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Housing in the Bay Area

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#391

Post by DrScump »

youngButEager wrote: post #293
BurningFrog wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because the new building next door is filled with 'luxury' $5000/mo rents, which might drive the rent up in their building. This is such a stupid myth. On par with "vaccinations cause autism" or Bigfoot. Science has studied how price depends on supply and demand very thoroughly. Increased supply always leads to lower prices.

Here a scenario that can illuminate the unavoidable fact of supply and demand. - A building owner doubles his rents from $3000/month to $6000/month. What happens? Everyone moves out. The high price eliminated Demand for that building. ANALYSIS: When the owner tried to jack up his rents too high, it created an excess supply of $6000/month units and not enough demand. What will happen to that owner? ANSWER: go out of b…

Perhaps Zynga is not an optimal example here.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#392

Post by DrScump »

fishtoaster wrote: post #164
vasilipupkin wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF used to be beautiful. With tons more development, it will just look like Hong Kong/Singapore/Chicago/Manhattan, etc. and that beauty will be lost

That's a common sentiment, and I think there are a few points against it: 1. SF could double it's current housing density tomorrow and still have less than half of manhatten's density. That's not a serious concern. 2. Even if it were, we're faced with a tough choice: preserve SF's low-density housing, or preserve it's people. Which is better: a city with 20% taller buildings, or a city where the only the rich can aff…

Count how many bridges and tubes connect Manhattan to the mainland vs. how many bridges and freeways connect SF to the rest of the world, and revisit that concept again.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#393

Post by DrScump »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #137
carapace wrote: post #65

I'm in favor of how "building in the Bay Area is approved by discretion", I call it having some power over what gets built. "Democracy" y'know? I'm from SF. I grew up here. I'm also a computer nerd. To me, the tech "industry" has been ruining the city I love since the Dot-Com boom. To me, they are an invading army culturally speaking. In a very real sense my home is being destroyed. The saddest part is, this city kin…

> I'm in favor of how "building in the Bay Area is approved by discretion", I call it having some power over what gets built. "Democracy" y'know? That's what zoning laws are for, which the proposed legislation doesn't affect. The kind of thing Governor Brown wants to get rid of is Nosy Neighbor Syndrome being able to block or stall reasonable development that follows code. I grew up in the bay area, and it sickens me…

Those desires are not orthogonal.

Most homes with a front lawn were middle-class when they were built and for many years thereafter. Upper class types wouldn't live in tract neighborhoods, for the most part.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#394

Post by DrScump »

likpok wrote: post #85
apsec112 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"San Francisco is the largist metropolitan area with the most wilderness/open space around it in the world." This bill specifically applies to development in urban areas only. More development in areas that are already urban will reduce pressure for cities to expand outward, into pristine wilderness. That's why environmentalist organizations like the Sierra Club support infill development: it's a low-water-use, low-g…

> That's why environmentalist organizations like the Sierra Club support infill development Except the Sierra Club in SF, which strongly opposes dense housing.

The modern Sierra Club's motives are political, not environmental. That's why they'll have rallies in SF against oil development in the Dakotas while remaining completely silent on groundwater poisoning right here in CA and the fact that (unlike the red oil states), CA has no oil extraction tax.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#395

Post by DrScump »

WWKong wrote: post #204

How does this benefit/harm the folks who already recently bought a house at exorbitant price, burning all their savings, calculating their returns based on how bay area prices have behaved over the last couple decades? Will they be screwed?

When this bubble bursts, absolutely.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#396

Post by DrScump »

iamleppert wrote: post #57

I'm currently renting out my upstairs walk-in closet. I live in Potrero, near 26th & Rhode Island. The closet is pretty big and can easily fit a double bed and dresser. $900 + utilities, but we might be able to work something out. edit: this is a serious post

Somebody take him up on this, stay 32 days, and then stop paying. It will take months to evict you, and you can stay rent-free in the meantime.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#397

Post by DrScump »

muzz wrote: post #207
iamleppert wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it unsustainable? I have a room for rent, that's more than a lot of people.

If you don't have a window, it's technically not a room. Fire codes usually require 2 directions of egress.

I think you mean bedroom. There is no legal definition of a generic "room". Such rooms are often part of the building plan and are called "bonus rooms".

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#398

Post by therealdrag0 »

s0rce wrote: post #153
fintler wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> San Francisco is the largist metropolitan area with the most wilderness/open space around it in the world. It's high on the list, but it's not the one with the most: Vienna 51% Singapore 47% Sydney 46% Hong Kong 40% 70% is the total green space 40% is protected Rio De Janeiro 40% London 38.40% Almost 40%! Stockholm 30% Johannesburg-Gauteng 24% New York City 19.7 % or 14% Park Score/World Culture Report San Francisc…

I'm surprised Seattle doesn't make the list. Maybe thats based on parkland within the city. To the east you have immense tracks of wilderness in the cascade mountains and to the west the olympic peninsula.

>What is Considered Green Space?

>City proper is used as metropolitan boundaries are harder to determine. Will make a note if the data is for metropolitan area. Green spaces that are planned are used in the statistics. S For the most part the higher percentage of green space the most accessible to more people, however Hong Kong green spaces are usually not with many being in hills. Tree lined streets don't count as green spaces. Instead open green areas park, gardens, and squares? I'm not sure if squares are counted? Tree lined streets percent of tree canopy is not counted. This data is for open spaces."

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#399

Post by timr »

davidw wrote: post #354
timr wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Well duh, ostensibly high-paying jobs are good, remember?" To whom, exactly? If those jobs are going to people who are moving here from somewhere else, then who benefits? There was a thriving city here long before tech startups came along. The cruel irony of this kind of job growth is that it doesn't benefit the people who are being displaced. I personally think we need a more balanced approach: we need to build mor…

> The cruel irony of this kind of job growth is that it doesn't benefit the people who are being displaced That's because they're being displaced. Because there is not enough housing. There are a lot of benefits to being in a wealthy area even for those who are not the ones with the highest paying jobs, as Enrico Moretti explains in "The New Geography of Jobs". And if you want to see what an actual bad economy does f…

"That's because they're being displaced. Because there is not enough housing."

Nor will there be at any point in the near future, no matter how much housing gets built. But that's a red herring. If the question is "should we favor policies that encourage the tech industry, or discourage it?", you have to do better than arguing that the tech industry is a net good in some ideal world that doesn't currently exist.

SF had a pretty strong economy before tech came along. Saying "tech...or the Greek economy" is clearly absurd.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#400

Post by BurningFrog »

timr wrote: post #301
BurningFrog wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not in real estate economics. Increased supply leading to higher prices would be something that Economist would crawl over each other to study, if true. So where are these studies? Who are the professional economists who support this view?

Pretty much all of them. Nothing I've said is controversial -- the gains are long-term, but the short-term effect is often just displacement: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/12/the-p... "None of this dismisses the fact that displacement from specific homes happens when low-income housing is literally knocked down to build high-end towers. A good amount of new supply in cities, though, can rise on…

The first article, headlined The poor are better off when we build more housing for the rich literally makes my argument.

The second article lets various people give their reaction to the first one. The non professionals say what they usually say. But the Berkeley professor of economics answers my question very clearly:

Economic research on this topic is unanimous. There is no question that on net, adding more units tends to lower rents. All existing peer-reviewed academic studies — including work done at Harvard University, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and by me at UC Berkeley — find that more housing supply results in lower rents and house prices, everything else being constant.

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