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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

#561

Post by tmh79 »

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.

Comments above are correct, I'd also add that NYC and SF are "inducing demand" not by building housing, but by building office space at a rate 8x-12x that they are building residential dwelling units. Over the past ~10 years, for every home the SF bay has added it has added office space for 8 jobs. Adding housing doesn't create more demand for housiing, adding more offices creates more demand for housinig.

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

#562

Post by int_19h »

intopieces wrote: post #523
int_19h wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Economic stability is a necessity for home ownership and is often exhibited by home owners, but home ownership is not a cause nor prerequisite for economic stability. The relationship between the two was muddled in the run up to the last financial crisis- that is, lenders were encouraged to lend to more people to buy houses because it was correlated with economic stability. This is a little like buying someone expens…

I wrote "greater economic stability", not "a prerequisite for economic stability". Would anybody seriously argue that not having to pay rent, and not facing with the possibility of eventually getting kicked out (even with all the protections, this can happen if the owner is taking the property off the market altogether), does not translate to more stability.

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

#563

Post by koonce »

arthurjj wrote: post #418
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…

Anyone in San Diego looking for a group we actually have YimbySD which supports YIMBY candidates in the primaries https://www.yimbydemssd.com/

I find the inclusion of Olga Diaz in the voter guide ironic, considering she voted against infill apartments because they were "out of character with the space". Gotta love politicians claiming they support something in the same breath as letting you know they voted against it.

https://www.thecoastnews.com/city-council-nullifies-conteste...

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

#564

Post by tathougies »

fortran77 wrote: post #515
tathougies wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no republicans in california. Like, the CA republican party is completely defunct at this point, and I am a (former) California republican; now a republican in another liberal state.

I am a registered republican, and I live in 94087

I'm not saying individual republicans dont exist (I was one), but the party organization is non existent. In many local races theres not even a republican candidate or if there is, they're off their rocker (in marin, one had a whole section on the dangers of radio waves).

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

#565

Post by jariel »

buss wrote: post #478
tryitnow wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

There is no shortage of homes in San Francisco.

Prices are a function of demand and that's it.

Every city has to ultimately decide what kind of community they want to have and then act accordingly.

As SF is an attractive city, every home ever built there will essentially be bought or occupied, there is nearly an unlimited number of people who would like to live there - so it's merely a matter of what kind of density and price they choose to have.

Do they want SF to be a city of skyscrapers, with tiny expensive flats like NYC?

Or a neighbourhood of fairly expensive homes as it is now.

Nobody anywhere will doubt that 'building significantly more homes' will reduce the average cost of homes but ultimately SF residents will decide what they want to do: if they don't want skyscrapers or high-density style buildings, it's their business.

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

#566

Post by jariel »

buss wrote: post #546
ScottBurson wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Why would any SF resident care even a little bit what non-residents think of their housing situation?

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

Have you considered that someone's home, their life is not a function of 'industrial prosperity'? And that they're not interested in having their neighbourhood turned into a bunch of skyscrapers hosting Facebook Engineers?

It's possible they do - but it's entirely up to the residents to decide.

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

#567

Post by jariel »

davidw wrote: post #209
exterrestrial wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's good for the people "on the margins", those struggling to pay rent, or those at risk of homelessness, or those who might like to move to a more productive place for a better job. Please cite at lease one example in which this has ever been the case. I do understand the theory behind your argument here, and I assume you are familiar with (leftist) counter-arguments, so this is not an attempt to open a debate. Ra…

I think that if you're going to argue that supply and demand are not real for housing, you'd need to supply some good evidence of your own. There are a lot of ways to build more supply: https://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-your-... I find the 'Montreal' example the most compelling in that it's fairly "human scale", but tastes vary.

While I don't doubt that building more homes brings prices down, the real reason housing is cheap in Montreal is because Montreal is poor, has lower immigration, little in the way of industry to attract migrants, language barriers, and it doesn't have a basis of Chinese ex-pats to anchor a lot of foreign buying which is a huge driver of prices in Toronto and Vancouver.

Edit: I should add, I live here and am very intimate with the issue.

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

#568

Post by jariel »

logfromblammo wrote: post #175
riazrizvi wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a renter but please, this is about families protecting the value of the primary asset that they hope to live on in retirement. Home assets don't skyrocket in value when there is lots of supply. If we frame this thing as reasonable-needs-of-renters vs unreasonable-wants-of-homeowners, then everyone is going to remain at loggerheads.

The house that the owner lives in is not an asset. It's a durable consumer good. Wanting your home to appreciate in value forever is like expecting your 20-year-old car to sell for more than its sticker price. It really only works for art installations, created by a collaboration of architect, engineer, and builder, with some living space inside. Framed in these terms, most families do not have any significant assets…

The house is absolutely an asset and it will appreciate in completely different terms than a car.

Land entails a totally separate kind of economics than 'durable goods'.

Possibly, the physical home itself might be considered a 'durable good'.

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

#569

Post by ericd »

tmh79 wrote: post #558
ericd wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of “we’ve been building a ton and prices are still high” comments on Nextdoor and heard the same in person. Not sure if it’s all in good faith, but some people at least seem to be persuaded by what you’re talking about.

the issue is the reference frame. We are building a lot relative to 2009 to 2013, but that time period was a historic aboslute low point in new housing starts, the "boom" that were in now has less new housing production that the majorith of previous "busts" since WWII

Yep, I think that has a lot to do with it.

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

#570

Post by complianceowl »

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!

Wow, I just checked out your page. I’m not a Democrat, but I could see myself voting for you.
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