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In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

nytimes.com

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Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#51

Post by sokoloff »

pash wrote: post #47
tuna-piano wrote: post #25

Supply and demand explains all. When more people want something than there are available, prices increase - until the price increases enough to ration the available supply to the highest bidders. For those calling for rent control, they are advocating a different method of rationing the available apartments... leaving multiple interested people for one apartment. Why is the non-price way of rationing better than rati…

> Why is the non-price way of rationing better than rationing based on who is willing to pay the most? It's not. But rationing by price has little advantage if you're not going to allow anybody to build more housing: the basic benefit of the price mechanism is that higher prices recruit more resources to employ towards increasing supply. But if you're going to fix supply though a NIMBY-dominated political process, th…

I'd argue that higher prices also mean the resources are consumed by those with the greatest need (as demonstrated by willingness to pay).

Take another example. After Katrina hit, some stores got investigated for "gouging" on water. Obviously, water is a necessity of life, post-Katrina municipal water supplies were unavailable in many areas.

Now, imagine that it was selling for $1/gallon two weeks prior to Katrina. What's the "best" price for the water to sell one day after Katrina? $1/gallon will likely yield rampant hoarding and scarcity of water for someone who might need it. Allowing the price to float will ensure that someone who really needs water will be able to buy it, though the price might be $5/gallon. I'd rather have thirsty people paying $5/gallon and drinking clean water than having a few AHs having hundreds of gallons of surplus water and no water available for sale. This is how I view rent control.

This would also serve as a strong pull signal to get more water into the area, but I suspect that was already underway.

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#52

Post by raldi »

pappyo wrote: post #43
tuna-piano wrote: post #25

Supply and demand explains all. When more people want something than there are available, prices increase - until the price increases enough to ration the available supply to the highest bidders. For those calling for rent control, they are advocating a different method of rationing the available apartments... leaving multiple interested people for one apartment. Why is the non-price way of rationing better than rati…

Because you've turned a "neighborhood" into an "investment property." Neighborhoods develop culture. Investment properties develop nothing other than capital that leaves the neighborhood. What happens when the Silicon Valley boom is over? What happen to those neighborhoods? I guess that's not your problem.

> What happens when the Silicon Valley boom is over? What happen to those neighborhoods?

When the supply of SF housing overtook demand in the late 1960s, and this oversupply led to incredibly-affordable rooms, it brought about the Summer of Love.

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#53

Post by true_religion »

pmcollins wrote: post #36

I grew up in California, went to Berkeley, and worked in there for years, but I couldn't stand the backwardness of California's homeowner cabal anymore and moved out of state. In my new state, there's no rent control, no NIMBYism, and homes and neighborhoods are beautiful and affordable. Sure, there's more room to grow here, fewer people, and a smaller economy, so it's not a completely fair comparison, but take a mom…

Where are you living now?

In DC its a lot better. Lots of people work remotely, or handle contract jobs, so there isn't a whole lot of politicking because the roles are pretty much set---hardly anyone gets fired unless its a cost-cutting measure from the owning conglomerate which politics doesn't help with, and contractors know they don't offer any loyalty to their companies.

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#54

Post by raldi »

johnwatson11218 wrote: post #9

Every time one of these articles appears it seems like the comments always mention prop 13, rent control, NIMBY and environmental regulations, and a difficult permitting process as the underlying reasons for the high rents in sf. It seems pretty obvious that if the market had its way the whole area would look like Tokyo. Why can't we move beyond this and say "OK keep your 100 year old row houses and vineyards", lets…

The city wouldn't have to look like Tokyo; we could end the housing crisis by increasing the supply by 30%, and we could do that by replacing just 6% of the city's single-family houses with six-story apartment buildings. The other 94% could be left alone, as could every other parcel in the city, and nothing over six stories would be necessary.

http://tinyurl.com/6storySF

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#55

Post by true_religion »

msutherl wrote: post #39
1138 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work remotely in SF. I live here because I like not owning a car, walking and biking most places, and non-tech things to do. I'm just lucky I can afford it. The solution is to build more good US cities that aren't car centric. I'm not aware of any. Build a from scratch city with a target of at least 250k residents on the California coast and I'll move. I don't know how many people think similarly, but there's still…

US cities that aren't car centric: Portland, Seattle, New York, Boston. Nearby: Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto. Afar: London, Paris, Berlin. Arguably San Francisco is the most car-centric of the bunch with its comparatively non-functional transportation system.

You can get around D.C. without a car---by which I mean the city proper and not the other metro areas.

In fact in the city, you're burdened by having a car.

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#56

Post by 1138 »

msutherl wrote: post #39
1138 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work remotely in SF. I live here because I like not owning a car, walking and biking most places, and non-tech things to do. I'm just lucky I can afford it. The solution is to build more good US cities that aren't car centric. I'm not aware of any. Build a from scratch city with a target of at least 250k residents on the California coast and I'll move. I don't know how many people think similarly, but there's still…

US cities that aren't car centric: Portland, Seattle, New York, Boston. Nearby: Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto. Afar: London, Paris, Berlin. Arguably San Francisco is the most car-centric of the bunch with its comparatively non-functional transportation system.

Most of these lose on weather, culture or proximity to the ocean for me.

All of SF isn't easy car free, but I live downtown. SF could have significantly better mass transit. In order to get completely car free in my lifetime would probably require opt in to a new city due to people who have jobs related to things that should be removed.

NYC is too dense and the main prominent industries appear to be wall Street, advertising, and fashion which are not things I like. Car traffic is also pretty horrible.

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#57

Post by raldi »

eropple wrote: post #11
kqr2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the housing situation improve after rent control was ended?

If by "improve" you mean "allow for skyrocketing rents and push the poor and most of the middle class further away from the city," yes, it did. I'm currently moving from Somerville, which adjoins Cambridge and is often called "where everybody moved when the rich people pushed them out of Cambridge" to Malden (some distance away by bus or car) because the rental situation has continued to deteriorate for everyone exce…

Do you have a data citation to go along with that anecdote?

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#58

Post by raldi »

fraserharris wrote: post #34
1138 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work remotely in SF. I live here because I like not owning a car, walking and biking most places, and non-tech things to do. I'm just lucky I can afford it. The solution is to build more good US cities that aren't car centric. I'm not aware of any. Build a from scratch city with a target of at least 250k residents on the California coast and I'll move. I don't know how many people think similarly, but there's still…

The best way i've seen this framed is: in all of the US, there are only about 2,000 blocks of housing with sufficient density & walkable services to support car free living. This is some of the most sought after and expensive real estate in the country, but zoning codes won't allow more of it to be built. Example zoning restrictions: mandatory building setbacks, mandatory parking requirements, mandatory building sepa…

This is very interesting, but I can't use it unless you have a reference I can cite.

I'm also curious how many units there are in those 2000 blocks.

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#59

Post by johan_larson »

alasdair_ wrote: post #48
hueving wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The weather and people there are crap if you're used to the west coast. Winters suck and the rudeness of NYC people is insufferable in the long run for me.

Portland and Seattle are both excellent cities to live in if you want a car free existence on the west coast.

Seattle? Downtown maybe. The east side (across Lake Washington) is very suburban, and not particularly suited to car-free living. I lived there car-less for a couple of summers and got into alarmingly good shape biking up and down the eastside hills.

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#60

Post by eropple »

CydeWeys wrote: post #26
eropple wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "improve" you mean "allow for skyrocketing rents and push the poor and most of the middle class further away from the city," yes, it did. I'm currently moving from Somerville, which adjoins Cambridge and is often called "where everybody moved when the rich people pushed them out of Cambridge" to Malden (some distance away by bus or car) because the rental situation has continued to deteriorate for everyone exce…

Absent actually owning property, does anyone have a right to live in any particular place?

This argument always comes up, and it is a bad one. No, no one has a right to live in any particular place. It's the same thing as the people who fall back on "but but First Amendment" when somebody's saying "you're an asshole." Nobody's saying it isn't legal, but you can still be an asshole while acting legally.

If the best defense I could muster for something is that it is not literally illegal, I would be looking hard in the mirror. But that's just me.

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