants low income housing, the city should use some of its own land and budget to build it. You don’t have that sort of extortion happening in places like Houston — and coincidentally, you don’t have affordability problems in Houston either. A developer also is shy about investing hundreds of millions into a project only to get it derailed by NIMBYs or other activists or worse, be a single election away from having severe rent control or confiscatory tax policies enacted that would destroy any hope of a profit from the substantial risk of property development. I don’t disagree with allowing high density where it is appropriate, but density isn’t the issue, it’s the extreme high costs, both political and monetary of doing business in the region. There is plenty of land, but given than almost every empty cow pasture ends up getting claimed as “open space,” makes it really hard to build anything. Case in point: the “preservation” of North Coyote Valley. I appreciate open space, however, they literally preserved 900 acres of flat farmland to be used for hiking despite the region being chock full of thousands of acres of open space already. You can’t claim a housing shortage while simultaneously taking away 900 prime acres that would be perfect for housing developments. Clearly there isn’t a housing problem when so much easily buildable land can be sequestered away so vegan hipsters can have yet another thousand acres to roam with their rescue dogs. The Bay Area has no shortage of open space, yet they keep adding more to it while people literally sleep in RVs in El Camino and a young family has no hope of ever owning a house in the area.

twblalock 7y ago

I've lived in the Bay Area for most of my life and I have zero confidence the situation will improve. It would have happened by now if it was going to. The transit situation in particular will not improve because people prefer cars. People have little experience with public transit, and the experience they do have was bad, so they don't see themselves using it on a regular basis. They want to live in suburbs and drive cars, and they will try very hard to prevent anyone from increasing the density of housing or transit anywhere near their houses. Those people vote, so a state government that tries to push for more public transit and housing density would not do well in the next election.

briandear 7y ago

Houston doesn’t have a housing problem, nor particularly good transit. It also doesn’t have zoning and a local government that pulverized developers by charging them fees for things already paid for by property taxes like building schools or forcing them to have “low income” units which end up making housing more expensive. Texas also doesn’t have rent control, nor excessively reactionary building height restrictions, nor does Texas have Prop 13 incentives that reduce housing market liquidity. “Transit” and “Density” isn’t the problem in the Bay Area — it’s that it’s excessively punitive to attempt to build anything there. If you were to be able to afford available land, cities such as Mountain View want to milk developers to pay for things that the city should be paying for themselves out of normal tax revenue. I remember when Steve Jobs wanted to build Apple Park and some fool on city council wanted Apple to provide WiFi for the city for free: Jobs said that it isn’t Apple’s job to provide city services — Apple pays their property taxes, if Cupertino wanted free WiFi, then Cupertino should do it. There are also cases where if a developer wanted to build some houses; they’d also have to give the city a free park and dedicate a certain number of houses for “low income.” That isn’t a developer’s problem. If the city wants low income housing, the city should use some of its own land and budget to build it. You don’t have that sort of extortion happening in places like Houston — and coincidentally, you don’t have affordability problems in Houston either. A developer also is shy about investing hundreds of millions into a project only to get it derailed by NIMBYs or other activists or worse, be a single election away from having severe rent control or confiscatory tax policies enacted that would destroy any hope of a profit from the substantial risk of property development. I don’t disagree with allowing high density where it is appropriate, but density isn’t the issue, it’s the extreme high costs, both political and monetary of doing business in the region. There is plenty of land, but given than almost every empty cow pasture ends up getting claimed as “open space,” makes it really hard to build anything. Case in point: the “preservation” of North Coyote Valley. I appreciate open space, however, they literally preserved 900 acres of flat farmland to be used for hiking despite the region being chock full of thousands of acres of open space already. You can’t claim a housing shortage while simultaneously taking away 900 prime acres that would be perfect for housing developments. Clearly there isn’t a housing problem when so much easily buildable land can be sequestered away so vegan hipsters can have yet another thousand acres to roam with their rescue dogs. The Bay Area has no shortage of open space, yet they keep adding more to it while people literally sleep in RVs in El Camino and a young family has no hope of ever owning a house in the area.