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Shhh, the city and state governments don’t want people to know that they are the reason we have a housing crisis. It’s much better to blame rich people, tech co

Shhh, the city and state governments don’t want people to know that they are the reason we have a housing crisis. It’s much better to blame rich people, tech companies, foreign investors etc etc.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
1) "Rich people" want their property values to be stable or increase. They want their communities to be somewhat static. If I paid $1MM+ for a property in a dense CA metro, I can't say that'd I'd disagree with those desires. I'm buying a home and a location, not "housing" as a commodity. 2) Tech companies unnecessarily demand butts in chairs in the Bay Area, foisting the externalities onto the commons (infrastructure and housing). Tax them more if they won't go remote/support remote work. Destroy demand for dense housing and the associated infrastructure. 3) It's documented that there's substantial Chinese money flowing into specific US markets (the US isn't alone of course; Canada, Australia, and the UK also have this problem). This pushes up the price of real estate, whether these properties are lived in or simply used as a store of value outside of the CCP's reach. Due to property owner/voter and governance momentum, it is unlikely you will see the will to increase development inertia in any California market that requires it, ever. Your options are to complain and put up with it, find an economic path to leaping onto the ownership ladder ("startup lottery", inheritance, etc), or eventually abandoning hope and moving somewhere cheaper/more development friendly (such as Colorado, Texas, Utah, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, etc). Disclaimer: Not a CA resident, too expensive!
- wbl 7y ago
  If you want to restrict what your neighbor can build buy an easement. Otherwise talk to the invisible hand. California makes money off of me being in it. Why is it good policy to drive an industry out?
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    > If you want to restrict what your neighbor can build buy an easement. Otherwise talk to the invisible hand. I'm sorry you're unhappy with how zoning and local governance exists today, but that's the hand that has been dealt. > California makes money off of me being in it. Why is it good policy to drive an industry out? If you're happy with the quality of life available with the status quo (renting forever with rents continually increasing faster than inflation), feel free to stay. It's your income; if you want to rent forever, that's your choice. Owning in a high cost of living geographic area is not a right, it is a luxury obtained mostly by luck (either through a purchase before property value increased or a present day windfall of some sort, whether that's an inheritance, the startup lottery, or a high single or dual income that can support servicing a large amount of mortgage debt).
    - thereisnospork 7y ago
      > I'm sorry you're unhappy with how zoning and local governance exists today, but that's the hand that has been dealt. A hand that has resulted in the ""housing crisis"" which is why we are here talking about why and how it should be changed.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        No one with the authority to change it is talking about changing it. No one invested in the status quo is willing to delegate the necessary authority to YIMBYs or their surrogates. You’d be asking existing and potential property owners to vote against their own interests. Progress isn’t impossible, but it’s going to take decades to make meaningful reforms.
        closeparen 7y ago
        The NIMBYs are so stunningly effective because they're the only people engaged on the issue, not because their values are actually universal. Like anything else in politics, it's a turnout game. Development regulation is an obscure issue. There's a lot of room for people who would be okay with denser cities (and thus haven't paid attention) to learn about it and show up. And then of course there's the movement we're already seeing in state legislatures.
- gradys 7y ago
  > Tech companies unnecessarily demand butts in chairs in the Bay Area, foisting the externalities onto the commons (infrastructure and housing). I'm not so sure it's unnecessary. I (and my employer) find it very useful that I have so many colleagues within walking distance of my desk and that we have centralized meeting, event, and dining infrastructure. I also find it very useful to have so many other employers nearby that I could work at if this job doesn't work out. My employer finds it very useful to have such a large local labor market for the kinds of roles they need to fill. I'm not opposed to income and property taxes on these marginal increases in productivity that the tech industry gets in the Bay Area, but I strongly disagree that the industry's large presence is somehow inefficient. The tech industry actually uses the resources of the area more efficiently than other industries because of these network effects.
- marcusverus 7y ago
  Houstonian here. We have plenty of rich people, more fortune 500 companies than San Francisco, wads Chinese-owned properties, and a median home price of $230K. The difference is the regulations, my dude.
  - tjr225 7y ago
    You really don't get what's at play, my dude. It's cheaper in Houston because people don't want to live in Houston- at least not nearly to the same degree.
    - refurb 7y ago
      Hmmm... then why is the population growth so much higher than SF?
      - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
        Because the homes and jobs available in Houston strike a price point that makes sense for certain incomes. Households making $200k+ per year are migrating to California, many from New York. Californians with middle income ($40k-$90k) are migrating to Texas [0]. The number of households between 40k-90k is greater than the over 200k group. [0]: https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/265 https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/265
      - tjr225 7y ago
        Because they can't afford to live in SF- which is largely constrained by physical barriers to growth. I do agree anti building regulations are bad and somewhat at fault but it's not an apples to apples comparison by any means. Rich people want to live on the west coast because it's beautiful and the weather is pretty nice. In fact I wish I could live on the west coast but could no longer afford to once the baby came along and my wife and I decided to go single income.
  - enraged_camel 7y ago
    I think Houston is not just a bad counter-example, it's the worst counter-example. It not only has really horribly high pollution[0], but enormous amounts of urban sprawl[1]. It's not exactly the model city to look up to. It's also worth noting that the lack of regulations that Houstonians take pride in contributed to the devastation caused by Harvey in a big way. [0]: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Despite-progress-Houston-air-quality-among-worst-13791574.php https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/... [1]https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/urban-sprawl-worst-cities https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/urban-sprawl-worst-c...
- ijidak 7y ago
  Add Nevada to that list. Las Vegas is basically Southern California relocated to the closest big city that's building houses. My family transplanted from Santa Barbara. And my wife is a transplant from San Diego.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    But Las Vegas has always been like that since it was just a few billboards and a gas station. Most people in Nevada are transplants. And the rest are children or grandchildren of transplants, primarily from California.
- jdminhbg 7y ago
  > "Rich people" want their property values to be stable or increase. They want their communities to be somewhat static. If I paid $1MM+ for a property in a dense CA metro If you buy a $1MM home you are rich, no scare quotes required! I think this explains a lot of the dynamic: rich people do not believe they are rich.
- refurb 7y ago
  Tech companies unnecessarily demand butts in chairs in the Bay Area Only in California would people complain "there are too many high paying jobs being created".
- Camillo 7y ago
  > 2) Tech companies unnecessarily demand butts in chairs in the Bay Area, foisting the externalities onto the commons (infrastructure and housing). Tax them more if they won't go remote/support remote work. Destroy demand for dense housing and the associated infrastructure. Can this be quantified? When people complain about increased housing demand due to tech, clearly they're not talking about existing CA residents taking up tech jobs (since they already lived there), so we're talking about people immigrating to CA (from other states or countries) to work in tech. But how much does that actually contribute to housing demand? Let's see some numbers. What percentage of California's population growth since 1978 (prop 13 year) was due to immigration (vs natural pop growth), and what percentage of those immigrants came to work in tech?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
refurb 7y ago
That's pretty clear. If the gov't (at all levels) really wanted more housing, it could happen pretty dam quickly. There is enough capital floating around out there. Problem is the capital says "not worth the hassle" or "with all the delays and costs, it's not worth it".
thrower123 7y ago
How the hell there isn't a giant apartment complex mandated, rather than forbidden, as part of these big tech company campuses is something I've scratched my head on. My best theory is that having to sing "Sixteen Tons" day after day in music classes has forever vilified anything approaching the idea of a company town...
- jayd16 7y ago
  A lot of new construction is residential on top of light commercial. In Culver City (in the middle of LA) they're supposedly building offices for Apple and Amazon which has adjacent housing being constructed as well (although not stacked).
- erik_seaberg 7y ago
  I think the Googleplex is built around wetlands where land use is heavily restricted, and they couldn't get permission to add any housing.

Shhh, the city and state governments don’t want people to know that they are the reason we have a housing crisis. It’s much better to blame rich people, tech companies, foreign investors etc etc.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

1) "Rich people" want their property values to be stable or increase. They want their communities to be somewhat static. If I paid $1MM+ for a property in a dense CA metro, I can't say that'd I'd disagree with those desires. I'm buying a home and a location, not "housing" as a commodity. 2) Tech companies unnecessarily demand butts in chairs in the Bay Area, foisting the externalities onto the commons (infrastructure and housing). Tax them more if they won't go remote/support remote work. Destroy demand for dense housing and the associated infrastructure. 3) It's documented that there's substantial Chinese money flowing into specific US markets (the US isn't alone of course; Canada, Australia, and the UK also have this problem). This pushes up the price of real estate, whether these properties are lived in or simply used as a store of value outside of the CCP's reach. Due to property owner/voter and governance momentum, it is unlikely you will see the will to increase development inertia in any California market that requires it, ever. Your options are to complain and put up with it, find an economic path to leaping onto the ownership ladder ("startup lottery", inheritance, etc), or eventually abandoning hope and moving somewhere cheaper/more development friendly (such as Colorado, Texas, Utah, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, etc). Disclaimer: Not a CA resident, too expensive!

wbl 7y ago
If you want to restrict what your neighbor can build buy an easement. Otherwise talk to the invisible hand. California makes money off of me being in it. Why is it good policy to drive an industry out?
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  > If you want to restrict what your neighbor can build buy an easement. Otherwise talk to the invisible hand. I'm sorry you're unhappy with how zoning and local governance exists today, but that's the hand that has been dealt. > California makes money off of me being in it. Why is it good policy to drive an industry out? If you're happy with the quality of life available with the status quo (renting forever with rents continually increasing faster than inflation), feel free to stay. It's your income; if you want to rent forever, that's your choice. Owning in a high cost of living geographic area is not a right, it is a luxury obtained mostly by luck (either through a purchase before property value increased or a present day windfall of some sort, whether that's an inheritance, the startup lottery, or a high single or dual income that can support servicing a large amount of mortgage debt).
  - thereisnospork 7y ago
    > I'm sorry you're unhappy with how zoning and local governance exists today, but that's the hand that has been dealt. A hand that has resulted in the ""housing crisis"" which is why we are here talking about why and how it should be changed.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      No one with the authority to change it is talking about changing it. No one invested in the status quo is willing to delegate the necessary authority to YIMBYs or their surrogates. You’d be asking existing and potential property owners to vote against their own interests. Progress isn’t impossible, but it’s going to take decades to make meaningful reforms.
      - closeparen 7y ago
        The NIMBYs are so stunningly effective because they're the only people engaged on the issue, not because their values are actually universal. Like anything else in politics, it's a turnout game. Development regulation is an obscure issue. There's a lot of room for people who would be okay with denser cities (and thus haven't paid attention) to learn about it and show up. And then of course there's the movement we're already seeing in state legislatures.
gradys 7y ago
> Tech companies unnecessarily demand butts in chairs in the Bay Area, foisting the externalities onto the commons (infrastructure and housing). I'm not so sure it's unnecessary. I (and my employer) find it very useful that I have so many colleagues within walking distance of my desk and that we have centralized meeting, event, and dining infrastructure. I also find it very useful to have so many other employers nearby that I could work at if this job doesn't work out. My employer finds it very useful to have such a large local labor market for the kinds of roles they need to fill. I'm not opposed to income and property taxes on these marginal increases in productivity that the tech industry gets in the Bay Area, but I strongly disagree that the industry's large presence is somehow inefficient. The tech industry actually uses the resources of the area more efficiently than other industries because of these network effects.
marcusverus 7y ago
Houstonian here. We have plenty of rich people, more fortune 500 companies than San Francisco, wads Chinese-owned properties, and a median home price of $230K. The difference is the regulations, my dude.
- tjr225 7y ago
  You really don't get what's at play, my dude. It's cheaper in Houston because people don't want to live in Houston- at least not nearly to the same degree.
  - refurb 7y ago
    Hmmm... then why is the population growth so much higher than SF?
    - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
      Because the homes and jobs available in Houston strike a price point that makes sense for certain incomes. Households making $200k+ per year are migrating to California, many from New York. Californians with middle income ($40k-$90k) are migrating to Texas [0]. The number of households between 40k-90k is greater than the over 200k group. [0]: https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/265 https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/265
    - tjr225 7y ago
      Because they can't afford to live in SF- which is largely constrained by physical barriers to growth. I do agree anti building regulations are bad and somewhat at fault but it's not an apples to apples comparison by any means. Rich people want to live on the west coast because it's beautiful and the weather is pretty nice. In fact I wish I could live on the west coast but could no longer afford to once the baby came along and my wife and I decided to go single income.
- enraged_camel 7y ago
  I think Houston is not just a bad counter-example, it's the worst counter-example. It not only has really horribly high pollution[0], but enormous amounts of urban sprawl[1]. It's not exactly the model city to look up to. It's also worth noting that the lack of regulations that Houstonians take pride in contributed to the devastation caused by Harvey in a big way. [0]: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Despite-progress-Houston-air-quality-among-worst-13791574.php https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/... [1]https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/urban-sprawl-worst-cities https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/urban-sprawl-worst-c...
ijidak 7y ago
Add Nevada to that list. Las Vegas is basically Southern California relocated to the closest big city that's building houses. My family transplanted from Santa Barbara. And my wife is a transplant from San Diego.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  But Las Vegas has always been like that since it was just a few billboards and a gas station. Most people in Nevada are transplants. And the rest are children or grandchildren of transplants, primarily from California.
jdminhbg 7y ago
> "Rich people" want their property values to be stable or increase. They want their communities to be somewhat static. If I paid $1MM+ for a property in a dense CA metro If you buy a $1MM home you are rich, no scare quotes required! I think this explains a lot of the dynamic: rich people do not believe they are rich.
refurb 7y ago
Tech companies unnecessarily demand butts in chairs in the Bay Area Only in California would people complain "there are too many high paying jobs being created".
Camillo 7y ago
> 2) Tech companies unnecessarily demand butts in chairs in the Bay Area, foisting the externalities onto the commons (infrastructure and housing). Tax them more if they won't go remote/support remote work. Destroy demand for dense housing and the associated infrastructure. Can this be quantified? When people complain about increased housing demand due to tech, clearly they're not talking about existing CA residents taking up tech jobs (since they already lived there), so we're talking about people immigrating to CA (from other states or countries) to work in tech. But how much does that actually contribute to housing demand? Let's see some numbers. What percentage of California's population growth since 1978 (prop 13 year) was due to immigration (vs natural pop growth), and what percentage of those immigrants came to work in tech?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

refurb 7y ago

That's pretty clear. If the gov't (at all levels) really wanted more housing, it could happen pretty dam quickly. There is enough capital floating around out there. Problem is the capital says "not worth the hassle" or "with all the delays and costs, it's not worth it".

thrower123 7y ago

How the hell there isn't a giant apartment complex mandated, rather than forbidden, as part of these big tech company campuses is something I've scratched my head on. My best theory is that having to sing "Sixteen Tons" day after day in music classes has forever vilified anything approaching the idea of a company town...

jayd16 7y ago
A lot of new construction is residential on top of light commercial. In Culver City (in the middle of LA) they're supposedly building offices for Apple and Amazon which has adjacent housing being constructed as well (although not stacked).
erik_seaberg 7y ago
I think the Googleplex is built around wetlands where land use is heavily restricted, and they couldn't get permission to add any housing.