there's no way the median HH income in san mateo county is 88k
Lots of people lived in San Mateo county before it was all +$1M homes. If you bought at $400K 10-15 years back, you're probably doing fine on $88K/yr.
Poor Kids of Silicon Valley
121–130 of 280 posts
Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
> some people feel VERY STRONGLY emotionally about where they live Those feelings are a luxury. Taxpayers should not be forced to bear the cost of someone's emotional attachments. I would prefer tax dollars be spent on relocation assistance + job placement to help get people on a sustainable path.
Why not? If enough of us decide that emotions are worth supporting, why shouldn't taxpayers make that a priority?
If you convince enough to change the laws, then the nature of our system is that they will be convinced. The question is, can you convince enough. Perhaps I see many luxuries as not worth supporting, at least not until other problems are solved (and being government revenue is limited, sometimes being low priority means not being funded at all).
Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Moving is expensive too. If you're hand-to-mouth poor, you cannot afford a rental truck, let alone time off work and still feed your children. You will probably lose your job if you move, and not find another one where you land, especially if you're in the service industry. Good luck with that East bay -> peninsula commute on your minimum wage. The reason many cannot get jobs other places is due to felonies or other…
When times are tough, moving does not need to be expensive. Before I moved to SV, I sold or donated everything I couldn't fit in two suitcases. I moved into an affordable house where I share a bedroom with 3 other people. I would be able to make rent with only $20k/year. I know not everybody can divorce themselves from all of their belongings, especially large families. Additionally, I didn't have to worry about scho…
I have moved on a shoestring many times as well, but it's exponentially more complex when you have a family than when you're a single guy on the make. It's even more disruptive for children who are pulled out of their real-life social/educational network with basically no choice and no agency in how they go about reconstructing that.
We should also strive to encourage a more distributed social life.
Why? I'm not the most gregarious person and I am OK with telephones and video, but it's a far cry from meeting people you care about in person. The problem with helping people relocate rather than deal with these issues at their source is that you wind up with economic cleansing, large enclaves and entire cities where only the wealthy can live and others where only the poor can afford to reside. Naturally there are few economic opportunities in communities of poor people, so people who live in them have to travel ever farther to get to their jobs, with increased cost in fuel/transit fares and diminishing marginal utility of labor due to the extra commute time.
The thing is, the same dynamic is at work to varying degrees all over the country so it's far from obvious where people who are economically dislocated should move to.
Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have to ask yourself why Manhattan is now cheaper than San Francisco.
No, we need to ask is Manhattan affordable? Are Manhattan prices dropping? Did they ever? A 10%-20% price difference is irrelevant and will just disappear in just a few years anyway.
The price difference will increase if San Francisco continues to not build enough housing to meet demand.
Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely, we need more government regulations and programs not less. Removing zoning laws can't possibly be the solution. Maybe we can have the government give housing to poor families, thereby taking housing stock off the market and reducing supply.
This is simple supply and demand. Everyone from liberal economist Paul Krugman [1] to SF board of supervisors member Scott Wiener [2] agrees that California and bay area housing policies are horrible. The only people who actually like these policies are the people who are benefiting from them, typically because they moved to a neighborhood decades ago and are either on rent control or "rent control for property tax"…
Absolutely agree. It baffles me why the tech companies in the area don't lobby aggressively for reduced zone regulations and restrict appeals to construction work. The whole bay area would profit massively from a more flexible workforce and less money being spent on rents (in addition to the construction boom).
Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely, we need more government regulations and programs not less. Removing zoning laws can't possibly be the solution. Maybe we can have the government give housing to poor families, thereby taking housing stock off the market and reducing supply.
This is simple supply and demand. Everyone from liberal economist Paul Krugman [1] to SF board of supervisors member Scott Wiener [2] agrees that California and bay area housing policies are horrible. The only people who actually like these policies are the people who are benefiting from them, typically because they moved to a neighborhood decades ago and are either on rent control or "rent control for property tax"…
[deleted]
Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Consider the audience, who will overwhelmingly shift to problem-solving mode. Empathy feels nice but doesn't provide a roof or full bellies.
Empathy vs problem-solving is a false dichotomy. Having empathy helps to better understand the problem, and this understanding can lead to better solutions.
Fair, but I suspect the OP was confusing empathy with sympathy.
Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley
#128This doesn't seem to be that difficult a problem.
The solution is surely transitional payments to get people to relocate.
Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you! I can see how one might feel 'just move' is a good argument, but really NO! In chinatowns all over the country, whenever low-income residents are being priced out, the argument is always 'you can just find another place to stay'. They've lived there for decades, if not more. That's where all the people they know are. They are poor but they do have a support system, that lives with them. When they move away…
> some people feel VERY STRONGLY emotionally about where they live Those feelings are a luxury. Taxpayers should not be forced to bear the cost of someone's emotional attachments. I would prefer tax dollars be spent on relocation assistance + job placement to help get people on a sustainable path.
I think you mean 'people ho pay more tax'. People living in poor neighborhoods typically pay taxes as well - on some of their income, most of their consumption, and on their residences since their rent is inclusive of property tax.
I do not understand this insistence that money spent on building more housing here is bad whereas spending the same amount of money on having 'those people' move out of sight to somewhere else is somehow good.
Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is simple supply and demand. Everyone from liberal economist Paul Krugman [1] to SF board of supervisors member Scott Wiener [2] agrees that California and bay area housing policies are horrible. The only people who actually like these policies are the people who are benefiting from them, typically because they moved to a neighborhood decades ago and are either on rent control or "rent control for property tax"…
Considering how many folks have most of their net worth tied up in a $1.5M 1500 sq. ft. home in the city, there is going to be a TON of resistance to more building. Can you imagine the average price of a home dropping to $700K? Tens of thousands of folks would be underwater on their homes.
All of the value in their homes was created by government regulation. Complaining about the price of your home going down because government regulation is removed is like taxi medallion owners complaining about Uber. In both cases government unfairly created the wealth through regulating scarcity.