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Walking around SF the other day, my opinion evolved. SF is experiencing the result of a nationwide housing crisis. While some steps need to be take in SF, expe
by mint2 5y ago
Walking around SF the other day, my opinion evolved.
SF is experiencing the result of a nationwide housing crisis. While some steps need to be take in SF, expecting SF to solve a nationwide crisis by fundamentally changing itself could be a solution but doesn’t seem ideal.
We need to build more places like SF, not just keep packing more people in sf. Incentives for developers is broken, they are incentivized to build massive boxy McMansions sprawling out in suburbs that are built around cars not human livability, like all the new boxes along i5 near tracy that expect people to commute
- closeparen 5y agoSuburban sprawl is the law. These subdivisions off the side of the highway full of large lot single family homes aren’t even what developers think people want. They are prescribed by the building and planning codes of nearly every jurisdiction. Developers do sometimes build new places in the urban style but every element of that is a hard-fought battle against the government for variances, zoning changes, special permits, etc. The New Urbanists have an interesting approach to this: “open source” planning codes that prescribe urbanism rather than sprawl, which they try to convince municipalities to adopt as their default. They don’t seem to have much uptake though. The postwar sprawl style is what was popular when the regulatory regimes as we know them today came to be, and there’s a lot of inertia behind that, whether or not people actually like it. https://youtu.be/NMvwHDFVpCE https://youtu.be/NMvwHDFVpCE
- chelical 5y agoPlaces can be built like SF, but they won't have the same access to the same opportunities. People don't realize that a lot of inequality is driven by where you live or are forced to live. SF needs more affordable housing. It needs more housing period.