4 ms·

If SF wants to be New York of the East, let them be so. Everyone else can move literally anywhere else in the country, which is big.

by bombcar 4mo ago

scoofy 4mo ago
>Everyone else can move literally anywhere else in the country This sentiment makes me so angry. People -- very obviously -- need to live where the jobs are. The fact that we want to say "oh, well if you don't want to live in the rent-seeking machine just go live in the desert" is the left-wing version of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps." The fact is this. A housing crisis is a slow motion cascade. The landowners profit exactly because housing has been turned into a zero sum game. The more they profit, the more the political opposition will grow. Because the most desirable areas have been cordoned off, every single new resident will likely be on the losing side of the rent-seeking, and thus a pro-housing advocate. Thus, the political situation is a slow motion cascade, and the dam will break, every new building brings more pro-housing voters, every new building makes another new building more likely. We could end this cycle by working together, but living in San Francisco, the side that has chosen to support rent-seeking cares only about themselves. You can see the political panic happening now. Scott Wiener will be our new rep. We will have hundreds of new units in the Marina. The west side has been upzoned. The only reason we're having the conversation is because the rent-seekers are starting to lose.
- robocat 4mo ago
  > housing has been turned into a zero sum game Not really. Land has always been zero-sum because there is a limited amount to compete for. And location is status, even in high density developments (status is often seen as zero-sum). Book review of Bird's The Land Trap that contains nice detail of unobvious monetary implications: https://progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/book-review-the-land-trap-by-mike https://progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/book-review-the-la...
  - scoofy 4mo ago
    >Not really. Land has always been zero-sum What? Yes, but you misunderstand. When you (intentionally) make expanding the housing supply illegal or practically impossible, then you've turned housing into a zero-sum game.
floor2 4mo ago
As soon as FAANG starts hiring people in Utah, Arkansas and Minnesota for the same roles at the same wages as they hire in the Bay, then people will move. As soon as VCs start funding founders in Boise, Kansas City and Chattanooga, then people will move. Until then, maybe we work to improve the places where most of us are required to live by our jobs. (And yes, in parallel we can work to reduce the employer-mandated dependence on those areas).
Schiendelman 4mo ago
This take is actively destructive. We need to let people CHOOSE to live WHERE they want to live - and let people who buy land CHOOSE to build housing for demand they perceive. That's it. That's the problem and the solution. It should be unconstitutional to limit housing production arbitrarily.
- xnx 4mo ago
  How do we "CHOOSE" who gets to live in the most desirable areas?
  - Schiendelman 4mo ago
    By letting people build upward. This is self solving, except for our arbitrary limits on how much housing a land owner is allowed to build.
    - apparent 4mo ago
      Should people also be allowed to move into neighborhoods that are zoned as suburban (not so much in SF as in nearby areas), and have them remain that way? I get the libertarian impulse to let people do what they want with their property, but it seems like part of that freedom should be the right to move into areas where there are zoning restrictions.
      - scoofy 4mo ago
        Yes, but not forever!!! Growth has to happen in the long run. We have the same zoning as we did before the people looking for housing were born. We can have incremental changes, or we can have sudden change. It's going to happen predictably or with a ton of political conflict. The better solution is always to allow a self-reinforcing pressure release on housing. I've long said that everyone should be allow, by right, to expand their housing by 2x the median building unit within a half mile radius, by units, sqft, and height. Suburban neighborhoods then slowly turn into duplexes over one generation, then row houses over another, then finally start building up after a third generation. Predictable, fair, and sustainable.
apparent 4mo ago
Agree, but I think you mean NYC of the West, not East.
- bombcar 4mo ago
  Of course I meant ... East Asia ... it's not that I'm tired enough that I forgot what coast SF is on ...

If SF wants to be New York of the East, let them be so. Everyone else can move literally anywhere else in the country, which is big.

by bombcar 4mo ago

If SF wants to be New York of the East, let them be so. Everyone else can move literally anywhere else in the country, which is big.

scoofy 4mo ago

>Everyone else can move literally anywhere else in the country This sentiment makes me so angry. People -- very obviously -- need to live where the jobs are. The fact that we want to say "oh, well if you don't want to live in the rent-seeking machine just go live in the desert" is the left-wing version of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps." The fact is this. A housing crisis is a slow motion cascade. The landowners profit exactly because housing has been turned into a zero sum game. The more they profit, the more the political opposition will grow. Because the most desirable areas have been cordoned off, every single new resident will likely be on the losing side of the rent-seeking, and thus a pro-housing advocate. Thus, the political situation is a slow motion cascade, and the dam will break, every new building brings more pro-housing voters, every new building makes another new building more likely. We could end this cycle by working together, but living in San Francisco, the side that has chosen to support rent-seeking cares only about themselves. You can see the political panic happening now. Scott Wiener will be our new rep. We will have hundreds of new units in the Marina. The west side has been upzoned. The only reason we're having the conversation is because the rent-seekers are starting to lose.

robocat 4mo ago
> housing has been turned into a zero sum game Not really. Land has always been zero-sum because there is a limited amount to compete for. And location is status, even in high density developments (status is often seen as zero-sum). Book review of Bird's The Land Trap that contains nice detail of unobvious monetary implications: https://progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/book-review-the-land-trap-by-mike https://progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/book-review-the-la...
- scoofy 4mo ago
  >Not really. Land has always been zero-sum What? Yes, but you misunderstand. When you (intentionally) make expanding the housing supply illegal or practically impossible, then you've turned housing into a zero-sum game.

floor2 4mo ago

As soon as FAANG starts hiring people in Utah, Arkansas and Minnesota for the same roles at the same wages as they hire in the Bay, then people will move. As soon as VCs start funding founders in Boise, Kansas City and Chattanooga, then people will move. Until then, maybe we work to improve the places where most of us are required to live by our jobs. (And yes, in parallel we can work to reduce the employer-mandated dependence on those areas).

Schiendelman 4mo ago

This take is actively destructive. We need to let people CHOOSE to live WHERE they want to live - and let people who buy land CHOOSE to build housing for demand they perceive. That's it. That's the problem and the solution. It should be unconstitutional to limit housing production arbitrarily.

xnx 4mo ago
How do we "CHOOSE" who gets to live in the most desirable areas?
- Schiendelman 4mo ago
  By letting people build upward. This is self solving, except for our arbitrary limits on how much housing a land owner is allowed to build.
  - apparent 4mo ago
    Should people also be allowed to move into neighborhoods that are zoned as suburban (not so much in SF as in nearby areas), and have them remain that way? I get the libertarian impulse to let people do what they want with their property, but it seems like part of that freedom should be the right to move into areas where there are zoning restrictions.
    - scoofy 4mo ago
      Yes, but not forever!!! Growth has to happen in the long run. We have the same zoning as we did before the people looking for housing were born. We can have incremental changes, or we can have sudden change. It's going to happen predictably or with a ton of political conflict. The better solution is always to allow a self-reinforcing pressure release on housing. I've long said that everyone should be allow, by right, to expand their housing by 2x the median building unit within a half mile radius, by units, sqft, and height. Suburban neighborhoods then slowly turn into duplexes over one generation, then row houses over another, then finally start building up after a third generation. Predictable, fair, and sustainable.

apparent 4mo ago

Agree, but I think you mean NYC of the West, not East.

bombcar 4mo ago
Of course I meant ... East Asia ... it's not that I'm tired enough that I forgot what coast SF is on ...