171–180 of 380 posts
I say this as a conservative: Building limits are systemically classist and racist. They maintain a geographical segregation system. If you want to fix the country then remove all limits, let developers develop whatever and whereever they deem there is demand. Remove occupancy laws where they're not about safety. Remove property line setbacks. End parking requirements. End requirements about private kitchens and bath…
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Simply saying "let the market decide who is worthy of housing" is also classicist and racist. Unless you explicitly define the market has to cater to "X income brackets", "Y racial demographics", and "Z% needs to be for personal housing, not commercial or industrial usage", you're basically saying "whoever has the most money". How is this better and more inclusive to the poor and minorities?
Because it works better in practice. Consider other markets where supply is not artificially constrained. There are no laws specifying how many cars can be manufactured, or how they can be priced. Manufacturers are able to make cars at a wide range of price points. And the used car market let's people buy at incredibly low prices. Or consider soap. We "let the market decide who is worthy" of soap, and yet there is no…
The Times selected as an "NYTimes Pick" a comment from someone in Berlin who absolutely makes my blood boil. (S)he starts off by stating privilege as a 5th-generation San Franciscan (obviously, the kind who DESERVE to live in the city), and who fled in the tech boom of the 90s. The usual rant about whitewashing and yuppies and artists being pushed out ensues. Of course they don't want more housing built, because then…
Yeah, the comment section on that article is pretty sad. The number of people whose argument against building more housing is a fear that it will make the city "ugly" is astounding. It's mind-numbingly selfish and greedy to think that a family should barely be able to make ends meet, and children should spend less time with their long-commuting parents, just so that SF can meet your personal aesthetic sensibilities.…
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>"and to the environment" That's a great point, and one that has been largely missed here. I used to live in a city with aggressive green-space initiatives. (85% of the city had to be green space.) Locals would tell me that it was "good for the environment". I'm sorry, but no. Green space initiatives force sprawl. They're bad for the environment, full stop.
Suppose there were no green space initiatives. Then the only green space you could be sure of having would be your own garden. How would this discourage sprawl?
I think urban green space is great, as long as it also comes with housing density. The problem is excessive greenspace coupled with mandatory low-density single family dwellings. You end up creating more sprawl and more carbon emissions as the people who can't afford to live in the close-in suburbs sprawl outward.
Also, I say all of this as an environmentalist. Suburban parks do more to protect homeowner wealth than they do to protect our planet. Carbon emissions, ocean acidification, widespread habitat loss (think palm oil plantations in Borneo, not racoon territory in your backyard) are far more pressing environmental problems than suburban densification is by any stretch of the imagination.
Seeing a few trees torn down to make way for an apartment building is a very tangible loss of greenery, but it's ultimately better for the environment. Density allows people to be more efficient in their use of resources, and ultimately preserves more habitat for wildlife.
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It might be 20+ miles away, or your kids might go to different schools: http://abc7news.com/education/developer-suing-fremont-unifie... The school district has designated this new area as unassigned, meaning the children will have a seat somewhere, but no guarantee of a close neighborhood school.
So there is a school district, and what you wrote first was mere hyperbole?
Within that domain, this new source of housing has not been factored in to the balance of how to divide resources. (Think of classroom seats as hyperthreads and teachers as processor cores).
The kids going to different schools (lack of CPU affinity) is the issue as differently aged kids might go to different schools, have to travel needlessly far to get to a school with free resources, and potentially even two kids of the same age from the same family might not go to the same school.
Serious question: why does everyone have to live in San Francisco? There are lots and lots of cheaper places to live and work, but it seems there is something that only San Francisco can do that everywhere else can't. Why aren't city planners working on creating that special "whateveritis" in their city as fast as possible? I don't want any pat answers like "the people are there" or "the jobs are there" because that'…
But everyone is here because everyone is here. The cycle likely started with National Semiconductor and grew from there. For me, I'm including Silicon Valley in "here". I live in San Jose and it's unbelievably crowded down here too.
That's an answer to the grandparent post's original question too.
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This is a common intuitive argument, but the question that follows is why? Why must all housing be used? Could we not simply build more? Instead of looking at foreign purchases of homes as taking away an opportunity, it should be viewed as a stimulus program. The real problem seems to be that city planners are restricting new construction (to keep up home values, and allow them to 'shape' the city), and thus forcing…
Vacant houses tend to be vandalized, infested by pests, and otherwise fall into disrepair (e.g. there's no one there to notice a plumbing leak). This is less of an issue for individual vacant units in multi-tenant buildings.
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If you want to fix the country then remove all limits, let developers develop whatever and whereever they deem there is demand. That's a bad idea, too. For example, in Fremont right now, there's a development that was built without being placed in a school district. So the students who will live there have no real school. Also, there are serious environmental impacts that need to be considered every time you build a…
For example, in Fremont right now, there's a development that was built without being placed in a school district. So the students who will live there have no real school. Why would people with children move to a place without schools?
_All_ new development must include 10% to 20% of units to low income people.
Everywhere. SF. NYC. LA. etc. The end.
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If you want to fix the country then remove all limits, let developers develop whatever and whereever they deem there is demand. That's a bad idea, too. For example, in Fremont right now, there's a development that was built without being placed in a school district. So the students who will live there have no real school. Also, there are serious environmental impacts that need to be considered every time you build a…
> That's a bad idea, too. For example, in Fremont right now, there's a development that was built without being placed in a school district. So the students who will live there have no real school. Perhaps abolishing the whole idea of school districts and assigning kids to schools via address as opposed to parental decision. The whole pay for schools via property tax and local levies has a pretty big negative impact…