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Shaken by the latest digital gold rush, San Francisco struggles for its soul.

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Re: Shaken by the latest digital gold rush, San Francisco struggles for its soul.

#31

Post by caycep »

gnosis wrote: post #22
surrealize wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From what I understand, efforts in other cities to build upwards to house poor people have been a failure. You could always build upward to house the rich people instead. I'm sure a lot of the incoming startup-types are young and would be happy to live in a high-rise (The correlation between youth and high-rise-living coming, in my experience, from the fact that people with kids often want more space. But that's no…

"You could always build upward to house the rich people instead. I'm sure a lot of the incoming startup-types are young and would be happy to live in a high-rise" You have to remember that San Francisco is a prime earthquake zone. I'm not sure how many rich people would want to live in what is essentially a death trap if a major earthquake (which is supposedly long overdue) were to strike California. Also, gentrifica…

rut roh, all those new highrises in downtown LA....

Re: Shaken by the latest digital gold rush, San Francisco struggles for its soul.

#32

Post by surrealize »

gnosis wrote: post #22
surrealize wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From what I understand, efforts in other cities to build upwards to house poor people have been a failure. You could always build upward to house the rich people instead. I'm sure a lot of the incoming startup-types are young and would be happy to live in a high-rise (The correlation between youth and high-rise-living coming, in my experience, from the fact that people with kids often want more space. But that's no…

"You could always build upward to house the rich people instead. I'm sure a lot of the incoming startup-types are young and would be happy to live in a high-rise" You have to remember that San Francisco is a prime earthquake zone. I'm not sure how many rich people would want to live in what is essentially a death trap if a major earthquake (which is supposedly long overdue) were to strike California. Also, gentrifica…

> So, I'm not sure how attractive high rises built for the rich would be to the rich themselves

There are four units for sale at the (42-story) Infinity now, and the cheapest one has an asking price over $1.2 million. In my book, that's for rich people. If you consider a $1.2 million condo a middle-class dwelling, you may have lived in San Francisco for too long.

Re: Shaken by the latest digital gold rush, San Francisco struggles for its soul.

#33

Post by redthrowaway »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #20
charonn0 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are current residents being priced out? If they rent, then rent increases are limited by law and no-fault evictions are nearly impossible to get honestly. If they own, the no one can force them to move short of the city invoking eminent domain.

"then rent increases are limited by law" In certain cases, yes, but personally I lived in SOMA in an apartment for 2 years and my rent was going to go from 2k to 3k because Google had asked the building if they could rent some of the units. So I mean, maybe it was illegal and I don't know about it, but I can certainly say I don't live in San Francisco anymore because I was priced out by new incoming tech employees.

I'm assuming you made a thinko there; as written your comment says you were forced to move because living got too inexpensive.

Re: Shaken by the latest digital gold rush, San Francisco struggles for its soul.

#34

Post by mahyarm »

gnosis wrote: post #22
surrealize wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From what I understand, efforts in other cities to build upwards to house poor people have been a failure. You could always build upward to house the rich people instead. I'm sure a lot of the incoming startup-types are young and would be happy to live in a high-rise (The correlation between youth and high-rise-living coming, in my experience, from the fact that people with kids often want more space. But that's no…

"You could always build upward to house the rich people instead. I'm sure a lot of the incoming startup-types are young and would be happy to live in a high-rise" You have to remember that San Francisco is a prime earthquake zone. I'm not sure how many rich people would want to live in what is essentially a death trap if a major earthquake (which is supposedly long overdue) were to strike California. Also, gentrifica…

Tell that to downtown Vancouver, BC:

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=vancouver%2Cbc

Re: Shaken by the latest digital gold rush, San Francisco struggles for its soul.

#36

Post by w1ntermute »

gnosis wrote: post #22
surrealize wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From what I understand, efforts in other cities to build upwards to house poor people have been a failure. You could always build upward to house the rich people instead. I'm sure a lot of the incoming startup-types are young and would be happy to live in a high-rise (The correlation between youth and high-rise-living coming, in my experience, from the fact that people with kids often want more space. But that's no…

"You could always build upward to house the rich people instead. I'm sure a lot of the incoming startup-types are young and would be happy to live in a high-rise" You have to remember that San Francisco is a prime earthquake zone. I'm not sure how many rich people would want to live in what is essentially a death trap if a major earthquake (which is supposedly long overdue) were to strike California. Also, gentrifica…

> You have to remember that San Francisco is a prime earthquake zone. I'm not sure how many rich people would want to live in what is essentially a death trap if a major earthquake (which is supposedly long overdue) were to strike California.

Have you seen what Tokyo looks like?

http://i.imgur.com/a4GQL.jpg

Don't give me that bullshit.

Re: Shaken by the latest digital gold rush, San Francisco struggles for its soul.

#37

Post by bennyg »

w1ntermute wrote: post #27
ryguytilidie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you that my SOMA apartment's rent went up 1k because Google wanted to rent some units in it. This pushed me out of San Francisco. I don't think most of these Embarcadero/SOMA startups are interested in high rises in the Sunset or in West Portal, they want high rises in SOMA, which is where they're being built.

How does this change the fact that if you allow more high rises in SoMa, you can accommodate both the existing tenants and the new techies moving in, all without raising rents?

The landlords can see more money, so they're likely trying to maximize profits.

Re: Shaken by the latest digital gold rush, San Francisco struggles for its soul.

#38

Post by w1ntermute »

bennyg wrote: post #37
w1ntermute wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this change the fact that if you allow more high rises in SoMa, you can accommodate both the existing tenants and the new techies moving in, all without raising rents?

The landlords can see more money, so they're likely trying to maximize profits.

Do you know how supply and demand works? Profit maximization occurs within the context of supply and demand. Please study some basic economics before commenting further.

Re: Shaken by the latest digital gold rush, San Francisco struggles for its soul.

#39

Post by ryguytilidie »

w1ntermute wrote: post #27
ryguytilidie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you that my SOMA apartment's rent went up 1k because Google wanted to rent some units in it. This pushed me out of San Francisco. I don't think most of these Embarcadero/SOMA startups are interested in high rises in the Sunset or in West Portal, they want high rises in SOMA, which is where they're being built.

How does this change the fact that if you allow more high rises in SoMa, you can accommodate both the existing tenants and the new techies moving in, all without raising rents?

Part of the stated problem was "and the city only allows high rises in SoMa" I was under the impression SoMa was the only place where you could build high-rises and didn't think the restrictions were very tight.

Also, I don't think if someone demolished a lower-class apartment in SoMa they will do anything but build the highest cost apartments (If your options were to build apartments that cost $1500/mo for locals or $3500/mo for new tech employees, which would you build?) and push those lower income people out, which is basically the problem we are discussing, so no, I don't agree with the above assertion. Sounds good in theory, wouldn't work that way in practice.

Re: Shaken by the latest digital gold rush, San Francisco struggles for its soul.

#40

Post by _delirium »

citricsquid wrote: post #5
surrealize wrote: post #2

Grrrr. Existing SF residents are facing an influx of newcomers, who are pushing out (pricing out) some existing residents. And somehow, it never occurs to them to just make room for more people, so that existing residents don't get pushed out. SF has plenty of opportunities to build upward , but as long as SF insists on being anti-development and anti-height, the housing supply problem is going to continue.

Why is SF (I assume you mean local government?) anti-height? Are there downsides to building upwards (environmental? taxation?) or is it just a refusal to allow the landscape to change?

It's fairly common European cities to be anti-height in the city center for reasons that seem somewhat similar to SF's, though seems less common elsewhere. Some of it is a reaction (sometimes overreaction) to tall modernist housing blocks which nobody really liked. That and other things led to a preference for "human-scale" 5-7-story mid-rises. Another factor is a desire for light to be able to hit streets and parks in the "common areas" in the city center. A common compromise is to have a mid-rise historical center, but high-rises a bit outside of it, connected to good transit, e.g. central Paris banned skyscrapers after the Tour Montparnasse was so badly received, but there are skyscrapers a short distance away in the "new downtown" area of La Défense. An SF version of that might be to keep central SF mid-rise, but allow high-rise towers near the BART/Caltrain stations in Oakland, Daly City, and Burlingame.

The Bay Area's problem is that nobody wants the high-rises: putting them in the center or putting them near transit a bit outside the center would both work, but everyone, except to some extent Oakland, is anti-development, so they go nowhere. Heck, Palo Alto won't even allow mid-rise apartments near the Palo Alto Caltrain, so you actually have people "reverse commuting" from SF down to Stanford, because as crazy as living in SF is, trying to live in downtown Palo Alto is even crazier. A few livable, urbanized downtowns on the peninsula might siphon off some of the demand in SF, not solving the problem, but at least reducing it.

Other problems that seem like they exacerbate SF's problems: 1) poor intracity transit, e.g. lack of an east-west subway, concentrates demand in a handful of eastern districts; and 2) large areas of the city are not even mid-rise, but full of two-story houses (partly historical, partly anti-development, partly related to #1).

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