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Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

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Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#41

Post by rsync »

compiler-guy wrote: post #19

"Someone else should make the sacrifice." There's the problem right there. From the article: "Brisbane ... is currently blocking a large housing development for local reasons." "And we also probably don’t want high rise condos on the edge of Golden Gate Park. San Francisco isn’t New York." I've voted in favor of every housing initiative available to me, but you can't make your favorite part of the Bay Area sacred and…

"Brisbane ... is currently blocking a large housing development for local reasons."

Good for them. I mean, probably not, but Brisbane is their town and they should determine their own values and courses of action.

The solution to San Francisco needs to occur in San Francisco - not CC county or Marin or Sonoma. There's a lot of very, very distinguished and historic and noteworthy 1-4 story housing stock in San Francisco that I hope stays around ... but there's a lot of 1-4 story housing stock that is complete shit and needs to be rebuilt, in-filled, brought up to 2017 sanitation and earthquake regs and served by new rail lines.

Notice how I didn't say "served by BRT[1]" ? Served by rail.

If you see a bus, they blew it.

[1] Bus Rapid Transit (and related half-assed bullshit)

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#42

Post by epistasis »

mc32 wrote: post #25
compiler-guy wrote: post #19

"Someone else should make the sacrifice." There's the problem right there. From the article: "Brisbane ... is currently blocking a large housing development for local reasons." "And we also probably don’t want high rise condos on the edge of Golden Gate Park. San Francisco isn’t New York." I've voted in favor of every housing initiative available to me, but you can't make your favorite part of the Bay Area sacred and…

Faulting Brisbane is myopic. Brisbane could add maybe a few thousand units. San Francisco could add a hundred thousand units, if they really wanted to, but no, instead they blame a town of 3,500 for their problems. It shows how non introspective they are and how willing to blame others they are.

We can fault Brisbane just as we can fault every municipality in the Bay Area. That's not short sighted, it's necessary.

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#44

Post by rthomas6 »

rsync wrote: post #41
compiler-guy wrote: post #19

"Someone else should make the sacrifice." There's the problem right there. From the article: "Brisbane ... is currently blocking a large housing development for local reasons." "And we also probably don’t want high rise condos on the edge of Golden Gate Park. San Francisco isn’t New York." I've voted in favor of every housing initiative available to me, but you can't make your favorite part of the Bay Area sacred and…

"Brisbane ... is currently blocking a large housing development for local reasons." Good for them. I mean, probably not, but Brisbane is their town and they should determine their own values and courses of action. The solution to San Francisco needs to occur in San Francisco - not CC county or Marin or Sonoma. There's a lot of very, very distinguished and historic and noteworthy 1-4 story housing stock in San Francis…

What's wrong with buses?

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#45

Post by pfarnsworth »

The real solution is for companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, etc to have the COURAGE to create large work epicenters outside of the Bay Area. Create headquarters for tens of thousands of workers in more remote areas with a strong infrastructure, with great benefits for working families. Do what Amazon wants to do with a second HQ, and create demand outside of the Bay Area.

If Google created a new HQ in Kansas City, with it's fiber links, and low cost of living, and added really great benefits like free day care, etc, then won't software engineers move there, especially those that are ready to start a family? I bet you they would. I definitely would. Then it would create a new ecosystem of economic prosperity there, and then it would take a lot of pressure off the Bay Area.

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#46

Post by epistasis »

krausejj wrote: post #3
0xB31B1B wrote: post #2

If these things interest you, consider learning more about the yimby party (sfyimby.com). We’re a group advocating for these policies at a local and state level. DM me for more details.

I'm definitely interested. The part that I'm curious about though is that your brand is "SF Yimby." Your content looks Bay Area focused though. Have you thought of broadening the scope to be more regional?

There's even a Santa Cruz Yimby. Local organizations are necessary to deal with local issues, and going to local planning meetings, and local city council meetings.

And on the regional level, the YIMBY movement has been very successful this year with several state legislative initiatives that hold cities accountable for meeting their planned housing goals, and for increasing funding for affordable housing.

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#47

Post by archagon »

majormajor wrote: post #35
archagon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transport in the Bay is so, so hilariously bad. I'm in St. Petersburg, Russia right now and the subway here doesn't actually have a schedule. Instead, there's a clock on the wall. If the next train doesn't arrive within 2 minutes and reset the counter, something's not right. The stations cover basically the entire city, and as a result, venturing 5 miles across town feels about the same as going down a set of escalat…

Much of the infrastructure was built when (1) the country was so rich that most of the people with any influence at all had cars and (2) the country was less populated so traffic and parking were less severe problems. Everybody builds the infrastructure that the then-state-of-the-art calls for. That was roads and freeways for most of the US. It's an accident of history, not an idiotic mistake. Not doing anything abou…

I actually sympathize with the NIMBY-ers quite a bit when it comes to housing. But in terms of transportation, it depresses me to know from first-hand experience how much better things could be. Better public transit is simply a win-win for almost everyone: far fewer cars, more pedestrian areas and access, an increased number of people willing to live outside the city, and streets that don't feel like DMZs. City life is categorically improved when you no longer have to shuffle streetcar schedules or chase the bus around. (Or sit in traffic for 3 hours to go across town.)

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#48

Post by blang »

habosa wrote: post #18

This article really gets it. It's all about transportation. It will never be possible for everyone who wants to be in San Francisco to live downtown, or even adjacent to downtown. Just like the article said, Manhattan is much denser but no more affordable. But we make it so hard for people to get around. You can take a bus for 45m or take the BART which is overcrowded, unreliable, and has trains that can be as much a…

I'll have to disagree with you on that one. It's really about transportation and housing density.

The article seems to ignore the idea of the denser urban core gives more places for the wealthy to live and possibly damping the sprawl of medium wealthy house.

Also one of the central ideas of the article is that there needs to be one governing body to make everything work together, but at the same time ignores the fact that half of the color coded map contains housing from a different state.

Furthermore, while public transportation in NYC (and the North east corridor in general) is better, it is still kind of slow. While I couldn't find a great example of 10 miles being an hour in NYC my closest was Astoria queens (relatively cheap) to Wall Street is about 10 miles and takes around 45 minutes on the subway (one transfer).

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#49

Post by tomkarlo »

polskibus wrote: post #17

Is it beneficial for the rest of US to save SF? Won't its demise actually improve the lives in the rest of the country/world as businesses spread out after workers or allow remote work?

It's beneficial for the rest of the US to find solutions that make high density cities successful. Such locations tend to be both your cultural and economic centers, in particular due to the network effects of putting so many people in close proximity to each other. (The Internet helps but hasn't proven to be a substitute quite yet.)

Additionally, dense urban areas tend to have the smallest environmental impact per capita (lower carbon footprint in particular), and help prevent the problem of urban sprawl invading rural areas. Nobody wants to live in a suburb that covers the whole country.

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#50

Post by [deleted] »

twinkletwinkle wrote: post #30
polskibus wrote: post #17

Is it beneficial for the rest of US to save SF? Won't its demise actually improve the lives in the rest of the country/world as businesses spread out after workers or allow remote work?

Isn't that true of any city? Let's permanently shut down the subway in NYC. The rest of the country will benefit from the flood of educated people looking for jobs elsewhere.

[deleted]
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