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In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

nytimes.com

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Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#131

Post by scoofy »

bombcar wrote: post #125
scoofy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, yes, when the incentives are the literal opposite of this policy, the the outcomes will be the literal opposite of what we want. People respond to incentives.

It takes an awful lot of incentives to knock down a "usable" structure. I'd love to build higher-density right here, right on my lot, but unless I squeeze something in on the same lot, I'm out $150k just to start . $150k covers quite a bit of gas to the lot 2 miles away that's empty.

> It takes an awful lot of incentives to knock down a "usable" structure.

Yes, that’s the point. The policy only really changes things when prices become extreme, and the cost per unit of housing becomes completely detached from the cost of building that same unit.

This is trivially happening in much of San Francisco and New York City.

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#132

Post by scoofy »

xnx wrote: post #128
scoofy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but not forever!!! Growth has to happen in the long run. We have the same zoning as we did before the people looking for housing were born . We can have incremental changes, or we can have sudden change. It's going to happen predictably or with a ton of political conflict. The better solution is always to allow a self-reinforcing pressure release on housing. I've long said that everyone should be allow, by right…

> Growth has to happen in the long run. This is not sustainable. The good news is that, due to demographic shifts, we might have a glut of housing in 20 years.

Localized growth has nothing to do with total population.

These urban housing crises in every major western country have nothing to do with population growth and everything to do with population concentration.

We should expect this problem to accelerate during periods of population decline, because there will be even stronger economic incentives to move into concentrated population centers.

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#133

Post by apparent »

Schiendelman wrote: post #123
apparent wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I have a different understanding of "regulatory capture" than you do. To me, it means that the regulators are captured by the entities they are supposed to be regulating. It often happens when the main job prospects for people in an industry are either as regulators or in industry. If an oil company offers jobs to policy maker whose boss gets voted out of Congress, they can "capture" the regulators, who won't…

The harms potentially caused by shooting someone or hitting them with your car at high speed are not the same as someone building something next to you that you find aesthetically displeasing. Can I ask you to step back and think about the fact that you just made that comparison?

You seem to be projecting racism without evidence. I specifically mentioned increased traffic from the construction of apartment complexes in a suburban neighborhood. Surely we can all agree that traffic is a reasonable concern? Other similar concerns would include overburdening schools (in at least the short run, before more can be built) and electrical grids (in areas with brownouts/blackouts).

I don't know why you think that the only reason someone might want their suburban neighborhood to stay suburban is the color of their neighbors' skin; perhaps that says more about you than anything else.

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#134

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

Infinitesimus wrote: post #92
Volundr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've conflated having a home with a financial asset. And it's a really, really shitty one. My house has roughly doubled in value since I bought it, but in practice that's useless to me. I can't claim that value without rendering myself homeless. If anything it reduces my mobility by making it harder to move, since I really need to coordinate the sale of my current home with buying the new one to help absorb that $…

> I can't claim that value without rendering myself homeless. HELOCs ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_equity_line_of_credit ) exist to solve the problem of cash being locked up in your house. You can take a line of credit using the property as collateral or other purchases.

How does that help? If don't have enough cash now, then how will getting a loan that needs to be paid back with interest help with that. I will have cash for a little while, then I will have way way less as I have to make payments. Then I miss a few and they take my house and I'm homeless.

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#135

Post by Schiendelman »

apparent wrote: post #133
Schiendelman wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The harms potentially caused by shooting someone or hitting them with your car at high speed are not the same as someone building something next to you that you find aesthetically displeasing. Can I ask you to step back and think about the fact that you just made that comparison?

You seem to be projecting racism without evidence. I specifically mentioned increased traffic from the construction of apartment complexes in a suburban neighborhood. Surely we can all agree that traffic is a reasonable concern? Other similar concerns would include overburdening schools (in at least the short run, before more can be built) and electrical grids (in areas with brownouts/blackouts). I don't know why you…

Racist outcomes do not require intent. That's why the Fair Housing Act was written to make discriminatory outcomes illegal, not just intent. And no, I don't think you're racist at all, but the outcomes of the policies you want to keep are racist.

If you're open to some books about this, or study work, I'd be happy to cite. Are you open to changing your mind?

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#136

Post by [deleted] »

rich_sasha wrote: post #52
wilkommen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root cause of the dynamic you're highlighting here is wealth inequality. The more unequal the distribution of wealth in a society, the more concentrated wealth becomes geographically, because as wealth inequality grows, society begins to reorganize into a system which serves ever more lopsidedly to the needs of the wealth holders. The wealth holders, being few, and being social creatures like the rest of us, tend…

At some point, if there are enough incentives, you should see businesses and employees moving to lower CoL areas, as you saw the mini exodus from SV to Texas. What exactly is the government motivation for relieving the pressure on startup SEs, I'm not sure.

[deleted]

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#137

Post by Schiendelman »

xnx wrote: post #128
scoofy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but not forever!!! Growth has to happen in the long run. We have the same zoning as we did before the people looking for housing were born . We can have incremental changes, or we can have sudden change. It's going to happen predictably or with a ton of political conflict. The better solution is always to allow a self-reinforcing pressure release on housing. I've long said that everyone should be allow, by right…

> Growth has to happen in the long run. This is not sustainable. The good news is that, due to demographic shifts, we might have a glut of housing in 20 years.

Japan is shrinking. Tokyo, however, is growing. It would not be good news if our cities had a glut of housing. We have three billion people of rural->urban shift we still need to do.

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#138

Post by Volundr »

pandaman wrote: post #130
Volundr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've conflated having a home with a financial asset. And it's a really, really shitty one. My house has roughly doubled in value since I bought it, but in practice that's useless to me. I can't claim that value without rendering myself homeless. If anything it reduces my mobility by making it harder to move, since I really need to coordinate the sale of my current home with buying the new one to help absorb that $…

> I can't claim that value without rendering myself homeless. Are you using some peculiar definition of "homeless" as someone who does not own real estate, like in Elon Musk had been homeless when he sold his California houses ?

I'm using it to mean someone who doesn't have a place to live. Like say someone who just sold their house and didn't go and use that money to buy a different house. Yes, that's very different than the person asking for change on the street corner, but I thought it was pretty clear from context which I'd be.

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#139

Post by Volundr »

Infinitesimus wrote: post #92
Volundr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've conflated having a home with a financial asset. And it's a really, really shitty one. My house has roughly doubled in value since I bought it, but in practice that's useless to me. I can't claim that value without rendering myself homeless. If anything it reduces my mobility by making it harder to move, since I really need to coordinate the sale of my current home with buying the new one to help absorb that $…

> I can't claim that value without rendering myself homeless. HELOCs ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_equity_line_of_credit ) exist to solve the problem of cash being locked up in your house. You can take a line of credit using the property as collateral or other purchases.

Sure, it increases one's borrowing power and that can be useful. But "I can use it to go deeper into debt" is pretty limited utility compared to other kinds of wealth.

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#140

Post by pandaman »

Volundr wrote: post #138
pandaman wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't claim that value without rendering myself homeless. Are you using some peculiar definition of "homeless" as someone who does not own real estate, like in Elon Musk had been homeless when he sold his California houses ?

I'm using it to mean someone who doesn't have a place to live. Like say someone who just sold their house and didn't go and use that money to buy a different house. Yes, that's very different than the person asking for change on the street corner, but I thought it was pretty clear from context which I'd be.

Many people rent without ever owning a house, we don't call them "homeless" normally. Even if you owned a house they still allow you to rent. You can even rent while owning a house or several.
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