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I'd love to see San Francisco have much more open zoning regulations. They're clearly a contributor to the high real estate costs. However even if I built a low

by nkoren 13y ago

I'd love to see San Francisco have much more open zoning regulations. They're clearly a contributor to the high real estate costs. However even if I built a low-cost arcology in the middle of SF, I can guarantee that it would find a ready market of rich people willing to pay premium for it. Until the supply of real estate exceeds the demand of rich people willing to pay for it, the market will cater primarily to the wealthy and prices will remain high. A vasty liberalised zoning regime would probably help -- but not until it had saturated the market to the point where the wealthy were no longer crowding out the rest. Unfortunately the financialisation of the real estate industry makes this very difficult to achieve, as the wealthy will keep acquiring real estate as an investment long after their need for it as an actual place to live has been sated. Solutions to this will almost certainly need to include all of the following: 1.) Liberalisation of zoning & development, as you suggest (see Germany for a good example of this). 2.) Ending tax breaks which reward the accumulation of real estate. Probably other measures to de-financialise the real estate sector somewhat, such as requiring significantly higher reserves for banks. 3.) A Universal Basic Income to provide automation-proof social support / monetary redistribution in the face of the end of wage labour.

yummyfajitas 13y ago
...the wealthy will keep acquiring real estate as an investment long after their need for it as an actual place to live has been sated. Negligible problem. SF has a very low vacancy rate. Worry about it if it happens. http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/san-francisco-vacancy-remains-low-despite-building-boom/Content?oid=2622906 http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/san-francisco-vacancy... As for (3), we are nowhere near the point where that is necessary. No developer should ever clean their own house unless labor is scarce. Yet strangely, we have people claiming they can't find work, and we also have high costs for domestic labor. The real problem is that taxes and transfers drastically reduce the incentive for people to do low skill work: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/taxes-and-cliffs.html http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/taxes-and-cliffs...
- erichocean 13y ago
  OT: I've got an iOS app that collects an incredible amount of actionable metrics, and I'm looking for some help with exactly the problem you're solving at BayesianWitch for websites. Is there a way I can use your product to help what I'm doing? Email me at erich@rollrandom.com if you'd prefer to answer privately.
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    We have a JSON api and there is a good chance you can use our service (depending on the problem you are solving). I'll send you an email.
- nkoren 13y ago
  > Negligible problem. SF has a very low vacancy rate. Worry about it if it happens. But we're not talking about the vacancy rate of housing, we're talking about the availability of housing for those who aren't housing. Besides, I live in London, where this issue is accutely non-theoretical. > As for (3), we are nowhere near the point where that is necessary. We have large-scale structural underemployment and unemployment; real median incomes have been falling for a generation and a half; and half the workforce will be automated out of existence with a decade. We are right there. > The real problem is that taxes and transfers drastically reduce the incentive for people to do low skill work: That's almost precisely wrong. It's not the provision of social transfers which disincentivises people from working: it's the withdrawal of social transfers which creates high marginal tax rates. Make the transfers universal and unconditional, and those disincentives are gone. (I favour a flat UBI funded by a flat income tax: equality for all).
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    We have large-scale structural underemployment and unemployment;... And yet you still can't find a maid for $7.25/hour and companies continue outsourcing work because Americans are too expensive. That shouldn't be happening if humans were unnecessary, unless of course some other factor was inducing Americans not to work. Income has fallen due to a shift in compensation from taxed wages to untaxed benefits and due to composition changes in the workforce. http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ECICOM http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ECICOM http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/immigrants_simpsons_paradox_great_stagnation.html http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/immigrants_simpsons_p... Make the transfers universal and unconditional, and those disincentives are gone... Nope - diminishing marginal utility reduces it. This has been borne out by experiment - BI reduces working hours by 10% or so. (As is common on this topic, fawning reporters don't cite primary sources. Argh.) https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money-to-everyone/31639050894-e44e2c00 https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money...
Apocryphon 13y ago
How about replacing property taxes with a land value tax? http://qz.com/169767/the-century-old-solution-to-end-san-franciscos-class-warfare/ http://qz.com/169767/the-century-old-solution-to-end-san-fra...
- nkoren 13y ago
  That would actually kick the Bay Area class war into overdrive. Think about it: every time your neighbours develop their property (thus raising the market value of the area), your own land taxes would go up. If you're of the great majority of people whose income isn't riding the tech-boom train, then you'll soon be driven off your land by unpayable land-tax liabilities. While the article claims that property taxes "penalize" people for developing their land, the fact is that people who develop their land must have money, and therefore have the ability to pay taxes. The same cannot necessarily be said for people who don't develop their land. Land taxes would penalize the latter severely.

by nkoren 13y ago

yummyfajitas 13y ago

...the wealthy will keep acquiring real estate as an investment long after their need for it as an actual place to live has been sated. Negligible problem. SF has a very low vacancy rate. Worry about it if it happens. http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/san-francisco-vacancy-remains-low-despite-building-boom/Content?oid=2622906 http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/san-francisco-vacancy... As for (3), we are nowhere near the point where that is necessary. No developer should ever clean their own house unless labor is scarce. Yet strangely, we have people claiming they can't find work, and we also have high costs for domestic labor. The real problem is that taxes and transfers drastically reduce the incentive for people to do low skill work: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/taxes-and-cliffs.html http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/taxes-and-cliffs...

erichocean 13y ago
OT: I've got an iOS app that collects an incredible amount of actionable metrics, and I'm looking for some help with exactly the problem you're solving at BayesianWitch for websites. Is there a way I can use your product to help what I'm doing? Email me at erich@rollrandom.com if you'd prefer to answer privately.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  We have a JSON api and there is a good chance you can use our service (depending on the problem you are solving). I'll send you an email.
nkoren 13y ago
> Negligible problem. SF has a very low vacancy rate. Worry about it if it happens. But we're not talking about the vacancy rate of housing, we're talking about the availability of housing for those who aren't housing. Besides, I live in London, where this issue is accutely non-theoretical. > As for (3), we are nowhere near the point where that is necessary. We have large-scale structural underemployment and unemployment; real median incomes have been falling for a generation and a half; and half the workforce will be automated out of existence with a decade. We are right there. > The real problem is that taxes and transfers drastically reduce the incentive for people to do low skill work: That's almost precisely wrong. It's not the provision of social transfers which disincentivises people from working: it's the withdrawal of social transfers which creates high marginal tax rates. Make the transfers universal and unconditional, and those disincentives are gone. (I favour a flat UBI funded by a flat income tax: equality for all).
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  We have large-scale structural underemployment and unemployment;... And yet you still can't find a maid for $7.25/hour and companies continue outsourcing work because Americans are too expensive. That shouldn't be happening if humans were unnecessary, unless of course some other factor was inducing Americans not to work. Income has fallen due to a shift in compensation from taxed wages to untaxed benefits and due to composition changes in the workforce. http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ECICOM http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ECICOM http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/immigrants_simpsons_paradox_great_stagnation.html http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/immigrants_simpsons_p... Make the transfers universal and unconditional, and those disincentives are gone... Nope - diminishing marginal utility reduces it. This has been borne out by experiment - BI reduces working hours by 10% or so. (As is common on this topic, fawning reporters don't cite primary sources. Argh.) https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money-to-everyone/31639050894-e44e2c00 https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money...

Apocryphon 13y ago

How about replacing property taxes with a land value tax? http://qz.com/169767/the-century-old-solution-to-end-san-franciscos-class-warfare/ http://qz.com/169767/the-century-old-solution-to-end-san-fra...

nkoren 13y ago
That would actually kick the Bay Area class war into overdrive. Think about it: every time your neighbours develop their property (thus raising the market value of the area), your own land taxes would go up. If you're of the great majority of people whose income isn't riding the tech-boom train, then you'll soon be driven off your land by unpayable land-tax liabilities. While the article claims that property taxes "penalize" people for developing their land, the fact is that people who develop their land must have money, and therefore have the ability to pay taxes. The same cannot necessarily be said for people who don't develop their land. Land taxes would penalize the latter severely.