8 ms·

Born and raised in SF. NIMBYism is indeed a huge problem. It’s the hidden underbelly of a city with otherwise modern and diverse thinking. I’ve since moved to

Born and raised in SF. NIMBYism is indeed a huge problem. It’s the hidden underbelly of a city with otherwise modern and diverse thinking. I’ve since moved to Seattle and it’s crazy to see shit can actually get done here.

aliqot 4y ago
Thanks for the explanation. I'm a simple kind of person in a small town, so to us here this is all kind of crazy. Is a city as big as SFO still governed by politicians who live in it, or at that size does local government take people from other areas? I always read a lot about SFO as being on the cutting edge of progressive initiatives usually toward humane goals. Is this common? This gives everything I've been told or heard about SFO somewhat of a 'superficial' veneer (forgive me for lack of better words, I do not mean offense) based on the assumption that a city governed by its constituents ought to resemble them, but I'm seeing stuff like this where the words and intentions are right, but the actions and results are incongruent. Is this a mismatch between the politicians and residents or is this a "yes, but do it over there" thing? p.s. congrats on the move! in your opinion, what makes Seattle different? I've been there before, it was a beautiful and welcoming experience. People are friendly like here in the sticks, but there's just a lot more folks.
- Kalium 4y ago
  SF is governed mostly by the people who live there. The core of the problem is that SF has spent decades investing in giving every person, block, and neighborhood ways to participate in planning and changes. Generally this means giving out some kind of veto. So when the time comes to do something "Yes, but do it somewhere else" is the predominant response. To put it another way - everybody wants more shelters for the indigent, nobody wants one near where they live. The planning system is structured around enabling this.
  - aliqot 4y ago
    Thank you for your perspective on this. In my locale, this type of thing is hard to imagine, we'll feed anybody who can hold a fork here. We have almost zero resources for indigents here, so homeless and others without are a bit rare. What are the resources (aside from this restroom) afforded to those without, near SFO? I'm tempted to think about this time when a local made a habit of feeding the deer, eventually they went from not being seen to no longer fearing people and would walk right up to the porch expecting sandwiches and RC Cola. Is it possible the abundance of resources exacerbates the situation where those seeking them arrive?
    - Kalium 4y ago
      https://hsh.sfgov.org/ https://hsh.sfgov.org/ And that's just the resources from the city. There's a bunch of non-profits and a generally permissive public attitude. As to that question... it's a difficult one to answer. My understanding is that it's both difficult to study and politically sensitive.
      - aliqot 4y ago
        >it's both difficult to study and politically sensitive. Unfortunately I think you're right. A lot of delicate conversations fall into this category, and not just in SFO. As time passes my perspective shifts and I begin to realize our actions being at odds with our beliefs is not an ideologically linked trait, it is an innate quality of humanity. It is as if having the correct belief-system is sufficient and on par with actually living those values- the emotional reward is the same.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - didibus 4y ago
      I think we need to also keep things into perspective, there are an estimated 8k homeless in San Francisco, about 1% of its population. It seems most of those are caused by just poverty, not able to afford living expenses pushed people to the streets. Some amount of them are coming from other cities who get rid of their homeless by sending them to cities like San Francisco, but Sam Francisco also sometimes send homeless away similarly, this happens all over the US, as a kind of way to spread it out more evenly so it's not as visible in any given place. The fundamental issues of poverty are hard to solve, obviously, every country, city, nation, has always struggled with this. It's also a little more complicated due to some of the homeless also suffering from mental illness or drug addiction, that doesn't always make them qualified to even work, so it's like poverty mixed with what to do with the people that can't contribute to the work force as effectively. There's also the case of temperate climate, that's pretty attractive to people who live in the streets, but it's also convenient for a city, if homeless are dying of frost bites or heat, you might feel more compelled to give them shelter, but when outdoor tents suffice you might instead choose to shelter them outside like that and just keep moving them around so they don't stay to the same place too long for the neighbors to complain. I've heard San Francisco has a policy that when they give shelter, it has to be a full apartment with social service support, whereas New York and other cities go for more warehouse shelters, beds in a big room. The former is nicer to people that get to have access to them, but it hasn't scaled, whereas as the latter isn't as nice but has had more success actually sheltering them and hiding them from view I guess.
- didibus 4y ago
  I've only visited San Francisco, but I think one thing to consider is actually that it's a really small city with just too much going for its size. It's only 46 square mile and has over 800k inhabitants. It's the second densest city after New York. The surrounding Bay area adds 6.7 million more people, a large amount of who regularly go into the city for entertainment or work. I think it's an estimated 160k additional people that come in to the city per day from the outer areas. And there is an average of 131k tourist in the city each day as well. So you have almost 1.1 million people in a 46 square mile area. The city is fully built as well, there's no lots left, everything has a building on it with no room to grow, nowhere to expand out. You could only expand up, but that would require destroying and rebuilding. The landscape is also all hills and valleys, huge slopes, it's not the easiest to work around. The mayor is born and raised and still lives in San Francisco. All in all, I just think running a city like that, of that size and yet so populous, that also has so much wealth at the top, a relatively strong middle, but also large lows, it's got a lot of all classes of things, it's just a harder problem because of the sheer scale and density of it all. Seattle is twice the size at 84 square mile, and has a smaller population at 740k. The city has developed more recently as well, and a lot of the newer development are big tall skyscraper, there's still a little bit of building too small in some places, but it still hasn't reached anywhere the sheer density of San Francisco.
  - ericmay 4y ago
    Be careful as the city square mileage can be misleading. The other problem facing cities such as San Francisco is that despite its density it does a piss poor job at public transit and is still focused on car-first infrastructure. To your point, the surrounding area is ~7 million. It’s physically impossible for all of them or even most of them to drive everywhere without gigantic infrastructure problems. It will simply not work. Ever. It is physically impossible.
    - didibus 4y ago
      > Be careful as the city square mileage can be misleading As in exaggerating it's livable land size? Or the other way around?
giantg2 4y ago
How would the NIMBYism contribute to that cost? I can see construction costs being somewhat higher with COL and regulations, but you could solve this problem with one of those toilet trailers or a porta-john (or cinder block and other materials are relatively cheap). Seems like they want a certain "look".
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  My understanding is that NIMBYism also takes the form of adding multiple barriers to changing the neighborhood. Environmental permit, safety permit, approving architectural proposals prior to implementation, limitations on who does the construction, how the materials are sourced, approvals on construction times and schedules, etc. The people building it might need to hire lawyers to draft proposals formally to local committees to do multiple rounds of approval at multiple stages. These all have the intention of liberal policies (better materials for the environment for example) but the effect is that the community is conservative with development. [eta: I'm not making an opinion about what is good/bad/should be done. Just expressing what I understand is happening.]
  - giantg2 4y ago
    I thought most of the permits would be be moot on cost if it's the city paying itself for permits.
    - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
      Not really, they have to pay someone to write the proposal to receive the permit.
      - giantg2 4y ago
        Ah, that's much more involved than the permits I've dealt with in other places for small (eg not a development dealing with traffic flow) projects.
Forgeties79 4y ago
What’s that old onion headline? “78% of Americans support public transit for everyone else”?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mjhay 4y ago
> I’ve since moved to Seattle and it’s crazy to see shit can actually get done here. I've never heard Seattle described as a place where "shit can actually get done," but I suppose its not quite as bad as SF at this point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_process
- notch656a 4y ago
  I almost spat out my drink when they said: ... and then I went to Seattle. The light rail extension fiascos are the most publicly facing examples of this. Dear god SF must be bad when Seattle looks like a well oiled machine.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Seattle did bury the viaduct and add a light rail and build a stadium, so they have accomplished more than SF has, apparently.

aliqot 4y ago

Thanks for the explanation. I'm a simple kind of person in a small town, so to us here this is all kind of crazy. Is a city as big as SFO still governed by politicians who live in it, or at that size does local government take people from other areas? I always read a lot about SFO as being on the cutting edge of progressive initiatives usually toward humane goals. Is this common? This gives everything I've been told or heard about SFO somewhat of a 'superficial' veneer (forgive me for lack of better words, I do not mean offense) based on the assumption that a city governed by its constituents ought to resemble them, but I'm seeing stuff like this where the words and intentions are right, but the actions and results are incongruent. Is this a mismatch between the politicians and residents or is this a "yes, but do it over there" thing? p.s. congrats on the move! in your opinion, what makes Seattle different? I've been there before, it was a beautiful and welcoming experience. People are friendly like here in the sticks, but there's just a lot more folks.

Kalium 4y ago
SF is governed mostly by the people who live there. The core of the problem is that SF has spent decades investing in giving every person, block, and neighborhood ways to participate in planning and changes. Generally this means giving out some kind of veto. So when the time comes to do something "Yes, but do it somewhere else" is the predominant response. To put it another way - everybody wants more shelters for the indigent, nobody wants one near where they live. The planning system is structured around enabling this.
- aliqot 4y ago
  Thank you for your perspective on this. In my locale, this type of thing is hard to imagine, we'll feed anybody who can hold a fork here. We have almost zero resources for indigents here, so homeless and others without are a bit rare. What are the resources (aside from this restroom) afforded to those without, near SFO? I'm tempted to think about this time when a local made a habit of feeding the deer, eventually they went from not being seen to no longer fearing people and would walk right up to the porch expecting sandwiches and RC Cola. Is it possible the abundance of resources exacerbates the situation where those seeking them arrive?
  - Kalium 4y ago
    https://hsh.sfgov.org/ https://hsh.sfgov.org/ And that's just the resources from the city. There's a bunch of non-profits and a generally permissive public attitude. As to that question... it's a difficult one to answer. My understanding is that it's both difficult to study and politically sensitive.
    - aliqot 4y ago
      >it's both difficult to study and politically sensitive. Unfortunately I think you're right. A lot of delicate conversations fall into this category, and not just in SFO. As time passes my perspective shifts and I begin to realize our actions being at odds with our beliefs is not an ideologically linked trait, it is an innate quality of humanity. It is as if having the correct belief-system is sufficient and on par with actually living those values- the emotional reward is the same.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - didibus 4y ago
    I think we need to also keep things into perspective, there are an estimated 8k homeless in San Francisco, about 1% of its population. It seems most of those are caused by just poverty, not able to afford living expenses pushed people to the streets. Some amount of them are coming from other cities who get rid of their homeless by sending them to cities like San Francisco, but Sam Francisco also sometimes send homeless away similarly, this happens all over the US, as a kind of way to spread it out more evenly so it's not as visible in any given place. The fundamental issues of poverty are hard to solve, obviously, every country, city, nation, has always struggled with this. It's also a little more complicated due to some of the homeless also suffering from mental illness or drug addiction, that doesn't always make them qualified to even work, so it's like poverty mixed with what to do with the people that can't contribute to the work force as effectively. There's also the case of temperate climate, that's pretty attractive to people who live in the streets, but it's also convenient for a city, if homeless are dying of frost bites or heat, you might feel more compelled to give them shelter, but when outdoor tents suffice you might instead choose to shelter them outside like that and just keep moving them around so they don't stay to the same place too long for the neighbors to complain. I've heard San Francisco has a policy that when they give shelter, it has to be a full apartment with social service support, whereas New York and other cities go for more warehouse shelters, beds in a big room. The former is nicer to people that get to have access to them, but it hasn't scaled, whereas as the latter isn't as nice but has had more success actually sheltering them and hiding them from view I guess.
didibus 4y ago
I've only visited San Francisco, but I think one thing to consider is actually that it's a really small city with just too much going for its size. It's only 46 square mile and has over 800k inhabitants. It's the second densest city after New York. The surrounding Bay area adds 6.7 million more people, a large amount of who regularly go into the city for entertainment or work. I think it's an estimated 160k additional people that come in to the city per day from the outer areas. And there is an average of 131k tourist in the city each day as well. So you have almost 1.1 million people in a 46 square mile area. The city is fully built as well, there's no lots left, everything has a building on it with no room to grow, nowhere to expand out. You could only expand up, but that would require destroying and rebuilding. The landscape is also all hills and valleys, huge slopes, it's not the easiest to work around. The mayor is born and raised and still lives in San Francisco. All in all, I just think running a city like that, of that size and yet so populous, that also has so much wealth at the top, a relatively strong middle, but also large lows, it's got a lot of all classes of things, it's just a harder problem because of the sheer scale and density of it all. Seattle is twice the size at 84 square mile, and has a smaller population at 740k. The city has developed more recently as well, and a lot of the newer development are big tall skyscraper, there's still a little bit of building too small in some places, but it still hasn't reached anywhere the sheer density of San Francisco.
- ericmay 4y ago
  Be careful as the city square mileage can be misleading. The other problem facing cities such as San Francisco is that despite its density it does a piss poor job at public transit and is still focused on car-first infrastructure. To your point, the surrounding area is ~7 million. It’s physically impossible for all of them or even most of them to drive everywhere without gigantic infrastructure problems. It will simply not work. Ever. It is physically impossible.
  - didibus 4y ago
    > Be careful as the city square mileage can be misleading As in exaggerating it's livable land size? Or the other way around?

giantg2 4y ago

How would the NIMBYism contribute to that cost? I can see construction costs being somewhat higher with COL and regulations, but you could solve this problem with one of those toilet trailers or a porta-john (or cinder block and other materials are relatively cheap). Seems like they want a certain "look".

PuppyTailWags 4y ago
My understanding is that NIMBYism also takes the form of adding multiple barriers to changing the neighborhood. Environmental permit, safety permit, approving architectural proposals prior to implementation, limitations on who does the construction, how the materials are sourced, approvals on construction times and schedules, etc. The people building it might need to hire lawyers to draft proposals formally to local committees to do multiple rounds of approval at multiple stages. These all have the intention of liberal policies (better materials for the environment for example) but the effect is that the community is conservative with development. [eta: I'm not making an opinion about what is good/bad/should be done. Just expressing what I understand is happening.]
- giantg2 4y ago
  I thought most of the permits would be be moot on cost if it's the city paying itself for permits.
  - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
    Not really, they have to pay someone to write the proposal to receive the permit.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      Ah, that's much more involved than the permits I've dealt with in other places for small (eg not a development dealing with traffic flow) projects.

Forgeties79 4y ago

What’s that old onion headline? “78% of Americans support public transit for everyone else”?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mjhay 4y ago

> I’ve since moved to Seattle and it’s crazy to see shit can actually get done here. I've never heard Seattle described as a place where "shit can actually get done," but I suppose its not quite as bad as SF at this point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_process

notch656a 4y ago
I almost spat out my drink when they said: ... and then I went to Seattle. The light rail extension fiascos are the most publicly facing examples of this. Dear god SF must be bad when Seattle looks like a well oiled machine.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Seattle did bury the viaduct and add a light rail and build a stadium, so they have accomplished more than SF has, apparently.