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Berlin Google Campus occupied

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Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#181

Post by TulliusCicero »

carapace wrote: post #126
TulliusCicero wrote: post #14

> New tech companies are driving the rents up in the area higher and higher. The endpoint of this process can be seen in San Francisco, which once must have been a halfway livable city. This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists who work hard to prevent new housing from going up. Yes, tech companies brought the demand because of good jobs, but last I checked, we wanted companies to offer high payin…

No, the data do not back that up: https://www.theurbanist.org/2016/05/27/rents-in-san-francisc... In order for new construction to materially affect rent rate we would have to build more housing faster than it has ever been done before, for decades to come. Leaving aside the question of whether it is desirable to convert SF into another Manhattan, we could actually do it: there are modern methods to build entire new…

On the other hand: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-07/rental-gl...

> Tenants are gaining the upper hand in urban centers across the U.S. as new amenity-rich apartment buildings, constructed in response to big rent gains in previous years, are forced to fight for customers. Rents are softening most on the high end and within city limits, Terrazas said. Landlords also have been losing customers to homeownership as millennials strike out on their own, often moving to more affordable suburbs.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#182

Post by bildung »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #91
bildung wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the people need more housing, the solution is, shockingly enough, to build more housing. I know this is a popular opinion, but is there empirical evidence for this? Isn't this solution based on the assumption that there was a one-time surge of people, leading to a one-time rise in demand for housing?

Sure, take a read here: http://cityobservatory.org/urban-myth-busting-high-income2/

Thanks for the link. That article only links to a single correlation study, and that study only shows what we know: if high income earners rent much of the given supply, rents for low income families increases, too. That doesn't help with the question of more housing lowering rent prices. My point was: If more housing gets built, what does high income earners prevent from moving to town and renting that, too?

The article makes a fundamental error with that car market analogy, BTW. Cars are consumables that get bought to be driven by the buyer. Houses in cities are investments that are built to be rented out. Completely different market dynamics. That the author makes a grave error like this while blogging about urban planning is a bit scary.

What I meant are real longitudinal studies that track rent price development and increasing supply over time, preferably in Europe, where the rent market works quite a bit differently than in the US. The vast majority of housing in Berlin is for rent.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#183

Post by throwaway34241 »

carapace wrote: post #178
throwaway34241 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do people not earning $100,000 afford to live there? They commute 2 hours each way (for real). I think it's unreasonable to expect a live-and-let live attitude to NIMBYs on online forums, while NIMBYs are pricing out the people who work in their neighborhoods through housing policy. Sure there are other issues like global warming but it's not like having a place to live is a trivial issue . It's more than reasona…

> They commute 2 hours each way (for real). But that's garbage. Have you tried it? It sucks. > NIMBYs are pricing out the people who work in their neighborhoods through housing policy. Well no, you're wrong and that's my point. Wages drive rent rate increases according to the data going back 70 years. If all the people you call pejorative names suddenly saw things your way and we all changed the zoning and laws and s…

I'm not calling you names or even talking about your political views (since I don't know them). I'm talking about the actual housing policies of many cities in the bay area, which are extremely against adding new housing, most commonly characterized as NIMBY. It looks like you view this term to be offensive, I didn't realize.

My key point was about the ratio of jobs to housing. It may not be desirable or realistic to expand the overall population of the area past a certain amount. But I think it is realistic to zone/approve enough housing, to match the amount of jobs that are zoned/approved (through office space). Overall, the bay area has been adding much more jobs than housing, and I think this is a major factor in the housing problem aside from wages. And the result of this is that more and more of people's paycheck goes to housing, they have to commute long distances, etc.

Rather than opposing housing when there is a shortage, I'd rather see more effort put into opposing new office space instead, and when housing has caught up cities could facilitate a public dialogue about what residents want with regards to growth etc.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#184

Post by carapace »

throwaway34241 wrote: post #183
carapace wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They commute 2 hours each way (for real). But that's garbage. Have you tried it? It sucks. > NIMBYs are pricing out the people who work in their neighborhoods through housing policy. Well no, you're wrong and that's my point. Wages drive rent rate increases according to the data going back 70 years. If all the people you call pejorative names suddenly saw things your way and we all changed the zoning and laws and s…

I'm not calling you names or even talking about your political views (since I don't know them). I'm talking about the actual housing policies of many cities in the bay area, which are extremely against adding new housing, most commonly characterized as NIMBY. It looks like you view this term to be offensive, I didn't realize. My key point was about the ratio of jobs to housing. It may not be desirable or realistic to…

Parent comment I was originally responding to opens with:

> This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists...

The term "NIMBY" is used IMO to caricature and demonize people who have done nothing worse than own their own homes and desire some control over their neighborhoods, towns, and cities. Land use is hard enough to figure out without painting our neighbors with a pejorative brush.

> the actual housing policies of many cities in the bay area, which are extremely against adding new housing

I agree.

> most commonly characterized as NIMBY

That's the idea I am decrying. Please don't do that.

> It looks like you view this term to be offensive, I didn't realize.

I do. Worse, it's actively working against mutual comprehension and effective political solutions. We have the technology: "Four-story Berkeley building built in four days" https://sf.curbed.com/2018/8/6/17656118/fast-apartment-resid...

The solution we need is political and getting mass cohesion at the level required takes positive uplifting values, not name calling and caricatures.

> My key point was about the ratio of jobs to housing. It may not be desirable or realistic to expand the overall population of the area past a certain amount. But I think it is realistic to zone/approve enough housing, to match the amount of jobs that are zoned/approved (through office space). Overall, the bay area has been adding much more jobs than housing, and I think this is a major factor in the housing problem aside from wages. And the result of this is that more and more of people's paycheck goes to housing, they have to commute long distances, etc.

Yes, absolutely! It's been easier and more profitable for developers to build skyscrapers and office buildings for decades, so that's what we've got.

I'm not denying that there are folks who don't look much farther than their own backyards when it comes to their votes on land use issues. I'm saying that, in order to make any real progress, we have to understand each other and work together.

> Rather than opposing housing when there is a shortage, I'd rather see more effort put into opposing new office space instead, and when housing has caught up cities could facilitate a public dialogue about what residents want with regards to growth etc.

Legend has it that SimCity was developed to explore the ideas of Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language. I think we should play a giant, realistic simulation of the city, region, state, biome, nation, continent, globe, all together in a MMORPG.

By the time we have hammered out what we want the future to look like the robots will be able to build it for us in a twinkling. I estimate ~30 +/- 15 years if the weather remains (relatively) stable.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#185

Post by carapace »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #181
carapace wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the data do not back that up: https://www.theurbanist.org/2016/05/27/rents-in-san-francisc... In order for new construction to materially affect rent rate we would have to build more housing faster than it has ever been done before, for decades to come. Leaving aside the question of whether it is desirable to convert SF into another Manhattan, we could actually do it: there are modern methods to build entire new…

On the other hand: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-07/rental-gl... > Tenants are gaining the upper hand in urban centers across the U.S. as new amenity-rich apartment buildings, constructed in response to big rent gains in previous years, are forced to fight for customers. Rents are softening most on the high end and within city limits, Terrazas said. Landlords also have been losing customers to homeo…

From my POV that's due more to a glut of cheap-inside luxury-outside condos and apartment buildings. I mean the word "glut" is in the title. A couple of years ago I was considering buying a condo in the Bay Area. I was surprised to find that, although there are tons of places if you can afford them, you have to look very carefully to find a well-built, well-managed building. The real estate market in the Bay Area has been so hot that it has attracted a lot of questionable development and investment.

A very typical pattern was a new, physically beautiful building with shoddy design and construction, so that it looks like luxury housing but the walls are thin and you can hear your neighbors, for example. Often the front office is staffed with perky young ladies who have no authority or ability to do anything other than sign up new tenants. They are not the building managers, other than in name, they're salespeople. Any problems you might have require you to call a call center on the East Coast. One place I looked at was owned by a huge corporation that had ~$2B debt and a bunch of weird holdings. Basically someone's pet company had bought the building as an investment, with all the problems for the tenants that you might imagine that entails: regular and steep rent increases, minimal staff and maintenance, cost-cutting everywhere.

So yeah, I am not surprised that the bottom feeders (of the high-end) are scrambling for marks and suckers. The quality buildings are easy to spot, I eventually figured it out. Can you guess the marker? [1]

But they still aren't renting to the folks who make ~$100,000 or less, eh? This article describes a correction, but the overall trend is still up, no? Or maybe this is some kind of inflection point in the 70 year trend, and the burst of construction combined with people moving out of hot city centers has fixed the problem?

In the meantime, it's easy to find a place in SF if you can afford $4000 a month, but almost impossible if you can only afford half of that. Calling that "the upper hand" is a bit rich.

[1] They have long waiting lists.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#186

Post by growlist »

tomjen3 wrote: post #163
growlist wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a positive note, Uganda sounds lovely: 'Uganda is a landlocked country in East Africa whose diverse landscape encompasses the snow-capped Rwenzori Mountains and immense Lake Victoria. Its abundant wildlife includes chimpanzees as well as rare birds. Remote Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is a renowned mountain gorilla sanctuary. Murchison Falls National Park in the northwest is known for its 43m-tall waterfall a…

Unless you are gay, in which case consensual sex is a life sentence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Uganda

You are a ray of sunshine.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#187

Post by deanCommie »

bogomipz wrote: post #66
deanCommie wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

B.S. You just need to re-zone massive sprawling single-family zones into mid-rises. The "american dream" of a massive house for every couple can't survive the 21st century without triggering a revolution.

It sounds like you have never even been to Kreuzberg then. There are no "massively sprawling single-family zones" in the area. Maybe you could do just a modicum of research before you call "B.S." on people.

I was talking about San Francisco, but it got lost
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