The biggest abuse of this was definitely with the A’s stadium in Oakland. If a game doesn’t sell out, the city pays for the empty seats. Your tax dollars at work.
At least Cbase Center will be better!
Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
211–220 of 296 posts
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
i didnt say it was the only factor. but it is a major factor. ive read alot of stuff about it, here is the first thing that comes up when i googled just in case you are unwilling to do it yourself: https://www.inman.com/2018/03/21/rising-home-prices-lead-to-....
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zoning is up to the city so it chose this. SF does not need public housing, even 1 million dollar condos in a high rise would help.
I agree. They can zone for housing. Anything that increases overall supply helps. They have mechanisms to encourage density (and affordability) too.
NoT iN mUh bAcKyArD - “Historical Housing (we only want rising house prices and no “others”)”
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are people who are on the margin of being able to afford a rental. Increase in supply could slightly lower prices and allow those people to afford to rent a home. 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.
Someone on the margin of affording a rental in SF isn’t homeless. They live someplace else that costs less. Why should taxpayers foot the bill to build more homes with the goal of making SF marginally more affordable when there are plenty of other good places to live? How is that better than some dumb stadium idea? And how long does it keep housing costs down? Those new homes will be gobbled up immediately and then t…
seems like vienna is a pretty good example of how you are wrong: https://crosscut.com/2017/06/homelessness-housing-crisis-sea...
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
First I'm hearing of this. That's royally fucked up. I guess the only solution is to wait for all those people to die so that the homes will change hands and trigger re-assessment.
Why is it royally fucked up? Where are you from and how long have you lived in CA to not know this? Because the guy working at UPS who grew up here depends on these laws so he doesn’t get priced out of his neighborhood. If you move somewhere especially the Bay Area be prepared to pay the transplant tax.
I call it "early adopters". This proposition basically secures guaranteed profits over 5 years. Once I saw this I did whatever I could do to buy California property. It's like a pyramid scheme, as long as people keep hitting big on those startups :-).
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#216There 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…
This is a very underrated point. I feel like in the abstract, we should be asking how much a city should be willing to pay for a place where tens of thousands of people can gather for a common purpose tens of times a year to attend an activity that tens (or hundreds) of thousands more people really enjoy watching on TV. It seems very plausible that this should be a non zero amount. (Also plausible that it shouldn’t b…
One big difference is that artists pay to use a venue for a performance. Sports teams get the city to pay to build the stadium, and keep the profits.
When I go to the theatre or the symphony or the ballet or the opera, the programs and the placards in the lobby always make it clear that most of their funding comes from donations from big companies (in Seattle: always Boeing and Microsoft) and private donors.
If we're so excited to spend public money for gatherings at events that people want to see, why don't they ever spend that sort of money on the arts? Why don't I see Seattle Pops concerts on TV? Why do we depend on private donations to keep the theatres open? Why do we zone for stadiums, but not community theatre?
Everyone I know wants to see more of these performing artists but most have trouble affording tickets. When you can't afford an NFL ticket, you turn on the TV and watch it for free anyway. When you can't afford to see the local arts, you're mostly just SOL.
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#217I 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.
Chase Center is a pretty sorry scapegoat for SF housing problems. It's 100% financed by the team and was welcomed by residents. You can instead blame the thousands of acres of property in SF zoned for single family residences and all the empty plots in the Mission near BART. There's nothing wrong with building entertainment venues in cities if they're financed without tax payer money.
There are very few empty plots in the Mission. The few that exist are slated for development, or vacant for a reason. Try to find one, other than the gas station by 16th street BART (which I almost guarantee is what you’re talking about, and is an exception, not a rule.)
You’re also overstating the support from “local residents”: the fact is that the city council gave a prime plot of redevelopable land (in a city with little available) to a sports team, as part of a sweetheart tax deal. It’s a criminal misappropriation of resources that was made behind closed doors.
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#218There 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…
Please say "false equivalence" to yourself, as many times as you can.
You're going to compare a public park to a stadium? Go to a stadium without a ticket, and see for yourself just how "public" it is.
Really, really large numbers of people use public parks. Small, small numbers of people (by percentage, in large metro regions) ever see the inside of a stadium.
While I understand that there are many that enjoy professional sports, I certainly don't want my tax dollars supporting it.
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#219When money is going out so easily to build 7 billion dollar stadiums, it’s hard to imagine why they can’t just throw 5 billion into something like border security.
Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Maybe it's a coincidence, but California has twice as many homeless people per capita as the rest of the US. It also has house prices roughly twice as high.