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Perhaps the person should have bought a house instead of rented? If they're renting (I still rent) they should understand that rents go up and they may not be

Perhaps the person should have bought a house instead of rented? If they're renting (I still rent) they should understand that rents go up and they may not be able to afford to live there. Let's say they can't buy. I am not indifferent to their problem, but I don't see why having lived in a place for a given length of time should mean that person has a right to live permanently in a place they can no longer afford. And I don't see why it should deny someone who can afford to live there the ability to do so.

steveklabnik 13y ago
> Perhaps the person should have bought a house instead of rented? Choices like these aren't even open to people who are affected by gentrification. > And I don't see why it should deny someone who can afford to live there the ability to do so. I, personally, don't feel that those with money should be able to run roughshod over those who don't.
- epicureanideal 13y ago
  > I, personally, don't feel that those with money should be able to run roughshod over those who don't. What other method of allocating scarce resources did you have in mind? Random selection seems less fair than high income, because income is at least somewhat correlated with producing value. I mean, if you disagree with this, you basically disagree with the free market. I agree our current market is imperfect but I don't think randomly gifting scarce housing space to people is better.
  - steveklabnik 13y ago
    > I mean, if you disagree with this, you basically disagree with the free market. I do disagree with the notion that a free market (not that such a thing has ever or will ever exist) always leads to socially optimal outcomes, yes. > I don't think randomly gifting scarce housing space to people is better. Nobody is suggesting random gifting.
    - argonaut 13y ago
      Whether or not free markets are the best way to allocate housing is another debate in of itself. I think they are, but the question for you is what specific method of allocating housing would be better? The beauty of free markets is that they are often, given time, self-correcting (not in all situations, which is one reason we have regulation in general). In any other market, rising housing prices would stimulate developers to build more housing; the problem is that in SF, local govt regulation stymies expansion, both vertical and horizontal.
      - _delirium 13y ago
        > In any other market, rising housing prices would stimulate developers to build more housing It's not clear to me that this would actually bring down prices, and existing empirical evidence of how development increases in urban cores affects prices is pretty mixed. If all else were held equal, adding supply would bring down prices. However all else tends not to be equal, and development sprees seem to often generate their own upward-spiraling demand, which sometimes actually increases prices above what they previously were, by attracting more demand than the newly added supply satisfies. Some of the concern over gentrification (though often poorly investigated) is about what those mechanisms are. One pattern is upgrading of housing stock, e.g. replacement of 100 mid-range old housing units with 200 high-end new housing units, which often has the effect of increasing all three quantities: price, supply, and demand. That can then lead to some circular migration, as wealthier people move in to the city and poorer people move to formerly-well-off suburbs which as the houses age and deteriorate, become poorer (common in "inner-ring" suburbs of American cities). That can be good for other reasons, if you see more dense housing as a good in itself. Even if SF ends up more expensive than before, you might prefer an SF with 1 million people over one with 825k. However other people disagree that this shuffling around of rich/poor people is a net improvement. That's something of a subjective debate. However on the more objective question of whether redeveloping SF will solve the specific problem of housing costs, I'm skeptical: I suspect redevelopment of SF will not have much impact on its affordability.
        argonaut 13y ago
  - username223 13y ago
    > What other method of allocating scarce resources did you have in mind? I've always been a fan of allocation based on who had bigger muscles and was better with a club or other blunt weapon. To each his own.
- encoderer 13y ago
  This is a tough one. No doubt about it. No easy answers here. I just bought a house in Berkeley (used to rent in Glen Park). I'm curious what you think about rent control laws. I know a lot of landlords are abusing Ellis Act evictions but outside of those, rent control laws do a fair job at protecting the types of renters you mention. The city budget is flush with revenue driven from the tech boom. I am not against them using a portion of this to help with housing issues. But it seems mostly to be a lack of ideas that's stopping that from happening.

steveklabnik 13y ago

> Perhaps the person should have bought a house instead of rented? Choices like these aren't even open to people who are affected by gentrification. > And I don't see why it should deny someone who can afford to live there the ability to do so. I, personally, don't feel that those with money should be able to run roughshod over those who don't.

epicureanideal 13y ago
> I, personally, don't feel that those with money should be able to run roughshod over those who don't. What other method of allocating scarce resources did you have in mind? Random selection seems less fair than high income, because income is at least somewhat correlated with producing value. I mean, if you disagree with this, you basically disagree with the free market. I agree our current market is imperfect but I don't think randomly gifting scarce housing space to people is better.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  > I mean, if you disagree with this, you basically disagree with the free market. I do disagree with the notion that a free market (not that such a thing has ever or will ever exist) always leads to socially optimal outcomes, yes. > I don't think randomly gifting scarce housing space to people is better. Nobody is suggesting random gifting.
  - argonaut 13y ago
    Whether or not free markets are the best way to allocate housing is another debate in of itself. I think they are, but the question for you is what specific method of allocating housing would be better? The beauty of free markets is that they are often, given time, self-correcting (not in all situations, which is one reason we have regulation in general). In any other market, rising housing prices would stimulate developers to build more housing; the problem is that in SF, local govt regulation stymies expansion, both vertical and horizontal.
    - _delirium 13y ago
      > In any other market, rising housing prices would stimulate developers to build more housing It's not clear to me that this would actually bring down prices, and existing empirical evidence of how development increases in urban cores affects prices is pretty mixed. If all else were held equal, adding supply would bring down prices. However all else tends not to be equal, and development sprees seem to often generate their own upward-spiraling demand, which sometimes actually increases prices above what they previously were, by attracting more demand than the newly added supply satisfies. Some of the concern over gentrification (though often poorly investigated) is about what those mechanisms are. One pattern is upgrading of housing stock, e.g. replacement of 100 mid-range old housing units with 200 high-end new housing units, which often has the effect of increasing all three quantities: price, supply, and demand. That can then lead to some circular migration, as wealthier people move in to the city and poorer people move to formerly-well-off suburbs which as the houses age and deteriorate, become poorer (common in "inner-ring" suburbs of American cities). That can be good for other reasons, if you see more dense housing as a good in itself. Even if SF ends up more expensive than before, you might prefer an SF with 1 million people over one with 825k. However other people disagree that this shuffling around of rich/poor people is a net improvement. That's something of a subjective debate. However on the more objective question of whether redeveloping SF will solve the specific problem of housing costs, I'm skeptical: I suspect redevelopment of SF will not have much impact on its affordability.
      - argonaut 13y ago
- username223 13y ago
  > What other method of allocating scarce resources did you have in mind? I've always been a fan of allocation based on who had bigger muscles and was better with a club or other blunt weapon. To each his own.
encoderer 13y ago
This is a tough one. No doubt about it. No easy answers here. I just bought a house in Berkeley (used to rent in Glen Park). I'm curious what you think about rent control laws. I know a lot of landlords are abusing Ellis Act evictions but outside of those, rent control laws do a fair job at protecting the types of renters you mention. The city budget is flush with revenue driven from the tech boom. I am not against them using a portion of this to help with housing issues. But it seems mostly to be a lack of ideas that's stopping that from happening.