101–110 of 361 posts
Everyone talks about housing affordability and NIMBYs and we get into class warfare and home-appreciation snobbery, but the simple thing I can't understand is how will the area's transportation infrastructure scale up? There's no credible solution.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in NYC, you can find cheap places if you look around Queens, Brooklyn, or Jersey City. None of them have the troubles of Oakland (crime). Eg, Queens is very safe, but kinda "boring", hence the cheap prices. All within 20 mins of subway within Manhattan. https://streeteasy.com/for-rent/queens/price:-2500%7Cbeds:1 Also, if you want something a bit more trendy and family friendly, you can find plenty of apt. in P…
Is $1800 really "cheap"? That might be cheap to people who are making close to 6-figures, but that isn't remotely affordable for a large percentage of the population.
I've tried to make the math work every which way - the Bay Are is just out of control, even compared to NYC prices. NYC compensates quite well by building upwards rather than outwards, this has a second benefit of reducing commutes (again, on a relative scale compared to the Bay Area.)
What is far more likely is that people will simply leave the Bay Area, and demand will fall. It's far easier to create tech clusters in other cities than it is to convince a bunch of NIMBY boomers that other people need places to live, too.
Short of a bubble popping, it usually doesnt work like a cusp, but rather, things remain on the edge of extremity (i.e.: dual income couple plowing 70% of income into insane mortgage.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually no, or not the way you mean. This is a legitimate moral trap: the "policy" at hand is construction permitting and land zoning, and those are almost exclusively local laws and regulations set at the city and county level. Those governments, by design, serve the interests of their local citizens. That is, the population they serve is inherently skewed toward existing property owners. You can't fix this by comp…
While there's no denying there's a strong bias towards property owners, it doesn't have to be this way. Renters can and should vote to change policies to favor them. SF is 63% renters! It is unfortunate that the most disenfranchised demographics are the ones least likely to vote/organize.
If even a quarter of those people are immigrants, that tips the scales quite a bit.
Skylynr, the 'Uber of nanoassembled highrises', last night replaced 44 San Francisco Victorians with apartment buildings.
Reached for comment, SF's Planning Department said the overnight construction violates a city moratorium, to study displacement issues, now in its 14th year.
The Board of Supervisors plans to address the issue in an emergency session next Tuesday. A Skylynr spokesperson says over 4,000 new residents, in the nearly 2,000 new apartments, will be registered as voters on the San Francisco Department of Elections blockchain before that meeting.
By November, over half the city's voters may be residents of the on-demand skyscrapers popping up across the city, most built by Skylynr or its competitors Instatower and Zipartments.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually no, or not the way you mean. This is a legitimate moral trap: the "policy" at hand is construction permitting and land zoning, and those are almost exclusively local laws and regulations set at the city and county level. Those governments, by design, serve the interests of their local citizens. That is, the population they serve is inherently skewed toward existing property owners. You can't fix this by comp…
At this point I'm strongly in favor of the nuclear option: a state-level proposition to implement uniform pro-density zoning reforms. It should also include at least a selective repeal of proposition 13 for non-occupant residences and a re-assessment of all such residences to tax those who are using our real estate as a financial instrument rather than a place to live. I'd also be in favor of an extra tax on out-of-s…
Non-residents cannot hold governments accountable (by voting) for how they use the money which allows the towns to side step one of the core principals of democracy (not to mention that non residents don't have as good information on which to evaluate the performance of local government since many local issues will not affect non-residents). I would have no problem taxing people who enable this by having income or vacation properties in towns they don't live and taxing local property owners who vote for the people who do it.
Unfortunately, there's no easy workaround for the situation. Perhaps an "Uber for commuters" would work, together with some sort of coordinated purchase/rent of affordable housing in areas ~1 hour commute from those chokepoints? (i.e. get 100 people to move to a small village together, then fill 2 busses every day with commuters to SF).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While there's no denying there's a strong bias towards property owners, it doesn't have to be this way. Renters can and should vote to change policies to favor them. SF is 63% renters! It is unfortunate that the most disenfranchised demographics are the ones least likely to vote/organize.
63% of SF is renters, but are 63% of those eligible to vote in SF renters? If even a quarter of those people are immigrants, that tips the scales quite a bit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At this point I'm strongly in favor of the nuclear option: a state-level proposition to implement uniform pro-density zoning reforms. It should also include at least a selective repeal of proposition 13 for non-occupant residences and a re-assessment of all such residences to tax those who are using our real estate as a financial instrument rather than a place to live. I'd also be in favor of an extra tax on out-of-s…
A total repeal of Prop 13.
I'm much more in favor of incentivizing people to support positive change than just bringing out the big sticks. How about giving everyone in the neighboorhood a property tax credit if they vote to upzone? Or giving companies big tax breaks if they allow 50% of their workforce to work remotely (tackling both housing and transportation issues)?