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Seems kind of silly to me, yes this means that many people have to leave the city, but there really is not much that they can do about it. San Francisco's city

Seems kind of silly to me, yes this means that many people have to leave the city, but there really is not much that they can do about it. San Francisco's city government is not going to be able to either (a) kick out the tech people nor (b) figure out a way to lower rent (and in turn tax revenue). It's in the cities interest to keep the rent/cost per home as high as possible and in turn keep the tech people around. I really don't understand why this bothers the others in the city. If they do not own where they live (and chose to rent) then they don't OWN their home and in turn have no right to live there. Rather, it makes much more sense that they should live somewhere within their means. If they are angry about that, it seems to me that they are just throwing a fit. I personally am from Chicago, and I know there is a similar situation there. Most of the city (even for high paying jobs) commute in because there is a fairly decent train system, but also the prices are 10 times higher per square foot in the city. The people who do live in the city are wealthy or homeless. Though San Francisco's rent is twice as high as Chicago's on average, no one near Chicago wants to waste their money living in the city unless they want to be in the heart of the city and enjoy the scene. If you can't afford that, then perhaps you didn't make very good choices in your life (aka didn't make enough money to obtain what you want) and you should try and find a way to achieve that goal without inflicting pain (stress, wasted time, etc.) on others.

fennecfoxen 13y ago
You're right that they don't own their home. The key is that they feel entitled to living there anyway, as the commie leftists whose ideology defines the city's politics do not respect capital, like the capital that goes into building homes, or the right of the owner of that capital to make a profit. Rather, the landlord is treated as an invalid actor and a cartoonish villain. That's why there's rent control, it's also why the housing stock is so poorly maintained, and one important reason why no one's built middle-class housing in the city for decades (though other anti-development sentiment also exists).
- dylandrop 13y ago
  Right, so everyone who is in opposition to Google is a "commie leftist". What, is this McCarthyist America again?
  - adharmad 13y ago
    McCarthysism involved persecution. I think what the OP is saying is that people who oppose Google are also opposing the rights of landlords and other renters to get into free agreements. The fair market price of apartments in SF has been kept artificially low via legislation and gradually this is changing.
    - dylandrop 13y ago
      My objection is his use of the term "commie leftist", using a tactic that undermines the credibility of these people's concerns analogous to the sentiments Red Scare. Of course he isn't persecuting them, but he's using the term "commie leftist" as a derogatory scare tactic. If he wants to be taken seriously he should avoid using those terms in that manner.
  - fennecfoxen 13y ago
    More like "San Francisco, for historical reasons related to the 1960s and the Summer of Love, is a city which has attracted and retained a substantial number of people whose culture of political beliefs dictate that the community ought to have substantial influence over a variety of processes, such as the process of obtaining housing. They believe that this control will help effect social justice. As a result of this world view, these people have reacted to the influence of Google and other technology companies by protesting it and its employees. Central to the protests is the fact that said employees are willing and able to pay more for apartments (and other services) than the protestors would like, thus inhibiting the ability of the protestors (or people the protestors sympathize with) to obtain apartments or services for a low price. Moreover, these protestors substantially comprise the set of individuals who have engaged in such protests." I am aware of people who are opposed to Google for other reasons - e.g. privacy advocates. I am not aware of substantial numbers of them engaging in anti-Google-bus protests in San Francisco; their protests have different characteristics. And yes, I called them both "leftist" and "commie". I contend that this summary is accurate, and that many of these protestors would gladly admit to embracing leftism and either support or express sympathy for communism. As the US remains substantially a free country, these are positions that they may legitimately hold while remaining political actors, regardless of the accuracy of the world-view that these actors hold, and regardless of the potential negative impact of these policies if implemented. If you're really interested in people who are impugning others as invalid political actors, you should complain about Cuomo and Bill de Blasio for overtly saying that conservatives aren't welcome in the state of New York.
- brenschluss 13y ago
  one important reason why no one's built middle-class housing in the city for decades You think that the lack of middle-class housing is because of commie leftists? Really? This makes no economic sense - maybe review some of your logic? I live in NYC, where the lack of middle-class housing is because real estate developers flock towards luxury residential condominiums (oriented towards the upper class), since that's the ideal way to maximize IRR. I would maintain that a healthy regulation of capital usage creates a healthy middle class. I offer you to suggest coherent arguments otherwise.
  - fennecfoxen 13y ago
    > You think that the lack of middle-class housing is because of commie leftists? Really? This makes no economic sense Of course it makes economic sense. Commie leftists empowered by the legislature brought you rent control. Rent control means onerous limitations on what the property-owner can do with the property, directly reducing his ability to earn money off it and reducing the incentives to build new apartments. It's a wealth transfer from landlords to tenants, and no one invests in anything with the goal of having their wealth transferred away. Granted, it's certainly not the only thing that stands in the way of new development (but I already mentioned that). Impeding new development means less housing overall, which in turn means more-expensive housing for everyone. -- But you live in New York. New York City's own flirtations with rent control under the War Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1943 are even better studied. Yes, the war emergency is WWII. Yes, that law still governs rent control in New York. (Yes, the DeBlasio would like to see more rent control in more places in practice, as well). And yes, it was destructive. Hell, it's the textbook case -- literally, dozens of Intro-to-Econ textbooks. At one point in the 1970s the Department of Buildings noted that over one-third of the buildings in Harlem had abandoned by their landlords. You may also be familiar with the Bronx, burning. If the first paragraph by itself is too tendentious for you, I can also offer you information on the consensus of economists. If you think Milton Friedman and Fredrick Hayek are too capitalist, maybe I could quote Gunnar Myrdal -- a chief architect of Sweden's welfare state. "Rent control has in certain Western countries constituted, maybe, the worst example of poor planning by governments lacking courage and vision." Or Assar Lindbeck, noted socialist: "In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing." I will also refer you to papers like Alson, Kearl and Vaughn's "Is There a Consensus Among Economists in the 1990’s?" and Block and Walker's "Entropy in the Canadian Economics Profession: Sampling Consensus on the Major Issues". 93% of the American economists and 95% of Canadian economists endorsed the statement that "a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available." IN SUMMARY. To deny that rent control is destructive is as intelligent and scientific a statement as endorsing homeopathy, saying vaccines cause autism, and that global warming is caused primarily by sunspots: It's a false statement that is at odds with the scientific consensus, and it leads to destructive public policies.
- rhizome31 13y ago
  Poe's Law at work here.
jseliger 13y ago
(b) figure out a way to lower rent (and in turn tax revenue). This isn't mysterious or hard, and I've written comments about it before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7073079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7073079). There are two ways to lower the cost of something: increase the supply or decrease demand. It's quite easy to build more units on a given parcel of land but SF has mostly chosen not to do so (http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francisco-exodus/7205/ http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francis...). The real problem starts with voters, since they're the ones electing the mayor, city council, and other officials, who respond to voter preferences against building stuff but who also deal with voters complaining about high rents. They're in a situation similar to the ones Bryan Caplan describes in The Myth of the Rational Voter, which is a fascinating book that deserves not just to be read but reread (http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies/dp/0691138737?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957 http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies/dp...).
- wwweston 13y ago
  Can you point to an example of a place/time where a housing supply increase alone (no economic weakness or other drop in demand) has led to decreased prices?
  - jseliger 13y ago
    Yeah—Houston and Dallas, today. See also Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High. More generally, if you get more supply in the face of increasing demand, but not enough to lead to actual decreases, you still get smaller increases, per basic micro econ.
    - stcredzero 13y ago
      My girlfriend's experience is that rental prices have been rising sharply in Houston for Montrose and the Heights. There are bargains to be had in East End district, but that's too edgy for her. There are cheaper places to live, but you end up driving everywhere.
    - 13y ago
pavanky 13y ago
That is probably the most condescending thing I've seen on hacker news (and I've seen a lot of that). The protesters may be wrong in their methods and they are probably fighting for a losing cause. But to say people made bad decisions in their life because they are not earning twice or thrice the national median income is just ignorant. You compare SFO wit Chicago. But I am guessing the high earners living in the city also work there, unlike SFO where they commute OUT to work. There are no easy solutions to this problem. But please do not straight up dismiss it. Disclaimer: I do not live in the region so I have no idea about the specifics. I just felt the parent comment was wrong.
- nawitus 13y ago
  One easy solution is to make it legal to build more apartments.
  - shittyanalogy 13y ago
    Didn't help Brooklyn.
    - wwweston 13y ago
      Can you post more info about this?
- redsymbol 13y ago
  I'm a software engineer who lives in San Francisco, and pretty much agree with everything you say in your response, pavanky. No disclaimer :-)
- omegaham 13y ago
  I think the reason why people don't live in Silicon Valley is that it's even more expensive to live there. I'm also kind of skeptical toward the protestors, mostly because it's confusing to me that people actually expect living in the city to be cheap. Big cities have lots of people and very little space. Therefore, space is in high demand and is really expensive. If you don't want to live in a shoebox, don't live in the city. California is even more expensive because it's in even higher demand. It has a burgeoning culture scene, a large tech scene, and is a desirable retirement spot. All of these things are pretty much beyond the protestors' control. Not only that, let's look at their endgame. There are two ways for rent to be lowered: 1. Subsidized housing. 2. Make fewer people want to live in San Francisco. The first will work in the short term, but it will also drive up taxes in the area. Businesses will then raise their prices. The rich guys will be unaffected - what do they care if eggs now cost $3.00 instead of $2.00? The poor guys will, again, be unable to make ends meet. But at least their housing is affordable! The second makes me think of cities where no one wants to live like Flint and Camden. I'm sure there's very cheap real estate there, but I wouldn't want my city to turn into it.
deleted 13y ago
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smtddr 13y ago
>>If you can't afford that, then perhaps you didn't make very good choices in your life (aka didn't make enough money to obtain what you want) and you should try and find a way to achieve that goal without inflicting pain (stress, wasted time, etc.) on others. This is the most insensitive, privileged comment on this issue yet.
- deleted 13y ago
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shittyanalogy 13y ago
Two things: 1) They want Google to have to pay the city a reasonable fee to operate buses. 2) It's easy to say, "they're renting and have no right to live there." To throw people out because they no longer make enough money to keep up with skyrocketing rent costs is to say that you care more about money than community. It's very close minded and expressly business oriented to think that there's no reason people should have living situation security.
- thrownaway2424 13y ago
  The thing is the "reasonable fee" for using the curb is bullshit, for two reasons. Reason the first, if curbside space is oh ever so precious, why can you rent it at the rate of $109/year in the form of a residential parking permit? I'm sure Google would be willing to pay $1000/year to designate a half block of RPP spaces to bus loading, and the city would get more money out of it than they get out of the RPP program. Secondly, where are all the protests against Twitters highly subsidized dedicated Muni bus? That's costing an arm and a leg, on top of the huge payroll tax break the city threw at Twitter so they wouldn't leave. Twitter people get paid, too (although God knows why; the company barely has any revenue), and are running up the rents in the Mission just as much as anyone else.
brenschluss 13y ago
If they do not own where they live (and chose to rent) then they don't OWN their home and in turn have no right to live there. Rather, it makes much more sense that they should live somewhere within their means. If they are angry about that, it seems to me that they are just throwing a fit. Ah, it's clear that you're being a little small-minded and looking at things at a micro-level, at the scale of the person. In startup terms, be more disruptive, think 30,000ft, not 6'. An argument like the one you mentioned above is one of complacency and inaction that originates around a tautology. "If they can't afford it, they shouldn't be there." = "If they don't like the status quo, they shouldn't protest the status quo." Other similar arguments could be formulated; "If you don't like the NSA, move to a different country", "If you don't have high speed internet because you can't pay $200/mo for fiber, you should cope with slow internet." Note that the arguments I give are not actually constructive criticism or logical arguments, but tautological loops that leave people in positions of complacency. I will offer that the better position to take is: "We should all have inexpensive high-speed internet. How can we get there?" "The USA should not spy on its citizens. What can we do to change that?" And correspondingly: "We should have a stable and healthy housing situation for all, what can we do to change this?" Now, it sounds like you most certainly don't agree with that last question, since you mention: It's in the cities interest to keep the rent/cost per home as high as possible and in turn keep the tech people around. I wonder if you feel the same way about the USA: "It's in the US's interest to keep the rent/cost per home as high as possible and in turn keep the high-income individuals around"?
midas007 13y ago
Sounds like you were at Davos while Kyiv, Damascus, Cairo, etc.
tinco 13y ago
> If they do not own where they live (and chose to rent) then they don't OWN their home and in turn have no right to live there. I don't know if this is an American thing or not, but to a Dutch person this remark is rather revolting. In The Netherlands, if you pay for your home it is your right to live there, regardless of how you finance it. Home owners are not somehow more privileged than renters are. > no one near Chicago wants to waste their money living in the city unless they want to be in the heart of the city and enjoy the scene. As I understand it, the problem in San Francisco is not just about the city center, it's the entire 40 miles radius around the Google campus and other SV hotspots where rents and housing prices have increased so much young adults can't afford in the areas they grew up in anymore. > If you can't afford that, then perhaps you didn't make very good choices in your life You are a disgusting person. > you should try and find a way to achieve that goal without inflicting pain (stress, wasted time, etc.) on others This would be nice in an ideal society, but in a liberal society like the U.S., this simply isn't an option for many people.
- druiid 13y ago
  Sadly many homeowners in the US look down upon renters. I have personally encountered this at least a couple times in my life. Generally it comes with situations where a neighborhood sees a mix of homeowners and renters, which is generally things like town-home or condominium developments. I even once had a shouting match with an 'owner' which ended with them saying I didn't deserve to live their because they were an owner and I was 'just a renter' (Note: I was in the right in this argument).
  - boon 13y ago
    Most of the owners of rental property I know are usually very happy with, and encouraging of, the renters of their units. One of the issues with renting is that you DO end up paying for the owners property taxes, not directly, but it is factored into the cost of running the rental. If the local government decides to increase property taxes, or housing appraisals increase in the area, then rent may increase. This is often seen as "bad" by the renters, but really there is nothing an owner can do about it.
- 13y ago
e12e 13y ago
> I really don't understand why this bothers the others in the city. If they do not own where they live (and chose to rent) then they don't OWN their home and in turn have no right to live there. First: choose to rent? You're suggesting that they've just decided to gamble away their savings on questionable investments, rather than choosing to purchase an apartment in San Francisco? Second: As for "having no right to live there" if you don't own the home -- I don't think that's legally accurate even in the US? AFAIK most modern states give a considerable amount of weight to the idea that where you actually live, is considered your home/residence, and that "your home is your castle". That said, it does sound strange to me. The idea that infrastructure (roads) should somehow be free to private citizens but not corporations strikes me as very peculiar. Isn't the whole idea of government infrastructure that it's collectively financed (by taxes and fees)? Seems like there's two sides to the protests: A frustration with rising prices for housing, and a frustration with Google (and other tech companies) for their role in enabling the public-private monitoring complex and emerging police state. I can understand both of these grievances, but taking them out on the buses still strikes me as odd. I suppose it's an efficient way to get media coverage and get noticed by the companies -- but without a plan for change (going back to one-person, one-car commutes sounds rather reactionary) -- I don't see it helping much. The logical next step for Google would probably be to buy land and build company housing? Much like the industrial giants of old.
- icegreentea 13y ago
  There are legitimate reasons for having certain infrastructure priced differently to corporations and private citizens, most especially in situations where costs scale super-linearly. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to make the argument from extremes here. For example, roads. Say there's only one road in and out of town. It can sustain V volume of traffic, where V was initially sized for its population of size P. Now, corporation sets up a factory in town, employing say 0.05P (does not change the overall population). Factory drives traffic volume to 2V. However, the corporation itself doesn't do so hot, so the increase in revenue from corporate taxes are not enough to pay for the infrastructure changes required. In this position, I think it would be fair and sensible to somehow directly levy a charge on the corporation - with all the possible negative side effects that that would entail.
williamcotton 13y ago
So there's a piece of land at 22nd and Folsom. It is currently owned by Steve Johnson. He bought it from a guy named Mark, who bough it from a guy named William, who inherited it from his father, who bought it from a guy named Sam, who bought it from a guy named John who inherited it from his grandfather who purchased it from a rancher named James. James was given the land by deed of the Unites States after it's previous tenant, also a rancher, was forced out as a result of a war between Mexico and the US and given a small amount of gold. This rancher was named Julio and his family had been on the land for 2 generations. Previous to that a native people had lived there for many hundreds of years until being forcibly removed by a band of Spaniards waving a piece of paper. Now, please tell me more about property rights and justice.
tomp 13y ago
> there really is not much that they can do about it Protest? > San Francisco's city government is not going to be able to [...] figure out a way to lower rent Allow more homes built? > (and in turn tax revenue) Why would lower rent mean lower tax revenue? They could tax paycheques instead. > It's in the cities interest But not in the citizens' interest, which vote the city leaders. > I really don't understand why this bothers the others in the city. Because they can't afford to live anymore in a city where they have lived their whole life. > If they do not own where they live (and chose to rent) then they don't OWN their home and in turn have no right to live there. Maybe they "chose to buy" but could not afford to. And to phrase your sentence correctly, the landlord has legal right to evict the renters, but that says nothing about the renters' moral right to live there. Remember, everything Hitler did was legal. > If they are angry about that, it seems to me that they are just throwing a fit. By the same logic, if the Jews were angry about the German's confiscating their property and killing them, they were just trowing a fit... What a perverted logic! > If you can't afford that, then perhaps you didn't make very good choices in your life (aka didn't make enough money to obtain what you want) Maybe that does not neatly fit into your worldview and maybe it even directly threatens your idea of how good and moral person you are, but the truth is that most poor(-er) people are not poor because of their own "wrong" choices, but because of external circumstances they had no influence on. Likewise, the fact that you have access to the internet is almost in no way due to your own ingenuity, goodness or hard work, and mainly the consequence of hard-working people that came before you and invented and built the infrastructure, and gave you the opportunity to freely enjoy it. > you should try and find a way to achieve that goal without inflicting pain (stress, wasted time, etc.) on others. While it is perfectly fine, of course, for the others to inflict pain/stress/wasted time on them. Congratulations, your logic is irrefutable!
- omegaham 13y ago
  > Protest? I'm confused by what they're protesting. I do know what their stated aim is - driving Google and other tech companies out of San Francisco. I just don't think that it's the right thing to be protesting. There's a shortage of housing because of rent control, restrictions on building new housing, and the fact that San Francisco is a really desirable place to live. The first two are pretty easy to solve - just repeal the laws (The second would be much easier to repeal). I wouldn't want to mess with the third. Yelling at tech companies will not do very much. Even if they leave, other rich people will replace them. > Because they can't afford to live anymore in a city where they have lived their whole life. It's difficult for me to say much other than "Shit happens." The city is really expensive. Space is scarce, and people are willing to pay a premium for it. I don't think that "But I've lived here for my whole life" gives people the right to tell other people, "Sorry, you can't live here." If they owned the land, that would be one thing. But they've rented there for their entire lives. If someone else is willing to pay a higher rent than you, that's the way it goes. And that brings us to this: > Maybe they "chose to buy" but could not afford to. And to phrase your sentence correctly, the landlord has legal right to evict the renters, but that says nothing about the renters' moral right to live there. I could also "choose to buy" a 70-inch television for every room in my house and a new Mercedes-Benz every two years. Just because I make that choice doesn't make it a good one. And if the price of a new Mercedes-Benz goes out of my price range, I'd be on pretty shady ground trying to say, "But I've bought a new Mercedes-Benz every two years for the last thirty years! I have a moral right to get this car!" Lastly, on your comment that people don't choose to be poor - this is definitely true. But it just seems so ridiculous that people would defend buying a luxury (in this case, it's living in an expensive city) and then accuse their detractors of infringing on some moral right to that luxury. You'd laugh in my face if I told you that I had a moral right to have that new Mercedes, right? But for some reason we give these people a free pass when they say, "This apartment is worth millions of dollars, and people are willing to pay $1500 a month to live here. I am entitled to live here for less than that." I can choose not to buy a new Mercedes... which is why I chose instead to drive a shitty Civic. I can also choose not to live in a city where rent is more than half of my salary.
sophacles 13y ago
A few points: 1) The decision to rent vs own is not as clear cut as you are making it. Google a bit - there is actually a lot of debate on this, because it makes a lot of financial sense. 2) If you feel that people deserve the fruits of their labor, this statement is hypocritical. Perhaps there is some assumption that this literally only means dollars - but I don't actually think so. A sense of home, a community, and personally satisfying lifestyle all require effort and work. They are hard or impossible to just purchase with dollars, but they are the fruits of labor none-the-less. This is being disrupted and taken on a mass scale by those who have more resources in dollars. I don't have a solution, but saying "fuck you i have more money and therefore you don't deserve those things you worked for" is not it. 3) Chicago has a lot of high rent/value property. It also has plenty of places one can live reasonably well on salary that isn't "tech worker" high. In fact those places are even cheaper than a lot of the suburbs. Those places aren't impossible to find either. On top of that there is a good public transit system that actually makes getting around the city pretty easy.
stcredzero 13y ago
If they do not own where they live (and chose to rent) then they don't OWN their home and in turn have no right to live there This is not quite the view of the law. This is why there are quite involved and drawn out eviction proceedings in California and the Bay Area. Under the law, even people who do not own their home have some right to live somewhere and not be made homeless arbitrarily. In fact, in Texas and other states, the fact of living somewhere can magically establish your ownership of a neglected property without your paying money for it.

fennecfoxen 13y ago

You're right that they don't own their home. The key is that they feel entitled to living there anyway, as the commie leftists whose ideology defines the city's politics do not respect capital, like the capital that goes into building homes, or the right of the owner of that capital to make a profit. Rather, the landlord is treated as an invalid actor and a cartoonish villain. That's why there's rent control, it's also why the housing stock is so poorly maintained, and one important reason why no one's built middle-class housing in the city for decades (though other anti-development sentiment also exists).

dylandrop 13y ago
Right, so everyone who is in opposition to Google is a "commie leftist". What, is this McCarthyist America again?
- adharmad 13y ago
  McCarthysism involved persecution. I think what the OP is saying is that people who oppose Google are also opposing the rights of landlords and other renters to get into free agreements. The fair market price of apartments in SF has been kept artificially low via legislation and gradually this is changing.
  - dylandrop 13y ago
    My objection is his use of the term "commie leftist", using a tactic that undermines the credibility of these people's concerns analogous to the sentiments Red Scare. Of course he isn't persecuting them, but he's using the term "commie leftist" as a derogatory scare tactic. If he wants to be taken seriously he should avoid using those terms in that manner.
- fennecfoxen 13y ago
  More like "San Francisco, for historical reasons related to the 1960s and the Summer of Love, is a city which has attracted and retained a substantial number of people whose culture of political beliefs dictate that the community ought to have substantial influence over a variety of processes, such as the process of obtaining housing. They believe that this control will help effect social justice. As a result of this world view, these people have reacted to the influence of Google and other technology companies by protesting it and its employees. Central to the protests is the fact that said employees are willing and able to pay more for apartments (and other services) than the protestors would like, thus inhibiting the ability of the protestors (or people the protestors sympathize with) to obtain apartments or services for a low price. Moreover, these protestors substantially comprise the set of individuals who have engaged in such protests." I am aware of people who are opposed to Google for other reasons - e.g. privacy advocates. I am not aware of substantial numbers of them engaging in anti-Google-bus protests in San Francisco; their protests have different characteristics. And yes, I called them both "leftist" and "commie". I contend that this summary is accurate, and that many of these protestors would gladly admit to embracing leftism and either support or express sympathy for communism. As the US remains substantially a free country, these are positions that they may legitimately hold while remaining political actors, regardless of the accuracy of the world-view that these actors hold, and regardless of the potential negative impact of these policies if implemented. If you're really interested in people who are impugning others as invalid political actors, you should complain about Cuomo and Bill de Blasio for overtly saying that conservatives aren't welcome in the state of New York.
brenschluss 13y ago
one important reason why no one's built middle-class housing in the city for decades You think that the lack of middle-class housing is because of commie leftists? Really? This makes no economic sense - maybe review some of your logic? I live in NYC, where the lack of middle-class housing is because real estate developers flock towards luxury residential condominiums (oriented towards the upper class), since that's the ideal way to maximize IRR. I would maintain that a healthy regulation of capital usage creates a healthy middle class. I offer you to suggest coherent arguments otherwise.
- fennecfoxen 13y ago
  > You think that the lack of middle-class housing is because of commie leftists? Really? This makes no economic sense Of course it makes economic sense. Commie leftists empowered by the legislature brought you rent control. Rent control means onerous limitations on what the property-owner can do with the property, directly reducing his ability to earn money off it and reducing the incentives to build new apartments. It's a wealth transfer from landlords to tenants, and no one invests in anything with the goal of having their wealth transferred away. Granted, it's certainly not the only thing that stands in the way of new development (but I already mentioned that). Impeding new development means less housing overall, which in turn means more-expensive housing for everyone. -- But you live in New York. New York City's own flirtations with rent control under the War Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1943 are even better studied. Yes, the war emergency is WWII. Yes, that law still governs rent control in New York. (Yes, the DeBlasio would like to see more rent control in more places in practice, as well). And yes, it was destructive. Hell, it's the textbook case -- literally, dozens of Intro-to-Econ textbooks. At one point in the 1970s the Department of Buildings noted that over one-third of the buildings in Harlem had abandoned by their landlords. You may also be familiar with the Bronx, burning. If the first paragraph by itself is too tendentious for you, I can also offer you information on the consensus of economists. If you think Milton Friedman and Fredrick Hayek are too capitalist, maybe I could quote Gunnar Myrdal -- a chief architect of Sweden's welfare state. "Rent control has in certain Western countries constituted, maybe, the worst example of poor planning by governments lacking courage and vision." Or Assar Lindbeck, noted socialist: "In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing." I will also refer you to papers like Alson, Kearl and Vaughn's "Is There a Consensus Among Economists in the 1990’s?" and Block and Walker's "Entropy in the Canadian Economics Profession: Sampling Consensus on the Major Issues". 93% of the American economists and 95% of Canadian economists endorsed the statement that "a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available." IN SUMMARY. To deny that rent control is destructive is as intelligent and scientific a statement as endorsing homeopathy, saying vaccines cause autism, and that global warming is caused primarily by sunspots: It's a false statement that is at odds with the scientific consensus, and it leads to destructive public policies.
rhizome31 13y ago
Poe's Law at work here.

jseliger 13y ago

(b) figure out a way to lower rent (and in turn tax revenue). This isn't mysterious or hard, and I've written comments about it before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7073079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7073079). There are two ways to lower the cost of something: increase the supply or decrease demand. It's quite easy to build more units on a given parcel of land but SF has mostly chosen not to do so (http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francisco-exodus/7205/ http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francis...). The real problem starts with voters, since they're the ones electing the mayor, city council, and other officials, who respond to voter preferences against building stuff but who also deal with voters complaining about high rents. They're in a situation similar to the ones Bryan Caplan describes in The Myth of the Rational Voter, which is a fascinating book that deserves not just to be read but reread (http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies/dp/0691138737?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957 http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies/dp...).

wwweston 13y ago
Can you point to an example of a place/time where a housing supply increase alone (no economic weakness or other drop in demand) has led to decreased prices?
- jseliger 13y ago
  Yeah—Houston and Dallas, today. See also Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High. More generally, if you get more supply in the face of increasing demand, but not enough to lead to actual decreases, you still get smaller increases, per basic micro econ.
  - stcredzero 13y ago
    My girlfriend's experience is that rental prices have been rising sharply in Houston for Montrose and the Heights. There are bargains to be had in East End district, but that's too edgy for her. There are cheaper places to live, but you end up driving everywhere.
  - 13y ago

pavanky 13y ago

That is probably the most condescending thing I've seen on hacker news (and I've seen a lot of that). The protesters may be wrong in their methods and they are probably fighting for a losing cause. But to say people made bad decisions in their life because they are not earning twice or thrice the national median income is just ignorant. You compare SFO wit Chicago. But I am guessing the high earners living in the city also work there, unlike SFO where they commute OUT to work. There are no easy solutions to this problem. But please do not straight up dismiss it. Disclaimer: I do not live in the region so I have no idea about the specifics. I just felt the parent comment was wrong.

nawitus 13y ago
One easy solution is to make it legal to build more apartments.
- shittyanalogy 13y ago
  Didn't help Brooklyn.
  - wwweston 13y ago
    Can you post more info about this?
redsymbol 13y ago
I'm a software engineer who lives in San Francisco, and pretty much agree with everything you say in your response, pavanky. No disclaimer :-)
omegaham 13y ago
I think the reason why people don't live in Silicon Valley is that it's even more expensive to live there. I'm also kind of skeptical toward the protestors, mostly because it's confusing to me that people actually expect living in the city to be cheap. Big cities have lots of people and very little space. Therefore, space is in high demand and is really expensive. If you don't want to live in a shoebox, don't live in the city. California is even more expensive because it's in even higher demand. It has a burgeoning culture scene, a large tech scene, and is a desirable retirement spot. All of these things are pretty much beyond the protestors' control. Not only that, let's look at their endgame. There are two ways for rent to be lowered: 1. Subsidized housing. 2. Make fewer people want to live in San Francisco. The first will work in the short term, but it will also drive up taxes in the area. Businesses will then raise their prices. The rich guys will be unaffected - what do they care if eggs now cost $3.00 instead of $2.00? The poor guys will, again, be unable to make ends meet. But at least their housing is affordable! The second makes me think of cities where no one wants to live like Flint and Camden. I'm sure there's very cheap real estate there, but I wouldn't want my city to turn into it.

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smtddr 13y ago

>>If you can't afford that, then perhaps you didn't make very good choices in your life (aka didn't make enough money to obtain what you want) and you should try and find a way to achieve that goal without inflicting pain (stress, wasted time, etc.) on others. This is the most insensitive, privileged comment on this issue yet.

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shittyanalogy 13y ago

Two things: 1) They want Google to have to pay the city a reasonable fee to operate buses. 2) It's easy to say, "they're renting and have no right to live there." To throw people out because they no longer make enough money to keep up with skyrocketing rent costs is to say that you care more about money than community. It's very close minded and expressly business oriented to think that there's no reason people should have living situation security.

thrownaway2424 13y ago
The thing is the "reasonable fee" for using the curb is bullshit, for two reasons. Reason the first, if curbside space is oh ever so precious, why can you rent it at the rate of $109/year in the form of a residential parking permit? I'm sure Google would be willing to pay $1000/year to designate a half block of RPP spaces to bus loading, and the city would get more money out of it than they get out of the RPP program. Secondly, where are all the protests against Twitters highly subsidized dedicated Muni bus? That's costing an arm and a leg, on top of the huge payroll tax break the city threw at Twitter so they wouldn't leave. Twitter people get paid, too (although God knows why; the company barely has any revenue), and are running up the rents in the Mission just as much as anyone else.

brenschluss 13y ago

If they do not own where they live (and chose to rent) then they don't OWN their home and in turn have no right to live there. Rather, it makes much more sense that they should live somewhere within their means. If they are angry about that, it seems to me that they are just throwing a fit. Ah, it's clear that you're being a little small-minded and looking at things at a micro-level, at the scale of the person. In startup terms, be more disruptive, think 30,000ft, not 6'. An argument like the one you mentioned above is one of complacency and inaction that originates around a tautology. "If they can't afford it, they shouldn't be there." = "If they don't like the status quo, they shouldn't protest the status quo." Other similar arguments could be formulated; "If you don't like the NSA, move to a different country", "If you don't have high speed internet because you can't pay $200/mo for fiber, you should cope with slow internet." Note that the arguments I give are not actually constructive criticism or logical arguments, but tautological loops that leave people in positions of complacency. I will offer that the better position to take is: "We should all have inexpensive high-speed internet. How can we get there?" "The USA should not spy on its citizens. What can we do to change that?" And correspondingly: "We should have a stable and healthy housing situation for all, what can we do to change this?" Now, it sounds like you most certainly don't agree with that last question, since you mention: It's in the cities interest to keep the rent/cost per home as high as possible and in turn keep the tech people around. I wonder if you feel the same way about the USA: "It's in the US's interest to keep the rent/cost per home as high as possible and in turn keep the high-income individuals around"?

midas007 13y ago

Sounds like you were at Davos while Kyiv, Damascus, Cairo, etc.

tinco 13y ago

> If they do not own where they live (and chose to rent) then they don't OWN their home and in turn have no right to live there. I don't know if this is an American thing or not, but to a Dutch person this remark is rather revolting. In The Netherlands, if you pay for your home it is your right to live there, regardless of how you finance it. Home owners are not somehow more privileged than renters are. > no one near Chicago wants to waste their money living in the city unless they want to be in the heart of the city and enjoy the scene. As I understand it, the problem in San Francisco is not just about the city center, it's the entire 40 miles radius around the Google campus and other SV hotspots where rents and housing prices have increased so much young adults can't afford in the areas they grew up in anymore. > If you can't afford that, then perhaps you didn't make very good choices in your life You are a disgusting person. > you should try and find a way to achieve that goal without inflicting pain (stress, wasted time, etc.) on others This would be nice in an ideal society, but in a liberal society like the U.S., this simply isn't an option for many people.

druiid 13y ago
Sadly many homeowners in the US look down upon renters. I have personally encountered this at least a couple times in my life. Generally it comes with situations where a neighborhood sees a mix of homeowners and renters, which is generally things like town-home or condominium developments. I even once had a shouting match with an 'owner' which ended with them saying I didn't deserve to live their because they were an owner and I was 'just a renter' (Note: I was in the right in this argument).
- boon 13y ago
  Most of the owners of rental property I know are usually very happy with, and encouraging of, the renters of their units. One of the issues with renting is that you DO end up paying for the owners property taxes, not directly, but it is factored into the cost of running the rental. If the local government decides to increase property taxes, or housing appraisals increase in the area, then rent may increase. This is often seen as "bad" by the renters, but really there is nothing an owner can do about it.
13y ago

e12e 13y ago

> I really don't understand why this bothers the others in the city. If they do not own where they live (and chose to rent) then they don't OWN their home and in turn have no right to live there. First: choose to rent? You're suggesting that they've just decided to gamble away their savings on questionable investments, rather than choosing to purchase an apartment in San Francisco? Second: As for "having no right to live there" if you don't own the home -- I don't think that's legally accurate even in the US? AFAIK most modern states give a considerable amount of weight to the idea that where you actually live, is considered your home/residence, and that "your home is your castle". That said, it does sound strange to me. The idea that infrastructure (roads) should somehow be free to private citizens but not corporations strikes me as very peculiar. Isn't the whole idea of government infrastructure that it's collectively financed (by taxes and fees)? Seems like there's two sides to the protests: A frustration with rising prices for housing, and a frustration with Google (and other tech companies) for their role in enabling the public-private monitoring complex and emerging police state. I can understand both of these grievances, but taking them out on the buses still strikes me as odd. I suppose it's an efficient way to get media coverage and get noticed by the companies -- but without a plan for change (going back to one-person, one-car commutes sounds rather reactionary) -- I don't see it helping much. The logical next step for Google would probably be to buy land and build company housing? Much like the industrial giants of old.

icegreentea 13y ago
There are legitimate reasons for having certain infrastructure priced differently to corporations and private citizens, most especially in situations where costs scale super-linearly. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to make the argument from extremes here. For example, roads. Say there's only one road in and out of town. It can sustain V volume of traffic, where V was initially sized for its population of size P. Now, corporation sets up a factory in town, employing say 0.05P (does not change the overall population). Factory drives traffic volume to 2V. However, the corporation itself doesn't do so hot, so the increase in revenue from corporate taxes are not enough to pay for the infrastructure changes required. In this position, I think it would be fair and sensible to somehow directly levy a charge on the corporation - with all the possible negative side effects that that would entail.

williamcotton 13y ago

So there's a piece of land at 22nd and Folsom. It is currently owned by Steve Johnson. He bought it from a guy named Mark, who bough it from a guy named William, who inherited it from his father, who bought it from a guy named Sam, who bought it from a guy named John who inherited it from his grandfather who purchased it from a rancher named James. James was given the land by deed of the Unites States after it's previous tenant, also a rancher, was forced out as a result of a war between Mexico and the US and given a small amount of gold. This rancher was named Julio and his family had been on the land for 2 generations. Previous to that a native people had lived there for many hundreds of years until being forcibly removed by a band of Spaniards waving a piece of paper. Now, please tell me more about property rights and justice.

tomp 13y ago

> there really is not much that they can do about it Protest? > San Francisco's city government is not going to be able to [...] figure out a way to lower rent Allow more homes built? > (and in turn tax revenue) Why would lower rent mean lower tax revenue? They could tax paycheques instead. > It's in the cities interest But not in the citizens' interest, which vote the city leaders. > I really don't understand why this bothers the others in the city. Because they can't afford to live anymore in a city where they have lived their whole life. > If they do not own where they live (and chose to rent) then they don't OWN their home and in turn have no right to live there. Maybe they "chose to buy" but could not afford to. And to phrase your sentence correctly, the landlord has legal right to evict the renters, but that says nothing about the renters' moral right to live there. Remember, everything Hitler did was legal. > If they are angry about that, it seems to me that they are just throwing a fit. By the same logic, if the Jews were angry about the German's confiscating their property and killing them, they were just trowing a fit... What a perverted logic! > If you can't afford that, then perhaps you didn't make very good choices in your life (aka didn't make enough money to obtain what you want) Maybe that does not neatly fit into your worldview and maybe it even directly threatens your idea of how good and moral person you are, but the truth is that most poor(-er) people are not poor because of their own "wrong" choices, but because of external circumstances they had no influence on. Likewise, the fact that you have access to the internet is almost in no way due to your own ingenuity, goodness or hard work, and mainly the consequence of hard-working people that came before you and invented and built the infrastructure, and gave you the opportunity to freely enjoy it. > you should try and find a way to achieve that goal without inflicting pain (stress, wasted time, etc.) on others. While it is perfectly fine, of course, for the others to inflict pain/stress/wasted time on them. Congratulations, your logic is irrefutable!

omegaham 13y ago
> Protest? I'm confused by what they're protesting. I do know what their stated aim is - driving Google and other tech companies out of San Francisco. I just don't think that it's the right thing to be protesting. There's a shortage of housing because of rent control, restrictions on building new housing, and the fact that San Francisco is a really desirable place to live. The first two are pretty easy to solve - just repeal the laws (The second would be much easier to repeal). I wouldn't want to mess with the third. Yelling at tech companies will not do very much. Even if they leave, other rich people will replace them. > Because they can't afford to live anymore in a city where they have lived their whole life. It's difficult for me to say much other than "Shit happens." The city is really expensive. Space is scarce, and people are willing to pay a premium for it. I don't think that "But I've lived here for my whole life" gives people the right to tell other people, "Sorry, you can't live here." If they owned the land, that would be one thing. But they've rented there for their entire lives. If someone else is willing to pay a higher rent than you, that's the way it goes. And that brings us to this: > Maybe they "chose to buy" but could not afford to. And to phrase your sentence correctly, the landlord has legal right to evict the renters, but that says nothing about the renters' moral right to live there. I could also "choose to buy" a 70-inch television for every room in my house and a new Mercedes-Benz every two years. Just because I make that choice doesn't make it a good one. And if the price of a new Mercedes-Benz goes out of my price range, I'd be on pretty shady ground trying to say, "But I've bought a new Mercedes-Benz every two years for the last thirty years! I have a moral right to get this car!" Lastly, on your comment that people don't choose to be poor - this is definitely true. But it just seems so ridiculous that people would defend buying a luxury (in this case, it's living in an expensive city) and then accuse their detractors of infringing on some moral right to that luxury. You'd laugh in my face if I told you that I had a moral right to have that new Mercedes, right? But for some reason we give these people a free pass when they say, "This apartment is worth millions of dollars, and people are willing to pay $1500 a month to live here. I am entitled to live here for less than that." I can choose not to buy a new Mercedes... which is why I chose instead to drive a shitty Civic. I can also choose not to live in a city where rent is more than half of my salary.

sophacles 13y ago

A few points: 1) The decision to rent vs own is not as clear cut as you are making it. Google a bit - there is actually a lot of debate on this, because it makes a lot of financial sense. 2) If you feel that people deserve the fruits of their labor, this statement is hypocritical. Perhaps there is some assumption that this literally only means dollars - but I don't actually think so. A sense of home, a community, and personally satisfying lifestyle all require effort and work. They are hard or impossible to just purchase with dollars, but they are the fruits of labor none-the-less. This is being disrupted and taken on a mass scale by those who have more resources in dollars. I don't have a solution, but saying "fuck you i have more money and therefore you don't deserve those things you worked for" is not it. 3) Chicago has a lot of high rent/value property. It also has plenty of places one can live reasonably well on salary that isn't "tech worker" high. In fact those places are even cheaper than a lot of the suburbs. Those places aren't impossible to find either. On top of that there is a good public transit system that actually makes getting around the city pretty easy.

stcredzero 13y ago

If they do not own where they live (and chose to rent) then they don't OWN their home and in turn have no right to live there This is not quite the view of the law. This is why there are quite involved and drawn out eviction proceedings in California and the Bay Area. Under the law, even people who do not own their home have some right to live somewhere and not be made homeless arbitrarily. In fact, in Texas and other states, the fact of living somewhere can magically establish your ownership of a neglected property without your paying money for it.