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Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

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Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#121

Post by jorvi »

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #112
luckylion wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially for a city that is explicitly progressive, why the "all rapid change is bad, it must take decades or centuries, otherwise it's not natural" approach? Germany's large cities have similar issues where they don't want to start building new districts because it'd be artificial and not naturally grown building by building. And it's better to have rents double every 10 years, apparently. I don't get the "why", b…

Quickly throwing up cheap mass housing without also organically growing the services and rest of the community is how you get food deserts and ghettos though. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, just pointing out where it's gone wrong in the past and why people may be hesitant to try again.

That is how things happen in the US. In most North-Western European countries, city planning and zoning is taken very seriously.

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#122

Post by gremlinsinc »

dionidium wrote: post #37
jlmorton wrote: post #17

Imagine you're a municipality like San Francisco. You control all of the zoning regulations, and many of the permitting requirements. You have a AA+ credit rating, and even in today's higher rate environment, you can borrow billions of dollars at 6%. You already own oodles of land. You can build to whatever height you want within reason, because you control the zoning, and you even control many of the ordinances that…

Yeah, the thing I always say about the people who complain about tech workers and gentrification in a place like San Francisco is like, look, if you can't figure out how to gain from an influx of wealthy, highly-educated, low-criminality, nerdy tech workers, then that's really on you. What a gift! Any city would be lucky to have that "problem." You have to actively work to make that a negative (by, say, refusing to a…

I can't imagine any place will be much of a 'joy' to live in, if there's no barista's, waiters, etc who can afford to live within a 2 hour radius.

I mean, if you want a 'servant' class, then you need to at least make it worth their while and ability to thrive. Everyone wants to be able to go to Olive Garden, or McDonald's but there won't be these places if people can't afford to live there.

There will always be lesser jobs, but not if nobody can live for the wage given to them. The only answer is more housing, and/or higher wages. Probably both, but esp more housing.

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#123

Post by AnimalMuppet »

germinalphrase wrote: post #94
danjac wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe San Francisco is just not suitable any more? There's nothing magic about SF's geography that makes it a tech hub. It's not a mining town that needs to be next to coal or minerals, or a ski resort town that needs some mountains and snow. It's based on work that can literally be done anywhere. Hollywood, after all, was just a dusty desert town that became the hub of the movie business because it was easier to mov…

“Hollywood, after all, was just a dusty desert town that became the hub of the movie business because it was easier to move there and start a new one than dealing with Edison's lawyers back East…” Yes, but also no. Keep in mind the popularity of Westerns in the 1930’s-1950’s and the ease with which you can get to desert/mountain/beach/city/forest/etc settings within a relatively short drive from L.A. That said, I gen…

And sunshine. Sunshine helps when you're shooting outdoors. Southern California has more sunny days than the east.

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#124

Post by AaronM »

r00fus wrote: post #65
jlmorton wrote: post #17

Imagine you're a municipality like San Francisco. You control all of the zoning regulations, and many of the permitting requirements. You have a AA+ credit rating, and even in today's higher rate environment, you can borrow billions of dollars at 6%. You already own oodles of land. You can build to whatever height you want within reason, because you control the zoning, and you even control many of the ordinances that…

> Imagine you're a municipality like San Francisco. I couldn't get past this because the analogy breaks down already. SF as a polity is not controlled by one person or single department. The power is highly decentralized (the Board of Supervisors hold most of the keys). Thus, even if you have someone who can make sweeping changes, likelihood is they'd never get elected in such a setup (or if they do, be able to effec…

Even if they could make sweeping changes, the local homeowners would drag those new developments to court for 25 years

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#125

Post by zozbot234 »

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #112
luckylion wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially for a city that is explicitly progressive, why the "all rapid change is bad, it must take decades or centuries, otherwise it's not natural" approach? Germany's large cities have similar issues where they don't want to start building new districts because it'd be artificial and not naturally grown building by building. And it's better to have rents double every 10 years, apparently. I don't get the "why", b…

Quickly throwing up cheap mass housing without also organically growing the services and rest of the community is how you get food deserts and ghettos though. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, just pointing out where it's gone wrong in the past and why people may be hesitant to try again.

"Food deserts and ghettos" are also the outcome of broader housing scarcity and lack of amenities. Where the only cheap areas around are those that have become cheap merely by virtue of being terrible to live in, and are since stuck in that vicious cycle.

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#126

Post by klipt »

danjac wrote: post #80
dionidium wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the thing I always say about the people who complain about tech workers and gentrification in a place like San Francisco is like, look, if you can't figure out how to gain from an influx of wealthy, highly-educated, low-criminality, nerdy tech workers, then that's really on you. What a gift! Any city would be lucky to have that "problem." You have to actively work to make that a negative (by, say, refusing to a…

Maybe San Francisco is just not suitable any more? There's nothing magic about SF's geography that makes it a tech hub. It's not a mining town that needs to be next to coal or minerals, or a ski resort town that needs some mountains and snow. It's based on work that can literally be done anywhere. Hollywood, after all, was just a dusty desert town that became the hub of the movie business because it was easier to mov…

Tech hubs grow organically from network effects. It's impossible to move the whole network in one go.

Best you can do is make one network gradually shrink and another one gradually grow somewhere else.

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#127

Post by danaris »

deburo wrote: post #18
t-writescode wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's not that we don't pay people enough, it's that living costs too much"

Indeed it can happen, imagine a state in which taxes are higher than elsewhere.

Ah, yes, taxes, famously the biggest contributor to cost of living, especially for the poorest among us... /s

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#128

Post by mindslight »

jankyxenon wrote: post #60
jrockway wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it because buildings refuse to house people with addiction problems, or that the extra $1/month is better used in their mind to get the next dose of the substance?

The roof typically comes with the stipulation of no drugs (or even rehab). That’s untenable to the addict.

Those conditions make the offering quite different from being able to rent your own room inexpensively. One of the facets of having your own place is that you can do whatever you want there, whether it be drugs or whatever. That might not be healthy, and it's quite understandable why family would put conditions on offering a free room, but people do value their autonomy.

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#129

Post by zozbot234 »

jorvi wrote: post #121
MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quickly throwing up cheap mass housing without also organically growing the services and rest of the community is how you get food deserts and ghettos though. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, just pointing out where it's gone wrong in the past and why people may be hesitant to try again.

That is how things happen in the US. In most North-Western European countries, city planning and zoning is taken very seriously.

Not so, there are blighted areas even in places like London.

Re: Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness

#130

Post by themitigating »

exolymph wrote: post #27

The non-visible homeless (people down on their luck, to an approximation) get mentally sorted into the vast category of "that's unfortunate but it doesn't affect me directly," which might influence people's votes or charitable donations, but doesn't arouse much passion for most of us. By contrast, the visible homeless are a visceral inconvenience, even a danger, so people feel strongly about how that problem is addre…

"visceral inconvenience"

The problem with the homeless isn't how it offends your senses.

"I'm not all that likely to be accosted, but if I ever am, it will be a big deal, so navigating those places is nerve-wracking because my threat-detection is constantly dialed up."

Have you ever thought that being this worried about threats is something you're partially responsible for?

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