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$1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

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Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#251

Post by yep_thats_right »

jefftk wrote: post #225
yep_thats_right wrote: post #220

As someone who lives in a single-family home, I'm totally for public transit, having fewer cars on the streets, more walkability, etc. But until cities solve the issues of smell and noise, I'm not interested in living in a dense area. Keep it clean and quiet. Invest in urban forestry. Then it starts to look appealing.

I live in Somerville MA, which is has about 18k people per square mile, compared to the ~2-6k I see in the South Bay. It gets that density through many two and three family houses placed closely together, and it's not smelly or noisy. Here's a representative street view example: https://goo.gl/maps/ggwHETDomuRUQAB89 You can be much denser than the Bay Area while still having trees and feeling "residential".

Yeah, that sounds like a good path for cities to take toward compromise and growth.

To give a counterpoint to my own initial post, suburbs have their own noxious smells and noise: leafblowers, lawnmowers, cars galore.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#252

Post by mars4rp »

SkyBelow wrote: post #245
caymanjim wrote: post #75

It's great that Google wants to increase housing, but is this really going to work? The housing shortage in the Bay Area is not a money problem. If it were possible to build 20,000 houses in the next 20 years, it would absolutely happen without Google's help. The problem with housing there has one simple cause: NIMBYism. SF doesn't want to allow taller buildings and denser housing complexes. It's vastly worse in the…

>The only solution is changing the zoning laws, and that requires changing peoples' minds. For the people who own property, they are choosing laws that best help their finances. You can appeal to some sense of greater good but history would show such a plan unlikely to work.

no they are not, if we have denser zoning, the land on this houses would be extremely more valuable.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#253

Post by sidlls »

SkyBelow wrote: post #245
caymanjim wrote: post #75

It's great that Google wants to increase housing, but is this really going to work? The housing shortage in the Bay Area is not a money problem. If it were possible to build 20,000 houses in the next 20 years, it would absolutely happen without Google's help. The problem with housing there has one simple cause: NIMBYism. SF doesn't want to allow taller buildings and denser housing complexes. It's vastly worse in the…

>The only solution is changing the zoning laws, and that requires changing peoples' minds. For the people who own property, they are choosing laws that best help their finances. You can appeal to some sense of greater good but history would show such a plan unlikely to work.

There is always eminent domain, but that requires politicians who actually have their constituents' interests and well-being in mind, and who aren't corrupted by kick-back schemes and the other ills of local government.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#254

Post by taurath »

As a thought experiment, lets say Google owns a significant percentage of the housing market in the areas they operate in. They thereby receive both rent from their own employees, and others in the area. Lets see how this gives them leverage:

* Want to fully choke out competition on salaries, while leveraged against it by taking in the rent money those salaries provide for?

* Why not invest in housing, when you're the company that is vastly increasing the home values? It seems like you'd end up actually make a killing since you then control the market

Maybe someone more clever than I can come up with more things - it feels like a neo company town model, where you don't own everything, but you have all the control and all the levers.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#255

Post by pwinnski »

beambot wrote: post #183
caymanjim wrote: post #75

It's great that Google wants to increase housing, but is this really going to work? The housing shortage in the Bay Area is not a money problem. If it were possible to build 20,000 houses in the next 20 years, it would absolutely happen without Google's help. The problem with housing there has one simple cause: NIMBYism. SF doesn't want to allow taller buildings and denser housing complexes. It's vastly worse in the…

> The only solution is changing the zoning laws What about pulling a HongKong / Singapore: Create a special economic zone that is a stand-alone municipality with extremely lax zoning laws to spur housing & transportation growth? Google is kinda-sorta doing this. To avoid Mountain View NIMBYism, just carve out the Google land for this purpose.

Extremely lax zoning alone isn't enough. Houston is a large city with no zoning at all, and it's still not population-dense.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#256

Post by wuliwong »

kens wrote: post #195
rconti wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the absolute explosion of skyscrapers/mid-rise condo buildings in San Jose, Redwood City.. Hell, even San Carlos and Menlo Park have quite a few higher density units going in. I'm glad there's more density, and it's near transit, for the most part. Of course, it will still increase traffic, but by going with density and near transit, it'll reduce the impact vs building more single family homes.

An interesting article on why the mid-rise apartment style is so popular now: "Why America's New Apartment Buildings All Look the Same": https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-ameri... The quick summary is that the 2000 Building Code allowed inexpensive construction of 5-floor wood buildings over a concrete base. This "5 over 1" construction gives "near-high-rise densities at a wood-frame price", so i…

I see them being built all over Atlanta. The tell tale concrete base with the wood frames on top. I'm not a city planner or anything but over the last 10 years it seems that a lot of cool neighborhoods with character are being transformed into the same feel with these mid-rises.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#257

Post by WalterSear »

yep_thats_right wrote: post #220

As someone who lives in a single-family home, I'm totally for public transit, having fewer cars on the streets, more walkability, etc. But until cities solve the issues of smell and noise, I'm not interested in living in a dense area. Keep it clean and quiet. Invest in urban forestry. Then it starts to look appealing.

You get one or the other: low density housing, or effective public transit.

https://www.templetons.com/brad/transit-myth.html

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#259

Post by yep_thats_right »

WalterSear wrote: post #257
yep_thats_right wrote: post #220

As someone who lives in a single-family home, I'm totally for public transit, having fewer cars on the streets, more walkability, etc. But until cities solve the issues of smell and noise, I'm not interested in living in a dense area. Keep it clean and quiet. Invest in urban forestry. Then it starts to look appealing.

You get one or the other: low density housing, or effective public transit. https://www.templetons.com/brad/transit-myth.html

Yeah, I know. But I'm saying there are other factors at play in how people make decisions about where to live.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#260

Post by jessaustin »

pwinnski wrote: post #255
beambot wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only solution is changing the zoning laws What about pulling a HongKong / Singapore: Create a special economic zone that is a stand-alone municipality with extremely lax zoning laws to spur housing & transportation growth? Google is kinda-sorta doing this. To avoid Mountain View NIMBYism, just carve out the Google land for this purpose.

Extremely lax zoning alone isn't enough. Houston is a large city with no zoning at all, and it's still not population-dense.

https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/Off-Street-Parking-Ordina...
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