11–20 of 134 posts
Santa Cruz is a tiny dot of land between the mountains and ocean. The only crisis is in overpopulation, brought about by the tiered UC/CSU credentialism. Does anyone really think UCSC provides a better undergrad education than the average CSU? They literally have the exact same state mandated curriculum. But FAANG will hire someone with a UC degree over a CSU, thus the system is overflowing.
And then there's this https://www.surfertoday.com/surf-movies/the-westsiders
Anyway, end Prop 13 now.
Santa Cruz is a tiny dot of land between the mountains and ocean. The only crisis is in overpopulation, brought about by the tiered UC/CSU credentialism. Does anyone really think UCSC provides a better undergrad education than the average CSU? They literally have the exact same state mandated curriculum. But FAANG will hire someone with a UC degree over a CSU, thus the system is overflowing.
Sounds like looking for a place in Dublin/Berlin except instead of 24 applicant in 24 hours, a Berlin apartment gets like 200 applicants. Also in the Netherlands, several collage towns have students sleep in tents and container buildings or with university staff.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19491247.2022.2... Relevant: Supply side effects of the Berlin rent freeze Abstract - We find rent decreases accompanied by decreases in supply five times as large. We further investigate spillover effects on the purchase market, regionally heterogeneous effects as well as different effects by dwelling characteristics. We find the rent freeze did not have spillover effects…
If you want something completely FUBAR, you can always trust your local German bureaucrats to do a good job at it, especially in Berlin.
I wonder why they haven't tried increasing building supply and limiting external illegal immigration first? Also, why haven't they tried preventing these tax dodging stock market listed real estate mega conglomerates from owing a large proportion of the housing stock, as for them it's an investment for rent seeking that must make a return for their shareholders, rather than just shelter for someone. Crazy that Germans/Berliners let this happened yet see no issue with this and instead though that artificially capping rents was somehow magically gonna fix this. I guess most citizens don't really grasp the function of the housing market or the economics of it and instead will just vote for a quick handout. "Give them bread and games."
Santa Cruz is a tiny dot of land between the mountains and ocean. The only crisis is in overpopulation, brought about by the tiered UC/CSU credentialism. Does anyone really think UCSC provides a better undergrad education than the average CSU? They literally have the exact same state mandated curriculum. But FAANG will hire someone with a UC degree over a CSU, thus the system is overflowing.
Just to give two examples, both Soquel Avenue and Lower Ocean have some of the ugliest buildings and lots in the history of architecture and urbanism. Why multi-story building can take their place?
Aside from NIMBYsm and the incompetence of local administrators, the main problems for bigger and better urbanism in SC are water (apparently, then who knows) and transit. Regarding the latter, there are virtually no public transportation options between Santa Cruz-Aptos and Santa Cruz-San Jose. That is, there is only one bus.
As someone who lived in SC for many years and for some inexplicable reason still lives there, what I can say is that the town could be 10 times more beautiful. I can't understand why the areas closest to the water have been "sold" to rich people instead of being used by the public, Mission Street (the main vehicular artery) is as ugly and dangerous as it can be for pedestrians and cyclists, West Cliff has been planted with ugly grass that you can't even tell if it's natural or turf-like, and the shoreline between the San Lorenzo River and the end of Seabright, man, it's so ugly, full of concrete, no trees, with rusting infrastructure that it's hard to believe nobody in ten+ years has done anything to make it decent-looking.
Then, "A pretty white town that only looks somewhat Latino in the daytime because the service workers who keep this town running commute in from Watsonville and Salinas.", is a deeply misguided observation. The town itself is not pretty at all. Only looks somewhat Latino? I live in a neighborhood in Santa Cruz proper that is around, according to my visual estimate, 80% latino, and the 20% estimate for the whole town is fair (more than 30% at the county level).
The second problem is Santa Cruz by the sea is a very desirable place to live and within commuting distance from Silicon Valley, so wealthy tech workers can buy up or build very expensive first or second homes here. However, Santa Cruz since the 70's has been a very environmentally conscious no-growth city that recognized that San Jose style growth would ruin the city. This means demand far outstrips supply.
With the lack of supply, natives and others who work in services and support Santa Cruz's biggest industry (tourism) can't afford to live here. It's a dark joke among family and friends that once you leave Santa Cruz you can never afford to move back. I have family that have moved away and the next generation like my kids and nieces and nephews will never be able to afford to buy a house there like my father did.
Homeless is a problem but Santa Cruz tries to handle it a progressive way, for example, by setting up the homeless camp next to the courthouse and providing it with services
Lastly, long time Santa Cruz residents are generally are not sympathetic to complaints from students that come here from the outside, because they consider UCSC to be a big part of the problem. People considering UCSC would be advised to secure housing beforehand or choose another university. I hear they opened a new nice one in Merced, which has more affordable housing.
The thing I read in there that was disappointing was the administration response. However it is a state school so I imagine they don't have the same funding for development of housing on site / not to mention they are located between the SC mountains / protected forest and the ocean. It's a small area without much development space and that land is at a premium. Feel for the students though.
And sure, if UC solved the housing problem for their students, it might solve things for non-students, which might reduce house values and no one wants housing prices to decline.