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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

#541

Post by trimbo »

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…

> In most of the communities I never see a police presence.

An SFPD cop told me years ago that they won't get involved because of social media. Social media outrage doesn't care about context, and their job and pension is on the line, so it's just better to do nothing unless someone's in real danger.

Beyond that, the SF DAs haven't prosecuted petty crimes in years. In fact, the new one is not only not going to prosecute, but is saying he wants to simply pay back people for their broken car windows.[1]

It's really going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

[1] - https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/SF-auto-burglary-e...

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

#542

Post by tmh79 »

nerfhammer wrote: post #529
tmh79 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In california, landlords largely did get us into this mess though. Like not on an individual scale, but as an organized political constituency they lobbied for the policies that have caused the problems we're experiencing and they're generally lobbying against the solutions.

It's a distraction in that it may lead to bad intuitions about what to do, like trying to "punish" landlords in some way will somehow make up for something.

I do a lot of housing policy activism outside my daily work in tech and I entirely disagree with you. On a large scale, real estate associations and "landlord" associations are an incredibly influential lobbying coalition in the state of California, and on the whole, they exert a hugely negative influence o housing policy. I don't think there is any reason to advocate punishing landlords where "punishing" is throwing them in jail, but the problem is that 99% of landlords will say that anything that you might do that lowers the growth in value of their assets or increase taxes on them is punishment, and they lobby in sacramento on that basis. The reality is that most of the policy changes that California needs (zoning reform, property tax reform, vacancy taxes, etc) will have the landlord lobbies against them on the basis that they are "punishing landlords".

On a larger scale, something like 85% of the state legislators in Caliifornia are themself landlords (they own a unit/home that they lease to someone else) and are profiting off the housing crises not just by owning their own home, but by profiting of the exorbitant rents of others. On some level, the housing crises in california is caused by the state legislature fighting for their own class interest and their own personal financial interest as landlords.

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

#543

Post by foota »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #433
foota wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...Bellevue?

I don't think you can physically get half a mile away from the nearest available parking in Bellevue.

That's true, guess that shows you which side of the lake I live on :)

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

#544

Post by jimmaswell »

quotemstr wrote: post #32
pascalxus wrote: post #22

I completely agree with the sentiment to build more, much more housing. But, in order to make that happen, we also need to: - get rid of or modify zoning laws (at least in places where growth will happen) - reduce regulations on builders - ensure that there are plenty of builders for health competition (so that consumers don't get ripped off) - provide protections for builders from Sue happy NIMBYs (some kind of lega…

Another beneficial change would be repealing proposition 13. Because proposition 13 essentially bans property tax increases for property owners, it creates a perverse incentive to drive property values as high as possible with restrictive zoning. Without proposition 13, property taxes would rise along with the land's economic value, creating an additional incentive for property owners to let the market naturally shif…

So the existing homeowners on retirement income/stuck in a job that pays a certain rate who can't afford the raised tax rates get kicked out to the street?

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

#545

Post by dmode »

dominotw wrote: post #334
dmode wrote: post #331

The fact is that American laws and policies are being set-up to serve only constituent - older baby boomers. This is especially true at the local level. I went to a city council meeting for my city, and it was 90% older white folks. Although the city is young and 60% Asian. There was constant stream of anti-development voices, with hardly anyone to counter them. This is almost non representative of the majority view,…

depends on who owns the houses. I live in a suburb in bay area where population is almost all house owners are indian and chinese. They have the same preferences as "older baby boomers". Are you implying that if in your case if they were reversed we would see some sort of different outcomes? Asians are more open to getting their house values going down by new development?

I am just saying that input should be taken from a population that represents the city by moving away from a process that biases input

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

#546

Post by buss »

ScottBurson wrote: post #502
buss wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's absolutely zero evidence of "induced demand" for housing. And all available evidence suggests that 1: SF & CA have huge shortages of homes and 2: Building more is a good solution. Please see this non-exhaustive list of things which all show building more housing leads to housing affordability. * http://cityobservatory.org/another-housing-myth-debunked-nei... * https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/201…

While I vigorously support more construction in the SF metro area, I think expectations need to be set correctly as to the amount of construction required to actually bring prices down, instead of just slowing their rate of increase. It's a lot . I don't recall all the numbers, but I believe I saw something suggesting that we need to increase the rate of housing starts by a factor of 4 just to stabilize prices. To ac…

Yes, I unironically want 4 million new homes in San Francisco.

The housing shortage in the Bay Area might be the single largest drag on American prosperity.

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

#547

Post by buss »

refurb wrote: post #524
buss wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's absolutely zero evidence of "induced demand" for housing. And all available evidence suggests that 1: SF & CA have huge shortages of homes and 2: Building more is a good solution. Please see this non-exhaustive list of things which all show building more housing leads to housing affordability. * http://cityobservatory.org/another-housing-myth-debunked-nei... * https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/201…

For cities like NYC and SF I think it’s clear there is a ton of induced demand. If housing prices were cut in half in SF you’d see WAY more people moving here.

That's not induced demand, that's a standard demand curve. The price drops and more people buy it.

Induced demand is "adding supply increased the price"

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

#548

Post by thescriptkiddie »

int_19h wrote: post #517
intopieces wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that’s the case - which I don’t doubt - why are we encouraging home ownership at all? One of the key metrics the article presents is the drop in home ownership. Wouldn’t encouraging renters be a potential solution?

Because home ownership means greater economic stability for the individual or family owning it, and "we" consists of individuals and families?

Okay thanks, Thatcher.

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

#549

Post by refurb »

buss wrote: post #547
refurb wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For cities like NYC and SF I think it’s clear there is a ton of induced demand. If housing prices were cut in half in SF you’d see WAY more people moving here.

That's not induced demand, that's a standard demand curve. The price drops and more people buy it. Induced demand is "adding supply increased the price"

The best example of induced demand ignores price.

Build more freeways and you get more drivers.

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

#550

Post by rayiner »

nerfhammer wrote: post #533
rayiner wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it moves more people. Driving doesn’t need to compete with public transit for speed—transit is immensely slower than driving even in places with excellent transit.

er, what? the NYC subway for example is vastly faster than driving.

Not unless your starting point and ending point are very close to a subway station and you don’t have to make any transfers. I use to commute from 88th and broadway to 45th and Lex. It was a bit over 30 minutes by subway, more like 25 minutes driving. In the evening, if I was leaving work late, it was like a 20 minute cab ride.
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