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If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

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Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#51

Post by granitepail »

karmakaze wrote: post #3
sampo wrote: post #2

> It’s not my fault she’s gone, that all 12 of them are gone. Normal. People move all the time. Nothing I could have done. Except allow building more homes. Vote for politicians who'd have allowed building more homes. My guess is, the author has voted against her own interests. Which one is more important, keeping the "charm" of houses and neighborhoods where you cannot afford to live anyway, or keeping those 12 your…

I think it's too late for that. Adding more reasonable priced homes just means that companies currently looking outside the valley can now continue to grow there so there will continuously be a shortage and thus high pricing and wages. It's going to take a significant bubble burst to reset it.

agreed. living in NYC, i’ve seen how extensive the problem is. we have lots of housing being built over a much broader area than san francisco and yet we still have the same problem. the number of people moving in to the city and getting high paying jobs (i’m a part of this problem) is so great that basically anyone else is pushed out. our affordable housing program has the right idea, but is so limited in its scope as to hardly make a dent. developers keep making luxury buildings with minimal affordable units and flipping them for big money. we need more regulation, more affordable housing.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#52

Post by CPLX »

> But what this “native” Bay Area kid won’t do is start blaming the guy from North Carolina or Wisconsin or Boston—basically every other person in the bar—for propelling the rents into the sky and inadvertently forcing the “locals” to flee.

That's one option. The other option would be to blame all the Bay Area natives who are seemingly happy to build massive employment centers but are completely fucking allergic to building apartment buildings.

But what do I know, I just live in New York, which really does share a lot of the dynamic described in the article as well and has it's share of problems with migration and gentrification, but where we also know how to actually build housing.

It helps.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#53

Post by simplecomplex »

newshorts wrote: post #26
sampo wrote: post #2

> It’s not my fault she’s gone, that all 12 of them are gone. Normal. People move all the time. Nothing I could have done. Except allow building more homes. Vote for politicians who'd have allowed building more homes. My guess is, the author has voted against her own interests. Which one is more important, keeping the "charm" of houses and neighborhoods where you cannot afford to live anyway, or keeping those 12 your…

This. Also, foreign investment from wealthy families stashing money overseas. Seems like we don’t talk about that much when our $100k house is worth $1.2 million

And that’s what houses are to Americans as well. Much of the real estate in the Bay Area is an investment purchase.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#54

Post by CPLX »

edoo wrote: post #50

A lot of people only see gross salary and forget the only thing that matters is how much money you net at the end of the year. For most in the middle class if you compare the cost of living index to a less desirable place to live, even with the much reduced wages, it makes fiscal sense leave.

> only thing that matters is how much money you net at the end of the year

No it doesn't. Other things matter too.

I gladly give up spectacular amounts of money to live in New York City because I have no interest in living anywhere else. Glancing around it appears I am not alone.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#55

Post by pinot »

chrisseaton wrote: post #11
jseliger wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ SF is a city where zoning and homevoters: http://cityobservatory.org/homevoters-v-the-growth-machine/ have made the city impossible for any normal person to live a normal life there. Even tech workers making $150k/yr find it hard to live there. The solution is simple (remove any parking minimums, lot setbacks, and non-technical height limits) and the problem…

> lot setbacks Does San Francisco enforce lot setbacks? I don't think I've seen many buildings in San Francisco that weren't just immediately adjacent to the sidewalk.

It depends on the zone.

RH-1, which is a bulk of the city west of Divis, is approx 15' (depends on historical building construction)

https://sf-planning.org/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Docum...

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#56

Post by ctime »

This article is really spot on. It feels like we're in a big speculative mess in Bay Area. The home-price-to-income ratio in SJ is about 20x [1] Anything over 3x used to be considered "risky". Let's say in Costal Areas it was be allowed to double, then you have 6x. That's good, not great, but ok. And that's about what pricy DC and NY cost. SJ is 20x. How is this possibly sustainable? Not even going to get into the dual income trap that only makes it marginally more realistic.

How is this good for average folks, like the ones that keep society running? How will this work in the long run? There will basically be two classes of people, the rich and the ultra poor who barely survive. I suspect poor don't have the money or the knowledge about elsewhere or they would be moving out in droves.

[1] - https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/05/where-the-house-price... * I should note peak home prices in the last 12 mo were in mid july and houses have fallen by about 5%, so this ratio might actually be lower.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#57

Post by chrisseaton »

pinot wrote: post #55
chrisseaton wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lot setbacks Does San Francisco enforce lot setbacks? I don't think I've seen many buildings in San Francisco that weren't just immediately adjacent to the sidewalk.

It depends on the zone. RH-1, which is a bulk of the city west of Divis, is approx 15' (depends on historical building construction) https://sf-planning.org/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Docum...

I don't know anything about planning that document says 'up to' 15 feet (which is about 4.5 m), not 'approx', and it also says 'based upon average of adjacent buildings', so if the rest are already against the sidewalk then new builds can be as well.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#58

Post by bobcat9 »

jostmey wrote: post #47
maxsilver wrote: post #14

> There is an apocalyptic amount of people moving into California, and no one blames them for the overcrowding and the shifting culture. But when too many Californians leave California and settle in, say, Portland, they are blamed for ruining the place by way of simply being themselves. Part of this is where the money comes from. Poorer/lower-middle-class people (mostly) move into California, to work these jobs under…

"There is an apocalyptic amount of people moving into California," Really? New york is crowded. Chicago is crowded. The bay area is just spread out. It just feels crowded because California won't build upwards, which is a result of its backward housing laws, codes, and tax systems.

I find the bay area TINY compared to the NYC sprawl.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#59

Post by xefer »

aphextron wrote: post #30

After recently getting back from Portland, it couldn't be more painfully obvious that the entire problem comes down to housing. They are building new (affordable!) apartments there like nothing I've ever seen. You literally can't walk two or three blocks without seeing a construction crane. And the local culture reflects that. So many business that simply could not exist in SF were thriving due to the cheap labor and…

It’s also possible that there is such a pent-up demand for housing in San Francisco that no amount of building could realistically do enough to make things truly affordable.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#60

Post by mdorazio »

geebee wrote: post #24
maxsilver wrote: post #14

> There is an apocalyptic amount of people moving into California, and no one blames them for the overcrowding and the shifting culture. But when too many Californians leave California and settle in, say, Portland, they are blamed for ruining the place by way of simply being themselves. Part of this is where the money comes from. Poorer/lower-middle-class people (mostly) move into California, to work these jobs under…

Do you have any stats on the wealth distribution of people leaving California? This really is a situation where more demographic information would be helpful, since an average wouldn't tell you as much. Do the wealthy Californians tend to be old, retirees? Young with kids? Are half the Californians leaving well off, with other half largely penniless? Your assertion that "when Californians leave, they leave wealthy" m…

I think this is the data you're looking for [1]. It actually runs somewhat counter to the parent comment's assertion. On average, wealthier people move to CA because they can afford to live here while poorer people leave because they can't afford to live here. However, you'd have to do some additional lookups based on the median incomes of where emigrants are moving to in order to draw a conclusion about whether they are better or worse off than the local population of their destination.

[1] https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/265

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