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>we've had the opposite problem: lots of highly paid tech firms moving into SF. Quite the problem ... the kind of problem that multitudes of cities and regions

>we've had the opposite problem: lots of highly paid tech firms moving into SF. Quite the problem ... the kind of problem that multitudes of cities and regions in the world are desperately trying to recreate. >This has changed the nature of San Francisco in a way that many dislike, including me. This is where progressives don't live up to their name. The nature of cities is constant change. Meanwhile the activists are desperately trying to keep change to a minimum so that the character of neighborhoods never changes. It's an interesting dichotomy. >because rents have gone up so much, and also it's just not as fun, it's crowded and stressed. Rents will drop if you increase density ... but that would mean building higher density housing and thereby accepting that the character of cities and neighborhoods change. >I am aware that I am a part of the problem: my wife and I are white, yuppie, dink tech workers. :) The fact that you're white and a tech worker isn't the problem. It's that you had the opportunity to move to San Fransciso for work due to the tech boom, and now you're trying to pull the ladder up so others cannot do the same.

swiley 6y ago
>Rents will drop if you increase density ... but that would mean building higher density housing and thereby accepting that the character of cities and neighborhoods change. I keep hearing proponents of strict exclusionary zoning laws arguing that they don't like the risk of having the value of their investment decrease because of this. SF will be a great example of how change happens weather you like it or not and allowing dense housing is what makes the change good or bad. You either sacrifice some of the view or sacrifice not having homeless camps.
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  I have never seen rents drop due to high density. If anything, rents are cheaper in sparsely populated areas. Examples abound. Rents won’t become cheaper if we build more. However, building more will certainly mean more property taxes for the government. San Francisco gets several millions of dollars to spend from which they spend a measly amount on the homeless(and that’s over 350 million/annum)..where is the rest? Even the money spent on homeless solutions is mostly going to contracted non profits(look at their board..probably has ex-city employees as board members) or more public sector employees. With 350 million, I would have created a new sustainable village to house 1000 people with jobs inside. Instead, SF still huffs and puffs and spends tax dollars on piffle and squat.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >I have never seen rents drop due to high density. You think housing is somehow immune to supply and demand? If that's the case, you can't claim rents are rising due to increase demand from young professionals. Which then raises the question: "What does affect rental prices?"
    - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
      I am questioning the claim that we need to build more affordable housing by going high density.
      - macspoofing 6y ago
        Yes you did. You wrote: "Rents won’t become cheaper if we build more." ... If Rent rates are not a result of supply and demand, then where do they come from?
  - swiley 6y ago
    I live in one of the most wealthy counties in the US and rent here stays low because they push for building high density housing constantly.
    - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
      which city?
rbranson 6y ago
> The fact that you're white and a tech worker isn't the problem. It's that you had the opportunity to move to San Fransciso for work due to the tech boom, and now you're trying to pull the ladder up so others cannot do the same. This is quite the ad hominem. I may have missed it, but I'm not sure where OP said anything about density or housing. Is there something wrong with not wanting the city that you love to be invaded by the human version of a swarm of locusts?
- fuzxi 6y ago
  >Is there something wrong with not wanting the city that you love to be invaded by the human version of a swarm of locusts? He is, by his own admission, one of those locusts.
  - rbranson 6y ago
    As it turns out, not everyone who works in tech in SF is an opportunist. There are plenty of kind folks who just want to make a life for their family, but like any boom, it also attracts a multitude of people who are just here for the money and don't give a damn about the city or region.
- wbl 6y ago
  Ah yes, men and women who look at human needs and decide to serve them in exchange for compensation on the basis of voluntary exchange are just like insects that being multitudes into destitution and misery.
heavyset_go 6y ago
I see nothing in the OP's post that suggests that they're against re-zoning, building high density housing, or other measures to remove barriers against cheaper housing.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  I didn't say he was but he used language that evoked San Francisco losing its character due to tech professionals moving it. It brought to my mind the language that anti-housing activists use to prevent new housing development in districts like 'The Mission'.
jelliclesfarm 6y ago
I have never seen a high density city have low rents. Mumbai, Hong Kong, London, NYC. Is there any factual and proven example of a city that has increased density and housing became affordable and cheaper as a result of more units?
- nerfhammer 6y ago
  Tokyo
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    Japan has falling birth rate.
  - cam0 6y ago
    Tokyo is consistently ranked as one of the most expensive cities in the world.
    - nerfhammer 6y ago
      yet rent is less than half of that of San Francisco or New York
- cam0 6y ago
  I'm glad you pointed this out. I've had this thought floating around in my head for a long while. The only affordable high-density cities I can think of are in Thailand, Africa, and maybe Eastern Europe? I think NYC is our best comparison though... it's actually much more expensive per square foot to buy in Manhattan than it is in SF, and the rental prices are approximately the same.
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    Auckland, NZ is another example of a high density real estate hub gone bad. Mortgages are lower than rents but lack of housing stock.
- 6y ago
kmtrowbr 6y ago
> the kind of problem that multitudes of cities and regions in the world are desperately trying to recreate I always tell people that, "it is a nice problem to have." Totally agree with you. But it is still a problem nonetheless. It's fair enough to raise taxes to try to solve some of the problems which hugely successful businesses have created by displacing people. Building more housing: YES, more dense housing: YES, programs for homeless people: YES -- on the back of such success, we should have all the money we need to maintain San Francisco. YES my presence is symptomatic of the problem but, being self-aware, I try to address that by genuinely loving San Francisco, paying more taxes myself when I am asked to do so, participating in local art and culture, and not treating it like a transient place but rather my home and a treasure. Regarding your statement that I'm trying to block others' advancement: proposition L is about taxing companies whose CEOs make 100-600x more than the median at their company. I am not hurting other regular folks by supporting this, furthermore I'm not even hurting the CEOs (they make 100x more than normal folks). If you benefit from society to the point where you're the leader of such a company, for goodness sake, give a little back gracefully, that's progressive taxation and it has been one of the foundations of our society since 1862. SF is a liberal, expensive place, because supporting such population density and giving everyone a high quality of life is hard and requires work and money. If we categorically define all taxation as bad, we lose all basis for collective action. America is getting lost in the labyrinth of its own arguments.
- cheriot 6y ago
  > If you benefit from society to the point where you're the leader of such a company, for goodness sake, give a little back gracefully, that's progressive taxation and it has been one of the foundations of our society since 1862. 100%. I think we agree on more that we disagree about, but we happen to be talking about Prop L. The question on L is what's any of this have to do with the amount of money made by a CEO's employees? Should a CEO of a small number of highly paid employees be taxed less than the CEO of a large number of blue collar employees? That doesn't make any sense. People talk about the ratio of employee to CEO pay because it's a quantifiable indicator of underlying causes. Trying to change the indicator directly misses the point. Why is the city so unaffordable to the working class? That's not being solved by this.

swiley 6y ago

>Rents will drop if you increase density ... but that would mean building higher density housing and thereby accepting that the character of cities and neighborhoods change. I keep hearing proponents of strict exclusionary zoning laws arguing that they don't like the risk of having the value of their investment decrease because of this. SF will be a great example of how change happens weather you like it or not and allowing dense housing is what makes the change good or bad. You either sacrifice some of the view or sacrifice not having homeless camps.

jelliclesfarm 6y ago
I have never seen rents drop due to high density. If anything, rents are cheaper in sparsely populated areas. Examples abound. Rents won’t become cheaper if we build more. However, building more will certainly mean more property taxes for the government. San Francisco gets several millions of dollars to spend from which they spend a measly amount on the homeless(and that’s over 350 million/annum)..where is the rest? Even the money spent on homeless solutions is mostly going to contracted non profits(look at their board..probably has ex-city employees as board members) or more public sector employees. With 350 million, I would have created a new sustainable village to house 1000 people with jobs inside. Instead, SF still huffs and puffs and spends tax dollars on piffle and squat.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >I have never seen rents drop due to high density. You think housing is somehow immune to supply and demand? If that's the case, you can't claim rents are rising due to increase demand from young professionals. Which then raises the question: "What does affect rental prices?"
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    I am questioning the claim that we need to build more affordable housing by going high density.
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      Yes you did. You wrote: "Rents won’t become cheaper if we build more." ... If Rent rates are not a result of supply and demand, then where do they come from?
- swiley 6y ago
  I live in one of the most wealthy counties in the US and rent here stays low because they push for building high density housing constantly.
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    which city?

rbranson 6y ago

> The fact that you're white and a tech worker isn't the problem. It's that you had the opportunity to move to San Fransciso for work due to the tech boom, and now you're trying to pull the ladder up so others cannot do the same. This is quite the ad hominem. I may have missed it, but I'm not sure where OP said anything about density or housing. Is there something wrong with not wanting the city that you love to be invaded by the human version of a swarm of locusts?

fuzxi 6y ago
>Is there something wrong with not wanting the city that you love to be invaded by the human version of a swarm of locusts? He is, by his own admission, one of those locusts.
- rbranson 6y ago
  As it turns out, not everyone who works in tech in SF is an opportunist. There are plenty of kind folks who just want to make a life for their family, but like any boom, it also attracts a multitude of people who are just here for the money and don't give a damn about the city or region.
wbl 6y ago
Ah yes, men and women who look at human needs and decide to serve them in exchange for compensation on the basis of voluntary exchange are just like insects that being multitudes into destitution and misery.

heavyset_go 6y ago

I see nothing in the OP's post that suggests that they're against re-zoning, building high density housing, or other measures to remove barriers against cheaper housing.

macspoofing 6y ago
I didn't say he was but he used language that evoked San Francisco losing its character due to tech professionals moving it. It brought to my mind the language that anti-housing activists use to prevent new housing development in districts like 'The Mission'.

jelliclesfarm 6y ago

I have never seen a high density city have low rents. Mumbai, Hong Kong, London, NYC. Is there any factual and proven example of a city that has increased density and housing became affordable and cheaper as a result of more units?

nerfhammer 6y ago
Tokyo
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  Japan has falling birth rate.
- cam0 6y ago
  Tokyo is consistently ranked as one of the most expensive cities in the world.
  - nerfhammer 6y ago
    yet rent is less than half of that of San Francisco or New York
cam0 6y ago
I'm glad you pointed this out. I've had this thought floating around in my head for a long while. The only affordable high-density cities I can think of are in Thailand, Africa, and maybe Eastern Europe? I think NYC is our best comparison though... it's actually much more expensive per square foot to buy in Manhattan than it is in SF, and the rental prices are approximately the same.
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  Auckland, NZ is another example of a high density real estate hub gone bad. Mortgages are lower than rents but lack of housing stock.
6y ago

kmtrowbr 6y ago

> the kind of problem that multitudes of cities and regions in the world are desperately trying to recreate I always tell people that, "it is a nice problem to have." Totally agree with you. But it is still a problem nonetheless. It's fair enough to raise taxes to try to solve some of the problems which hugely successful businesses have created by displacing people. Building more housing: YES, more dense housing: YES, programs for homeless people: YES -- on the back of such success, we should have all the money we need to maintain San Francisco. YES my presence is symptomatic of the problem but, being self-aware, I try to address that by genuinely loving San Francisco, paying more taxes myself when I am asked to do so, participating in local art and culture, and not treating it like a transient place but rather my home and a treasure. Regarding your statement that I'm trying to block others' advancement: proposition L is about taxing companies whose CEOs make 100-600x more than the median at their company. I am not hurting other regular folks by supporting this, furthermore I'm not even hurting the CEOs (they make 100x more than normal folks). If you benefit from society to the point where you're the leader of such a company, for goodness sake, give a little back gracefully, that's progressive taxation and it has been one of the foundations of our society since 1862. SF is a liberal, expensive place, because supporting such population density and giving everyone a high quality of life is hard and requires work and money. If we categorically define all taxation as bad, we lose all basis for collective action. America is getting lost in the labyrinth of its own arguments.

cheriot 6y ago
> If you benefit from society to the point where you're the leader of such a company, for goodness sake, give a little back gracefully, that's progressive taxation and it has been one of the foundations of our society since 1862. 100%. I think we agree on more that we disagree about, but we happen to be talking about Prop L. The question on L is what's any of this have to do with the amount of money made by a CEO's employees? Should a CEO of a small number of highly paid employees be taxed less than the CEO of a large number of blue collar employees? That doesn't make any sense. People talk about the ratio of employee to CEO pay because it's a quantifiable indicator of underlying causes. Trying to change the indicator directly misses the point. Why is the city so unaffordable to the working class? That's not being solved by this.