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California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

nytimes.com

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Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#461

Post by d3ad1ysp0rk »

lopmotr wrote: post #425
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in an all-white town. All-white schools, all-white neighborhoods, all-white businesses. I would not raise my children like that. I made sure my current area was colorfully diverse before buying.

While not America, I live in a minority white suburb. I don't want to have a school-age child here because it's, not coincidentally, one of the poorest places in the city and thus is only in zone for the worst schools. Poor people's kids drag down the quality of their schools. So you have to be careful your diversity doesn't overshoot and end up a ghetto.

Wish I had seen this blatantly gross reply before replying in good faith above...

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#462

Post by microcolonel »

zionic wrote: post #455
infecto wrote: post #449

Fuck California and fuck the Bay Area. Just a bold statement. I wish for change but i don't see it happening. I love the weather, love the environment and sometimes love the people here but after living here for a number of years, I am started to not understand it. I pay pretty high taxes to live here. We have the most embarrassing property tax laws that include business property. I walk to work and walk through so m…

Just remember to adjust your voting habits when you inevitably move somewhere else.

This is the thing that takes so much effort to tell people: if the place you live in is crippled by politics, but you agree with most of your neighbours on who to vote for (the same people for often a decade at a time), then it's time to look inside a bit.

I have met many people who complain non-stop about things, while not being able to name the politician they are voting for in a local or regional election, or even a politician they just voted for in a recent election.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#463

Post by otterley »

dominotw wrote: post #454
infecto wrote: post #449

Fuck California and fuck the Bay Area. Just a bold statement. I wish for change but i don't see it happening. I love the weather, love the environment and sometimes love the people here but after living here for a number of years, I am started to not understand it. I pay pretty high taxes to live here. We have the most embarrassing property tax laws that include business property. I walk to work and walk through so m…

looks like you are describing a specific part of 'bay area' . lots of burbs don't have these issues.

Why should we pay a heavy price in wasted time and pollution to commute to/from a suburb just so we can avoid the filth and decrepitude?

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#464

Post by aabhay »

earhart wrote: post #446

FWIW - I’d love to see increased density where I live in Seattle, but the people who support it seem to ignore all the other stuff that has to go with it - e.g. more school capacity, better transit, requiring parking in new developments because people still have cars and the on-street parking can’t scale to meet new developments... Bringing that stuff up gets me called a NIMBY; it sometimes seems like anything that m…

Yes, this is something in dire need of a solution in SF. There are not enough primary schools in the city to support even the people that currently live here (there’s a lottery system where students aren’t even guaranteed a spot in a high school).

I would love to see the city of SF get denser, but building condos isn’t the only answer.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#465

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #163
RangerScience wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's good reasons to keep part of it. I figure: You get to have the Prop 13 effect on one property - notionally, your home, but since it's difficult / gameable to determine which place is "your home", fuggedaboutit, and just say "pick one". Because yeah, it'd suck to lose your home that you're supposed to own because your neighborhood got pricey.

There are reasonable ways to protect people from property-tax shocks. Prop 13 is about as dumb a mechanism you could design.

>There are reasonable ways to protect people from property-tax shocks.

Such as?

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#466

Post by illvm »

dominotw wrote: post #454
infecto wrote: post #449

Fuck California and fuck the Bay Area. Just a bold statement. I wish for change but i don't see it happening. I love the weather, love the environment and sometimes love the people here but after living here for a number of years, I am started to not understand it. I pay pretty high taxes to live here. We have the most embarrassing property tax laws that include business property. I walk to work and walk through so m…

looks like you are describing a specific part of 'bay area' . lots of burbs don't have these issues.

Even Mountain View has these issues. Not to as near of a degree as say SF, Oakland, or Berkeley, but almost all of the above I've witnessed in Mountain View.

So, I wouldn't say OP is describing a specific part. It's rather pervasive all over.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#467

Post by gonehome »

zionic wrote: post #455
infecto wrote: post #449

Fuck California and fuck the Bay Area. Just a bold statement. I wish for change but i don't see it happening. I love the weather, love the environment and sometimes love the people here but after living here for a number of years, I am started to not understand it. I pay pretty high taxes to live here. We have the most embarrassing property tax laws that include business property. I walk to work and walk through so m…

Just remember to adjust your voting habits when you inevitably move somewhere else.

For clarity the people voting for policies to restrict housing are not the people moving away because they can't afford housing.

There's a class of people that own housing that pay very little property tax because they bought years ago and are protected by Prop 13.

These people vote to prevent building anything because they benefit both from insane house prices and property tax protection.

All the new people live with a handful of roommates and still pay $1400-$2200 in rent.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#468

Post by kbenson »

klipt wrote: post #399
kbenson wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP could likely have replaced "mostly old white people" with "mostly the same demographic", but it doesn't convey the same information, even if you don't assume implied racism as you did. The important thing being conveyed is lack of diversity, not whiteness. In the United States, saying something is "mostly white people" conveys that other ethnic groups are not present for some reason (whether it be them self-select…

Although if someone visited a suburban area in Japan and complained that it had "mostly old Asian people", they'd probably be called racist.

I think that depends on the context. If I was visiting that neighborhood in Japan to assess whether I wanted to live there, I think it might not come across as racist as much as similar to how I outlined the prior statement, with some variation because Japan is both a much more homogeneous society, and one where the population as a whole is shifting towards being older on average.

I would also argue that a lot of times people are called racist (or called out for saying racist things) these days are likely because people are also less likely to give others the benefit of a doubt for their actions or words. This is likely complicated in that it appears some people that do harbor racist views feel more emboldened to speak them, but I'm not sure how to pick apart how much is one and how much is the other.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#469

Post by tryitnow »

buss wrote: post #306
davidw wrote: post #107

Getting involved with a local YIMBY group is pretty easy, fun, and one of the best things you can do on several fronts: * It's good for the economy, as "legitster" points out. * It's good for the environment if people can drive less (or even walk or bike!) because they live closer to things. * It's good for the people "on the margins", those struggling to pay rent, or those at risk of homelessness, or those who might…

Agreed 100% I'm very involved with YIMBY Action here in SF: I'm on the board of both YIMBY Action and YIMBY Law, and I'm also running for local office in the current election: https://buss2020.org If you have any questions about YIMBY, send them my way!

I used to be YIMBY, but I doubt more construction would lead to lower costs of living.

When I researched this I couldn't find any strong evidence suggesting that more building would lead to more affordable housing.

You would think that more construction would lead to more affordable housing, but it seems like more construction doesn't just increase supply, it also increases demand, which can offset any price effects from the increase in supply.

This makes sense when you think that similar people want to live in proximity to people like themselves. So if there are more luxury condos in an area that's going to create demand for more high-end retail, which will enhance that neighborhood's appeals to wealthier customers which will then increase demand for more luxury residences.

Vienna and Singapore seems to be cities that have overcome this trend.

So I used to be an enthusiastic YIMBY, but there just doesn't appear to be any concrete evidence that more construction is going to lead to more affordable housing.

Having said that, I do believe we should promote more construction, I just don't think it's going to reduce the cost of living to a sustainable level.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#470

Post by throwaway34241 »

Baeocystin wrote: post #419
istjohn wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the people who did get in often approach the problem as, "yeah, screw them, I got mine." So we have two groups who have countervailing interests. But of course the property owners have more money--and also time, education, social capital, and so on--so they are the ones who usually win this fight.

> "yeah, screw them, I got mine." A more charitable interpretation is that it takes a lifetime of wealth accumulation to be able to buy a home in today's California, and it is not unreasonable to be concerned about the potential of losing your life's single largest investment. Casting them as a cartoon villains solves nothing.

Is it even primarily an economic self interest thing? If they intend to continue living in their current neighborhood it would be hard to realize that home value, although I'm sure there's some people that plan to sell the house and retire out of state.

Increasing density might not even necessarily be bad for property prices (for people who want to sell) since the land might be redeveloped into more than one unit.

I'm sure the economic angle is part of it, but I don't have a good feel for how big a factor it is compared to disliking traffic / change in "neighborhood character" etc.

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