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In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

nytimes.com

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Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#191

Post by spiffage »

rconti wrote: post #140

The Times selected as an "NYTimes Pick" a comment from someone in Berlin who absolutely makes my blood boil. (S)he starts off by stating privilege as a 5th-generation San Franciscan (obviously, the kind who DESERVE to live in the city), and who fled in the tech boom of the 90s. The usual rant about whitewashing and yuppies and artists being pushed out ensues. Of course they don't want more housing built, because then…

If you go to a city council meeting on the peninsula, 80% of the residents speaking say things like this. In my experience, even most tech workers speaking are the ones who bought property in the 90's and want to lift the drawbridge now that they've got theirs.

The sentiment that the Bay Area can't allow more homes to be built offends me, and it hurts even more that people who feel this way are the vast majority of voices that reach city councils, and that they're far more organized during elections.

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#192

Post by SolarNet »

someguydave wrote: post #187
hodwik wrote: post #2

I say this as a conservative: Building limits are systemically classist and racist. They maintain a geographical segregation system. If you want to fix the country then remove all limits, let developers develop whatever and whereever they deem there is demand. Remove occupancy laws where they're not about safety. Remove property line setbacks. End parking requirements. End requirements about private kitchens and bath…

Totally agreed. In fact, it turns out that all the ecological, economic, and cultural arguments raised against removing zoning are thinly veiled rent-seeking. Incumbent property owners benefit immensely when you must seek government permission to build on your land (to what standard: different conversation). In then end, they are gonna shoot themselves in the foot as the big tech companies become rational and move aw…

I think some ecological zoning is necessary. But more of a "you can't build on this land" and "you can't build things like this on land near this land". There aren't any ecological reasons for zoning areas as (non-)residential areas anyway.

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#193

Post by timr »

raldi wrote: post #107
tomjacobs wrote: post #97

12,000 people moved to San Francisco in 2014. How many new units of housing were built? Almost 4,000! What housing crisis? https://medium.com/@TomPJacobs/what-housing-crisis-3c0568a5d...

Actually, 64,000 people moved to San Francisco in 2014. 7,000 moved into the 4,000 new housing units that were built. 5,000 crowded in with existing residents. 52,000 displaced 52,000 existing residents. Source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/exposing-special-interests-room-ba...

No. You're reading that incorrectly.

That article says that 64k people were born or moved here, and that 63k moved out or died, for a net population gain of 1k.

(EDIT: I misattributed this. That's Aaron Peskin's reading of the ACS numbers, which appear to be low. The actual ACS numbers suggest that the net gain has been around 12k per year since 2010. Still nowhere near a 64k net gain per year.)

SF has grown by about 45k (edit: 60k) residents since 2010 -- which, by the way, is about 70% faster than average growth rates since the 1980s. No city can handle that level of hypergrowth without problems.

http://sf.curbed.com/2015/2/4/9995388/sfs-population-is-grow...

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#194

Post by tzs »

infosample wrote: post #183
tzs wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a citation for the claim that school districts have classist and racist origin? As far as I can tell school districts arose at a time when it was completely impractical for children, other than those whose parents were wealthy enough to send them away to boarding school, to attend a school that was not local, and at a time when it was generally believed that local government should be responsible for loca…

I'm not sure citation is needed to prove the origin and consequences of segregation. Black people could not live in white neighborhoods, black people could not go to school with white people until 1960. Whether classist, racist, or coincidence, the results are obvious.

> I'm not sure citation is needed to prove the origin and consequences of segregation

And I didn't ask for one. I want one on the origin of school districts. As you noted, neighborhoods were segregated. As a consequence of that, everything local was de facto segregated, but that doesn't mean you can infer that everything local has a racist origin.

For instance, since neighborhoods were segregated a neighborhood's sewers were generally only available to one race. Do you conclude that public sanitation has racist origins?

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#195

Post by davidf18 »

rconti wrote: post #152
skewart wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the comment section on that article is pretty sad. The number of people whose argument against building more housing is a fear that it will make the city "ugly" is astounding. It's mind-numbingly selfish and greedy to think that a family should barely be able to make ends meet, and children should spend less time with their long-commuting parents, just so that SF can meet your personal aesthetic sensibilities.…

Well absolutely. And one commenter there (or here) mentioned the negative externalities of someone else's development driving down your property values or making your schools overcrowded or whatever. All of these things are deserving of sympathy and consideration, but.. well, currently they're getting too much of it.

Actually, because of the "rent seeking" of using politics to artificially constrain supply creating artificial scarcity, their property is valued much more than it should be valued without the market inefficiency. So, yes, their property values will fall because they were artificially inflated. The same happened to NYC Taxi Medallion owners where each medallion had a market value of $1.2 million because of the artificial limit of medallions and once Uber came along, the value dropped to $700,000.

Similarly, billionaire developers like Donald Trump will see his property values drop but that is only because they were artificially inflated.

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#196

Post by jessaustin »

mjevans wrote: post #175
jessaustin wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there is a school district, and what you wrote first was mere hyperbole?

It's more like an area that was previously unzoned between cities. There are different options for how to hook up water, power, data, etc; however due to the way that school districts work the kids will only be covered by one such domain. Within that domain, this new source of housing has not been factored in to the balance of how to divide resources. (Think of classroom seats as hyperthreads and teachers as processo…

That's what I thought. It is in fact a major flaw of the entire USA public school concept that "kids will only be covered by one such domain", but you can't blame developers for that. School districts partition the state, and they do so in every state. Therefore this objection amounts to "the school district in which this development is located didn't prepare for new students while it was being built", and that objection may be lodged against any new development. Do public school boosters really want to reject all new development? Or is this more of what was mentioned upthread, that they only like development for certain types of people?

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#197

Post by zanny »

saeranv wrote: post #144
nickff wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say assumes that people want to purchase anything a developer builds, anywhere, at any price. In reality, market forces encourage developers to build nice homes in good areas well served by various amenities (which are publicly and privately available). The problem is that development is so tightly restricted in most areas, that new residents have few options. In short, you are blaming the market for the res…

I agree with the sentiment of vastly deregulating urban zoning conditions. However there are a couple of places where the market forces will lead to poor long-term community development. For example, outside of urban areas the market tends to incentivize suburban sprawl. In Toronto, you can see this in the GTA region like Markham or Brampton: vast tracts of cookie-cutter residential neighborhoods, without any conside…

They aren't building mixed use because the residents do not want mixed use.

Persuade people to want mixed use, rather than trying to force it down the throats of home owners, and you will have much better results.

Developers are perfectly happy to deliver want buyers want. If you want better cities, have a population of people who want better cities. If the city you live in is not good enough, first try persuading your peers, and if that does not work, go somewhere more like minded.

It is not an excuse to cripple everyone in this trap of zoning and regulation that has stunted growth in almost every sector across the entire country.

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#198

Post by henrikschroder »

skewart wrote: post #150
rconti wrote: post #140

The Times selected as an "NYTimes Pick" a comment from someone in Berlin who absolutely makes my blood boil. (S)he starts off by stating privilege as a 5th-generation San Franciscan (obviously, the kind who DESERVE to live in the city), and who fled in the tech boom of the 90s. The usual rant about whitewashing and yuppies and artists being pushed out ensues. Of course they don't want more housing built, because then…

Yeah, the comment section on that article is pretty sad. The number of people whose argument against building more housing is a fear that it will make the city "ugly" is astounding. It's mind-numbingly selfish and greedy to think that a family should barely be able to make ends meet, and children should spend less time with their long-commuting parents, just so that SF can meet your personal aesthetic sensibilities.…

Every single house in this city "ruined" the view of another house, or destroyed a piece of nature to be built, and was considered "ugly" at one point. Every single house except the first. Every single person who moved to this city either displaced someone already living here, or caused a new house to be built.

The whole purpose of a city is to put buildings in front of each other!

It's astounding that the negative people think that a city of a million people is "just right", and any larger is a priori wrong. We could build a city this size where there was nothing, but building a city twice as dense is apparently impossible, despite overwhelming evidence of it being possible elsewhere.

/rant

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#199

Post by rconti »

anarazel wrote: post #188
rconti wrote: post #140

The Times selected as an "NYTimes Pick" a comment from someone in Berlin who absolutely makes my blood boil. (S)he starts off by stating privilege as a 5th-generation San Franciscan (obviously, the kind who DESERVE to live in the city), and who fled in the tech boom of the 90s. The usual rant about whitewashing and yuppies and artists being pushed out ensues. Of course they don't want more housing built, because then…

Berlin? Denser than San Francisco? Huh? I just moved from the former to the latter, and I'm pretty sure that that's not the case, and Wikipedia backs me up (~4,000/km2 vs 7,124/km2).

Thanks -- Cannot find my original source but perhaps it was a difference in how they measured land area.

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#200

Post by raldi »

timr wrote: post #193
raldi wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, 64,000 people moved to San Francisco in 2014. 7,000 moved into the 4,000 new housing units that were built. 5,000 crowded in with existing residents. 52,000 displaced 52,000 existing residents. Source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/exposing-special-interests-room-ba...

No. You're reading that incorrectly. That article says that 64k people were born or moved here, and that 63k moved out or died, for a net population gain of 1k. (EDIT: I misattributed this. That's Aaron Peskin's reading of the ACS numbers, which appear to be low. The actual ACS numbers suggest that the net gain has been around 12k per year since 2010. Still nowhere near a 64k net gain per year.) SF has grown by about…

> That article says that 64k people were born or moved here, and that 63k moved out or died, for a net population gain of 1k.

No, it really doesn't. Could you quote the part of the article that leads you to that conclusion?

Here's the quote from the article that leads me to a different conclusion (that population growth was ten times higher): "In order to make room for the 52,000 people who come here each year that aren’t accommodated by new building or by crowding, 52,000 current residents have to leave [and] about 12,000 of those new people become a net addition to our city"

Here's another: "The population estimate for San Francisco in 2014 is 852,537. The estimate for 2015 is 864,816. This represents a population increase of 12,279"

> No city can handle [9,000 new people per year] without problems.

Certainly not insurmountable problems; Manhattan went from 942,292 people in 1870 to 1,164,673 in 1880.

San Francisco went from 506,676 in 1920 to 634,394 in 1930.

Shanghai did this: http://apps.chicagotribune.com/news/chicago-architecture-in-...

What kind of problems are you referring to, and are they really worse than the horrific housing and displacement problems they would solve?

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