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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

#241

Post by xnx »

bushbaba wrote: post #60
tootie wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly this seems like unmitigated blessing that there's so much spare real estate to alleviate the monstrous shortage of housing. SF was a vibrant, thriving city with a ton of character before it became the new Babylon of the technology era. It could stand to lose 50,000 tech bros and let some families and earnest weirdos move back in.

There’s still a risk of being the next Detroit. Those office spaces didn’t need schools. Didn’t need showers, laundry. As you retrofit the cities cost goes up and tax revenue might decline further. Leading to a slow death event. Sf would be smart to make deep cuts now to free up budget. Going as far as putting a ballot initiative to end maybe prior proposition earmarks.

No chance. The weather and access to nature make it a paradise compared to most of the country.

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

#242

Post by claytongulick »

epistasis wrote: post #108
claytongulick wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

California was the home of Reagan and Nixon, and their legacy on state politics lives on to this day. As mentioned, Prop 13 was a libertarian tax revolt that continues to cause massive structural problems in the state's economy, which only gets papered over by the absolute dominance of the economic productivity of massive innovation. Even California's farmers have innovated far better than many other parts of the cou…

Yes, I get the point.

The part that seems so strange to me is the idea that "it's the republican's fault for not stopping democrat policies".

Like, no part of that was, hey, maybe these policies are bad and we should blame the people who are making the bad policy.

No.

It's the Republican's fault for not stopping it.

That indicates a very skewed world view, and yes, I think requires some introspection.

Sure, blame Republicans for specific bad policy that you disagree with, but it's completely beyond the pale to blame them for the Democrat's bad policy making.

That's like a mom blaming a father for not stopping her from giving the kids too much candy.

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

#243

Post by anamax »

dragonwriter wrote: post #223
anamax wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 13 also stabilizes property tax revenues. When housing drops 10% in a year, my property tax bill, like most people who bought a few years go, goes up 2%. Yes, my property tax bill also goes up 2% when property value jump 10%. But, the cost of govt services didn't jump 10% that year, so why should property tax go up that much?

> Prop 13 also stabilizes property tax revenues. Not really; yes, it reduces total volatitlity in property tax revenues asymmetrically, since tax assessments fall without restriction in downturns irrespective of turnover, but rise with a sharp limit in upturns outside of a limited set of qualifying events. But stabilizing property tax revenues, even to the extent it is true, is made less relevant by the way Prop 13 c…

> Not really; yes, it reduces total volatitlity in property tax revenues asymmetrically, since tax assessments fall without restriction in downturns irrespective of turnover

The only tax assessments that fall during downturns are the folks who are underwater, that is, the recent purchases. The folks who aren't underwater get a 2% increase.

That's why, as I wrote, when there's a 20% downturn, most people still have a 2% increase, which keeps tax revenues from falling significantly. In other words, stable.

I write "most" because one of the key arguments of the "prop-13 is bad" folks are that most properties are paying too little tax because of when they were bought.

You can't have it both ways. If you make that argument, the arithmetic shows that prop 13 stabilizes property tax revenues during a downturn.

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

#244

Post by sgc »

epistasis wrote: post #126
sgc wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Unfortunately the residents of SF have been far too easy to bamboozle by demonizing developers, both real estate (the villain of so many movies) and software (blamed for rising rents and inequality in SF despite the long-standing inequality for financial services, etc.). One of SF's big problems is the prevalence of culture war, vibes, and being hipper than thou overriding the economic interests of residents with les…

My observation was that the people buying into that demonization don't do it because they are dumb, but because it serves their purposes.

I agree with your last sentence, but this works because that last group is a minority (even if barely), so the larger society votes against them. it only takes a small amount of poorer people who don't want growth for nostalgic / quality of city life reasons, and you have a pretty sizable majority coalition against change.

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

#245

Post by hintymad »

duped wrote: post #129
hintymad wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cause of death: remote work. Is this contradictory to the reason that startups are funded in S.F proper? I remember many articles and social media posts were saying along the line that people chose to work in S.F because they loved bustling city life. Yet the city is doomed because people wanted to work remotely en masse?

Startups are founded in Northern California because of easy access to VC money and an extremely strong talent base. I don't know what the numbers are but I would be surprised if there are more startups in SF proper and not San Jose and its suburbs (the real economic heart of the Bay Area, honestly) and out in the East Bay. San Fransisco is fun but a big pain in the ass to get to and live in, even compared to the rest…

This explains why the Bay Area attracted so many startups, but does not necessarily explain why in the past 10 years more startups were founded in the SF proper instead of in the south bay.

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

#246

Post by foogazi »

Aloha wrote: post #210
foogazi wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prop 13 is one of the legs of the stool of most dysfunction in California. Are Prop 13 benefits for businesses still in place ? That would be a good start - if the company is sold all its underlying California holdings get re- appraised

REIT's are a huge work around for Prop 13, the REIT can change hands dozens of times, but the underlying property is never sold.

Thats what I mean for companies too - the value of the land is part of the company or funds valuation

REITs are traded on the value of the underlying asset - unlike a homeowner that does not extract value from their property

Properties packaged in tradable shares should be re-appraised annually at least

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

#247

Post by bushbaba »

xnx wrote: post #241
bushbaba wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s still a risk of being the next Detroit. Those office spaces didn’t need schools. Didn’t need showers, laundry. As you retrofit the cities cost goes up and tax revenue might decline further. Leading to a slow death event. Sf would be smart to make deep cuts now to free up budget. Going as far as putting a ballot initiative to end maybe prior proposition earmarks.

No chance. The weather and access to nature make it a paradise compared to most of the country.

For the bay area and California at large sure. However the city of SF could still be depressed, especially since it offers a worse quality of life.

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

#248

Post by blindmute »

clpm4j wrote: post #102
DantesKite wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Downtown as a healthy fully occupied business district is dead. Cause of death: remote work. Keith Rabois said one of the the major reasons he moved was because of crime.

Keith Rabois and David Sacks and all of the other billionaire VCs who love to whine and complain about SF on twitter are nowhere near the crime (which is totally blown out of proportion). These guys own $20-30MM homes in Pacific Heights which is one of the poshest neighborhoods in the world. They're complaining because they're used to being able to pay for perfection - perfect dinners, perfect vacations, assistants a…

One of the highest property crime rates in the country is blowing it out of proportion? It's factually, actually, truly a crime ridden shithole; as much of one as a US city can be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

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

#249

Post by tzs »

epistasis wrote: post #228
tzs wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your house becoming more valuable doesn’t mean you have more money.

That's like saying "just because people buying TSLA shares at 2x what I paid for them doesn't mean I have more money." Of course not, stock shares or real estate are not money. But they are wealth.

But note that when your wealth goes up because others have driven up the price of TSLA shares you are not taxed on that wealth gain. You are only taxed on the money you get when you sell the shares. If the price of TSLA shares goes to 2x and then later back to 1x before you sell the shares, and then you sell them, you have no gain and no tax.

It is generally considered to not be a good idea in tax theory to tax things that don't involve either money or things that are very easily converted to money, unless perhaps the tax is relatively small. For purposes of this discussion "money" means whatever the government will accept as a tax payment.

That's partly because you ideally want taxes that are meant just to raise revenue (as opposed to for example so-called "sin" taxes) to not cause much change in the activity or thing being taxed.

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

#250

Post by Aloha »

sgc wrote: post #244
epistasis wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the residents of SF have been far too easy to bamboozle by demonizing developers, both real estate (the villain of so many movies) and software (blamed for rising rents and inequality in SF despite the long-standing inequality for financial services, etc.). One of SF's big problems is the prevalence of culture war, vibes, and being hipper than thou overriding the economic interests of residents with les…

My observation was that the people buying into that demonization don't do it because they are dumb, but because it serves their purposes. I agree with your last sentence, but this works because that last group is a minority (even if barely), so the larger society votes against them. it only takes a small amount of poorer people who don't want growth for nostalgic / quality of city life reasons, and you have a pretty…

The culture war issues largely forces some weird alignments, its a weird mashup of left social issues, an even weirder mix of left wing and right wing economics and "progressive" requirements that everyone hew to proper "optics". (My gripe with the progressives is that saying the right thing often appears to be more important than doing the right thing.)

In the end, its simply a recipe for never fixing any of the actual problems, with the added benefit of giving your base and activists plenty of ideological wars that can never be won.

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