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Fair enough. Steve Waldman described about this mentality pretty well here: https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/6287.html https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/6287.htm

Fair enough. Steve Waldman described about this mentality pretty well here: https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/6287.html https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/6287.html This is not as divorced from property values as you believe. The features of suburbs you like such as low-crime (usually coded as "quiet"), amenities, good schools, access to jobs through a quick commute etc. are exactly what give them their high value. However, the single family home subdivision suburban form cannot scale provisioning these amenities to many people. That is exactly why suburbs are exclusionary whereas cities need not be. Your suburb isn't going to have decreasing property values without disinvestment, at which point it won't be a nice place to live. The detached houses probably have little to do with what you like about your community; there are plenty of places in Central California with detaches homes, high crime, bad schools, etc.

lisper 6y ago
> low-crime (usually coded as "quiet") In my case, quiet is not code for low-crime. I meant it literally. I lived for a long time (20+ years) in loud neighborhoods with lots of traffic noise and screaming kids (literally -- one place I lived was next to a house that was used as a day-care center) and mockingbirds which kept me up at night because our house had no A/C so we had to keep the windows open at night. My mantra, literally for decades, mumbled through the mental fog of chronic sleep deprivation, was "I want to live someplace quiet". > Your suburb isn't going to have decreasing property values without disinvestment, at which point it won't be a nice place to live. That is far from clear. I don't live in a cookie-cutter-house suburb. I live in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains in what used to be (in the late 1800s) a vacation destination for San Franciscans. If all of Silicon Valley were depopulated I think my neighborhood would still be a perfectly fine place to live.
- shuckles 6y ago
  > I live in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains...If all of Silicon Valley were depopulated I think my neighborhood would still be a perfectly fine place to live. Humboldt Country is a beautiful and high poverty part of the state with poor municipal services. I have no reason to believe the Santa Cruz wouldn't be the same without expensive urban infrastructure, not to mention the money we do and need to continue spending to minimize the risk of fire to your property.
  - lisper 6y ago
    > I have no reason to believe the Santa Cruz wouldn't be the same without expensive urban infrastructure Like I said, my neighborhood began as a vacation destination for rich San Franciscans in the late 1800s. It has been affluent for over 100 years, long before Silicon Valley was a thing, in fact, before electricity was a thing. There are rich urban areas and there are poor urban areas, and there are rich rural areas and there are poor rural areas. There is absolutely no correlation in general between housing density and quality of life. There is, however, a strong and obvious correlation between per-capita wealth and quality of life. But housing inflation does absolutely nothing to promote that.
    - shuckles 6y ago
      You can't both say "I would be happy if home prices in my neighborhood went down" and "I am confident that my area will always be one where rich people want to visit." The former will only happen if the types of amenities which make rich people want to visit go away, at which point you likely will want to go away as well.
      - lisper 6y ago
        > The former will only happen if the types of amenities which make rich people want to visit go away No, the former will happen when fewer people, for whatever reason, want to buy real estate here. This was a nice place to live even (perhaps especially) back when the main industry in the surrounding area was orange farming.
        shuckles 6y ago
        The people who found it a nice place to live when it was undeveloped thought it was so nice that they decided to build a university with a huge endowment nearby which then decided to attract funding from the Department of Defense which then... You’re trying to express your preferences for lower home values with an all else equal argument which is not very meaningful in a dynamic system. The realistic alternatives where fewer people want to settle in the Bay Area all involve hypotheticals where it is simply a less attractive place to live in ways that likely impact you as well.
- rcpt 6y ago
  > If all of Silicon Valley were depopulated I think my neighborhood would still be a perfectly fine place to live. I've never understood why mountain people think that those little towns would be able to fund their own infrastructure without the support of Californias actual economy. It's not cheap maintaining roads up every canyon and electrifying all corners of the redwoods. Maybe it's because you all have leaching septic tanks that destroy the San Lorenzo that you think you're truly fronteirsman?

lisper 6y ago

> low-crime (usually coded as "quiet") In my case, quiet is not code for low-crime. I meant it literally. I lived for a long time (20+ years) in loud neighborhoods with lots of traffic noise and screaming kids (literally -- one place I lived was next to a house that was used as a day-care center) and mockingbirds which kept me up at night because our house had no A/C so we had to keep the windows open at night. My mantra, literally for decades, mumbled through the mental fog of chronic sleep deprivation, was "I want to live someplace quiet". > Your suburb isn't going to have decreasing property values without disinvestment, at which point it won't be a nice place to live. That is far from clear. I don't live in a cookie-cutter-house suburb. I live in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains in what used to be (in the late 1800s) a vacation destination for San Franciscans. If all of Silicon Valley were depopulated I think my neighborhood would still be a perfectly fine place to live.

shuckles 6y ago
> I live in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains...If all of Silicon Valley were depopulated I think my neighborhood would still be a perfectly fine place to live. Humboldt Country is a beautiful and high poverty part of the state with poor municipal services. I have no reason to believe the Santa Cruz wouldn't be the same without expensive urban infrastructure, not to mention the money we do and need to continue spending to minimize the risk of fire to your property.
- lisper 6y ago
  > I have no reason to believe the Santa Cruz wouldn't be the same without expensive urban infrastructure Like I said, my neighborhood began as a vacation destination for rich San Franciscans in the late 1800s. It has been affluent for over 100 years, long before Silicon Valley was a thing, in fact, before electricity was a thing. There are rich urban areas and there are poor urban areas, and there are rich rural areas and there are poor rural areas. There is absolutely no correlation in general between housing density and quality of life. There is, however, a strong and obvious correlation between per-capita wealth and quality of life. But housing inflation does absolutely nothing to promote that.
  - shuckles 6y ago
    You can't both say "I would be happy if home prices in my neighborhood went down" and "I am confident that my area will always be one where rich people want to visit." The former will only happen if the types of amenities which make rich people want to visit go away, at which point you likely will want to go away as well.
    - lisper 6y ago
      > The former will only happen if the types of amenities which make rich people want to visit go away No, the former will happen when fewer people, for whatever reason, want to buy real estate here. This was a nice place to live even (perhaps especially) back when the main industry in the surrounding area was orange farming.
      - shuckles 6y ago
        The people who found it a nice place to live when it was undeveloped thought it was so nice that they decided to build a university with a huge endowment nearby which then decided to attract funding from the Department of Defense which then... You’re trying to express your preferences for lower home values with an all else equal argument which is not very meaningful in a dynamic system. The realistic alternatives where fewer people want to settle in the Bay Area all involve hypotheticals where it is simply a less attractive place to live in ways that likely impact you as well.
rcpt 6y ago
> If all of Silicon Valley were depopulated I think my neighborhood would still be a perfectly fine place to live. I've never understood why mountain people think that those little towns would be able to fund their own infrastructure without the support of Californias actual economy. It's not cheap maintaining roads up every canyon and electrifying all corners of the redwoods. Maybe it's because you all have leaching septic tanks that destroy the San Lorenzo that you think you're truly fronteirsman?