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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”

#81

Post by hencq »

archagon wrote: post #47
majormajor wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is what bothers me whenever I hear people rave about the future that driverless cars will finally make possible. They basically list your win-win list: far fewer cars, more pedestrian areas, etc. That might all be true, but we don't to wait for self-driving cars for that! Just build reliable public transportation just like countless cities have already done.

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

#82

Post by wahern »

stellar678 wrote: post #64
ghaff wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but don't want the (expensive) responsibility to house all those people that work in town. That's a common, often unstated problem, in many places. A new family often doesn't pay enough in taxes to cover the services they need, schools in particular. Which puts pressure on everyone's tax burden. I live in a rural/exurban town in New England and the tax issue definitely comes up in any discussion of approving any siz…

And it's even harder in California where so much of the property tax roll is frozen at tiny values from the past. Prop 13 can take almost exclusive blame for cities in California giving preference to jobs and retail over housing. It's like a direct incentive if they want to keep their budgets balanced.

OTOH, real estate prices are extremely inflated. The immediate effect of new housing would be a deluge of property tax revenue. I would guess that it'd take at least 10-20 years for the net negative effects of Prop 13 to take hold, perhaps longer. But because of increased density (lower infrastructure cost per unit), they'd probably still be ahead of where they are now.

I think it's fair to say that the real calculus in Brisbane is simply opportunity cost: they get a better ROI with commercial than residential. And this calculus simply makes it easier to defend anti-development sentiment, which is really what it all comes down to.

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

#83

Post by Johnny555 »

mc32 wrote: post #78
wahern wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you live in San Francisco? For the past 5 years there have been housing projects _everywhere_ across the city. Last year there were 62,000 units in the pipeline (anywhere from approved to under construction). ( http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2016/02/a-record-62000-un... ) I can't find a link, but I think the goal several years ago was to have built 30,000 units between 2015 and 2020, and progress has been okay…

I do live here, but I've also lived in the far east. There is no comparison. We see cranes in a few places, mainly SoMa, that is not sufficient. We should see building along geary, van ness, sunset Blvd, third, Octavia, California, etc.,etc.

Agreed, the Sunset and Richmond is too low density if SF really wants to address its housing shortage.

Give homeowners/developers incentives to turn low density blocks into mid to high density housing. And build Geary Street light rail (and put most of it underground so it doesn't take as long as the N-Judah does to get downtown)

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

#84

Post by tomkarlo »

ghaff wrote: post #72
tomkarlo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Manila, Mumbai, Dhaka? Nothing against any of them but they're usually not what people are thinking about when they're extolling the benefits of density. You also need to be careful with city density numbers in general. For example, the 55K/sq. mi. Paris number that gets thrown around is specifically for the core of the core.

I think you're presuming a lot there - for example, while Manila has its problems, there's a reason people want to be there rather than the provinces. I certainly don't think it would be a better city if you took its ~13M people and spread them out further, especially considering they mostly can't afford cars.

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

#86

Post by compiler-guy »

tedivm wrote: post #79
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…

There's a difference between the major park in a major city that is used by thousands of people a day, and that shitty town of 5k people that doesn't want anyone else to move in. Shit, there are more people in GGP right now than there will be all week in Brisbane. At the same time it's not like Brisbane isn't building. They just aren't building housing , because they want to build commercial so they can get the taxes…

Yes there is a difference. The difference is that Golden Gate Park is near the author's home, and Brisbane isn't.

High rise condos around Golden Gate park wouldn't affect the usability of Golden Gate Park all that much. It would barely affect the beauty.

Yes, Brisbane ought to build more housing, but what is good for the goose is also good for the gander.

And if we want Brisbane to give up its autonomy so that we can cram housing into it, and significantly change the character of the place--and we do!--then we have to be willing to cram housing into other places that will significantly change the character of that place.

As soon as one goes all sacred cow, one loses the game.

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

#87

Post by stellar678 »

orcasauce wrote: post #70
stellar678 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Have you ever been to Brisbane? Most people move there for the small-town feel; I personally tried, but got out-cashed by a Chinese investor. You're not going to convince them to become San Francisco's housing overflow. Geographic mobility really is a huge hurdle. A lot of business is becoming centralized around major long-distance transportation hubs, San Francisco being chief among them. Live in Concord, but want t…

I lived in Brisbane for a year. It was beautiful and calm and peaceful and pastoral. I had 3 apple trees, a peach tree and a pear tree. It's totally unsustainable for cities like Brisbane to have such a huge jobs/housing imbalance.

Not to mention, no one is asking to knock down the beautiful hillside neighborhoods - they want to build housing in the flat baylands across the 5-lane highway Bayshore Blvd. The SF Muni T-line basically already services this proposed baylands neighborhood.

As for the mobility issue - I agree 100% that transportation is a crucial part of this whole equation. I also understand that you can't build effective transportation if you keep surrendering to people who want car-oriented sprawling development patterns, including prioritizing cars even in our dense neighborhoods.

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

#88

Post by wahern »

mc32 wrote: post #78
wahern wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you live in San Francisco? For the past 5 years there have been housing projects _everywhere_ across the city. Last year there were 62,000 units in the pipeline (anywhere from approved to under construction). ( http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2016/02/a-record-62000-un... ) I can't find a link, but I think the goal several years ago was to have built 30,000 units between 2015 and 2020, and progress has been okay…

I do live here, but I've also lived in the far east. There is no comparison. We see cranes in a few places, mainly SoMa, that is not sufficient. We should see building along geary, van ness, sunset Blvd, third, Octavia, California, etc.,etc.

I absolutely agree! Except for the part where SF is being myopic by criticizing Brisbane.

Imagine Tokyo was located near SF. Would you criticize Tokyo for complaining about the pace of development in SF, simply because Tokyo could be doing a better job?

By defending Brisbane, you defend every other city in the Bay Area that has been dragging its feet, especially those on the peninsula. Don't forget that both Santa Clara County and San Mateo County have substantially greater median incomes than SF, yet most of the cities in those counties--especially the richest ones--have literally flat-out opposed growth in residential units.

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

#89

Post by cmontella »

tomkarlo wrote: post #63
cmontella wrote: post #26

I used to live in the dead center of the city, in the Ashbury Heights neighborhood. It took me literally 1 hour to get to work, down town taking muni (fastest time recorded is 40 minutes without any delays and essentially running the "last mile"). This was the longest commute of my life, and I lived 3 miles from work. It would take me just a little more time to walk there. Biking was faster, but more dangerous -- I g…

That's great, but it seems kind of orthogonal and non-scalable to the problem of the Bay Area housing crisis. Are you proposing that everyone in SF move to places like the Central Valley (driving up price) and start driving around cars (increasing traffic and pollution)? What about folks who don't have the luxury of jobs where they can work remotely?

> kind of orthogonal and non-scalable to the problem of the Bay Area housing crisis.

The problem can be attacked from two angles. Either ramp up housing development to take care of the population influx, or slow down the population influx to match the rate of housing development. Obviously, the people of the area have a vested interest in keeping the area attractive; but for the rest of us, I think it's important to remember there are other places to live and you can be just as happy or happier elsewhere. I'm someone who could have used that reminder a year ago.

There's a lot of justification that goes into paying $3000 per month to live in a one bedroom apartment. You have to recoup that value elsewhere. A lot of it has to do with the job opportunities available to tech workers. That's undeniable. But some of the other justifications I used were more or less lies I started telling myself about why I had to stay.

> Are you proposing that everyone in SF move to places like the Central Valley (driving up price)

It's already happening, so maybe we should embrace it as a valid option. The town I'm living in has become sort of a telecommuter town, precisely because of rents in SF.

> and start driving around cars (increasing traffic and pollution)?

I actually went about 8 months without a car in SF. I took Uber, bike, and muni as my get around. Between me and my wife, we were spending $700 per month on transportation, so we ended up buying a car to get around -- it was just more convenient. Out in the valley, we actually put fewer miles on it, because it's easier to bike out here, and things are actually closer to us than they were in the city (both in miles and minutes).

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

#90

Post by ghaff »

hencq wrote: post #81
archagon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is what bothers me whenever I hear people rave about the future that driverless cars will finally make possible. They basically list your win-win list: far fewer cars, more pedestrian areas, etc. That might all be true, but we don't to wait for self-driving cars for that! Just build reliable public transportation just like countless cities have already done.

>the future that driverless cars will finally make possible

I tend to think these are further away than most people think. But I also have a lot of trouble seeing how they don't massively increase traffic. Maybe you need less parking and maybe inter-car communications can make traffic move more smoothly. But does anyone seriously believe that people will drive less when they effectively have a personal driver at their beck and call?

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