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California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

realclearinvestigations.com

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Re: California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

#71

Post by tablespoon »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #53
tablespoon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just don't understand why cities in California won't let go of single unit zoning. People like to live in single family homes and live next to single family homes. > Ever visit a beautiful city like Paris, Copenhagen, Milan and wonder why we don't have that? It would be illegal to make the buildings they have under our zoning code and parking mandates! You won't get a beautiful city like those with any kind of [r…

>You won't get a beautiful city like those with any kind of zoning. It's too expensive. You'd get flimsy modern cookie-cutter buildings. Are you claiming those cities don't have zoning?

> Are you claiming those cities don't have zoning?

I'm claiming modern construction isn't very beautiful. If you drop single family zoning for something denser, you're not going to get something like those beautiful cities that were cited above. It's false advertising to suggest that denser zoning would give us another Paris (at least not the parts people are referring to when they bring it up). You'd get McMansion Hell, 4-Plex Edition or The Concrete Hulks of Shanghai (e.g. https://aurelien-marechal.com/block#1).

I suppose you could have a zoning code that mandated "building them like they used to," but that would be too expensive.

Re: California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

#72

Post by sofixa »

arbor_day wrote: post #58
Scott_Sanderson wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't understand why cities in California won't let go of single unit zoning. Single unit is the most expensive and least efficient zoning rule. Getting rid of it would bring housing costs down. Ever visit a beautiful city like Paris, Copenhagen, Milan and wonder why we don't have that? It would be illegal to make the buildings they have under our zoning code and parking mandates!

Cities don't vote, people do. I own a single family home in the Palo Alto. If I wanted to living in a city like Paris, I would. I like it here. I don't care about the price of my house, since I do not plan to sell it this decade. I care a TON about my neighborhood. I love that my neighborhood is quiet, not crowded, and has easy parking. I will vote against any proposals or elected officials who represent me that woul…

No post body was provided.

Re: California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

#73

Post by mlyle »

jollybean wrote: post #28

Among myriad of issues, one is that the tax rates for the very rich are not high enough. And the absolute parrallel there is - people probably wouldn't feel their money is being spent effectively. I really do feel that rich Californians would accept higher taxes if the money was really well spent. Impossible to talk about is the 'low end' - where you have (and bringing in) people in very, very low skilled and economi…

> Among myriad of issues, one is that the tax rates for the very rich are not high enough.

I'm curious-- why is this your conclusion?

California has a $40-70B surplus. California's got one of the highest tax burdens in the nation.

Re: California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

#74

Post by jandrese »

arbor_day wrote: post #58
Scott_Sanderson wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't understand why cities in California won't let go of single unit zoning. Single unit is the most expensive and least efficient zoning rule. Getting rid of it would bring housing costs down. Ever visit a beautiful city like Paris, Copenhagen, Milan and wonder why we don't have that? It would be illegal to make the buildings they have under our zoning code and parking mandates!

Cities don't vote, people do. I own a single family home in the Palo Alto. If I wanted to living in a city like Paris, I would. I like it here. I don't care about the price of my house, since I do not plan to sell it this decade. I care a TON about my neighborhood. I love that my neighborhood is quiet, not crowded, and has easy parking. I will vote against any proposals or elected officials who represent me that woul…

It's a tough problem to solve when you need to house 70,000 people per square mile (similar to Manhattan) in order to not leave people on the street, but also not allow more than 6,000 people (San Francisco) per square mile.

Re: California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

#75

Post by tjr225 »

peder wrote: post #40
ceeplusplus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly urge you to just stand in an SF Walgreens and watch how many people walk out the door with stolen goods. None of those incidents are reported, the security guards don't even bother getting up.

And why are people so staunchly in denial about crime in Seattle/San Francisco? Why do they seem to feel personally attacked?

A lot of us are transplants from the midwest/south/east coast and feel the effects of property crime are blown wildly out of proportion. But its different for everybody. I would rather lose a catalytic converter than a friend! https://vanlifewanderer.com/2021/12/03/cities-with-highest-m...

Re: California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

#76

Post by SkyBelow »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #15
fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to make this a political issue, but the number of uneducated immigrants in southern california is staggering. Add those to the regular number of workers below the median income, and this number is very easy to arrive at.

OK, but GP has a point. If you're going to add the immigrants to "the number of workers below the median income", but you're not going to add them to the calculation of the median, then you get a garbage number.

It has a purpose, but the writer needs to be clear which groups are being compared. Saying that 80% of group's A value X fell under the median of group's B value of X can be a useful number for some analysis, even when group B is a subset of group A. The author must be clear which group they are using where, as any confusion between group A and group B should be considered an error in the analysis.

Re: California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

#77

Post by Maarten88 »

tablespoon wrote: post #49
Scott_Sanderson wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't understand why cities in California won't let go of single unit zoning. Single unit is the most expensive and least efficient zoning rule. Getting rid of it would bring housing costs down. Ever visit a beautiful city like Paris, Copenhagen, Milan and wonder why we don't have that? It would be illegal to make the buildings they have under our zoning code and parking mandates!

> I just don't understand why cities in California won't let go of single unit zoning. People like to live in single family homes and live next to single family homes. > Ever visit a beautiful city like Paris, Copenhagen, Milan and wonder why we don't have that? It would be illegal to make the buildings they have under our zoning code and parking mandates! You won't get a beautiful city like those with any kind of [r…

> People like to live in single family homes and live next to single family homes.

People like living in walkable neighborhoods with public transportation more, as proven by housing prices, but those are mostly illegal to build.

Also I think that society is now much more complex than the single family American dream of the past. And the US should wake up to the reality that in their society the poor are subsidizing the rich in almost everything, especially in housing.

Re: California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

#78

Post by andrewclunn »

peder wrote: post #40
ceeplusplus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly urge you to just stand in an SF Walgreens and watch how many people walk out the door with stolen goods. None of those incidents are reported, the security guards don't even bother getting up.

And why are people so staunchly in denial about crime in Seattle/San Francisco? Why do they seem to feel personally attacked?

Crime reduces property value. If your main investment is your home, you are incentivized to pretend it's not an issue.

Re: California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

#79

Post by nomel »

jandrese wrote: post #20
mikeyouse wrote: post #4

Unfortunately, these pieces could almost always be reduced to "housing costs". They address it a bit in this most recent one, but homelessness / school enrollment / natural population growth / middle class jobs / energy costs can all be traced back to the huge housing deficit that's accumulated over the past 30 or 40 years.

The article starts out talking about homelessness, high housing prices, and people leaving the state in droves, but then pivots to pinning the high energy rates on green energy initiatives. California has such a huge housing deficit at this point that people really have no option except to move out. The point where they are losing the population equivalent of 3 mid size cities every year while still maintaining a hou…

> has such a huge housing deficit

And, that housing deficit probably won't be filled with anything affordable. Starting 2023, title 24 requires solar panels that cover the full annual energy usage of the home, along with battery storage. But, guess that's a drop in the bucket for CA housing prices.

Re: California's Vanished Dream, by the Numbers

#80

Post by ryscheng »

If you live in California, I recommend getting involved in your local housing element. This program will have huge implications in how zoning and development occurs in the state for years to come. https://www.hcd.ca.gov/community-development/housing-element...

For example in San Francisco, they are reviewing drafts now. https://sfhousingelement.org/

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