31–40 of 461 posts
The gentrification boogeyman comes off to me as privilege masquerading as the voice of the oppressed. It's regularly used to bludgeon the poor into homelessness, while the areas that are rife with actual gentrification seem to have far more diverse and affordable neighborhoods.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Well the only solution is a ballot initiative to repeal prop 13. That will change things. This seems to always be stated as if stating it makes it true. Prop 13 has little to do with high housing prices and a lot to do with getting more revenue for governments. Prices are influenced by supply and demand. The artificial limiting of supply by all of the governments in California is the biggest factor in why the price…
Exactly right. And every time a property is turned over, the base tax rate gets reset, plus prop 13 allows for a 2% increase every year. California has the highest sales and income tax (for incomes over $500,000) in the Nation. They don't need the highest property tax, too.
The other thing that confuses me is why companies aren’t moving either. It’s been a long time since a "new" city was created, but we have plenty of land available, and a lot of it is in pretty (but not natural park) locations. Is there that much of a network effect with talent being in one region that companies would rather pay a 4x compensation premium than relocate to new or lower cost locations? Are there any examples of big companies that have relocated their HQ to lower COL locations and then failed because they couldn't attract talent to move there, or is it just conjecture that this would occur?
Well the only solution is a ballot initiative to repeal prop 13. That will change things.
No it won't. It would displace even more people. The only way to get lower-cost housing is to build more housing. It's that simple.
California's housing policy failures have repercussions up and down the west coast. It's sad they didn't follow Oregon's lead and legalize some more diverse housing options.
To combat many problems, the government would certainly be helpful, but isn't necessary. Take climate change. If every corporation took a carbon negative stance like Stripe and Microsoft, that would make a big dent in carbon emissions. Unfortunately, a lack of housing is a problem that the government created. And it's a problem that only the government, in my view, can really fix. As long as housing supply is artific…
Sure, but it's a lot easier for a software company to go carbon neutral than a power company. Which is not to take away from what they're doing, it is still hard to do!
The way I see it, we have two basic technologies for coordinating as a society: free markets, and governments. Neither is perfect all of the time. But when it comes to problems rife with externalities (like pollution, or intellectual property), free markets on their own tend to be bad at aligning incentives, and governments are the least-worst solution.
Edit to clarify: this was about the climate change part, but I agree that the government is causing the problem here wrt. zoning.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly right. And every time a property is turned over, the base tax rate gets reset, plus prop 13 allows for a 2% increase every year. California has the highest sales and income tax (for incomes over $500,000) in the Nation. They don't need the highest property tax, too.
The reason California has the highest sales and income taxes is that it has the lowest property tax. People who have held property for a very long time are taxed very little relative to how they would be taxed in other states, and people who are new are taxed a lot.
http://www.tax-rates.org/taxtables/property-tax-by-state
And if you rank the states by percentage revenue from property tax, you'll see they are right in the middle
https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...
There’s one thing that constantly confuses me with the housing crisis, which is why more people aren’t moving to other cities (or at least a lot faster than they currently are). Perhaps my mentality is different than most, but if I can improve my economic situation by moving elsewhere I will. I know for some people it is difficult to move because of family ties or costs associated with moving, but I would have though…
Yes, it's pretty strong.
Employers want to be where the employees are, and employees want to be somewhere where there are other jobs.
Well the only solution is a ballot initiative to repeal prop 13. That will change things.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CASTHPI
There’s one thing that constantly confuses me with the housing crisis, which is why more people aren’t moving to other cities (or at least a lot faster than they currently are). Perhaps my mentality is different than most, but if I can improve my economic situation by moving elsewhere I will. I know for some people it is difficult to move because of family ties or costs associated with moving, but I would have though…