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S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010

sfchronicle.com

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Re: S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010

#341

Post by jacobr1 »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #321
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The loss of population is directly caused by property prices, so if they were reduced, the loss would reduce or reverse and we simply would't be talking about population loss anymore (seriously).

Yes, but probably not all. WFH has enabled those not interested in SF property to go for their property elsewhere. It's also difficult to imagine demand increasing again and prices falling or even staying level. The issue with SF, NYC, London, etc. is sqr miles are effectively fixed and zoning limits how many residential units you can add to the market.

One of the items that seems to be missed in these kind of discussions is the increased demand for what otherwise would be called sprawl. You hear about people want to stay in a big city, or want to move to $tier3 city, but there is also a large cohort that wants to move to within 1.5 hours of bigcity, so I can maintain my network/family/work in the office once a month/etc ... This "sprawl" space is't a limited as the cities proper ... but with commutes was effectively limited. That limit is gone for large groups of remote/semi-remote workers.

Re: S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010

#342

Post by seanmcdirmid »

synaesthesisx wrote: post #322
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco is already the second most densely populated city in the USA (the first being NYC). SF is actually already slightly more densely populated than Tokyo, which many like to tout as a mecha for de-regulated zoning.

But the difference is, NYC is constantly building new housing inventory, with constant construction and developments going up left and right. Meanwhile most of San Francisco is just streets of old single-family homes.

Do you mean streets of Victorian row houses? I didn’t notice many SFHs in SF unless you count row houses that are more commonly seen as town homes.

See https://westlinevillage.com/townhouse-vs-single-family-whats...

Re: S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010

#343

Post by seanmcdirmid »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #321
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The loss of population is directly caused by property prices, so if they were reduced, the loss would reduce or reverse and we simply would't be talking about population loss anymore (seriously).

Yes, but probably not all. WFH has enabled those not interested in SF property to go for their property elsewhere. It's also difficult to imagine demand increasing again and prices falling or even staying level. The issue with SF, NYC, London, etc. is sqr miles are effectively fixed and zoning limits how many residential units you can add to the market.

Maybe? Just as many people are probably staying in or moving to SF because they remote work to a job in the valley (eg San Jose) and not commute that much. They aren’t so price sensitive and value being in the big city. Until SF is undesirable, demand will keep, rents will remain high, and people are going to be priced out.

Re: S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010

#344

Post by mlindner »

Alex3917 wrote: post #333
ttymck wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the point you are making, so I ask this genuinely: how confident are we in the census count? How confident are we usually, and how did that change given the hurdles the pandemic introduced?

Census data is wildly inaccurate. The percentage of people who fill out the census form is less than 20% in some neighborhoods. Whereas the city knows every time someone flushes a toilet or flips a light switch.

You do know that if you don't fill out the census form they come knocking on your door, and if you refuse to respond they ask your neighbors and go based on that.

Re: S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010

#345

Post by diogenescynic »

ransom1538 wrote: post #282
diogenescynic wrote: post #249

San Francisco has become a really hostile place to live even if you make $300,000+. My wife and I lived in Glen Park and it was still a shit hole. We had a meth head constantly breaking in and living in the parking garage of our building. Cops and landlord didn't care. I regularly saw people shooting heroin and smoking meth/crack on BART during rush hour. I was sick of seeing needles on the street and smelling urine.…

I with you here. Our neighbor had her apartment violently ransacked while she was at work. This is bad. What makes it evil, they waited for her to return - sitting in the apartment waiting for her to walk in. After the detective interview I had, i realized, I don't want to raise family here anymore. The detective agreed.

I didn't even go into the worst of it! I had a bullet come through one of my walls, clearly shot from the walking trail near my building. Cops came out and literally laughed about it and threw the bullet casing into a sandwich bag. Landlord threw some spackling paste over the hole. We literally started packing up the next week.

To this day, over 2 years later no one from SFPD has ever contacted me or followed up on the bullet. SFPD is a disgrace. The city is not safe for people. You're just once chance encounter away from something horrible happening to you and when it does, no one will take it seriously or do anything about it.

Re: S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010

#346

Post by CSMastermind »

Alex3917 wrote: post #333
ttymck wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the point you are making, so I ask this genuinely: how confident are we in the census count? How confident are we usually, and how did that change given the hurdles the pandemic introduced?

Census data is wildly inaccurate. The percentage of people who fill out the census form is less than 20% in some neighborhoods. Whereas the city knows every time someone flushes a toilet or flips a light switch.

> Census data is wildly inaccurate

What's your source for this claim?

As far as I could find for people who aren’t counted by either census workers or themselves like you mentioned, the Census Bureau tries to get their information through other methods.

This can be proxies, like other people who live in the neighborhood, other government data sets like social security records and postal service data, or through "imputation" which leverages statistical modeling based on the data they do know.

All of the sources I can find suggest that the census is extremely accurate at the large city level, and only obfuscated at lower levels because of the data privacy protections they've put into place.

Re: S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010

#348

Post by diogenescynic »

trimbo wrote: post #267

So many houses in my SF neighborhood are currently empty. They're single family homes so I'm not sure of the impact on the overall population, but it's been weird around here. - For sale and empty. - Full renovations. Guessing more than half are flipping them, given the speed which construction started after sale. - Investors buying homes and keeping them empty.

On the 400 block of Arlington street, there are several large Victorian homes that have been empty for several years. There needs to be a tax on empty homes and a tax on people owning second homes that are empty.

Re: S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010

#349

Post by diogenescynic »

dahdum wrote: post #221
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a city native living in SF, but grew up all over the SFBAY including much, much rougher neighborhoods than anything I've experienced in SF. Several of my family members and myself have been assaulted/robbed in broad daylight, had cars stolen, and some have been shot by stray bullets due to a local gang fight. When I was in grade school someone brought a gun to class and showed it off by pointing it at me (!!) — a…

> SF is nowhere near as bad as some of the roughest parts of the Bay. Not by a longshot. You’re absolutely right, but compared to other global cities SF often looks comically bad, and certainly has the appearance of decline. No fundamental reason it can’t rise again though.

And especially given its income and tax levels... there's no excuse for SF to be so chaotic and disheveled. It's like having the income and taxes of Switzerland but living conditions of a third world country.

Re: S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010

#350

Post by vineyardmike »

ceeplusplus wrote: post #83
librish wrote: post #60

SF is probably hit the hardest by WFH. If you lived and worked in the city you probably had a pretty good commute, so you're not getting the biggest benefit. And while I know it's a less common preference on HN, a lot of people enjoy going in to a lively office and occasionally grabbing drinks with your coworkers after work. It's a great way to make new friends. But with WFH there's a prisoners dilemma where no-one g…

> like most major cities I have lived in or visited Boston, Chicago, North Carolina's RTP, and the Bay. Only in SF are there homeless camps with blatant drug abuse and public defecation being tolerated by authorities. Only in SF can you run into, with 100% probability, a mentally deranged person on your daily commute. When "specific streets" cover half the city (Financial district, Tenderloin, SoMA, Mission...) they…

Obviously NC is a completely different environment, so it doesn’t even make sense to compare.

But I think the fair weather of the west coast absolutely hurts the homeless more. In Boston, they have a “right to shelter” law that will house people, even in hotel rooms. SF weather is so nice that people don’t feel bad about letting people stay on the street.

Boston actually has more homeless people (with a similar total population) than SF - but almost all of them are “sheltered” and off the street. Boston has a 97% shelter rate, SF has 40%. NYC has a much bigger population (and more absolute homelessness), and a sheltered rate of 95% - due to similar “right to shelter” laws. Even Chicago has a meager 72% shelter rate.

https://sfgov.org/scorecards/benchmarking/homelessness

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