I'd be interested to see projections of earthquake casualties before and after this increase in housing density.
In the Loma Prieta quake it wasn't FiDi skyscrapers that collapsed.
The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It
11–20 of 243 posts
Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It
#12The folly with arguments blaming San Francisco for the problem is the fact that the entire Bay area is priced at an insane level. Take another look at this [1] BART map with corresponding home prices for each stop. Yeah, it's cheaper to live outside of the city, but it's still crazy expensive. The median sale price for a house in Pittsburg is $430,000, with a 62 min commute into SF. If you live 62 minutes outside of…
Yep, the East Bay is quickly losing its status as the cheap overflow for San Francisco. A lot of the Peninsula and Santa Clara County is bad too.
Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It
#13While I agree with the post, I think the need for more housing is obvious and the root problem is political. If you find a way to solve the political problem, I'd be impressed.
I'm the author: I agree with you. I believe there are political solutions. Putting ideas out there to see if anyone agrees with me is the first step, hopefully not the last.
Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It
#14While I agree with the post, I think the need for more housing is obvious and the root problem is political. If you find a way to solve the political problem, I'd be impressed.
I'm the author: I agree with you. I believe there are political solutions. Putting ideas out there to see if anyone agrees with me is the first step, hopefully not the last.
Props to you for organizing a discussion as a first step. And best of luck solving the problem. If I still lived in the Bay Area, I'd show up for support.
Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It
#15One issue he doesn't mention is traffic congestion. A potential remedy could be a significant tax on parking. Perhaps very significant. Parking is ugly and a blight on the city, as well as a tremendous waste of space that could be more effectively used for housing.
(I'm the author).
Traffic is a big problem -- as is parking. Public transit investments do have to correspond with building housing, but too often the lack of one is used as an excuse not to expand the other. We have to start somewhere.
As I said in the post, public transit deserves it own analysis -- I was already in the thousands of words just on housing! -- maybe that will be next.
Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It
#16I think a $25 minimum wage hike would definitely fix it..........
Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It
#17The folly with arguments blaming San Francisco for the problem is the fact that the entire Bay area is priced at an insane level. Take another look at this [1] BART map with corresponding home prices for each stop. Yeah, it's cheaper to live outside of the city, but it's still crazy expensive. The median sale price for a house in Pittsburg is $430,000, with a 62 min commute into SF. If you live 62 minutes outside of…
Yeah. In Palo Alto my crappy 1 bedroom apartment that I was living in 3 years ago was in the middle of suburban jungle (no restaurants or shops for a few miles in any direction) and was $1650. I looked last week and it was $2500. That was a crappy place.
If you want to live by downtown PA (university Ave) its right around $2800-3000 for a 1 bedroom, for places with 20 year old appliances and no upgrades.
The peninsula is just as bad because of school preferences, etc.
New engineers getting hired in MV and PA literally can't afford to live by themselves in a 1 bedroom. That is fucked.
Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It
#18The folly with arguments blaming San Francisco for the problem is the fact that the entire Bay area is priced at an insane level. Take another look at this [1] BART map with corresponding home prices for each stop. Yeah, it's cheaper to live outside of the city, but it's still crazy expensive. The median sale price for a house in Pittsburg is $430,000, with a 62 min commute into SF. If you live 62 minutes outside of…
(I'm the author).
You make excellent points, and I don't mean to minimize the regional issues.
Sure, if I had a magic wand then I'd increase housing being built across the Bay Area. In fact, I'd like consolidate the jurisdictions in the Bay Area, but that's a whole other argument.
I don't quite know how to play out the claim that demand is infinite. One, I don't believe that. And, two, it seems like an argument that has us throw up our hands and do nothing. It's large problem that needs a large solution -- I've heard estimates in the 100-200 thousand unit range -- but I'd rather shoot for that goal than do nothing at all.
Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It
#19Biggest issue for me is public transit. If BART was more reliable/faster, it would be easy for people to live in Berkeley, Oakland, San Leandro or anywhere along the line. I actually bought a house in Richmond because it was cheap and I could BART into the city. What was once a 30 minute ride usually takes a little over 40 now. We really need to fix transit in the bay area. More ferries would be great imo.
Ferries are even slower and less reliable in my experience.
If you didn't live where the track died, then you would still say BART is more reliable. I've noticed BART is less reliable in the edges vs the core of SF, berkeley and downtown oakland
Re: The Housing Market in San Francisco and Ideas to Fix It
#20Housing affordability is a nation-wide problem. Since the housing bust of 2007, little new housing stock has been added, save for oil & gas boomtowns of Texas and North Dakota.
We are all now competing for limited housing in most every major metropolitan area.
The solution is for every city to build more housing, not just SF. Unfortunately, new housing starts have only recovered to 1993 levels. http://www.macrotrends.net/1314/housing-starts-historical-ch...