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California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

nytimes.com

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Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#201

Post by tqi »

zippergz wrote: post #153
tqi wrote: post #141

Why is this always framed as a problem caused by people looking for a place to live? I moved to SF for a job. I'm not the one who decided to not build enough new housing for 30 years. I'm not the one who decided to approve all those new office buildings. Yet I was the problem for renting an overpriced apartment from an SF native who bought in the 90s, and now pays less than $8K/yr in taxes on a place worth over $1M.…

I've lived in several US cities over the course of my life, and the only constant is that whoever you talk to, the problems are caused by the people who moved there after them.

The two most populous states in the US are California and Texas. One demonizes immigrants for moving in and destroying the local culture / way of life. The other, of course, is home to The Alamo.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#202

Post by rcpt »

zepto wrote: post #39
shuckles wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately (for you), your desire for a quiet suburban neighborhood should not give you the ability to immiserate other people who want to live there by prohibiting the construction of homes for them. Do you value your quiet suburban neighborhood enough to buy and pay property taxes on the whole block or subdivision? If not, I recommend you look for estates on acreage in remote areas.

“immiserate other people who want to live there“ Perhaps true, but what right do the people who don’t live in his neighborhood but want to have the right to immiserate the people who already live there by building high density blocks? Why do you not recommend those people to look for acreage in remote areas?

> what right do the people who don’t live in his neighborhood but want to have the right to immiserate the people who already live there by building high density blocks?

That's what money is for. The issue is that local landowners use regulatory capture to penalize newcomers as much as possible

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#203

Post by renewiltord »

tqi wrote: post #141

Why is this always framed as a problem caused by people looking for a place to live? I moved to SF for a job. I'm not the one who decided to not build enough new housing for 30 years. I'm not the one who decided to approve all those new office buildings. Yet I was the problem for renting an overpriced apartment from an SF native who bought in the 90s, and now pays less than $8K/yr in taxes on a place worth over $1M.…

Well, it's not like you're treated any different by anyone except losers so why care?

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#204

Post by closeparen »

lazide wrote: post #101
rhino369 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In California, the only reason people can oppose new projects is because the government enables them to have a say in someone else's property. So you don't have to force development, but you do have to remove NIMBY's ability to veto projects. That starts with reforming permitting processes and zoning regulations.

‘Having a say in someone else’s property’ is really ‘voters voting for the rules and laws they want’. As long as the rules benefit most people who vote, why would they want to change it? And right now, that is exactly what is happening - it isn’t changing because most people who vote are benefitting from it. It’s a pretty fundamental part of a democracy. Until either 1) more people who don’t benefit from the current…

San Francisco did not make a law about how much housing to have and then enforce it. It crafted a system of discretionary reviews, lawsuits, and other project-level activism that turns each building permit into its own little lawmaking exercise. A major pro-housing goal is to shift the system towards one that's more law-governed, where the requirements are written down in advance and a building that meets the requirements must be approved.

The accusation "NIMBY" does not even properly apply to a consistent, principled stance against development (that would be BANANA). It applies to e.g. people who agree in principle that a city needs apartment buildings, but grab onto any straw they can find to block the actual apartment building proposed on their block. San Francisco offers very many of these straws.

The democratic solution is to shift decision-making to larger polities (e.g. state government) where the balance of interests is different, where you can get people dealing with the system of housing in abstract rather than only about their own block. Scott Wiener has already had some successes with this approach and I think we will see more. See also several municipalities responding to the YIMBY push by eliminating their single-family zoning categories and allowing duplexes everywhere.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#205

Post by aeternum »

ashtonkem wrote: post #180
zippergz wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is kind of the opposite of the (mostly joking) point I made that you replied to. But the thing I find bizarre is that people can't understand why other people oppose change in the place they live in. Most people choose places to live because they like those places. I think it's safe to say that the things they like extend beyond the four walls of the residence they buy or rent. They might like the walkabi…

> How can you possibly be surprised that people don't want the things they like about the place they live to change? People can and should obviously get upset (or excited!) about specific changes. What I'm more surprised at is the idea that some people have that any change at all is unacceptable. It's not like the town that one loved sprung up into existence as is, it took change to get the parts that you like in the…

Assuming that people are against any change at all seems like quite the strawman. Perhaps those people support building some change, perhaps they just want to ensure that public transit, utilities, road infrastructure can handle the added density.

Very few people are are against any new growth in cities. We could likely have a more productive discussion if we framed it around the optimal rate of growth of a city.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#206

Post by rcpt »

lisper wrote: post #84
shuckles wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. Steve Waldman described about this mentality pretty well here: https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/6287.html This is not as divorced from property values as you believe. The features of suburbs you like such as low-crime (usually coded as "quiet"), amenities, good schools, access to jobs through a quick commute etc. are exactly what give them their high value. However, the single family home subdivision sub…

> low-crime (usually coded as "quiet") In my case, quiet is not code for low-crime. I meant it literally. I lived for a long time (20+ years) in loud neighborhoods with lots of traffic noise and screaming kids (literally -- one place I lived was next to a house that was used as a day-care center) and mockingbirds which kept me up at night because our house had no A/C so we had to keep the windows open at night. My ma…

> If all of Silicon Valley were depopulated I think my neighborhood would still be a perfectly fine place to live.

I've never understood why mountain people think that those little towns would be able to fund their own infrastructure without the support of Californias actual economy.

It's not cheap maintaining roads up every canyon and electrifying all corners of the redwoods. Maybe it's because you all have leaching septic tanks that destroy the San Lorenzo that you think you're truly fronteirsman?

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#207

Post by jjav »

spamizbad wrote: post #6
slowmovintarget wrote: post #3

Thesis of the article: Californians are fleeing California and causing the same housing pressure in the spots they flee to. The real question is whether these other locations can avoid the high-density housing NIMBY response that became entrenched in California. It isn't just a matter of income disparity, which the article pivots to. It's also a matter of density and demand.

The challenge you have is that people view housing as an investment . Americans expect their home values to keep pace with inflation. And because housing values are so expensive, there's a tremendous amount of psychological pressure to "preserve" what they've purchased beyond their own property line (eg: "Neighborhood character"). For these reason, they're going to oppose any new supply entering the market. The only…

> The challenge you have is that people view housing as an investment.

Is there any source to this claim? "View as investment" would mean people buy the house with the specific aim of making a profit.

As a middle aged homeowner in suburbia where all my acquaintances are in the same demographic, I can't think of anyone ever saying they bought a house with the goal to make a profit.

People buy a house so the kids have a place to play and to stabilize the housing expenses to make budgeting easier. Whether it can be sold for a profit or not in 40 years is not a consideration.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#208

Post by pgsimp »

floatingatoll wrote: post #192
tqi wrote: post #141

Why is this always framed as a problem caused by people looking for a place to live? I moved to SF for a job. I'm not the one who decided to not build enough new housing for 30 years. I'm not the one who decided to approve all those new office buildings. Yet I was the problem for renting an overpriced apartment from an SF native who bought in the 90s, and now pays less than $8K/yr in taxes on a place worth over $1M.…

The NIMBY problem suggests that it's not so much your fault at all - the locals would have passed zoning laws preventing housing for you from being built, as they did in SF ("protect our views" and such) - but actually the fault of the locals for resisting density upgrades. Imagine, in SimCity terms, if your Low-Density High-Wealth Residential citizens passed a ballot measure preventing you from building Medium-Densi…

I think it is understandable if people don't want the surroundings of their property cluttered with buildings.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#209

Post by opportune »

spothedog1 wrote: post #198
mint2 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take issue with the “too much protected land” stance. The protected land is a treasure. And paving it over with suburbs will not fix housing. See LA. Vast sprawl and still sky high housing. Oh it’s a wee bit better prices? Let’s pave everything. Turning the Bay Area into la or Phoenix sounds like an awful idea. Densifying I can get behind, turning the protected lands into a concrete wasteland of parking lots and ho…

They're not talking about protected nature preserves and national parks, they're talking about protected single family zoning which prohibits density increases.

I'm talking about both, but separately. For example Marin County has a lot of natural areas where development is verboten but it's also a big part of the appeal of the area (well, the fact that it's a wealthy white suburban area is a lot of the appeal too, and NIMBY policies keep housing expensive so it stays that way). I just wanted to bring it up because I feel it's yet another piece of the puzzle behind housing costs in the area - but I'm aware it's even more a contentious subject than zoning so it's not a hill I would die on.

The biggest problem, by far, is single family zoning though.

Re: California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one

#210

Post by pgsimp »

Dma54rhs wrote: post #188
zippergz wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is kind of the opposite of the (mostly joking) point I made that you replied to. But the thing I find bizarre is that people can't understand why other people oppose change in the place they live in. Most people choose places to live because they like those places. I think it's safe to say that the things they like extend beyond the four walls of the residence they buy or rent. They might like the walkabi…

Because it's quite xenophobic behavior, you say diversity but mean the diversity of people who you happen to like. It's rather easy to be tolerant if only things that you like apply. You can hear exactly the same things racists say about their small towns changing without all these sophisticated meaningless words.

Why should people living at some place even be concerned about diversity? I find your comment almost surreal - after relentless media campaigns, people really believe "diversity" should be their top priority in life?
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