Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California • Hacker News Board

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#51

Post by btilly » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:59 PM UTC

I have suggested this before, and I'll suggest this again.

The whole problem could be solved if we gave people the choice of voting where they work rather than where they live.

Currently every city wants all the businesses that they can get because businesses generate lots of tax revenues. Cities do not want apartments because that doesn't generate revenue, and locals object on the basis of NIMBYism. But when everyone adds businesses and nobody adds homes, we get horrible commutes.

With my proposed change, housing developments in cities that have major businesses will get lots of support from people who work there and want shorter commutes. And it seems reasonable to me that someone who spends their waking hours in a city and wants to live there should get the opportunity to have political power there.

This would therefore undo the political log jam. And once you start letting people live close to where they work, commutes go down, traffic gets better, and everyone winds up happier.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#52

Post by inferiorhuman » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:00 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #27

opportune wrote: post #13

I walked around downtown San Bruno recently and it's honestly pathetic how this city is squandering their potential. Even on el camino real itself a lot of the property is being wasted on auto repair shops and fast food places, 2-3 story buildings, etc. This place could be way, way better given its proximity to the airport and SF.

I mean, I don't know how to tell you guys, but from the perspective of an east coaster, the entire peninsula (including SF) looks like this. It feels like some kind of parallel universe where nothing makes sense. Like I hear about a housing crisis in SF but I go there and there are supermarkets surrounded by parking lots in the middle of the city. There are literal big-box stores like you'd see in the suburbs adjacen…

I mean, I don't know how to tell you guys, but from the perspective of an east coaster, the entire peninsula looks like this. It feels like some kind of parallel universe where nothing makes sense.

The Peninsula is bland and awful. Plenty of affluent folks that just like to fuck with people (a.k.a. Atherton and the NIMBY's asinine fight against electrifying Caltrain). Plenty of folks (a.k.a. Brisbane) that like to pretend they're rich and only want to develop commercial property and leave the housing to SF.

But... the Bay Area is incredibly provincial. San Mateo county (most of the peninsula) is not San Francisco.

Like I hear about a housing crisis in SF but I go there and there are supermarkets surrounded by parking lots in the middle of the city. There are literal big-box stores like you'd see in the suburbs adjacent to the central business district, like that Petco Safeway block near Mission Bay.

Part if it is that there are chain retail bans in many neighborhoods, but the other part is where are you going to put the big stores? Cities in San Mateo county fight tooth and nail over the big box stores (see the Target in Colma directly across the highway from the Target in Daly City). Retail = tax revenue. Middle class jobs = less tax revenue. San Francisco can afford to levy payroll taxes and whatnot, but other cities don't have that prestige.

You head to the beach and you go through mile after mile of outer sunset with crappy little 2 story houses and residential streets dominated by garage doors which is like the most people-unfriendly building style known to man.

You're starting to see more multi-unit housing in the Sunset, but again SF is not the peninsula. As bad as things are in San Francisco, things are far worse to the south. The garages are often two car sized and likely converted into illegal residential units.

Like do people know that every little private one-car garage has no benefit on a larger scale? The garage holds one car, and the curb cut prevents parking on the street in front, for a net gain of zero parking spaces.

Curb cuts make walking in SF worse than it has to be, but try walking in the suburbs where there are sometimes no sidewalks, higher speed limits, and wider roads to cross on foot.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#53

Post by esotericn » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:01 PM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #46

CPLX wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> maybe involving terraforming other planets This is like peak San Francisco housing conversation right here. Have you guys considering the radical idea of building a couple fucking apartment buildings instead? I mean, seriously.

No that's exactly what I mean, you read "terraforming" and took it too far. The parent was saying that, the general conclusion is making housing smaller and smaller. Today's apartment buildings will be too big as the population grows and we'll have to fit more people in more limited amounts of space. This is assuming several things, that we won't be able to build tall buildings, that we won't be able to go on another…

Whatever "solution" you come up with would obviously be better if shared amongst a reasonable number of humans.

That's my main point, not what the solution looks like.

Tall buildings are inherently communal.

Terraforming is an idea so absurd I'm not sure where to start - the dream of a 16 year old science fiction reader.

We have a solution for housing. It's called houses. This breaks down when you get millions of people and stuff them in the same small coastal region. A good start would be to, well, just not do that.

My home town of 200,000 can be cycled across in 20 minutes. It has very few apartments and is primarily made up of terraced or semi detached housing.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#54

Post by fredophile » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:02 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #21

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #11

I've noticed an increasing trend in West Coast cities where people complain that there's "just too many people". "Tell them to move elsewhere, we're full". It's as if the lessons of Malthusian limits were lost on us. For humanity to continue growing as a species we have to become more efficient with land use.

Its true though. Yes we could turn the Bay Area and LA into something like Tokyo or NYC but its better the way it is, even if its unaffordable.

What about the way that it currently is makes it better? I've lived in the Bay area and visited NYC several times and would vastly prefer to live in a city designed like NYC but with a Bay area climate.

For some concrete examples: NYC has far better public transit than the peninsula. The block layout of NYC means you can live on a purely residential block but generally never be farther than a few short blocks from a busy commercial area with small shops and restaurants.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#55

Post by jcranmer » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:02 PM UTC

deathanatos wrote: post #22

aeternus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is housing "going wrong" simply because it is expensive? Maybe it is overall a good thing that tech companies are now expanding into cities outside the bay area due to high housing costs. At least housing prices are transparent to those thinking about moving in to the bay area, allowing them to make an informed decision. High traffic, insufficient public transit capacity, and over-capacity public services are less tr…

> do we just push problems elsewhere? Not necessarily. I'd love to live closer to the Bay; if I could get in walking or biking range of CalTrain I could eliminate much or all of my 40 minute highway commute — thus reducing the congestion on the highway. But it would cost me ~$12k/yr. Similarly, if San Mateo had built adequate housing, 70k people might have shorter commutes, requiring less use of roads, transit system…

> I'd love to have CalTrain have grade-separation, level-boarding, electric locomotives, and ideally 4 tracks the whole way instead of the 2 they have, to promote passing and ease recovery during issues.

You can get by with 3 tracks. Metra's busy BNSF line is a 3-track mainline, and they manage to launch 21 outgoing trains in the 125 minutes between 3:57 and 6:02. In addition to the ~80ish commuter trains, there's also another ~20 daily Amtrak and freight trains along the same stretch of rail.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#56

Post by cryptozeus » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:03 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #27

opportune wrote: post #13

I walked around downtown San Bruno recently and it's honestly pathetic how this city is squandering their potential. Even on el camino real itself a lot of the property is being wasted on auto repair shops and fast food places, 2-3 story buildings, etc. This place could be way, way better given its proximity to the airport and SF.

I mean, I don't know how to tell you guys, but from the perspective of an east coaster, the entire peninsula (including SF) looks like this. It feels like some kind of parallel universe where nothing makes sense. Like I hear about a housing crisis in SF but I go there and there are supermarkets surrounded by parking lots in the middle of the city. There are literal big-box stores like you'd see in the suburbs adjacen…

May be earthquake fear plays into not building too many high stories building!

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#57

Post by hnaccy » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

pcwalton wrote: post #50

hnaccy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The population physically cannot grow limitlessly so there must be a point at which you level off. If you wait longer you're increasing the number of people that have to suffer during the transition period and increasing the ecological load of the stable population's lifestyle.

I don't think people fully understand just what failure of the social safety net actually means. Without population growth, Social Security and Medicare collapse . Even worse, government pensions in the United States are near insolvent already. A steep decline in population growth will bankrupt many states and municipalities.

Then they will inevitably collapse...

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#58

Post by inferiorhuman » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

brent_noorda wrote: post #44

CPLX wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I don't know how to tell you guys, but from the perspective of an east coaster, the entire peninsula (including SF) looks like this. It feels like some kind of parallel universe where nothing makes sense. Like I hear about a housing crisis in SF but I go there and there are supermarkets surrounded by parking lots in the middle of the city. There are literal big-box stores like you'd see in the suburbs adjacen…

The cities of the Peninsula voted against getting a BART subway line decades ago, leaving them in the car-dependent, flat suburbs of the 60s

The cities of the Peninsula voted against getting a BART subway line decades ago, leaving them in the car-dependent, flat suburbs of the 60s

BART is a basket case of incompetence on its own. SF residents were largely willing to support an infill station at 30th and Mission, but BART stuck its thumbs up its ass and eventually built a half-billion dollar cable car to the Oakland airport (ripping up recent renovations to the street along the way).

San Mateo residents bought into BART in the 90s, but as they've learned public transit (BART especially) is a cost not profit center so the regional (SamTrans) service got gutted to fund BART (whose ridership numbers consistently lag predictions).

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#59

Post by markbnj » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #51

I have suggested this before, and I'll suggest this again. The whole problem could be solved if we gave people the choice of voting where they work rather than where they live. Currently every city wants all the businesses that they can get because businesses generate lots of tax revenues. Cities do not want apartments because that doesn't generate revenue, and locals object on the basis of NIMBYism. But when everyon…

> Cities do not want apartments because that doesn't generate revenue

The property owners still pay tax on it don't they? I'm sure it is less lucrative per square foot than commercial development, but I assume it is still better than the revenue from the closed furniture store and parking lot, and after all you need people to patronize businesses.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#60

Post by Karrot_Kream » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

esotericn wrote: post #53

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No that's exactly what I mean, you read "terraforming" and took it too far. The parent was saying that, the general conclusion is making housing smaller and smaller. Today's apartment buildings will be too big as the population grows and we'll have to fit more people in more limited amounts of space. This is assuming several things, that we won't be able to build tall buildings, that we won't be able to go on another…

Whatever "solution" you come up with would obviously be better if shared amongst a reasonable number of humans. That's my main point, not what the solution looks like. Tall buildings are inherently communal. Terraforming is an idea so absurd I'm not sure where to start - the dream of a 16 year old science fiction reader. We have a solution for housing. It's called houses. This breaks down when you get millions of peo…

> Tall buildings are inherently communal.

Sure and that's _your_ view of the matter (where I'm reading "communal" as "undesirable" here). Hundreds of thousands of people continue to view high-rise apartments as desirable places to live, as evidenced by housing demand in Manhattan, Tokyo, London, Hong Kong, and other world cities. The Bay Area has created bureaucratic and legal roadblocks from allowing these high-rise apartments. If people really didn't want them, then folks would be moving out of these high-rise cities instead of moving into them. There's no need to mandate low-rise by law as the Bay Area has done.