4 ms·

Sleeping Rough and not affording homes are related. The Bay Area definitely needs to build more houses. However, in San Fransicko and in other places it is poi

by sien 5y ago

Sleeping Rough and not affording homes are related. The Bay Area definitely needs to build more houses. However, in San Fransicko and in other places it is pointed out that New York City, that also has astronomical housing prices and also doesn't build enough, has a fraction of the people sleeping rough that SF does. NYC has lots of temporary shelter for people who are homeless. SF doesn't have enough. From https://medium.com/@josefow/new-york-decided-to-end-street-homelessness-and-it-basically-succeeded-ab27f3ec5a65 https://medium.com/@josefow/new-york-decided-to-end-street-h... "New York has an extensive shelter network with over 748 locations that house more than 62,000 individuals and families experiencing homelessness every night. This extensive network means New York has an unsheltered homeless rate of 45 per 100,000 residents¹. San Francisco’s rate is 492 per 100,000 residents², almost 11 times as high." "San Francisco, despite a shelter waiting list of more than 1,000 people, has fewer shelter beds than it did in 2004." I'm most of the way through San Fransicko and would thoroughly recommend the book. It also does mention NIMBYs and YIMBYs but the focus is on the way that SF and other West Coast US cities have dealt very poorly with homeless people while NYC and other cities in the East have dealt much better with the problem.

crate_barre 5y ago
NYC has winters, it’s not temperate all year round. Think about all the poor people that would freeze to death in places like India or SF - if they had winters like the northeast). Warmer places will have the temperature to sustain a homeless population. NYC, prior to our current Democratic mayor, had aggressive law enforcement during Giuliani and Bloomberg terms. They would corral the homeless into specific areas (the poor neighborhoods) and push them out of sight (actual strategy to hide the homeless). You can be homeless in NYC, just not around areas where ‘decent’ folk live. Interpret that however you want. If SF corralled the homeless to the ghettos, no one would notice. Overall, if we take a census of the homeless, we’d easily learn that a good percentage of them are mentally ill and/or drug addicts. It’s much cheaper to build tents for them than provide institutional treatment (prolonged stay in clinics and mental health wards of hospitals). Generally these hospitals don’t have enough beds for everyone and constantly try to release everyone within 72 hours, no matter how severe the situation is. Plus, the cost of healthcare is immense (I’d say orders of magnitude over the tent housing solution). These are forsaken people, we will never solve this. I would recommend SF hide their homeless and get them off the beaches and boardwalks, and put the tents out of sight somewhere desolate. We as a society don’t have a sustainable altruism to succeed here.
- thoughtstheseus 5y ago
  We need better communities.
legutierr 5y ago
It's not only that north-eastern winters are brutal. There's more to it than that. Yes, NYC housing is very expensive, but that's because Manhattan is the most densely populated island in the world having a population greater than 150,000 people. Yes, you can squeeze a few more people into NYC proper, but there are physical limits that cannot be overcome, and New York is as close to those physical limits as anywhere else in the world. The New York metro area does not have those same physical limits, and is much more dynamic than California with regards to new construction and real estate sales—at all pricing levels—as a result. Yes, as you get closer to Manhattan things get more expensive. But Manhattan is not the only housing option for people—even for people who don't own a car. I live and work in a town of ~25,000 people that is connected to Manhattan by rail. In the past few years we have seen several hundred rental units be constructed in the center of the town. This is not atypical. Similar buildings have been going up throughout the region for years (although most affordable options are connected by bus rather than by train). I have to agree with GP's conclusion that California's problems primarily stem from its tax system—which is objectively ridiculous. If every time you move houses your tax rate resets and suddenly you are paying 10x (or more) in taxes than you did previously, why would you ever sell? In the NYC metro area, most of the people who in California would be suburban NIMBY types live and work in high-property-tax areas in relatively big homes while they raise their kids and send them to public school (which are well-funded by high property taxes). It is very common that when their kids go to college they sell their homes and move to smaller places (or to, say, Florida). They are incentivized to do this because doing so will lower their tax bill. As a result, the real estate market is very liquid, with most homes turning over every 15 to 30 years. In California the tax system works in the opposite manner, by disincentivizing sales. Even inherited property isn't sold, because doing so would result in a reduction in the net cash flow that the property can yield. Isn't it the case that most heirs typically sell property they inherit, in order to have access to liquid funds that they can use in a manner that is more consistent with their own personal needs and preferences? Not in California! In California, if you inherit a house, suddenly you are a landlord. None of this is to say that there isn't political resistance to higher-density housing in the northeast. There certainly is. However, the way that this resistance is typically mobilized is through the use of zoning restrictions. Zoning restrictions can be amended—and have been amended—as the need for housing has grown. If people are not willing to sell their properties—if the real estate market is not liquid enough in a certain area—then new development will not occur, regardless as to whether or not zoning ordinances are changed. In fact, the primary advocates for zoning changes are often developers who want to build specific projects. If there are enough properties for sale in an area to attract the interest of developers (and capital that legacy owners may not have access to), then it is more likely that there will be effective advocacy on a local level to amend zoning rules that will result in a more profitable use of those properties. If no one is selling, however, and if no one is buying, then no one has any interest in changing anything with regards to how the land is used.
snidane 5y ago
Needing to build more houses is a myth pushed forward by nimbys and developers. You can achieve the same and more by releasing unused housing back to market instead of sitting idle for speculative reasons. Increasing property taxes seems like a first viable solution, but it has drawbacks. It can apparently br avoided in some cases and they wouldn't affect owners of empty lots or derelict ruins that need the release back to market the most. This is solved by a tax on land value, not on propery value. Empty unused lots would get a massive tax, regardless of if there is a skyscraper on it or it is an empty space. High rise properties wouldn't get impacted much because the same tax would be amortized across many units. Properties outside of cities wouldn't get affected much, because land values outside of cities are low. Land value tax is a mechanically brutally simple and effective solution to the problem of congestion in city centres. Politically completely infeasible, because if there is someone fighting tooth and nail against such policies, it is the nimbys who inherited at the right time - modern day aristocracy.
- notfromhere 5y ago
  At some point you literally just need more houses. The Bay Area grew by a million people while still being pretty low density.
- ppsreejith 5y ago
  Wouldn't the ultimate effect of land value taxes be to build more housing? (since that's how we can extract the most value out of land for a given tax)
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    Yes, but it's not clear how much. One of the biggest, most important insights you can have about economics - and even all social orgnization - is that while there is a subset of people who exploit economic opportunities and do things like maximize revenue, the vast majority do not. Even though there isn't a lot of free money to be had, that's because a small subset are grabbing the free money, not because everyone is grabbing it. Most don't grab it. Most just don't think about stuff like that and make terrible financial choices. That includes your local restaurant as much as your neighbor. Thus businesses are efficient to the degree that competition forces them to be efficient. No more. Now in some industries, a few businesses that are really well run are able to take so much marketshare that they became huge megafirms. That happens with tradeables, but much less with restaurants, and much much less with landlords. That is why franchise chains and big property management groups are so successful -- they are so much better run and more professional than the typical small time landlord or family owned restaurant. Btw, this is really the fatal flaw of communism and other communitarian economic approaches. It's not that the economic calculation problem is too hard -- yes, it's hard but you can get a good enough solution with linear programming approaches. But rather, there was no capital market that would remove capital from inefficient firms and give capital to new rivals. Look at Tesla's market cap and compare to the market cap of GM. In a planned economy, there are no Teslas, there is no force pressuring firms to maximize outputs per quantity of input, or to create products that appeal to people. All of that comes from competition and market pressure. Thus a capitalist economy with all products sold by monopolies devolves into a planned economy. But each house is a little monopoly. So in those areas that are unconstrained, landlords can be driven out of business to some extent. In constrained areas, they cannot. So many stories of cat ladies sitting on huge mansions, slowly letting the mansions rot. Most of the housing stock in SF has water damage due to landlords not doing basic maintenance to protect their investment. This is because there is no one to drive them out of business. Now the idea of a property tax is that a high tax rate will force them to put the property into good use or at least sell it to someone else who will. But for that to happen at scale, the tax rates would need to be pretty high - higher than is politically feasible. High enough so that you feel like you are only renting the land from the government, rather than owning it, which really takes away autonomy from all but the very rich. Thus it will have a positive effect for more efficient land use, but that effect is very small unless those taxes are really high.

by sien 5y ago

crate_barre 5y ago

NYC has winters, it’s not temperate all year round. Think about all the poor people that would freeze to death in places like India or SF - if they had winters like the northeast). Warmer places will have the temperature to sustain a homeless population. NYC, prior to our current Democratic mayor, had aggressive law enforcement during Giuliani and Bloomberg terms. They would corral the homeless into specific areas (the poor neighborhoods) and push them out of sight (actual strategy to hide the homeless). You can be homeless in NYC, just not around areas where ‘decent’ folk live. Interpret that however you want. If SF corralled the homeless to the ghettos, no one would notice. Overall, if we take a census of the homeless, we’d easily learn that a good percentage of them are mentally ill and/or drug addicts. It’s much cheaper to build tents for them than provide institutional treatment (prolonged stay in clinics and mental health wards of hospitals). Generally these hospitals don’t have enough beds for everyone and constantly try to release everyone within 72 hours, no matter how severe the situation is. Plus, the cost of healthcare is immense (I’d say orders of magnitude over the tent housing solution). These are forsaken people, we will never solve this. I would recommend SF hide their homeless and get them off the beaches and boardwalks, and put the tents out of sight somewhere desolate. We as a society don’t have a sustainable altruism to succeed here.

thoughtstheseus 5y ago
We need better communities.

legutierr 5y ago

It's not only that north-eastern winters are brutal. There's more to it than that. Yes, NYC housing is very expensive, but that's because Manhattan is the most densely populated island in the world having a population greater than 150,000 people. Yes, you can squeeze a few more people into NYC proper, but there are physical limits that cannot be overcome, and New York is as close to those physical limits as anywhere else in the world. The New York metro area does not have those same physical limits, and is much more dynamic than California with regards to new construction and real estate sales—at all pricing levels—as a result. Yes, as you get closer to Manhattan things get more expensive. But Manhattan is not the only housing option for people—even for people who don't own a car. I live and work in a town of ~25,000 people that is connected to Manhattan by rail. In the past few years we have seen several hundred rental units be constructed in the center of the town. This is not atypical. Similar buildings have been going up throughout the region for years (although most affordable options are connected by bus rather than by train). I have to agree with GP's conclusion that California's problems primarily stem from its tax system—which is objectively ridiculous. If every time you move houses your tax rate resets and suddenly you are paying 10x (or more) in taxes than you did previously, why would you ever sell? In the NYC metro area, most of the people who in California would be suburban NIMBY types live and work in high-property-tax areas in relatively big homes while they raise their kids and send them to public school (which are well-funded by high property taxes). It is very common that when their kids go to college they sell their homes and move to smaller places (or to, say, Florida). They are incentivized to do this because doing so will lower their tax bill. As a result, the real estate market is very liquid, with most homes turning over every 15 to 30 years. In California the tax system works in the opposite manner, by disincentivizing sales. Even inherited property isn't sold, because doing so would result in a reduction in the net cash flow that the property can yield. Isn't it the case that most heirs typically sell property they inherit, in order to have access to liquid funds that they can use in a manner that is more consistent with their own personal needs and preferences? Not in California! In California, if you inherit a house, suddenly you are a landlord. None of this is to say that there isn't political resistance to higher-density housing in the northeast. There certainly is. However, the way that this resistance is typically mobilized is through the use of zoning restrictions. Zoning restrictions can be amended—and have been amended—as the need for housing has grown. If people are not willing to sell their properties—if the real estate market is not liquid enough in a certain area—then new development will not occur, regardless as to whether or not zoning ordinances are changed. In fact, the primary advocates for zoning changes are often developers who want to build specific projects. If there are enough properties for sale in an area to attract the interest of developers (and capital that legacy owners may not have access to), then it is more likely that there will be effective advocacy on a local level to amend zoning rules that will result in a more profitable use of those properties. If no one is selling, however, and if no one is buying, then no one has any interest in changing anything with regards to how the land is used.

snidane 5y ago

Needing to build more houses is a myth pushed forward by nimbys and developers. You can achieve the same and more by releasing unused housing back to market instead of sitting idle for speculative reasons. Increasing property taxes seems like a first viable solution, but it has drawbacks. It can apparently br avoided in some cases and they wouldn't affect owners of empty lots or derelict ruins that need the release back to market the most. This is solved by a tax on land value, not on propery value. Empty unused lots would get a massive tax, regardless of if there is a skyscraper on it or it is an empty space. High rise properties wouldn't get impacted much because the same tax would be amortized across many units. Properties outside of cities wouldn't get affected much, because land values outside of cities are low. Land value tax is a mechanically brutally simple and effective solution to the problem of congestion in city centres. Politically completely infeasible, because if there is someone fighting tooth and nail against such policies, it is the nimbys who inherited at the right time - modern day aristocracy.

notfromhere 5y ago
At some point you literally just need more houses. The Bay Area grew by a million people while still being pretty low density.
ppsreejith 5y ago
Wouldn't the ultimate effect of land value taxes be to build more housing? (since that's how we can extract the most value out of land for a given tax)
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Yes, but it's not clear how much. One of the biggest, most important insights you can have about economics - and even all social orgnization - is that while there is a subset of people who exploit economic opportunities and do things like maximize revenue, the vast majority do not. Even though there isn't a lot of free money to be had, that's because a small subset are grabbing the free money, not because everyone is grabbing it. Most don't grab it. Most just don't think about stuff like that and make terrible financial choices. That includes your local restaurant as much as your neighbor. Thus businesses are efficient to the degree that competition forces them to be efficient. No more. Now in some industries, a few businesses that are really well run are able to take so much marketshare that they became huge megafirms. That happens with tradeables, but much less with restaurants, and much much less with landlords. That is why franchise chains and big property management groups are so successful -- they are so much better run and more professional than the typical small time landlord or family owned restaurant. Btw, this is really the fatal flaw of communism and other communitarian economic approaches. It's not that the economic calculation problem is too hard -- yes, it's hard but you can get a good enough solution with linear programming approaches. But rather, there was no capital market that would remove capital from inefficient firms and give capital to new rivals. Look at Tesla's market cap and compare to the market cap of GM. In a planned economy, there are no Teslas, there is no force pressuring firms to maximize outputs per quantity of input, or to create products that appeal to people. All of that comes from competition and market pressure. Thus a capitalist economy with all products sold by monopolies devolves into a planned economy. But each house is a little monopoly. So in those areas that are unconstrained, landlords can be driven out of business to some extent. In constrained areas, they cannot. So many stories of cat ladies sitting on huge mansions, slowly letting the mansions rot. Most of the housing stock in SF has water damage due to landlords not doing basic maintenance to protect their investment. This is because there is no one to drive them out of business. Now the idea of a property tax is that a high tax rate will force them to put the property into good use or at least sell it to someone else who will. But for that to happen at scale, the tax rates would need to be pretty high - higher than is politically feasible. High enough so that you feel like you are only renting the land from the government, rather than owning it, which really takes away autonomy from all but the very rich. Thus it will have a positive effect for more efficient land use, but that effect is very small unless those taxes are really high.