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

YEP! +1 SF has 11,000 "newcomers" per year that come here by being born here. Some of my most active volunteers are in just the situation you're describing - frustrated by the stress on their families caused by the kids either having to stay at home or move far away.

The councilman from Mountain View who was instrumental in getting the 8000 new homes approved down there was anti-growth his whole life, until a couple years ago when both of his children, both in their 20s, were still living with him. It was a revelation for him. heh.

The problem is the "rent seeking" the use of politics to artificially constrict supply to create market inefficiencies. This is a basic concept in Microeconomics.

As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, economists such as Paul Krugman, Edward Glaeser, Tim Harford, and many others who are "domain experts" make this statement.

I find it interesting how people listen to aircraft designers, nuclear power plant designers, civil engineers about buildings and bridges, but ignore economists who basically all agree about the market inefficiencies caused by zoning codes that artificially create scarcity and constrict housing supply thus driving up housing prices.

Remove the market inefficiency and the cost of housing will drop. This is independent of Google, Facebook, foreigners buying homes, etc.

Zoning in the US should be abolished. The government shouldn't be micromanaging what individuals do with their own property. People complain that others will buy up the land next door and set up a puppy smelting plant that belches bone ashes into the air, but that's a separate issue. It's not so much the puppy-smelting that's at issue, but the ashes. I think it makes sense to force manufacturing companies to keep their pollution at bay, but not to prohibit them from using the property for any lawful purpose. If you can't observe what people are doing in a building, then it's none of your business.

That said, Japan[1] has an approach to zoning that would be an improvement: They classify land into 12 different zones, 11 of which allow increasingly 'undesirable' buildings to be built. You can build a house in an industrial area or shopping mall if you want, but you can't build a factory in an area zoned for more desirable buildings. Zone 9 is for heavy manufacturing, so it doesn't allow residential or commercial buildings.

For something like blocking a shopping mall, you don't actually need the government to ban someone from building one in your neighborhood. Just find 1000 like-minded NIMBYs, set up a corporation with investment money from each NIMBY, get a loan from a bank to cover the rest, build or buy a new town, and simply vote as a shareholder against Walmart's proposal to buy out your land. My view is that you have no right to stop Walmart from doing what it wants on its land, and it has no right to do what it wants on your land.

[1] http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

Vote in this spring's election, slate card here: www.sfyimby.org/slate/

SF has early voting, so people can vote at City Hall any day between May 9th and June 7th. We're trying to get all the specifically pro-housing people to vote on May 10th. We will be able to look up how many people voted specifically on May 10th. The goal is 2000 people, which is NOT A LOT. This is extremely achievable.

What will this do? If we get 2000 people (or honestly, 600 would be pretty impressive) to show up to vote on May 10th, it will cement the pro-building constituency as a real constituency in SF. It would be great for our candidates to win, but the real goal here is show of organized strength.

Politics is about perception. If we get 2000 voters, that will be incredibly impressive and it will generate another round of news coverage. The news coverage will embolden electeds to vote for pro-housing laws and recruit new volunteers. It will be news because the received wisdom is that the kind of people who are pro-building - new people, young people and tech workers - are impossible to organize.

So, literally, the most important thing you can do is vote with us May 10th in SF. If you can't come May 10th, vote for the slate another day, that's good too.

If you don't live in SF, don't let that stop you from voting :D. Get one friend who lives in SF to vote on your behalf. I guarantee your friend was not planning on voting in this election. Can you ask them to do a favor for you? If you live in the East Bay sign up for East Bay Forward: http://www.eastbayforward.org/forwardtogether/ If you live in the Peninsula, http://www.peninsulaforward.org/ They'll direct you to local political battles.

If you do live in SF, also try to convince one (or more) friend to vote with you this Spring. There is no way to get to 2000 besides adding 1+1+1+1+1 + ... +1.

I am counting on you guys to vote, and bring people to vote. I can't convince all 2000 people to vote all on my own :D The gold standard for getting people to vote is them having a one-on-one conversation about it with a friend. Despite the quote in the article (taken out of context) ranting at the bar IS effective.

After this election - watch the news - if we're successful the political landscape will be more in our favor. Politics isn't broken, you just have to know how to work it. If the idiots in the Tea Party were able to take over the Republican party and shut down the government, we can definitely get a few upzonings passed.

Nobody has left suburban living. Young people have just delayed marriage due to financial instability and career preferences, and thus delayed childbirth. Older folks have sensibly sought to downsize when empty nesting.

The hyper dense mega city model is a failure for quality of life. Instead, a dense CBD with trains distributing the population to the suburbs, with medium then low density, with shopping zones on walkable strips built around the train stations, is the way to go. Add in good planning, with buses and cycle infrastructure for last mile. And lots of parks.

Melbourne, where the modern concept of suburban living as we know it originated, executes well on this. Perfect, no. But a good framework.