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Sculpture of Housing Prices Ripping San Francisco Apart

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Re: Sculpture of Housing Prices Ripping San Francisco Apart

#201

Post by seanp2k2 »

dpark wrote: post #94
amyjess wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's got some great culture if you're in tech. Honestly, I find the culture of Silicon Valley's tech industry to be utterly degenerate. Even if the area was affordable, I wouldn't live or work there in large part because SV puts me off. I work in tech, I'm LGBT myself (multiple letters of LGBT at that), and the Dallas area is pretty much everything I want in a city. I honestly don't get why the Bay Area doesn't jus…

> Honestly, I find the culture of Silicon Valley's tech industry to be utterly degenerate. I'm not sure what that means. I was mostly referring to the fact that there are a ton of techies there. If you want to strike up a conversation about microservices with a stranger on the street, SF is probably the easiest place to do so. > I honestly don't get why the Bay Area doesn't just expand outward. Traffic, probably. It…

Yes; traffic. Anywhere within an hour to two hour commute to SF or SJ or the peninsula carries a huge premium, and it's not like we can just hop on a train to the city. The yellow line reaches the furthest into the east bay, and all the places along it range from "pretty expensive" to "rich people area". The blue line to Pleasanton...well, it's called "Pleasanton", what do you think it is? Lots of rich people live there and the "downtown" is one street. They complained a lot about BART even running out there ("we don't want that inner city crime coming out this way!"), and BART doesn't run to SJ (not even close; even though that was in the original plans: http://io9.gizmodo.com/5866928/a-map-of-san-franciscos-subwa... ).

IMO if we had proper mass transit, it'd alleviate many of the real-estate problems we see now. All the low density and NIMBYism makes that a pipe dream, for now and the foreseeable future.

Re: Sculpture of Housing Prices Ripping San Francisco Apart

#202

Post by seanp2k2 »

dpark wrote: post #133
uola wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question is why San Francisco doesn't expand like, say, New York has? Where each new neighborhood becomes somewhat self sustaining. I seem like there would be a queue of people that wants to start a company in the cheaper part of town. I guess maybe SV is that cheaper part though.

It has. You don't have to go into SF for anything if you live in Mountain View, or Oakland, or Sunnyvale, or any of the other towns in the bay area. But as you noted, those aren't cheap either.

You don't have to unless you want things like nightlife, good food, cultural events, etc. It's true that you can survive in the peninsula without those things, and every bar around is not dead, but it's not the city and not even close.

Re: Sculpture of Housing Prices Ripping San Francisco Apart

#203

Post by archagon »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #197
archagon wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine high rises will only make the city more tech-broey, not weird — opposite of what the current residents want.

Chicago and Manhattan have lots of high-rises and are not monocultures. Portland is super weird (they take pride in it) and has some high-rises. Why would none of those models work?

From what I can see, there is an immense demand from software developers to move to SF, and the non-techies I engage with have already expressed frustration and exhaustion with the overpowering startup culture in the city.

Re: Sculpture of Housing Prices Ripping San Francisco Apart

#204

Post by JauntTrooper »

Grishnakh wrote: post #189
Retric wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The normal result is people end up living a near homeless lifestyle. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2084971/Hong-Kongs-c... 200$/month * 20people = 4,000$ per room.

Why wouldn't they just move somewhere else if they're not rich enough to stay there? SF isn't the only city in the Bay Area, after all; it's surrounded by many other cities. My whole idea is to make it so service workers don't want to live in SF or work there either, causing services to either just not be available, or to cost an absolute fortune, seriously degrading the quality-of-life for SF residents. If you make…

Switching costs to move cities is quite high.

Even if you find a new job and an affordable place to live -- not that easy to do -- you're going to have to pay a lot of out of pocket expenses (i.e. rental deposit, moving/packing expenses), which is really tough when 47% of American's are so cash strapped they can't afford to pay for a $400 emergency. [0]

It also has a high social and emotional strain. You'd be leaving all your family, friends, and cultural identify you've built up in a city. Plus if you're in a relationship or have a family, your partner would need to find work too, and your children would have to leave school/their social circles.

It's a really disruptive life change, and though sometimes it can help improve someone's financial situation, it's a tough thing to expect of thousands of people. I can't blame them if choose to keep struggling to get by in their hometown.

[0] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/my-secre...

Re: Sculpture of Housing Prices Ripping San Francisco Apart

#205

Post by dpark »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #202
dpark wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has. You don't have to go into SF for anything if you live in Mountain View, or Oakland, or Sunnyvale, or any of the other towns in the bay area. But as you noted, those aren't cheap either.

You don't have to unless you want things like nightlife, good food, cultural events, etc. It's true that you can survive in the peninsula without those things, and every bar around is not dead , but it's not the city and not even close.

I lived in Mountain View and ate plenty of good food without ever going into SF. I wasn't much into nightlife, but there were bars there and in the neighboring towns. I don't know what cultural events you're referring to so it's hard to answer that. Probably fewer parades if that's what you're interested in.

And no, it's not the same as SF, but that's really a far different question than whether the surrounding towns are self-sustaining. If you want to live in a truly urban area, then MV and Sunnyvale will not be for you. If you want a place that you can work and live, then they can. It's unfair to pretend they have no food, bars, or culture.

Re: Sculpture of Housing Prices Ripping San Francisco Apart

#206

Post by kofejnik »

heartsucker wrote: post #185
kofejnik wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not very complicated, there are universal human rights, plus whatever is guaranteed in a relevant constitution. Everything else is for those who can afford it. Luxurious place in high demand area is one example. (should we strive to make Ferraris affordable?) Otherwise, can people come live in your apartment? Why do you keep your place and your food and your car to yourself? Certainly a lot of people would want to ch…

Ok, sure. It's not a universal human right, but we can do better than the absolute minimum to give some semblance of equality to people instead of leaving people's lives to the fate of where they were born in the world and how rich their parents were. If there was universal health care out in the world that said vaccinations and emergency procedures were free for everyone, but if you were born on Feb 1st, you also go…

as someone born in USSR, I assure you that artificial equality sucks much harder than natural inequality

Re: Sculpture of Housing Prices Ripping San Francisco Apart

#207

Post by Grishnakh »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #198
Grishnakh wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to get the working classes to revolt, I'm trying to get them to abandon that place and go work somewhere else. If SF is so expensive that working classes simply can't live there or live close enough to commute, then what happens to the city? How does the city manage when it can't find anyone willing to clean the streets, take out the trash, etc.? Or what if they have to pay people outrageous wages to d…

The problem is that people who make less than dis figures live there too and probably wouldn't like that very much. The people who do make six or seven figures and live there also wouldn't like that too much. Plenty of tech people are involved in the rent control activism stuff.

Yes, it'd cause a lot of short-term pain for the poorer people who are currently benefiting from rent control. However, the way I see it, the rent control is enabling this bad behavior, and eliminating it would force things to change for the better. The 6-7-figure earners living there voting for NIMBYism are the ones causing this problem, and the only way it's going to change is to either convince them to stop voting that way (because they get tired of never eating out because there's no restaurants nearby or having to spend $500 on a meal to eat at a local eatery), or to collapse the real estate market there (because no one wants to live there any more with such lousy services).

Re: Sculpture of Housing Prices Ripping San Francisco Apart

#208

Post by kurthr »

WildUtah wrote: post #149
kurthr wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Population density in "Tokyo" is much higher than you describe at 15k/km2 on average with many wards of 300-500k persons that are OVER 20k/km2. The Tokyo Metropolis includes Yokohama which is 30km away (it's like including all of Marin/San Mateo/Oakland), while the Met Area you describe would be like the whole Bay Area down to San Jose and halfway to Sacramento. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo Se…

Tokyo's built-up area has population density near 150 (in persons/hectare, the SI unit of population density). It's nearly the same in the central wards and in the outer suburbs. Tokyo achieves that density with almost no one living in buildings over five stories high and the vast majority in free-standing single family homes under four stories. San Francisco County, not including any suburbs, averages around 90, exc…

I agree... most of Tokyo is only ~3 stories high and it has quite a few parks... there are wards as dense as Manhattan, but only of a few 100k, and it has truly spectacular subways, like Paris, and Manhattan.

There are portions of Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, HK, Shenzhen that are at incredible densities. Having 6 neighboring blocks of 20-30 30+ story apt buildings isn't rare. I don't now how many people live per floor, but 15-30 seems very reasonable (they aren't empty). Each block has it's own schools and police/fire supporting 10k people in an area the size of a city block with Malls on the lower floors. Those neighboring blocks (still much less than 1km sq) are close to 100k/km2!?

Re: Sculpture of Housing Prices Ripping San Francisco Apart

#209

Post by dangrover »

heartsucker wrote: post #175
kofejnik wrote: post #174

People keep saying 'SF should allow for more development' as if it's a universal human right to live in SF; while current residents are being mean by not wanting highrises on their block. SF is nice, more people want to live there than there's space, hence, not everyone can afford it. Why would the current owners/residents want to change that? I really don't get it.

Think of it reverse. Is it a universal right to have luxurious places to live in a high demand area? Why would people who want to move into or remain in SF on a budget not want to change that? This is why issues like this are complicated. Both sides have some merit. (also, not taking sides since I don't live there any more)

Because cities are places of opportunity and culture where people can come to better their lot. Everyone should have some level of access to them, though not necessarily a luxury flat. There needs to be some basic bottom rung available. And cities need fresh blood to continue to grow and thrive, or else it just becomes a retirement community/tourist destination.

Re: Sculpture of Housing Prices Ripping San Francisco Apart

#210

Post by Decade »

lr wrote: post #50
honkhonkpants wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High rises are one thing but they are not the way to solve SF's housing shortage. One 5-story building on one corner of every block in the sunset would easily relieve the shortage. Geographically speaking most of SF already suffers from poor quality of life. Except for the northeast quadrant of the city, SF is dominated by flat, boring, ugly zones of car-centered banality. https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7398485,-122…

Yes, it is a suburb inside of a city. And the inhabitants of that area of The City like it that way. The people who live in the Sunset and Richmond form very powerful political blocks, and you're going to have to do a lot to unseat their representatives on the Board of Supervisors.

Actually, Katy Tang, the Supervisor from the Sunset, is a major proponent of building more. Unlike many of the other Supervisors, Katy Tang is actually looking out for the good of the local economy.

Now, Eric Mar, the Supervisor from the Richmond. This is a man I detest.

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