11–20 of 76 posts
> Rich communities should want to welcome more residents, particularly those less fortunate than them. Sadly, in the Bay Area, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Is that the case anywhere in the world? Why single out the Bay Area.
> Whether it’s to protect their property values, exclude Black people, keep down traffic or protect their city’s physical environment, these cities make it hard to build new housing. Stopped reading at this part. What an ignorant thing to say.
What flaw (other than "ignorant") do you find in what it says?
What is the reasoning for you asking this question? Whether it was honest curiosity or it was just because you were taking a break from beating your spouse, we might never know the answer.
> Whether it’s to protect their property values, exclude Black people, keep down traffic or protect their city’s physical environment, these cities make it hard to build new housing. Stopped reading at this part. What an ignorant thing to say.
An acceptable approach would seem to be to have the "center" becoming more dense over time while the outer rings stay less dense.
The problem is that current geography has resulted in natural centers being the ones that refuse to build and that is problematic. Palo Alto and the rest are happy to have Facebook and etc's business but won't make room for Facebook employees.
And the apparently illogical behavior comes out of proposition 13's logic. Cities can tax businesses but property values are immune.
Which is to say that prop 13 needs to be repealed or annulled before any other sort of sanity is going to happen (and maybe that's not happened but, hey, there you go).
Or maybe the people that live in low density neighborhoods don't want to live in high density neighborhoods. So they stop developers from changing the density of their town.
That's fine if you want to live in low density. But at the same time, these cities, like Palo Alto, are building office space left and right and welcoming businesses into town. (At least that was the MO pre-COVID.) You shouldn't be able to welcome businesses in without building requisite housing units to support the employees.
Because said cities cannot get enough tax money from property tax (blame Prop 13) so they need to get it from businesses. But then those businesses attract people in the area and then those people need a place to live in but they can't get a place because nobody has the incentive to sell when your tax rate is locked in (well, growing up to 2% per year), on the contrary, you don't want to sell and then buy somewhere else and have to pay more taxes than you were paying at the old place, even if the new place is much smaller.
One of the countless negative consequences of Prop 13.
Or maybe the people that live in low density neighborhoods don't want to live in high density neighborhoods. So they stop developers from changing the density of their town.
That's fine if you want to live in low density. But at the same time, these cities, like Palo Alto, are building office space left and right and welcoming businesses into town. (At least that was the MO pre-COVID.) You shouldn't be able to welcome businesses in without building requisite housing units to support the employees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What flaw (other than "ignorant") do you find in what it says?
Well, it’s pretty dumb to suggest that these are the main reasons we don’t build housing. How about government corruption and special interest groups as big factors in the problem? Most of the time housing projects are blocked by people who want to “protect minorities” or “stop gentrification” or get a kickback from some developer. It’s quite the opposite of wanting to exclude minorities or raise property values.
There’s a lot of data here I think is stitched together in support of a presumption presented as a conclusion, but one question:
> According to estimates from the US Census, the Bay Area’s population grew by about 10% from 2010 to 2019 [...] Yet of the ten richest cities of the 101 cities in the Bay Area, not one of them grew faster than 5%.
By how much did the area’s population of the richest grow? That is, if it grew at a rate of 10%, did they move elsewhere? If 5% - is there any point to the rest of the article? If less, wouldn’t astronomical property value explain why poorer groups didn’t move to these specific areas?
As with so many political issues, this is about economic class - and the differences in characteristics between them:
https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/fertili...
> Whether it’s to protect their property values, exclude Black people, keep down traffic or protect their city’s physical environment, these cities make it hard to build new housing. Stopped reading at this part. What an ignorant thing to say.
The prevented BART from going down the peninsula to stop "undesirables" coming to their cities.
They were historically redlined to explicitly exclude any PoC.
They have a deeply ingrained prejudice, which may be less racially motivated now, but to claim that that prejudice isn't present is ignorant.
Even San Jose had police trying to stop BART from reaching due to it allowing the "criminals" from Oakland for some reason using one of the least reliable public transit systems to go to SJ and commit crimes, the flee back to Oakland.
I'd classify myself as a progressive and I don't see why every Bay Area city has to make some "contribution" to increased housing. An acceptable approach would seem to be to have the "center" becoming more dense over time while the outer rings stay less dense. The problem is that current geography has resulted in natural centers being the ones that refuse to build and that is problematic. Palo Alto and the rest are h…