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The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

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Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#61

Post by secstate »

manfredo wrote: post #51
Gibbon1 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you care about the rest of the country you should ask why the fire hose of investment money is directed at SF and New York and not elsewhere. Instead of asking what's wrong with San Francisco. Why not ask what's wrong with the rest of the US? Sure I can name a bunch of reasons why little housing is built in California, we can start with the Libertarian wet dream that is Prop 13. Prop 13 does two things, removes an…

I don't really follow what message you're trying to convey, but it sounds a lot like that you're starting the problem is with the demand for real estate in Silicon Valley, not the supply. This isn't the case. Silicon Valley, Seattle, etc. are just on the leading edge of a larger tend towards greater urbanization. It's a pattern that's also happening in Austin, Portland, and more cities just to less extreme degrees. T…

I'd be careful with "simple facts." Rarely do they turn out to be simple. Show me the evidence that dense urban areas are economically AND environmentally more efficient. The environment part seems especially suspect.

To a large degree we're still living in the shadow of the industrial revolution, when workers flocked to cities for work. As a telecommuter, my quality of life is a thousand fold higher than my co-workers in the D.C. or Dallas metro areas where it seems many people find themselves alone in a sea of humans and chronically maligning poorly planned mass transit.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#62

Post by souprock »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #41
krausejj wrote: post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

If you care about the rest of the country you should ask why the fire hose of investment money is directed at SF and New York and not elsewhere. Instead of asking what's wrong with San Francisco. Why not ask what's wrong with the rest of the US? Sure I can name a bunch of reasons why little housing is built in California, we can start with the Libertarian wet dream that is Prop 13. Prop 13 does two things, removes an…

Lots of people like being in a right-to-work state. It means not having to pay a private tax to a corrupt union that mostly serves to create dumb rules that cause problems. If you are a decent worker, you don't appreciate rules that make companies lay off the newer workers first, preventing the lazy ones from being eliminated. Hardly anybody likes having to bring in an electrician just to plug in a power strip. The idea that I can't move a large box or a desk (due to being hired for some other role) is absurd.

The states you speak of are the ones most friendly to home schooling. You can teach evolution and anti-abstinence all you want. FYI though, there are creationist engineers. I've met many.

I'm not sure what you mean by "bad" family planning. I don't see why you should care what other people do. Maybe I am "bad" for having 11 kids, but I won't force you to have that many.

Right across the hall from me is an engineer who left SF. He uses his AR-15 at home in his yard. (might go over badly in SF, you think?) He keeps goats and lots of chickens. Clearly, he does in fact "want to live in those places" instead of in SF where he grew up.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#63

Post by danieltillett »

The problem with all real estate development is all the profits flow to the developers and all the costs flow to the existing residents (more traffic, infrastructure, etc). I am surprised that anyone is in favour of development in their neighbourhood unless they are a developer.

The solution is to share the benefits of new development with the existing residents so they gain from development. Get this right and communities will be fighting each other to have developers come in and build new houses.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#64

Post by brownbat »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #41
krausejj wrote: post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

If you care about the rest of the country you should ask why the fire hose of investment money is directed at SF and New York and not elsewhere. Instead of asking what's wrong with San Francisco. Why not ask what's wrong with the rest of the US? Sure I can name a bunch of reasons why little housing is built in California, we can start with the Libertarian wet dream that is Prop 13. Prop 13 does two things, removes an…

It seems like we should see a bunch of people "voting with their feet." Trouble is that on net people are mostly moving out of California and New York and into places like South Carolina, Idaho, and Tennessee.

http://www.businessinsider.com/state-domestic-migration-map-...

OTOH they are also moving out of Wyoming and Kansas and into Colorado and Oregon.

What to make of this?

Maybe... people mostly go where jobs and cost of living and social connections line up, politics either direction just isn't a great predictor?

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#65

Post by gnarcoregrizz »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #41
krausejj wrote: post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

If you care about the rest of the country you should ask why the fire hose of investment money is directed at SF and New York and not elsewhere. Instead of asking what's wrong with San Francisco. Why not ask what's wrong with the rest of the US? Sure I can name a bunch of reasons why little housing is built in California, we can start with the Libertarian wet dream that is Prop 13. Prop 13 does two things, removes an…

I don't think prop 13 is a libertarian wet dream. It was simply a short sighted tax revolt. The only reason I'm hesitant to put the libertarian label on it is because it uses policy to pick winners and losers. If it were to decrease taxes proportionally or remove them, then sure, I'd call it libertarian. I agree it's complete shit though. It creates all sorts of broken incentives

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#66

Post by manfredo »

secstate wrote: post #61
manfredo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really follow what message you're trying to convey, but it sounds a lot like that you're starting the problem is with the demand for real estate in Silicon Valley, not the supply. This isn't the case. Silicon Valley, Seattle, etc. are just on the leading edge of a larger tend towards greater urbanization. It's a pattern that's also happening in Austin, Portland, and more cities just to less extreme degrees. T…

I'd be careful with "simple facts." Rarely do they turn out to be simple. Show me the evidence that dense urban areas are economically AND environmentally more efficient. The environment part seems especially suspect. To a large degree we're still living in the shadow of the industrial revolution, when workers flocked to cities for work. As a telecommuter, my quality of life is a thousand fold higher than my co-worke…

The economic efficiency is demonstrated by the greater job growth in urban areas. I'll easily find stats on this when I get off mobile. And this is the first time I've heard someone claim that sprawl and dispersed populations are environmentally better than urban areas. Not only do dispersed populations need greater land development, they need significantly more energy used in transportation to deliver the same quality of life. I saw a stat that compared the per capita carbon footprint of wealthy countries and it was essentially inversely proportional to levels of urbanization. And like the economy one, sit tight for an hour or do for me to get home and share this data.

Sources for greater economic growth in urban areas:

https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-population/emp...

Countries by CO2 emissions per-capita: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

Countries by urbanization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_country

And that's not even getting into things like the amount of land that gets developed for low density homes and services, roads, water reservoirs, electric lines, etc.

Wealthy rural countries (USA, Australia, Russia), produce more carbon than dense wealthy countries. Granted, I wouldn't be surprised if carbon emissions and environmental impact of the average city resident was higher than the average rural resident - but that's largely a result of the fact that rural residents are generally less wealthy. This is definitely true on a global scale (the countries with the lowest carbon footprints are poor, rural ones), and I wouldn't be surprised if it were true on a nation wide scale. I didn't explicitly state it in in the first post, but I did clarify in the second that this was for the same standard of living.

On a side note, an interesting thing to look into is how Singapore manages to provide so much services with such a small budget - 14.2% of GDP per capita as opposed to 26% in the US. A huge part of this is because it's so much more efficient to provide services when you're dealing with population concentrated in such a small area. Imagine how much more money (and energy) it takes to deliver electricity, running water, sewage, emergency services, education, etc. to households in Oregon where 4 million people are distributed across 98,466 square miles as opposed to concentrating them all in 278 square miles. Even if things like land and labor cost more, so much overhead and operational costs are saved by not having to service such a massive area.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#68

Post by closeparen »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #41
krausejj wrote: post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

If you care about the rest of the country you should ask why the fire hose of investment money is directed at SF and New York and not elsewhere. Instead of asking what's wrong with San Francisco. Why not ask what's wrong with the rest of the US? Sure I can name a bunch of reasons why little housing is built in California, we can start with the Libertarian wet dream that is Prop 13. Prop 13 does two things, removes an…

Why do cities exist at all? There are immense economic benefits to being in close proximity to many potential employees and partners. There are reasons we live in clusters and not spaced out in equidistant family farms. Lack of space isn't one of them.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#69

Post by snomad »

ng12 wrote: post #17
snomad wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I see this posted, I ask about noise. Dense housing near rapid-transit, particularly rail, has led to lots of people getting exposed to massive volumes of noise, even at night. This is the type of long-term negative that get people to move out to the suburbs (e.g. self-defeating the policy) or call for more construction such as sound walls. You can see Reno for a perfect example of this. Everyone moved out…

> inherent problem of rapid-transit noise What inherent problem? Rapid transit is certainly quieter than vehicle traffic. Noise pollution comes from sirens and heavy trucking, not public transportation.

I assumed rail is part of this bill, my bad.

Buses regularly have speakers announcing the stop (85th and X) that can be heard at quite a distance.

I guess people think this is a joke or nimbyism, but it is a legit concern. We all know by know how important sleep is to health. well, that rapid transit noise (even bus) is a factor. Trucks and cars, late at night, have a flow. Buses stop, the speaker garbles all too loudly, air brakes hiss, and the slow elephantine weight of the vehicle is dragged into motion by a guttural engine rumble.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#70

Post by wwgg715 »

sokoloff wrote: post #54
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CA is also a democracy, so it's just one democratic outcome overriding a different democratic outcome.

Two wolves and one sheep can also have a vote about what's for dinner and the outcome be democratic. I don't know why people in San Diego or NorCal should have a vote about what happens with respect to zoning in Palo Alto or Mountain View. Why not let people in Butte, Montana put in their vote as well?

Does Broadmoor have a right to override Daly City? Or Piedmont, Oakland? Both are donut holes within larger cities. Rich neighborhoods protecting their interests against those of the community. Local governments in CA are convoluted and corrupt. Have a committee of experts draw the lines based on actual geography and common sense, and then we can let them decide what is right for their own “communities”
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