201–210 of 257 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Build baby, build.
Build where? SF is hemmed in by hills and ocean. Housing is mostly low rise, but dense and very much in the style of Tokyo given similar issues (earthquakes). Then you have a bunch of beautiful Victorians to tear down before you can build some dense high rise housing. SF is quite dense already, not like the exclusive suburbs to the south.
SF is 4x less dense than Manhattan, for example.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But is that reason to be mean and obstruct anyone who challenges your comfort zone?
that is the point - it is basically a definition of diagnostable situation when reasoning machinery doesn't function well (i'm not a doctor of course). I mean, was she mean and obstructing by explicit willful choice or was it a panic reaction and collapse of reasoning machinery in response to what she perceived as destruction of her world? Former is ill will, while later would seem to be a diagnostable episode.
Sure, but this condition is called "stupidity", and there's a whole section of society that takes offense at the concept.
We don't have a strong enough social welfare net (or enough resources there-in) to care for folks that need care; but, we're not comfortable letting them starve on the streets either. The result? Essentially innocent people, like the property owner, get "stuck" with "it's your problem now" where various agencies give contradictory mandates, backed with fines. How was property owner supposed to respond when told he mu…
How was property owner supposed to respond when told he must get rid of the illegal dwelling, but also told he can't evict the tenant? Clearly he should have moved out of the house and let her live there.
Nonetheless, it’s a good time to be a Bornstein in San Francisco: in the past year alone, Ellis Act evictions have risen 170%; since 1997, there have been 3,811, and that number is constantly rising. The obvious solution to rapidly rising prices is to increase supply, as described here ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078XGJXO ) or here ( http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francis... ). I've posted both…
If people want to KEEP SAN FRANCISCO THE SAME, they could just build in other cities and amalgamate/improve the existing transit infrastructure, too. I have a working theory that people would be less obsessed with living in San Francisco if it was a mere 10-15 minute transit ride away
News Flash: people in those other communities have similar worries, transit should have been expanded/extended at least ten years ago - it would have been a lot easier when the bay wasn't in a boom - but that still wouldn't solve everything. The entire bay area doesn't want SF to sprawl all over it. Part of the beauty of the bay has always been the diverse types of areas to live in, and their distinct personalities.
People are worried that SF's personality is changing, and though this story has been told before, they're right to be.
On the one hand, noone should expect a rental arrangement to last forever, but the bay area has spent decades developing a culture that is renter-heavy, and whatever the laws say, our hearts need to understand that these buildings largely owned by speculators who benefit from our infighting have been occupied by lots of people who made them homes, who opened businesses and threw street festivals and painted murals that made us all feel like more of who we are from the first minute we stepped into SF.
And we should be careful not to leave it an empty husk if our industry faces a downturn again, if nothing else.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>What difference does it make? to me it does. I think as a society we're at the level when we can allow and thus must allow to cut some slack to disabled people, and temporarily or permanent lack of ability to reason is a disability just like not having a leg for example. When some limping guy with a stick say stumble and hit you while falling, would you deploy your anger like it would be in the case of intentional h…
What more could be done? The courts bent over backwards to accommodate her, going so far as to award her $14,000 after patiently exhausting every other option. 14k and a moving crew seems pretty generous as far as evictions for hostile, unsanitary, non-paying tenants go. Her story is depressing because she is clearly a troubled woman, but you can't just ignore reality and expect everything to work out, it's unsustain…
We don't have a strong enough social welfare net (or enough resources there-in) to care for folks that need care; but, we're not comfortable letting them starve on the streets either. The result? Essentially innocent people, like the property owner, get "stuck" with "it's your problem now" where various agencies give contradictory mandates, backed with fines. How was property owner supposed to respond when told he mu…
Another whine story. I do feel sorry for those people that legitimately deserve it. You know, women in the middle east who are beaten or stoned to death for not wearing berkas, or orphans in Africa dealing with genocidal warlords. But this lady could live perfectly fine on her social security if she would move to somewhere she could afford. Living in San Francisco is something a whole lot of people want to do. That's…
It sounds like she moved there when it was cheap. Is it reasonable to expect her to leave her friends, contacts, etc that she's built up over decades because the city is changing? Housing isn't widgets: it's not easy to move to a cheaper type if your current type gets expensive. There isn't an easy answer to this sort of problem, but to imply that she should simply "move somewhere else" is simplistic in the extreme.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Build where? SF is hemmed in by hills and ocean. Housing is mostly low rise, but dense and very much in the style of Tokyo given similar issues (earthquakes). Then you have a bunch of beautiful Victorians to tear down before you can build some dense high rise housing. SF is quite dense already, not like the exclusive suburbs to the south.
Up. SF is 4x less dense than Manhattan, for example.