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Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

sfchronicle.com

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Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#111

Post by systemvoltage »

hazyc wrote: post #84
systemvoltage wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh have you stepped into SF since 2010? It is an unmitigated disaster. No one wants to live there. Just had a friend that sold his condo and moved to San Diego.

Do you even live here? Walk around the Marina, Pac Heights, Presidio, Noe Valley, etc etc and tell me with a straight face that it's an "unmitigated disaster". If you can afford to live here (i.e. you can afford to avoid 'downtown') then you would realize that it's one of the nicest cities in the world.

I wrote about my most recent visit here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356169

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31532901

I live in Oakland which is fucked up in its own ways.

You can't be taken seriously when you consider SF to be the nicest cities in the world. Try visiting Singapore or Tokyo or Melbourne.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#112

Post by daxfohl »

88913527 wrote: post #97
rootusrootus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cause of death: remote work It seems premature to say this with confidence, though. Last time I saw the stats, remote work overall is down to 10% and still dropping pretty fast. Yes, prevalence is higher in the tech world, but still, we should wait until it stabilizes (especially with an incoming recession) before proclaiming that two years of remote work has changed the world.

It might be premature, but it seems like the cat is out the bag, especially if it means lower operating costs for businesses. Everything in the near future points to cash-flow positive businesses being the Wall Street darlings. Being unprofitable is no longer in vogue, which is a pretty seismic shift for the bay. If you don't need the office space, you're going to get undercut by your competitor who goes without. Bes…

I mean, most of the jobs went to the suburbs in the 90s because of cost and convenience, then boomeranged back to the city for (culture? fun? actually idk why; I liked suburbs better). So, no reason history won't repeat itself.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#113

Post by [deleted] »

Aloha wrote: post #53
rcpt wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low income seniors are covered by the California Tax Postponement Program. Most states have something similar. Prop 13 is wholly unnecessary.

Try to repeal it, you'll find yourself drummed out of politics. I think someone who spent enough money could repeal it, and it'd help.

[deleted]

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#114

Post by epistasis »

hindsightbias wrote: post #77
rcpt wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low income seniors are covered by the California Tax Postponement Program. Most states have something similar. Prop 13 is wholly unnecessary.

Death Tax! There isn’t a red state that doesn’t wish they had Prop 13.

All of the extremely wealthy people I know are in favor of maaaive death taxes, of pretty much all wealth. However, none of these people inherited their money, and came from humble backgrounds, so my anecdata may not represent many of the wealthy.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#115

Post by teaearlgraycold »

systemvoltage wrote: post #23
1270018080 wrote: post #3

I think this is a blessing. Cities have been designed for commuters instead of the people living in them since white flight in the 20th century. Just look at all of the metrics in the article. It's all about commuters and the city's dependence on them. Now, macroeconomic factors are forcing cities across the country to actually serve the people living in them. And it's great. Yeah there will be growing pains and this…

Uhhh have you stepped into SF since 2010? It is an unmitigated disaster. No one wants to live there. Just had a friend that sold his condo and moved to San Diego.

There are some very nice neighborhoods in SF. I live in the 'burbs for a reason, but it's not an "unmitigated disaster".

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#116

Post by epistasis »

88913527 wrote: post #81
Aloha wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 13 is one of the legs of the stool of most dysfunction in California. Some of these are gonna spark controversy but term limits, the recall and ease of passing propositions are some of the other ones. The legislature is no longer professional enough to govern, so the people do it at the ballot box, at the behest of whom ever has the most money to spend. The fact that California is a single party state because of…

Per-student spending in most California counties is comparable to that of Alabama and Mississippi: https://flowingdata.com/2016/04/21/school-district-spending-... Money can't fix everything but spending 33% below the median probably is a sign of underinvestment.

Particularly in a state where the cost of living is far above other states. I recently visited Wisconsin and felt about 2x as wealthy.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#117

Post by JumpCrisscross »

julianeon wrote: post #24

I live in SF & read these articles, which all have a tone of “What is to be done?” They seem reluctant to draw unpopular conclusions, even if those conclusions are inevitable. So here, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Downtown as a healthy fully occupied business district is dead. Cause of death: remote work. You can wait 50 years if you want and see if it comes back, but it never will; there’s no going back. Yo…

> Cause of death: remote work

Plenty of office space is being used nationwide. I’m fine going into my New York or Mountain View offices. I would not want to commute into or around San Francisco.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#118

Post by sammalloy »

systemvoltage wrote: post #42
1270018080 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it sucks right now, because it was built for commuters and there aren't any. It may continue to suck for awhile, but the outcome of this bad period could be a place that's actually nice.

Hard disagree. It is fucked up because we've allowed too many woke policies and gone soft on crime. It is simple as that. There is absolutely zero causation between "Built for commuters" and the absolute hell hole you've seen that is SF. I feel like this stance does a tremendous amount of disservice in identifying issues and making SF better. It is always scapegoated and never confronted head on. Scapegoats come in t…

> There is absolutely zero causation between "Built for commuters" and the absolute hell hole you've seen that is SF.

Except, the correlation is real and well known.

> At least 550,476 people commute to jobs in San Francisco and San Mateo counties.

When I lived in the city, I would often work downtown. When I would stay late, you would see up close and personal how the downtown area became a ghost town as the majority of people left the city for home. That’s both a brain, talent, and tax drain on the city, and represents a lost constituency that has no connection to local issues.

This crazy idea that "woke" politics are somehow responsible for the rise in crime and the deterioration of living conditions is a talking point invented by Fox News. There is literally zero evidence for it. Boudin failed because the police admitted they refused to work with him. End of story.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#119

Post by sgc »

Aloha wrote: post #55
cowsandmilk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, it isn’t preserving wealth though. Being able to build more densely increases my property’s value.

But not it's value in its current state, it's as much about preserving the status quo.

I agree, but want to note: Landlords only vote once. Short of being extremely patronizing and presuming that the residents of SF are easy to bamboozle when they are paying very high prices to live there, it has to be recognized that there is a broad appeal to those who live there, including those who rent, to not change the housing regulations - because they do not want the growth. It would seem the housing shortage is a feature not a bug for the majority of residents. That might be selfish (and I certainly don't promote it here), but I do think it has been a societal choice rather than one of a few elites.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#120

Post by stale2002 »

mc32 wrote: post #33
inamberclad wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could reduce the cost with increased supply. Conversions are cheaper than new buildings by a large margin. Plenty of people would appreciate living in a metropolitan area for its own sake.

People appreciate places they can live that affords them earning a living (work). Yes, you may get an influx of people wanting to live in a city, but it's not going to solve the issue for people who can't afford an apartment in the city. If the work itself is leaving, why would they want to live in a city, just to live in a city? To what end? I guess retirees with deep pockets, ok?

> you may get an influx of people wanting to live in a city

Ok, thats still a benefit. Allowing more people to live in the city is still a good thing.

> To what end?

To allow more people who want to live here, to do so.

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