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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”

#51

Post by tomkarlo »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #36
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?

Great point. Also worth asking, can a city not just find a comfortable homeostasis? Is it every city's goal to become increasingly dense? Do we measure the "success" of a city on GDP? I don't. I think the best cities in the world would include Paris, St. Petersburg, Valpariaso, not the manufacturing centers of China or America. So, define "save."

Paris is twice as dense as SF, and denser than any other US city except New York. Increasing density isn't necessarily a goal, but it's a sign of a healthy city - it means people want to live there so much that they're willing to pack together closer in order to be there, and it helps drive the cultural wealth (food, culture, social) that marks the most prominent cities such as NY, Paris, London, Hong Kong, etc.

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

#52

Post by nerfhammer »

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…

> Brisbane is their town and they should determine their own values and courses of action.

Do you feel the same way about other critical shortages that cause massive human suffering?

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

#53

Post by stellar678 »

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.

The Brisbane baylands area is a full square mile, which is contiguous with parts of San Francisco and is separated by a 5-lane highway from the current residential part of Brisbane.

I live in a mixed SFH/midrise apartment neighborhood in Oakland, and our population density is 24,000 per square mile.

So putting 24k people in that part of Brisbane wouldn't even look particularly built up.

The Nob Hill, Russian Hill and Telegraph Hill areas (beautiful, treasured, highly desired places) in San Francisco all vary from 30k to 60k per square mile.

Putting 45k people on Brisbane baylands would be awesome.

What's really happening is that Brisbane loves the sweet tax revenues from all the businesses they host, but don't want the (expensive) responsibility to house all those people that work in town.

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

#54

Post by sogen »

archagon wrote: post #31
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…

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…

The bus arrives on time: Yes

But it's so crowded and stinky, it's not worth it. That's my educated guess about why so many people use car sharing services

Also, why do they keep doing so many new buildings?

Those buildings are going to need people, and people need transportation, and a house...

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

#55

Post by bwanab »

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…

They only have that right if we believe that it's ok for some people to shrug off the fact that they're contributing several times the amount of carbon into the atmosphere than they would otherwise.

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

#56

Post by gok »

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…

>Served by rail. If you see a bus, they blew it.

And if you see streetcars, they blew it worse. Streetcars combine the traffic creation of buses with the inflexibility of a rail line. As an added bonus they make biking extra treacherous.

If you have the budget to build a real buried or elevated rail line, go for it. Otherwise stick with BRT until you do.

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

#57

Post by kendallpark »

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?

I had the same thought when reading the article. NYC became NYC partly because of the need for physical proximity of businesses. For example, there was a time when you HAD to be physically present on Wall Street to exchange stocks.

In the 21st century, how great the need for physical proximity in the tech industry? Sure, it's convenient to have a ton of skilled devs in one place, but does that convenience outweigh the (rather extreme) cost? Is this sort of flocking behavior a cultural hand-me-down from a bygone area?

That said, this isn't an either/or situation. We can fix SF's mass transit situation AND we can find ways of spreading out businesses across the US.

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

#58

Post by sogen »

gok wrote: post #56
rsync wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

>Served by rail. If you see a bus, they blew it. And if you see streetcars, they blew it worse. Streetcars combine the traffic creation of buses with the inflexibility of a rail line. As an added bonus they make biking extra treacherous. If you have the budget to build a real buried or elevated rail line, go for it. Otherwise stick with BRT until you do.

You should see the line of tourists waiting to ride the streetcars...

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

#59

Post by mc32 »

epistasis wrote: post #42
mc32 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They are not a "city" and they are not attracting talent and or companies' which create the demand. San Francisco is but, while they advertise themselves as a city, promote growth, grant tax breaks for cachet employers, etc., they do very little, in terms of creating and building housing for those workers. They demand others do what they themselves are unwilling to do.

Now, imagine the opposite, Brisbane demanding San Francisco become more suburban because San Francisco is to city-like for their liking.

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

#60

Post by cmontella »

closure wrote: post #28

After 8 years in SF I have been seriously considering moving to NYC, largely over my commute to South Bay, but also for the substantial increase in density which brings with it a manifold increase in cultural opportunities and activities. The weather is a drawback (in probably 200+ days in NYC over 10 years I can remember a single week of what I would consider nice weather). I have realized that crappy climate is a p…

> I have realized that crappy climate is a poor reason to avoid the move.

I'd be interested to hear your reasons. For me, I'm the exact opposite. In the 3 years I've lived in CA, I haven't had bronchitis once, which used to happen almost every year on the east coast. Not having to deal with 14 degree weather and snow is one of the main reasons I moved away. For me, so much happiness flows this simple fact.

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