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California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build
- jaequery 7y agoclick bait gone wild Edit: looks like the title changed now
- mc32 7y agoIt’s like they wanted to riff on the failed ‘08 candidate for the vice presidency but couldn’t allow themselves to do it.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoTo me it sounds like “developers, developers, developers” But I am glad that the media is reporting this. California is slowly killing itself with its housing policy. I live in an area where there are only people who are either rich retirees or whose parents have bought real estate before the market went crazy. And these people kill any effort to build more. It’s basically impossible for regular people to live here.
- selimthegrim 7y agoI thought it was ripping off that Chinese stela inscription that supposedly ends with seven ‘kills’
- kempbellt 7y agoMaybe they're taking the Steve Ballmer approach to promotion
- trevyn 7y agoThis is what the apocalypse looks like!
- jngreenlee 7y agoText please?
- glaberficken 7y agohttps://pad.riseup.net/p/BS4bd3KJQR7-DeHuBI-Q-keep https://pad.riseup.net/p/BS4bd3KJQR7-DeHuBI-Q-keep
- i_am_nomad 7y agoYIMBY should more properly be called YITBY (yes in their back yards).
- davidw 7y agoCache invalidation is hard too. ... woosh .... I guess.
- notJim 7y agoAhh the classic NIMBY move, whether it's homeless folks or just people who want bike lanes: "These people aren't from here!"
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- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- irq11 7y agoI’m not a “NIMBY”, but I believe the YIMBY moniker is counter-productive to your cause. It automatically frames the question in a sophomoric way, where the “other side” is an evil force to be mocked and dismissed. In reality, there is no such thing as a “NIMBY”, just a collection of people with differing - often rational - interests concerning any given project. Until and unless you address these interests, calling people names and yelling ”just build, dammit!” will not get you what you want. I think, if you talk to most of these folks, you find that many/most abstractly support the idea that building is required. It’s the specifics where the problems lie, and calling people names doesn’t resolve fundamental issues. This is why the “Yes in your Backyard” line is such a devastating rhetorical criticism: everyone favors development of projects that don’t affect them.
- XMPPwocky 7y ago"not in my backyard" is exactly what you describe- the stereotypical liberal response of "yes, we should build affordable housing, but not HERE, where I live- put it somewhere else, where I'm not affected by them- can you imagine all the crime that the Poors would bring to such a nice area". in other words, virtue-signalling about vague, general principles of increased development...buuut when that development actually impacts them, well! That particular project is just flawed for various reasons. The general idea is good! But it won't work here. It's the equivalent of the boss who totally supports unions but, you know, a union just wouldn't be right for our particular company culture. So, yeah, "yes in your backyard" is just the original definition of a NIMBY.
- truebosko 7y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20200214180644/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/economy/housing-crisis-conor-dougherty-golden-gates.html https://web.archive.org/web/20200214180644/https://www.nytim...
- corentin88 7y agoNot sure what you want to express with this link?
- rhinoceraptor 7y agoIt gets around the NYT paywall.
- fortran77 7y agoThe answer _is_ building more. (I'll say this before the people on Hacker News who are opposed to all private property suggest that "prop 13" is the problem. It's not.) The problem is they don't build enough. Build build build! They need the California State Government to overrule local zoning limits. We need to allow dense housing near rail lines and major roads. And I think that anywhere a single-family detached home currently exists, a 2-family home should be allowed. Build more housing! It's that simple. Prices will fall fast.
- aty268 7y agoI'm from Texas, and I don't understand the stigma against developers building more housing. It drives down prices, and increases competition. Why would California citizens ever be against this? Edit: The reason is because homeowners are competing with developers, so their own asset depreciates when supply increases. I was just thinking from the perspective of renters.
- revscat 7y agoBecause it doesn’t drive down prices.
- aty268 7y agoSimple economics tells me it does. Care to explain?
- jophde 7y agoBest you are going to get on here is something like "increased supply doesn't lower prices in the housing market duhhh" without any actual reasons.
- JamesBarney 7y agoI don't think housing is one of the few (if any) goods where increased supply drives up cost, nor do I think there is any evidence this is the case.
- Kenji 7y agoHaha I thought this was about compilation. This headline is how I spend about a quarter of my day.
- uniformlyrandom 7y agoHow about we talk about building infrastructure? The whole Bay Area is building like crazy, and yet the roads are getting worse (more building? more traffic lights!). Public transportation is a big joke around here. Caltrain from South San Jose to Mountain View? We have the tracks, we have the train... the train just does not go this route on weekends. We have the same situation as a startup focused on developing a product. We have abidance of developers, and very few infrastructure engineers. When we start deploying what we have built, we are going to have a bad time.
- rjkennedy98 7y agoShow the stats that Bay Area is building like crazy. I am so sick of people saying things like New York and Bay Area and California are building like crazy. No they are not. There is not one stat that shows that. Period.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago"In fact, Toronto currently has more cranes in the sky than New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston combined." https://www.blogto.com/real-estate-toronto/2019/07/toronto-construction-cranes/ https://www.blogto.com/real-estate-toronto/2019/07/toronto-c... Toronto prices are crazy, so Toronto isn't building enough, let alone the major coastal American cities.
- wpasc 7y agoI don't think new york should be lumped in with california in that measure. This site shows active construction in new york: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/buildings/html/nyc-active-major-construction.html https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/buildings/html/nyc-active-major-...
- shuckles 7y agoNew York built fewer new homes per capita than the Bay Area for half the years in the last decade.
- 7y ago
- pascalxus 7y agoI completely agree with the sentiment to build more, much more housing. But, in order to make that happen, we also need to: - get rid of or modify zoning laws (at least in places where growth will happen) - reduce regulations on builders - ensure that there are plenty of builders for health competition (so that consumers don't get ripped off) - provide protections for builders from Sue happy NIMBYs (some kind of legal protection that prevents builders from being sued and penalizes NIMBYs that try to stand in their way). The benefits of building more are so numerous: - every house that gets built reduces costs for everyone else as well, as the stress of under supply lessens - it's easier for people to get to work and find work - easier for companies to higher people - more jobs getting created, not just from people able to get to work but new jobs getting created from all that construction - It'll help the environment immensly! Everyday, I see the 580 - 5 lane highway clogged up with cars crawling by at 10mpg, probably getting very low MPG over a very long distance (this is where most of the CO2 pollution is coming from, at least in the US!) - over the long term even people with houses already will pay lower property taxes (decreasing values reduce prop taxes) - as the number of average miles driven per commute comes down, there will be less and less traffic.
- quotemstr 7y agoAnother beneficial change would be repealing proposition 13. Because proposition 13 essentially bans property tax increases for property owners, it creates a perverse incentive to drive property values as high as possible with restrictive zoning. Without proposition 13, property taxes would rise along with the land's economic value, creating an additional incentive for property owners to let the market naturally shift land use to higher-density housing.
- RangerScience 7y agoThere's good reasons to keep part of it. I figure: You get to have the Prop 13 effect on one property - notionally, your home, but since it's difficult / gameable to determine which place is "your home", fuggedaboutit, and just say "pick one". Because yeah, it'd suck to lose your home that you're supposed to own because your neighborhood got pricey.
- tomohawk 7y ago> He had now argued, and paid for, both sides of the same case. And this is why we need the English Rule. We're the only industrialized nation that does not have some form of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule_%28attorney%27s_fees%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule_%28attorney%27s_f...
- DonHopkins 7y agoThis is what I chant when I'm waiting for my code to compile. I was hoping this was an article about how to make it compile faster. (Edit: the original title was "Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build"! ;)
- pixxel 7y agoIn Steve Ballmer’s voice I hope. (https://youtu.be/Vhh_GeBPOhs https://youtu.be/Vhh_GeBPOhs)
- legitster 7y agoThere is a study that came out this year that I have been obsessed with: If zoning laws in San Francisco and New York City (just two places!) were frozen in place in 1964, the average American income today would be on average $3700 higher. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/mac.20170388?fbclid=IwAR2CVxKv_dajgwLfLZ5XnKVnx02o1ceYRHIGZ-8X2Ka7Cu6I-LpXEuC5FdQ https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/mac.20170388?fbc...
- aresant 7y agoSuper interesting study and to further clarify: "Our point is that a first-order effect of more housing in Silicon Valley is to raise income and welfare of all US workers."
- istjohn 7y agoIt goes to show that housing is a national issue that needs national solutions. We need federal legislation.
- tmh79 7y agoTo clarify, the issue is that in the 60's, both cities had much looser zoning and allowed dense housing development. Policy changes in the late 60s and early 70s tightened the zoning/reduced a cities ability to create dense housing.
- thenightcrawler 7y agobuild build build
- gdubs 7y agoHonest question: how do we address the housing crisis in the Bay Area without turning it into Los Angeles?
- contingencies 7y agoAvert global warming and maintain current patterns of SF weather.
- manfredo 7y agoBy building higher density housing, instead of restrictive zoning laws that foster urban sprawl.
- themagician 7y agoRezone the area around Golden Gate Park and turn it into a dense metropolis. You could 10x the density around there and be able to support the population. You’ve got wide streets, services, and it isn’t landfill. Honestly though, I feel like it isn’t really a crisis. It’s mostly rich people fighting with other rich people over whose backyard to build in. There are no real YIMBYs, just people who want to live in certain areas they don’t currently live in. Most of the poors have already been displaced. We pretend like they are the focus because it’s good for politics, but the reality is the diversity is already gone.
- thedance 7y agoEvery property within 1/4 mile of the N-Judah streetcar line should have over-the-counter, by-right zoning approval for 7-story buildings with zero parking and no setbacks.
- i_am_nomad 7y agoI used to live right near the park, 1/4 mile from the N-Judah. The infrastructure in that area can barely support the housing stock that exists right now.
- bluGill 7y ago
- staplers 7y agoArticles like this and the subsequent comments always reinforce to me that the human domain will never, or perhaps can never support wildlife and fauna. As much as we like to grandstand against mass extinction of wildlife and deforestation, we will always cave to economical and social pressures of modern life which almost exclusively require resource extraction and destruction of the biosphere.
- readarticle 7y agoThere isn’t a single pro wildlife/forest view expressed in this article, what’s being explicitly fought against here by YIMBY, and later Falk, are: ... letters to elected officials, and at the open microphone that Mr. Falk observed at the City Council meetings, residents said things like “too aggressive,” “not respectful,” “embarrassment,” “outraged,” “audacity,” “very urban,” “deeply upset,” “unsightly,” “monstrosity,” “inconceivable,” “simply outrageous,” “vehemently opposed,” “sheer scope,” “very wrong,” “blocking views,” “does not conform,” “property values will be destroyed,” and “will allow more crime to be committed.” If preserving wildlife and forests can be equated with preserving suburban lifestyles and property values, then yes, it’s perhaps already lost and we should all be quite sad.
- reading-at-work 7y ago> If preserving wildlife and forests can be equated with preserving suburban lifestyles and property values It can't, and shouldn't, be equated to that. Denser urban living, i.e. building more housing in cities, reduces suburban sprawl. That's a good thing if you care about the environment.
- papreclip 7y agoThe haber-bosch process is the worst scientific advance human beings have ever made, much worse than tetra-ethyl lead, CFCs, or the atom bomb. It's not even possible to grow enough food to support the current world population without industrial nitrogen fixation for fertilizer. We've thrown things horribly out of equilibrium by proceeding in this manner and no amount of high density housing, paper straws, or solar panels is going to make things gravy it's like the bacteria in a biological weapons lab learned how to place orders for and distribute more agar
- neonate 7y agohttps://archive.md/39Yh4 https://archive.md/39Yh4
- Invictus0 7y agoIf California were its own country, would it try to build more housing or would it put up a border wall and halt immigration? It's clear to me that Californians would choose the latter, and I don't really blame them. Deep down, everyone hates change, especially the type of transformative change that is taking place in these California suburbs. What does Lafayette owe the people of San Francisco?--or more accurately, the people that are not from California that chose to move to San Francisco? The revolving door that defines California immigration today, where wealthy young software developers go in and middle/lower class native Californians go out, is what is hollowing out the population, shifting the culture, and causing the homelessness problem, and building more housing isn't going to fix that.
- timerol 7y agoBuilding more housing would result in that revolving door just being an entrance. CA would still get the influx of "wealthy young software developers", but would also be able to keep all of the "middle/lower class native Californians," since there would be room for all of the newcomers to live. CA could stop playing this horrendous game of musical chairs, where every techie that moves in displaces a local, and instead have enough room for everyone to live.
- Invictus0 7y agoIt's not just building housing, it's building more of everything including transit and infrastructure, as other commenters have noted. Not to mention, housing cannot be built fast enough. See this earlier discussion [0]. And for what? Why should people happily established in a place have to cater to the whims of people that are not in that place? It's like allowing people in India to vote in American elections so that they can lobby for their own immigration rights. It's patently ridiculous on the scale of a nation and it's still ridiculous on the scale of a state. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18120479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18120479
- komali2 7y agoIf they wanted to halt immigration, why would they build a border wall? That would be a highly expensive and ineffective way to halt immigration, for fairly obvious reasons.
- Lendal 7y agoThis story reminds me of when I was a kid and the school bus would come. Often there were no seats because every seat was taken--one kid each. There was plenty of room there, but the kids who got on the bus first would ban together to prevent new kids from sitting. Today these kids have grown up and own homes in the suburbs. New kids need to move in, but the kids who got there first refuse to let them build. That's what this story is about.
- xamuel 7y agoThat analogy isn't exactly accurate. To make it accurate, the kids sitting in the current seats would have to have paid a significant amount to purchase those seats. Also, throw in some kids who, for neurological reasons, become extremely distressed if they're forced to sit next to very loud kids. Because of this, they (or their parents) made a big sacrifice to secure single seats for them at great expense.
- collias 7y agoYou're right, and I feel like this is something that is frequently either downplayed or willfully ignored. If I live in California where home prices are sky-high, and I've saved up for nearly a decade for a house, why would I be willing to allow legislation that would likely devalue my biggest asset (by far) that I saved and sacrificed so diligently for? This is a legitimate question, not trying to be a jerk. I'm genuinely curious what the argument against this is.
- lthornberry 7y agoIncreased development wouldn't necessarily devalue you asset, particularly if it's a single family house or a condo in a relatively low-density development. Right now, the high cost of housing in the Bay Area is largely due to a couple of factors: 1 - high cost of labor. Rezoning won't change that. 2 - restrictions on right to build. Rezoning will reduce this. 3 - high cost of land. Rezoning will increase this, by making it possible to build more units of housing on a given area of land. For most current homeowners, it's likely that 3 will outweigh 2. Developers will buy up some portion of single family housing stock (and low-density multifamily stock) to rebuild the lots with denser housing. That process will both increase demand and reduce supply of those types of housing, resulting in price increases. At the same time, the average unit of housing will cost less, because there will be many more condos/apartments available. Owners of high-density condos would be the most vulnerable to seeing their asset values decrease. However, building big condo buildings is still going to be a complicated endeavor, so price adjustments will happen slowly over time. No one's going to get hosed, although their asset prices might go up more slowly over time than otherwise, or even be eroded by inflation in the long term. At the same time, many of those condo owners will still come out ahead. They may be able to upgrade to a nicer condo than they otherwise could have afforded. They may also benefit from the second-order effects of lower average housing prices, in the form of reduced costs for non-housing items. If they run a business, it will be easier for them to attract and retain workers. Schools and other public services will also be better able to attract and retain quality staff, at a lower wage bill. Etc.
- _hardwaregeek 7y agoHaving been born and raised in a major city, I'm certainly biased, but I truly believe that suburbs should go away. Every part of a suburb seems so insular, so wasteful, so outmoded. A one family house requires maintenance, heating and wiring that would be so much more efficient with even the smallest apartment complex. Lawns are ridiculous, especially in the parts of the country where grass is not indigenous. Why the hell are we spending so much water and energy to maintain a goddamn green rectangle? HOAs don't seem to do much besides execute petty laws. Neighborhoods, while they can be diverse, will never approach a city in terms of allowing people of different backgrounds, races, etc. to interact. There's a particular reason cities vote more democratic than suburbs: It's hard to vote for such hateful policies when you interact with the people effected every day. I get that there's this nostalgia or rather inertia about suburbs. I get that people grew up in a one family house with a lawn in their nice homogeneous town. But it needs to go away.
- bathtub365 7y agoForcing everyone into cities is also a form of homogenizing. The idea that a city mindset is the only one is just forcing people to conform in a different way.
- sokoloff 7y ago"I get that some people like it, but I don't, so it needs to go away."
- _hardwaregeek 7y agoMore like this thing that people like is energy inefficient, produces pollution and leads to more homogeneous, less diverse communities. And therefore it should go away.
- greedo 7y agoI have a coworker who mentioned that he doesn't think my town needs libraries. "I never use them, so why should my taxes go to supporting them?" Trying to have a productive dialogue with someone who doesn't understand the idea of community can be a challenge.
- davidw 7y agoGetting involved with a local YIMBY group is pretty easy, fun, and one of the best things you can do on several fronts: * It's good for the economy, as "legitster" points out. * It's good for the environment if people can drive less (or even walk or bike!) because they live closer to things. * It's good for the people "on the margins", those struggling to pay rent, or those at risk of homelessness, or those who might like to move to a more productive place for a better job. It's much easier to make a difference locally: in many places it's not hard to get to know your city councilors, or state reps/senators. One of my prouder YIMBY moments was turning out 5 people on a weekday morning to speak to our state rep, who ended up voting in favor of HB 2001, which legalizes up to 4-plexes throughout most Oregon cities.
- exterrestrial 7y ago>It's good for the people "on the margins", those struggling to pay rent, or those at risk of homelessness, or those who might like to move to a more productive place for a better job. Please cite at lease one example in which this has ever been the case. I do understand the theory behind your argument here, and I assume you are familiar with (leftist) counter-arguments, so this is not an attempt to open a debate. Rather, I want you to be right but until I see some solid evidence I am unconvinced. >One of my prouder YIMBY moments was turning out 5 people on a weekday morning to speak to our state rep, who ended up voting in favor of HB 2001, which legalizes up to 4-plexes throughout most Oregon cities. This is a great example of how it seems to me that YIMBYs are anti-NIMBY in the way Democrats are anti-Republican. Time and time again, it appears neither groups are actually doing any thing ‘good for the people “on the margins. Clearly, this policy benefits landlords more than anybody and the implication is that this is besides the fact of lowering rent prices. Fine. But it is not insignificant that all of these efforts primarily promote the perpetuation of rent-seeking. I watched from the front row as investors bought up Portland. It has been about 6 years since it entered full-swing and rent prices are higher than ever before. This is not good for people “on the margins”. In fact, most of those people were not even on the margins before the investors came in. I am one of them. I should know. Of course, history is littered with cases of YIMBY theory failing urban housing markets, so please show me an example of where your theories have actually succeeded.
- pneill 7y agoIt's very complicated. People have conflicting ideas - one the one hand, they want affordable housing (ie their rent to go down) or the other, not in my backyard. Worth a view The Insane Battle To Sabotage a New Apartment Building Explains San Francisco's Housing Crisis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExgxwKnH8y4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExgxwKnH8y4
- downerending 7y agoI might be hopelessly naive, but why not do the new growth somewhere else? The BA is pretty obviously "full" already, and adding more housing of any kind isn't going to make it better.
- lthornberry 7y agoThe BA isn't "full" by any reasonable measure. See this list of US cities by population density for comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_population_d.... San Francisco is 21st on the list, at 17,246 people per sq mi; the next densest city in the Bay Area is Daly City, which is 49th at 13,703 people per sq mi. By contrast, NYC has 27,016 people per sq mi; the densest suburb of Boston (Somerville) has 18,431; West Hollywood has 18,297. There's plenty of room for more people in the Bay Area, if denser housing is allowed.
- downerending 7y agoIt's subjective, of course, but when I worked in NYC, I was able to commute from an area with a density more like 2,000 per sq mi. Maybe an hour each way. That's what I think of as "not full". I believe I looked for something like that in the BA and it doesn't really exist.
- danbmil99 7y agoGo ahead and build, but make damn sure you are being rational about people's behavior when it comes to driving and transit. My ex moved into a condominium complex that has exactly zero parking spots or loading docks for visitors, and no parking for half a mile in either direction. It's an absolute total fail. Neighbors rat on each other to get each other's cars towed because they get so upset. It's literally impossible to have a party there or even invite friends over because they simply cannot park and there is no transit available anywhere near there. There aren't any bike lanes either because it's a financially strapped city and the complex is near the border of a rich city that explicitly does things to make it harder to get between the two townships. I'm just saying, both hands have to know what each other are doing and people have to make rational decisions at the municipal level.
- WhompingWindows 7y agoWow, seems like there was a leaps-and-bounds approach instead of an incremental style with that building. Their rationale may have been to think of a car-less society?
- jsharf 7y agoI think YIMBY is about city restrictions and ordinance. This sounds like the private building developers just wanted to save money and cheaped out on building additional parking space. Unless the city itself imposed a restriction on parking That being said, I'm not aware of any YIMBYish laws that outright restrict parking in residential areas. The only thing equivalent I can think of is the Market street law in SF, but that's not a residential area, so it actually makes sense.
- foota 7y ago...Bellevue?
- lazyasciiart 7y agoI don't think you can physically get half a mile away from the nearest available parking in Bellevue.
- tibiahurried 7y agoDo yourself a favor, don't buy real estate in California unless you are rich. It's not financially worth it for the majority of people out there. If you must live in California I'd suggest to rent and invest your money instead. Then come up with a plan and move to a more affordable/sustainable state or country.
- pruneridge 7y agoWhat happens when more people move into the area from the rest of the country and start driving to work from their newly built housing units? Silicon Valley has, at best, poor coverage of Caltrain and no coverage for BART in South Bay. If let’s say 10,000 more families move to San Jose into new housing units and they all need to commute to Palo Alto for work, how exactly would they do that without choking up the already clogged freeway network? Caltrain is already packed beyond imagination during rush hour. Each year, the rush hour commute time between Palo Alto and San Jose increasing by 5 minutes and that’s with limited net population growth in the area. Imagine if the population influx increased 2X or 5X. Housing is not an isolated problem. Due to decades of lobbying by the auto industry and a crippled public transportation strategy, what America really has is a transportation and infrastructure problem. Without solving that, the housing problem will never be truly solved and building new housing will degrade the quality of life of everyone in the area - both newcomers and existing residents.
- wbl 7y agoYou can actually hire Germans to run your trains.
- mertd 7y agoYou might have it backwards. Traffic is increasing because we're adding offices but no housing nearby. Therefore people need to pour in from further out. With higher density, alternate transportation options become viable and attractive.
- pruneridge 7y agoYour argument does not account for people currently outside the Bay Area moving into the Bay Area because of cheaper housing. While people currently residing in far flung places would move closer to their work, the people living in other parts of the country aspiring to live in Silicon Valley would now move to Morgan Hill and Gilroy. Eventually, we will end up with the same housing crunch, except with twice the number of cars on the road.
- 7y ago
- subsubzero 7y agoFun Fact: if three cities(San Jose, San Francisco, NYC) in America were to loosen up housing planning rules, America's GDP would be 4% higher, that is incredible in of itself, source: (paywall - https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/01/16/the-wests-biggest-economic-policy-mistake?frsc=dg%7Ce https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/01/16/the-wests-bigge...) Although I think California especially needs new housing, the bay area in particular has a housing issue which is somewhat artificially created due to a number of large (google, facebook, etc) and smaller tech companies requiring a "buts in seat" mentality and a philosophy that all "important" jobs be based in the bay area near their HQ's. Its really quite sad as a job that can be done anywhere is forced to be located in one of the most expensive areas on earth.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoPrices have hit their limits, and companies are more willing to entertain the idea that qualified talent exists outside of the Bay Area. Remote work is growing, and some portion of that growth is certainly attributable to the Bay Area housing market.
- rcpt 7y agoEnrico Moretti's research is great. In my opinion it makes a strong argument that the federal government should step in and tear down California's economic wall
- aSplash0fDerp 7y agoAs mentioned in the comments, housing/shelter has a different meaning depending on your perspective (renter/owner, single/married, young/old or import/local resident). Unless we define housing types/building codes for specific subsets, it'll most likely be just more of the same development/investments. With many major metro areas bursting at the seams, I think they need to break ground on new 21st century cities and identify a way to lower the populations as a solution/initial step, rather than adding more deck chairs to the ship. This gives the economy a new canvas to work with and the opportunity to move forward 100% with sustainable priciples without being encumbered by the pre-existing conditions plaguing NIMBY strongholds. With desalination and autonomous vehicles becoming a bigger part of the modern economy, California could build horseshoe/teardrop shaped autonomous highways from the coastline cities hundreds of miles inland that allow modern logistics to fillin the gaps with public transportation and servicing basic needs (water, sanitation, public services) and accomodate new suburban models to house an ever-growing population. Outside of the earthquake zones, the can build the high-density housing they need to solve a good portion of the social crisis. Extending cities with autonomous loops may not be the best answer, but the existing city planning models need more pioneering strategies if they want to seed future growth.
- c0nfused 7y agoThe answer was and always will be to increase density not increase transit to the suburbs. This is how you get 2 hour commutes. The idea that you are not doing the driving doesn't make a 150 mile commute seem better to me. You can cap density by height like most European cities do or go up forever like Shanghai. But simply arguing suburbs + highways were the 1950s answer and will be the 2050s answer is missing the point.
- aSplash0fDerp 7y agoYour "always" statement reeks of a legacy mindset that doesn't have room to explore implementing new technologies/logistics outside of the box as potential solutions and you also appear to be oblivious to the overhanging threat that earthquakes have in long-term planning for high-density housing in California. Why do you think Cali has not overbuilt skyscrapers to solve the housing crisis? The moneys has always been there to build them. Its probably something obvious huh? Edit: I'm also in Southern California and am impressed with the sheer number of bungalows that cover the landscape. They would have chosen other alternatives had they been available during the growth boom. I also felt the tremors in July of last year from the quakes 150 miles away and think that is still top-of-mind looking forward.
- eruditegamer420 7y agoMaybe if there were fewer residents of California who were actually citizens of other countries that don't belong here, there wouldn't be a 'housing crisis'?
- annoyingnoob 7y agoI'm all for more housing but we need to make sure we have the appropriate infrastructure to support it, water, sewage treatment, roads, etc. The city I live in has been growing a lot, but so has traffic and crime.
- woodrow 7y agoDo you live in California? If so, your city's infrastructure may be struggling due to the county's lagging property tax revenue, which in turn is a result of Prop 13.
- annoyingnoob 7y agoNot exactly, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mello-Roos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mello-Roos Mello Roos more than doubles my Prop 13 property taxes. My neighborhood gives way more than its fair share. The schools suck, the roads are too narrow, I could go on. Its poor planning and probably out-right corruption.
- Koremat6666 7y agoEither ways my recommendation is to make a informed choice of NIMBY vs YIMBY. It appeared so far that NIMBY is winning and large number of people support NIMBY. This need not be because all these are evil people who oppose three points but might have legitimate reasons for their stand. Make an informed choice rather than blindly picking sides.
- jdc 7y agoWhy don't you fill us in on what those reasons might be instead of making strawman arguments?
- Koremat6666 7y ago>A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent. I do not think strawman argument means what you think it means. I am not even refuting YIMBY argument. I am suggesting that since there is a NIMBY group which has already been successfully achieving their goals and appears to be in minority on HN, everyone should spend some time understanding their arguments as well before supporting YIMBY. Informed choice is critical than mindless support. I am not even trying to refute YIMBY here. I am only pointing out that HN might be an echo chamber to make an informed choice.
- bbreier 7y agoWhy don't you fill us in on what those reasons might be?
- wilg 7y agoYou can make the wrong choice for legitimate reasons as well as illegitimate ones.
- stewaleex 7y agoTech doesn't need a location, it should branch out, away from stupid policies that drive housing prices up
- foxx-boxx 7y agoYou should always respect people who was there first. When money talks, bs takes the bus: new tenants are needed to support bankrupt pension system anyway. Even international law admits that. High cost of real estate should force many people to sell their homes and leave to cheaper places.
- foxx-boxx 7y agoInstead of trying to buy Greenland from wealthy socialist Europeans, Trump should buy some tropical islands, like Madagascar for instance. California can move it’s operations to these cheaper places.
- foxx-boxx 7y agoAt some point high prices should force companies to move their operations, hence price should drop.
- dmode 7y agoThe fact is that American laws and policies are being set-up to serve only constituent - older baby boomers. This is especially true at the local level. I went to a city council meeting for my city, and it was 90% older white folks. Although the city is young and 60% Asian. There was constant stream of anti-development voices, with hardly anyone to counter them. This is almost non representative of the majority view, but younger people with work, commutes, and kids simply cannot attend these meetings. I have heard recently that SF is moving towards a representative focus group model to get community input instead of this random council meetings. That is the path forward. Abandon these open forums that only serves retirees. Increase outreach, create focus groups, and be more representative of the city's makeup
- dominotw 7y agodepends on who owns the houses. I live in a suburb in bay area where population is almost all house owners are indian and chinese. They have the same preferences as "older baby boomers". Are you implying that if in your case if they were reversed we would see some sort of different outcomes? Asians are more open to getting their house values going down by new development?
- dmode 7y agoI am just saying that input should be taken from a population that represents the city by moving away from a process that biases input
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoI have been asking someone..anyone..to give me an example of how building more housing leads to affordable housing. Like in real life.. Every high density over crowded over built city ..and this is global..is unaffordable. It has expensive utilities, higher taxes and bad declining infrastructure that the government can’t seem to replace or upgrade. We have pestilence, rodent infestations, higher crime, big government and more taxes. I also don’t understand the fairness of a non house owning young majority with little or no financial intelligence or experience due to being educated by free public education and state nannyship getting to vote on imposing punitive high taxes aimed to displace the very people whose taxes and employment history and financial savvy that actually funded said free public education. Clearly this means that we have done a bad job of public education using property taxes. In fact, most of the wealth is accrued due to immigrant net worth and who didn’t even avail the free public school education. Wasting more public money on public education and using property taxes to fund said education is the real problem that needs fixing. There is no end to taxation. Especially because those who are not home owners can force more property taxes on the minority who own it. Put another way..why should someone who can’t handle their personal finances be allowed to make decisions at govt level. This would never happen with employment. How can the unsavvy have-nots have a say about punitive taxation upon the haves who get to gain nothing from the punitive taxes. This is especially crucial to ask considering that the government in Sacramento has a piss poor track record on managing money and shown a lack of transparency.
- behringer 7y agoWhat?? San Francisco has the worst rent in the world, excepting Hong Kong. It's 600 dollars more a month than the average in New York. 2000 dollars more than Chicago... That's entirely due to the lack of high rise housing.
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoOr maybe it’s due to lack of income. How about what do in Singapore? 97% of the population lives in state owned apartments on 99 year leases. Affordable to luxury homes for all income levels.
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoLet me the ask the YIMBY crowd this...what is stopping 2 dozen do you to pool funds together to build a community where land is affordable and have tailored amenities. And you can literally have your own transport to anywhere. Co-Own your shared vacation paradises. Private schools. Incorporated communities. Invest in farms and automation. You can grow your own food and use economics instead of govt bureaucracy to make it all work. A satellite community of multiple such youthful communities is a win-win for all. That’s what real estate companies do, but they profit enormously from it with little value. They are building on top of existing infrastructure and not passing the monetary benefits of it and pocketing it for their purposes. I am not being flippant because I have spent a few years on such a model. A community of 6000 can be supported in 600 acres that will actually not only be self sustaining but can also be income producing if you add farms and value added businesses for those who don’t wish full time jobs. There are monetary and communal benefits. There will be less reliance on govt and less wastage of resources. 120 is a good number because it would satisfy the Dunbar number limits. It shouldn’t be difficult to have a nice proportion of ageing, young and middle aged populations for diversity. It’s just a modern tech supported version of eco villages and ..dare I say..cults. But they fail because they never take the necessary survival factor of monetary stability and most eschew technology. These don’t have to and will be better supported.
- zacksinclair 7y agoThe "BY" in YIMBY is referring to our existing back yards. There's a significant gap between YIMBYs and what you described.
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoWhat has a 30 year old contributed that they claim to make decisions for those who are 70. Five years into employment and they expect to own a home? And want to displace retired seniors on fixed incomes who have worked for decades and paid 30 year mortgages. The value of the house is not in $ but the number of man hours that go into it. Maybe tax the kids and grandkids who get tax free and tax saving inheritances. Property tax is as valorem. There is no value added to a home until it’s sold at the new higher price. Property taxes are a way for the government to make sure that you never truly own your home 100%. They are not a means for young professionals to avail free public education for their own kids. It’s double dipping since they already availed free education paid for by the very same seniors who paid by taxes to support public schools and build city infrastructure. I am sorry to know that those who want their kids to be in nice neighbourhoods cant afford to pay rent or pay for private schools, but that’s no reason to promote elder abuse by way of punitive property tax increases to displace them from their homes to build more.
- jayd16 7y agoThis might be an unpopular question but why is everyone certain that more housing will cut homelessness when these California cities are already quite dense (not the most in the world but more than most of the US)? Why don't we assume more housing will not simply bring more non-homeless from elsewhere? The homeless are certainly not the most competitive home buyers.
- zacksinclair 7y agoMore housing is not a panacea for homelessness - but supply and demand are real. Increasing supply will decrease equilibrium price; this increase in affordability is one measure (of the many necessary) to help homelessness.
- jayd16 7y ago>Increasing supply will decrease equilibrium price Hmm but this is not a given is it? I think many would move to SF if housing was only slightly cheaper.
- zacksinclair 7y agoIt is a given and is basic economics. Supply and demand curves certainly apply to housing. Increasing housing shifts the supply line to the right - which satisfies greater demand at a lower price, all else equal. That is what "many would move to SF if housing was only slightly cheaper" means in economic terms. Shifting the demand curve to the right is not driven by quantity of housing, but instead by things like quality of life, supply of jobs, etc. Its the difference between the slope of the line and its position.
- jayd16 7y ago>It is a given and is basic economics. Supply and demand curves certainly apply to housing. Yes but the angle of those curves are important. There are elastic and inelastic demands for resources. There can be unfulfilled demand at the current equilibrium price. Its basic economics.
- rb808 7y agoNot luxury apartments. Projects. In the 50s and 60s NYC built loads of massive housing projects for the poorest people on welfare. This is something that is needed in California. Most of the homeless can't afford fancy new builds, the state should be building big cheap buildings to house the people who can't afford anything. Say there are 20k units required in the Bay Area, each building can have 20 floors, 25 aprts per floor, that's just 40 buildings, say one in each suburb. Here are NYC ones, the biggest prjects are 1000-2000 units each https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_City_Housing_Authority_properties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_City_Housing_...
- tmh79 7y agoYea... there are way more than 20k units needed in the bay area (all 9 countie), its closer to 1m. You need to account for the huge amount of office space growth in the past 15 years and the next 10 years, as well as our historical trend of underbuilding due to regulations for the past 40 years.
- x0054 7y agoHave you seen what happens in those projects? I lived in Chicago and those were not a good place to live because of incredible levels of crime. What we need is to stop clustering so much around SF and LA. There are lots of places in CA that are basically empty. What we need is more ways for people to make money remotely so they can live in lower density areas and still make good living. High density is not the answer, people need space and we have space.
- tmh79 7y agoThe reason we have a housing crises is because people want high density living. Our market crises is a literal refutation of your proposed solution.
- x0054 7y agoWhat proof do you have for that? Why isn't it more likely that what people actually want is good paying jobs without having to spend 2 hours in traffic every day? Say you have 2 options, one is to live in a lower density area with plenty of playgrounds for your kids, space to decompress and have fun, and a good paying job that you can do from home or close by. Option two is being shoved like sardines into a 20 story high density apartment building for the privilege of what? What's the point of high density living? So you can all die from a pandemic faster? Or so you can eat at fancy restaurants unhealthy food? Are you sure that your bubble isn't shaping your opinion?
- joe_the_user 7y agoArticle: "Hitting that number will require building more everything: Subsidized housing. Market-rate housing. Homes, apartments, condos and co-ops. Three hundred and fifteen apartments on prime parcels of towns like Lafayette." I feel weird sort of agreeing with the wealthy home owners in outlying small towns. Why should the state adopt a "more of everything" policy? The American and California model of low-density suburban building is completely broken and "more of everything" is basically saying more of the same. A higher density approach with the building concentrated in the centralized cities and perhaps some of the "towns" surrounded by city (Menlo Park or Brisbane). I mean, it's obvious false that "more of everything is the only way to meet the goal". Of course, you could build that much housing in higher density urban areas.
- rowborg 7y agoIt's a fair point. What makes Lafayette a good place to build without increasing sprawl or traffic that it is right on a BART line. "More of everything" should probably be caveated with "more of everything near public transit".
- earhart 7y agoFWIW - I’d love to see increased density where I live in Seattle, but the people who support it seem to ignore all the other stuff that has to go with it - e.g. more school capacity, better transit, requiring parking in new developments because people still have cars and the on-street parking can’t scale to meet new developments... Bringing that stuff up gets me called a NIMBY; it sometimes seems like anything that might make it more expensive for developers to build more housing is a crime against humanity. :-/ It sometimes feels like all we’re really doing is enabling developers to mine our quality of life for their own profit, without actually creating enough housing to make a dent in the problem.
- aabhay 7y agoYes, this is something in dire need of a solution in SF. There are not enough primary schools in the city to support even the people that currently live here (there’s a lottery system where students aren’t even guaranteed a spot in a high school). I would love to see the city of SF get denser, but building condos isn’t the only answer.
- infecto 7y agoFuck California and fuck the Bay Area. Just a bold statement. I wish for change but i don't see it happening. I love the weather, love the environment and sometimes love the people here but after living here for a number of years, I am started to not understand it. I pay pretty high taxes to live here. We have the most embarrassing property tax laws that include business property. I walk to work and walk through so many homeless camps filled with poop, trash and needles. Many of our communities have failing roads, some of the worst I have experienced in the world. The roads have started groups such as "pot hole vigilantes". In most of the communities I never see a police presence. We say we are green and love the environment but we have made little progress on public transportation since the 70s. I mean hell, we cannot even get a quick rollout of new BART cars. So we want to hate on building new roads but we have no new public transportation. I am starting to run out of reasons to participate in California.
- dominotw 7y agolooks like you are describing a specific part of 'bay area' . lots of burbs don't have these issues.
- otterley 7y agoWhy should we pay a heavy price in wasted time and pollution to commute to/from a suburb just so we can avoid the filth and decrepitude?
- illvm 7y agoEven Mountain View has these issues. Not to as near of a degree as say SF, Oakland, or Berkeley, but almost all of the above I've witnessed in Mountain View. So, I wouldn't say OP is describing a specific part. It's rather pervasive all over.
- infecto 7y agoI mean I am but I am not? A lot of the people in the safe "burbs" are commuting somewhere. But even then I feel like I could count far fewer safe burbs than what I described above. Anyway, just because there are some safe burbs does not mean what I describe is wrong. Our roads suck, we have a backwards property tax, its expensive to live in a decent school district and I generally feel pretty unsafe here.
- ngcc_hk 7y agoThat is internal struggle. But one must look at any external struggle. If you have people moving in without any means of stopping, just build build build would only help that much
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y agoIn this future, is there nowhere for those of us who just want to some damned trees and nature and quiet and dark where we live? You buy a quiet place where you can see they sky, but it gets expensive so newcomers replace it with what you left originally, so you leave again to a quiet place where you can see the sky, but it gets expensive so newcomers replace it with what you left originally, so this time you wise up and move somewhere with likeminded people who zone it for trees and quiet and dark, but then that gets expensive too, so newcomers rally for zoning reform before tearing it all down again... Different people value density differently, but apparently my willingness to pay a premium to live somewhere with lower density makes me an evil NIMBY.
- tayistay 7y agoLafayette, the town in the article, is nearly an hour away from SF by train. Should we really be building more housing relatively far away from the jobs? The trains and roads are packed. What about focusing on high density housing that's closer to the jobs in Oakland and SF? Isn't it better for people to be able to walk to work or ride a bike? I'm not asking rhetorically.
- zhirafovod 7y agoHousing: * European way - build centrally design urban cities, with infrastructure, schools, public transportation, community spaces, recreation/business spaces. * American way - let for-profit developers build luxury houses around enormous google/fb/other tech giant campuses, and let struggling communities to figure out how to live with it... Medical care: * European way - build an efficient medical system which is paid by taxes, affordable to everyone. * American way - let medical system to be a for profit business and put a burden of medical insurance for all on the medium income population and let them figure it out Good news on the housing - the companies reached the plato of the salaries for the bay area employees and many actively moving to the other urban areas which should spread the stress from the bay area. Its is 21st century, and if a company can't establish an effective distributed collaboration processes, it does not deserve to be a leader in high tech space.
- int_19h 7y agoOn healthcare, this isn't true simply because of how drastically different approaches are across Europe. There are countries there that have something a lot like ACA, just better implemented (Switzerland). There are countries with true single payer nationalized systems (UK). There are countries where healthcare is run by a bunch of private non-profit coops for most people, but those who want to can opt out into a fully private system (Germany). These all work much better than what US has, but not all of them are paid entirely or even mostly by taxes.
- zhirafovod 7y agoyeah, I've exaggerated a bit with the comparison, thanks for correcting. I think it will be right to say, that a decent medical care is a right, not a privilege, in most of the European countries. And the private hospitals come to play when you want a premium services. But even then you know the price list most of the services, or it is all included for a reasonable price. In either case, I see quite a different approach - attempt to provide social oriented services by just relaying the problems on the working population, instead of owning the problem and solving the proper way.
- xivzgrev 7y agoThis is a great point, never thought of it that way When it was Ms. Trauss’s turn to speak, she argued that the entire notion of public comment on new construction was inherently flawed, because the beneficiaries — the people who would eventually live in the buildings — couldn’t argue their side.
- cnst 7y ago> In backing every single project in the development pipeline that day, Ms. Trauss laid out a platform that would make her a celebrity of Bay Area politics: how expensive new housing today would become affordable old housing tomorrow, how San Francisco was blowing its chance to harness the energy of an economic boom to mass-build homes that generations of residents could enjoy. She didn’t care if a proposal was for apartments or condos or how much money its future residents had. It was a universal platform of more. Ms. Trauss was for anything and everything, so long as it was built tall and fast and had people living in it. What a great article, I'm glad that not all is lost in SF Bay w.r.t. the housing crisis. TBH, I'm amazed how the above points seem so controversial in SF Bay. It's as common-sense as it gets. Build more, always. Denying market-rate housing projects because they don't have income-restricted units doesn't help anyone in any way; I'm all for free-speech and stuff, but anyone who's trying to argue any such points that interfere with adding more capacity to the market and which make zero economic sense should be escorted out of the meetings.
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- DoreenMichele 7y agoMr. Falk looked at Mr. O’Brien and said, Dennis, look, I don’t even know you, but you have to eat something, even if it’s one grape, before I’ll talk to you. That at least got people laughing, and pretty soon everyone acceded to the bread and cheese and grapes. The negotiation scene is great stuff. It's gold. Another very important line: People have to realize that homelessness is connected to housing prices. I have been told repeatedly on the internet that the cost of housing has nothing whatsoever to do with homelessness. Homeless people are viewed by many as "junkies and crazies" who just have a personal problem and are not negatively impacted by the housing situation in the US. I've seen people deny that there even is a housing crisis in the US.
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