171–180 of 296 posts
Although I completely agree about the general premise, it's borderline intellectually dishonest to include a link to your own web site as a reference (the "infrastructure" link). Just include the direct references to third parties, like in the footnote.
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If SF needs housing then they can just build into oakland and use BART to get into SF. Oakland is a very underdeveloped piece of real estate.
But then... SF still wouldn't have housing, Oakland would. It's in another county. Come on, there's no reason to limit buildings to as short as they are right now. It's as if the city of SF has given up on change entirely.
Call it NIMBY call it whatever you want but there is _no_ incentive for long term SF residents (10+ years) especially home owners to support more housing, especially for tech transplants.
I cringe when I see SF bringing the Warriors to town. Why not use the space for housing? It’s not like Cincinnati where you need Sports attractions to draw people to the area. Having a Sports Team May help local restaurants, but I would think so would more houses. When there are so many homeless people, the housing stock is more important than a stadium.
You think people are homeless because there is not enough housing available in the city? How many homes do you think you could build on the same plot of land as a basketball arena? Several hundred? Maybe a thousand condos? That’s like spitting in the ocean. And then what? Give them away to the homeless? It’s not like they’re going to pay for them just because you made a few more available. Housing is expensive in big…
You're right of course that the poorest people would still be unable to afford homes. Building more homes would reduce homelessness but not eliminate it.
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Sounds like you've been talking to people who don't like their real estate values going down.
Also people who don't have their taxes go up when real estate values go up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13
I cringe when I see SF bringing the Warriors to town. Why not use the space for housing? It’s not like Cincinnati where you need Sports attractions to draw people to the area. Having a Sports Team May help local restaurants, but I would think so would more houses. When there are so many homeless people, the housing stock is more important than a stadium.
You think people are homeless because there is not enough housing available in the city? How many homes do you think you could build on the same plot of land as a basketball arena? Several hundred? Maybe a thousand condos? That’s like spitting in the ocean. And then what? Give them away to the homeless? It’s not like they’re going to pay for them just because you made a few more available. Housing is expensive in big…
I watch some of the video generated by the Maddon football video game, and find it almost as realistic as the real games. Someday, some entrepreneur is going to figure out that you can have realistic pro games generated by software. It will save a lot on player salaries etc. Then when the people at home start watching those instead of the real games (maybe they will all be online, and not blocked by the networks), th…
There is no question that public stadium subsidies are almost always a bad investment. However these type of articles never take into consideration that people generally like sports teams and want them to stay in the same region. It also isn't just people who attend the games or businesses around the stadium. A local sports team, unlike nearly any other private business, provides a huge but unknown amount of utility…
TL;DR - It is more complicated than "sports stadiums = bad" but these discussions rarely get deeper than that. Additionally, the detractors often don't understand that these things are basically urban pacification projects. The argument has been made that having a place where the mayor sits down with a businessman on one side and a bricklayer on the other, where everybody has temporarily set aside their differences i…
Massive "sports" events have been a staple of social control since Greek and Roman times, and still are to some extent. Instead of going out and killing people on the streets, you just watch gladiators kill one another.
People still riot from time to time when their favorite team loses a big match, but those riots can be much more easily controlled and condemned than one that actually exposes deep fissures within the society.
Having said that, however, it's worth asking whether a democratic society should allow the government to encourage such a well-known method of silencing dissent.
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housing prices are definitely influenced by supply. and homelessness is definitely driven by housing prices. so, yea.
housing prices are definitely influenced by supply. and homelessness is definitely driven by housing prices. so, yea. I think it’s more likely that mental illness and addiction are bigger factors, along with an absence of good interventions and an abuse of the prison system. Statistics showing a majority of American homeless people are either mentally ill, addicted to drugs, or both certainly support that view over y…
The causality of homelessness and addiction is more like a negative feedback loop. eg No insurance, get sick or injured, self medicate with alcohol or oxy, loose job, loose housing.
The link between mental illness and homelessness is pretty straight forward.
I watch some of the video generated by the Maddon football video game, and find it almost as realistic as the real games. Someday, some entrepreneur is going to figure out that you can have realistic pro games generated by software. It will save a lot on player salaries etc. Then when the people at home start watching those instead of the real games (maybe they will all be online, and not blocked by the networks), th…
A computer match wouldn’t have either