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I understand why the state is applying pressure, and SF’s building and planning departments are embarrassingly dysfunctional and corrupt. Still, I firmly belie

I understand why the state is applying pressure, and SF’s building and planning departments are embarrassingly dysfunctional and corrupt. Still, I firmly believe that a democracy works better when there is local control. San Francisco is already the most densely populated city in California, with three times the density of LA. If it is the wish of the people of SF to go slow on development, is that really unreasonable?

CalRobert 3y ago
That's still not very dense. And what of the wishes of those who would like to be San Franciscan, but cannot be?
- taylodl 3y ago
  What of the wishes of those who would like to own a Lamborghini, but cannot be?
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Not exactly the best analogy. Most people live somewhere because of work, a very insignificantly small percentage move somewhere to have fun with no plan.
  - Analemma_ 3y ago
    The sibling commenter already has the "real" rebuttal to this, but I would also add that if living in SF really was such a luxury good akin to a Lamborghini, then local taxes on local residents should go way, way up so the government can capture the appropriate amount of value (as they would with sales tax on a Lambo) and the market can allocate the scarce good most efficiently. It wouldn't make any sense to randomly privilege the people who happened to move there first.
    - taylodl 3y ago
      There is no "real" rebuttal: SF has no obligation to safeguard the interests of would-be residents. It may be wise for them to do so, but they're under no obligation to do so.
      - aoeusnth1 3y ago
        The State of California has no obligation to allow SF to restrict its housing construction. SF exists by the good grace of the CA state government, and its housing policy is downstream of that.
        taylodl 3y ago
        It's interesting you believe a state should have that kind of power. Sure, the legislature can withhold funding if you don't do what they like - that's on old yarn. But to strip a city of its right to maintain its own property and run roughshod? No. You can rest assured that if the state really wants to push it then SF will take it to court.
        Analemma_ 3y ago
        Cities don't have the same kind of relationship to state governments that states do to the federal government. Legally, cities (apart from charter cities) are just an administrative detail of the state government: they exist solely to further the state government's policy goals and have no independent existence (or democratic mandate) outside that telos. Cities might be able to sue if there's a specific state law being violated like CEQA, but if that's not the case and the cities are just making a generic complaint that the state is overriding their control, the state can tell them to shove it and there's nothing the city can do.
        aoeusnth1 3y ago
        If by 'maintain its own property' you mean exclude all others from living there by holding a stranglehold on construction, then yes, I believe zoning should be the power of the state, full stop.
  - CalRobert 3y ago
    Lamborghini owners aren't voting to make it illegal to build more sports cars.
emodendroket 3y ago
What's so good about everything being left up to local control? It seems like a great way for wealthier places to beggar their neighbors.
adastra22 3y ago
Yes it is unreasonable. Local policy should be decided not just by the people who currently live there, but also the people who work there and who do not live there but would like to. Our current local government system doesn’t allow for that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jjav 3y ago
  > who do not live there but would like to How would you define and enforce this? People who don't live in a particular city are everyone in the country except those who already live there. That's a lot of people. Would you have a registry of people who want to live somewhere so they can then vote there? How do you enforce that people on that list are serious about it? Or maybe I sign up as a wannabe resident of somewhere just to mess with their elections for the lulz?
  - adastra22 3y ago
    Workers whose registered full-time job location is within the district get to vote on issues there? Making some of these issues regional (SF Bay Area) instead of hyper-local or state-wide? Lots of options.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> if it is the wish of the people of SF to go slow on development, is that really unreasonable? Perhaps not. But other Californians shouldn't be subsidizing it. Maybe the compromise is that a city can halt builder's remedies indefinitely. But that revokes their claim to state funds. (About $900mm a year, or 15% of San Francisco's regular revenues [1].) [1] https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2022-06/FY22-23%20and%20FY23-24%20Revenue%20Letter.pdf https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2022-06/FY22-23%20and%20F...
scythe 3y ago
San Francisco only has three times the density of LA because "Los Angeles" includes a bunch of uninhabited mountains. If you use a more detailed measurement, the densities are similar. Anyway, fair is fair. San Francisco has to densify because the law is making all the cities around them densify too. This is a compromise because nobody wants to be the center of growth but everyone understands that the state is worse off with no growth. This is where the dream of local control is shattered on the rocks of game theory. And while I'm not familiar with the details of this particular kerfuffle, the story in San Francisco for at least a decade has been that politicians say they are in favor of growth, but they also want the developers to fix the homeless problem, save the whales and make your hair grow back, so nothing gets done.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  Is there a standard measurement for poulation density that handles unbuildable/uninhabited areas? you could do something like "calculate the population density for every census tract in LA, excluding those with density <10 people per square mile". That would get rid of the Angeles Forest, Griffith Park, Santa Monica Mountains, etc.
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    You look at a similar geographic area of population density. In this article they did just that, comparing central LA to SF, and found similar results for density and modal share: https://la.streetsblog.org/2015/03/03/l-a-vs-s-f-how-does-transportation-really-compare https://la.streetsblog.org/2015/03/03/l-a-vs-s-f-how-does-tr...
phendrenad2 3y ago
There needs to be a balance. It's obvious that SF has ceased to be a functional city and is now operating the world's biggest scheme to make already-millionare homeowners more wealthy. If you're not a SF resident then you might think "who cares, people voted for this", but people can be fooled into voting against their own best interests, especially when the local access-based journalism is carrying water for the corrupt politicians. At some point a higher authority, not touched by the corruption, needs to step in and remove the incentives, which is exactly what the state of CA is targeting.
- smugma 3y ago
  Ironically, most of my millionaire home-owning friends in SF support more development here. It’s the millionaire Preston/Peskin “saviors” that oppose development.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
My main takeaway from this comment is that LA needs to densify. Their zoning situation is maybe even worse than SF's.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  LA upzoned for an additional 255,000 homes this year, which was enough to satisfy the state's requirements.
ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
> I firmly believe that a democracy works better when there is local control. San Francisco is already the most densely populated city in California, with three times the density of LA. If it is the wish of the people of SF to go slow on development, is that really unreasonable? I agree with this sentiment, as long as it's equally applied in an even more local fashion: If it is the wish of the people of a neighborhood, a street, or indeed a singular plot of land, to go fast on development, is that any less reasonable than less local control, such as by the city?
hackerlight 3y ago
> Still, I firmly believe that a democracy works better when there is local control. The problem is when you have large negative global effects that emerge from so-called "local" decisions. A nationwide housing crisis leading to human suffering and political extremism. It's bad for everyone, it's especially bad for the poorest in our society, and it's not local as much as landowners like to tell themselves it is. Local governance is ideal for decisions that are actually local. Like organizing communal rubbish pick-up.
Analemma_ 3y ago
> San Francisco is already the most densely populated city in California, with three times the density of LA. LA is practically synonymous with disastrous low-density sprawl, so "three times the density of LA" is kind of a "three times zero is zero" statement. Huge parts of San Francisco look like this: [0], it's obscene and absolutely is unreasonable. [0]: https://sf.curbed.com/2020/3/9/21171492/housing-affordability-strategies-san-francisco-targets-planning-report https://sf.curbed.com/2020/3/9/21171492/housing-affordabilit...
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  You are missing the fact that these numbers represent an average density. There are denser parts of LA than SF certainly. Koreatown would like a word. Adjacent areas aren’t much less dense either.
mint2 3y ago
Succinctly, locals go for local optima, not statewide, countrywide or societal optima. If left to locals, no one will do it. It like a person always going for immediate gratification and wondering why they are unhealthy. Decisions need made on broader timelines and scales than local control allows for.

CalRobert 3y ago

That's still not very dense. And what of the wishes of those who would like to be San Franciscan, but cannot be?

taylodl 3y ago
What of the wishes of those who would like to own a Lamborghini, but cannot be?
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  Not exactly the best analogy. Most people live somewhere because of work, a very insignificantly small percentage move somewhere to have fun with no plan.
- Analemma_ 3y ago
  The sibling commenter already has the "real" rebuttal to this, but I would also add that if living in SF really was such a luxury good akin to a Lamborghini, then local taxes on local residents should go way, way up so the government can capture the appropriate amount of value (as they would with sales tax on a Lambo) and the market can allocate the scarce good most efficiently. It wouldn't make any sense to randomly privilege the people who happened to move there first.
  - taylodl 3y ago
    There is no "real" rebuttal: SF has no obligation to safeguard the interests of would-be residents. It may be wise for them to do so, but they're under no obligation to do so.
    - aoeusnth1 3y ago
      The State of California has no obligation to allow SF to restrict its housing construction. SF exists by the good grace of the CA state government, and its housing policy is downstream of that.
      - taylodl 3y ago
        It's interesting you believe a state should have that kind of power. Sure, the legislature can withhold funding if you don't do what they like - that's on old yarn. But to strip a city of its right to maintain its own property and run roughshod? No. You can rest assured that if the state really wants to push it then SF will take it to court.
        Analemma_ 3y ago
        Cities don't have the same kind of relationship to state governments that states do to the federal government. Legally, cities (apart from charter cities) are just an administrative detail of the state government: they exist solely to further the state government's policy goals and have no independent existence (or democratic mandate) outside that telos. Cities might be able to sue if there's a specific state law being violated like CEQA, but if that's not the case and the cities are just making a generic complaint that the state is overriding their control, the state can tell them to shove it and there's nothing the city can do.
        aoeusnth1 3y ago
        If by 'maintain its own property' you mean exclude all others from living there by holding a stranglehold on construction, then yes, I believe zoning should be the power of the state, full stop.
- CalRobert 3y ago
  Lamborghini owners aren't voting to make it illegal to build more sports cars.

emodendroket 3y ago

What's so good about everything being left up to local control? It seems like a great way for wealthier places to beggar their neighbors.

adastra22 3y ago

Yes it is unreasonable. Local policy should be decided not just by the people who currently live there, but also the people who work there and who do not live there but would like to. Our current local government system doesn’t allow for that.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jjav 3y ago
> who do not live there but would like to How would you define and enforce this? People who don't live in a particular city are everyone in the country except those who already live there. That's a lot of people. Would you have a registry of people who want to live somewhere so they can then vote there? How do you enforce that people on that list are serious about it? Or maybe I sign up as a wannabe resident of somewhere just to mess with their elections for the lulz?
- adastra22 3y ago
  Workers whose registered full-time job location is within the district get to vote on issues there? Making some of these issues regional (SF Bay Area) instead of hyper-local or state-wide? Lots of options.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> if it is the wish of the people of SF to go slow on development, is that really unreasonable? Perhaps not. But other Californians shouldn't be subsidizing it. Maybe the compromise is that a city can halt builder's remedies indefinitely. But that revokes their claim to state funds. (About $900mm a year, or 15% of San Francisco's regular revenues [1].) [1] https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2022-06/FY22-23%20and%20FY23-24%20Revenue%20Letter.pdf https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2022-06/FY22-23%20and%20F...

scythe 3y ago

San Francisco only has three times the density of LA because "Los Angeles" includes a bunch of uninhabited mountains. If you use a more detailed measurement, the densities are similar. Anyway, fair is fair. San Francisco has to densify because the law is making all the cities around them densify too. This is a compromise because nobody wants to be the center of growth but everyone understands that the state is worse off with no growth. This is where the dream of local control is shattered on the rocks of game theory. And while I'm not familiar with the details of this particular kerfuffle, the story in San Francisco for at least a decade has been that politicians say they are in favor of growth, but they also want the developers to fix the homeless problem, save the whales and make your hair grow back, so nothing gets done.

Rebelgecko 3y ago
Is there a standard measurement for poulation density that handles unbuildable/uninhabited areas? you could do something like "calculate the population density for every census tract in LA, excluding those with density <10 people per square mile". That would get rid of the Angeles Forest, Griffith Park, Santa Monica Mountains, etc.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  You look at a similar geographic area of population density. In this article they did just that, comparing central LA to SF, and found similar results for density and modal share: https://la.streetsblog.org/2015/03/03/l-a-vs-s-f-how-does-transportation-really-compare https://la.streetsblog.org/2015/03/03/l-a-vs-s-f-how-does-tr...

phendrenad2 3y ago

There needs to be a balance. It's obvious that SF has ceased to be a functional city and is now operating the world's biggest scheme to make already-millionare homeowners more wealthy. If you're not a SF resident then you might think "who cares, people voted for this", but people can be fooled into voting against their own best interests, especially when the local access-based journalism is carrying water for the corrupt politicians. At some point a higher authority, not touched by the corruption, needs to step in and remove the incentives, which is exactly what the state of CA is targeting.

smugma 3y ago
Ironically, most of my millionaire home-owning friends in SF support more development here. It’s the millionaire Preston/Peskin “saviors” that oppose development.

HDThoreaun 3y ago

My main takeaway from this comment is that LA needs to densify. Their zoning situation is maybe even worse than SF's.

Rebelgecko 3y ago
LA upzoned for an additional 255,000 homes this year, which was enough to satisfy the state's requirements.

ImPostingOnHN 3y ago

> I firmly believe that a democracy works better when there is local control. San Francisco is already the most densely populated city in California, with three times the density of LA. If it is the wish of the people of SF to go slow on development, is that really unreasonable? I agree with this sentiment, as long as it's equally applied in an even more local fashion: If it is the wish of the people of a neighborhood, a street, or indeed a singular plot of land, to go fast on development, is that any less reasonable than less local control, such as by the city?

hackerlight 3y ago

> Still, I firmly believe that a democracy works better when there is local control. The problem is when you have large negative global effects that emerge from so-called "local" decisions. A nationwide housing crisis leading to human suffering and political extremism. It's bad for everyone, it's especially bad for the poorest in our society, and it's not local as much as landowners like to tell themselves it is. Local governance is ideal for decisions that are actually local. Like organizing communal rubbish pick-up.

Analemma_ 3y ago

> San Francisco is already the most densely populated city in California, with three times the density of LA. LA is practically synonymous with disastrous low-density sprawl, so "three times the density of LA" is kind of a "three times zero is zero" statement. Huge parts of San Francisco look like this: [0], it's obscene and absolutely is unreasonable. [0]: https://sf.curbed.com/2020/3/9/21171492/housing-affordability-strategies-san-francisco-targets-planning-report https://sf.curbed.com/2020/3/9/21171492/housing-affordabilit...

kjkjadksj 3y ago
You are missing the fact that these numbers represent an average density. There are denser parts of LA than SF certainly. Koreatown would like a word. Adjacent areas aren’t much less dense either.

mint2 3y ago

Succinctly, locals go for local optima, not statewide, countrywide or societal optima. If left to locals, no one will do it. It like a person always going for immediate gratification and wondering why they are unhealthy. Decisions need made on broader timelines and scales than local control allows for.