Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdotally a lot of friends in SF don’t bother reporting crimes because they know the police won’t do anything and it’ll be just a waste of their time reporting it.
Or if you call the police, they just never show up, or when they do, tell you not even bother filing a report. Citizen: Someone stole my backpack and laptop out of my car! Police: And?
San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash
281–290 of 622 posts
Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many of those codes have been designed to protect incombents from competition and various other forms of encouraging one form of living (car dependent) over others. Plenty of people in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, etc live happy lives in much much smaller living areas. This makes them more affordable. But building codes in many places in the USA disallow making places that small. Other examples of questionable codes are…
>But building codes in many places in the USA disallow making places that small. Given how little exercise people get and that we are typically glued to a screen (tv, laptop, or phone) during waking hours, I could see an argument for lowering floor space minimums.
Code minimum bedroom sizes are pretty small: https://buildingcodetrainer.com/minimum-bedroom-size/
Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nope. On an area-weighted basis most of SF is wasted on detached single-family homes. https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7470676,-122.4914956,314m/da...
Americans overwhelmingly prefer single-family detached homes when given other options. How is choosing a higher-quality of life option “wasted”?
higher quality of life for the many who commute more than one hour each way in and out of SF this definitely is not...
Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
Turns out prices have to go down when the fed doubles rates. By my math, a 30% correction is needed to make up the difference in terms of monthly affordability - meaning a $500k house at 6% is the same as a $750k house at 3%.
Are those numbers reversed? Should it be a $750k house at 3% is a $500k house at 6%?
Yes, you are correct. I mistyped.
Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The underlying issue is government preventing development of both houses and office space. We live in a democracy. The underlying problem of government is voters. Most home owners ( especially in The Bay) refuse to allow anyone to build anything because they see that as a threat to their home value.
Unless your plan is to undermine democracy I don't see how you can really fix this. With some exception, the people who decide the rules for what is and isn't allowed to be built in an area are the people who live there. I can be mad all I want that a city/township doesn't want to provide me the kind of housing I want but it would be wrong to force them.
I think it was one of the US founding fathers that said, "The primary responsibility of a democracy is the education of its citizenry".
It sounds like Bay area residents are working against their own interests (home values) by reducing housing supply, thereby making their city so unlivable that home values will collapse anyway. Getting people to see the problem and vote accordingly may be difficult, but it doesn't seem completely impossible.
Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
Drug use isn't associated with crime and filth until we make it so via harsh city policies. I would, however, like someone to clean the 4 different instances of poop I saw on my 3 block walk this morning.
I don't live in San Francisco, so please humor me, but are you talking about dog poop or human poop? I know this is an absurd question -- I've never seen human poop on a sidewalk in my entire life -- but I've heard stories about SF...
If it's in the downtown and immediate areas it's probably human, further out into the burbs it's mostly dog.
Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Crime is rampant According to the data, crime in SF is lower that it was a few years ago: https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-San-Francisco-Californ... > Drug use and filth is everywhere. Voters can’t seem to wrap their head around better housing policies to get people off the street. It’s disappointing, the entire Bay Area is guilty of this.
This delusion that if only we build houses, the homeless, mentally ill and drug addicted will magically disappear from the streets...is based on what exactly? What does "housing policy" mean in the context of streets lined with tent cities filled with drug addicts?
> This delusion that if only we build houses, the homeless, mentally ill and drug addicted will magically disappear from the streets...is based on what exactly?
Peer-reviewed research: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20063061/ & https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/183666
Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
You think drug use doesn't lead to crime?
Drug prohibition clearly leads to crime. Drug users would rather use drugs than commit crimes, but paying for a drug habit when drugs are expensive and you have a hard time holding down a 9-5 job (usually due to mental illness) forces people to do things they don't want to do. Ending prohibition and diverting some resources from police to mental health and preventative services is just a sensible thing to do.
> but paying for a drug habit when drugs are expensive and you have a hard time holding down a 9-5 job (usually due to mental illness)
I would imagine mental illness would be a bigger barrier to handling a 9-5 job than drug use.
IIUC, the majority of people that drink alcohol and smoke weed daily work 9-5 just fine.
Is the same true for the majority of people that have mental illness? What are we even considering mental illness?
I don't think the visibly homeless crazy people have mild mental illness. I think their mental illness is a bigger problem then drug addiction if they even have that problem.
Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't live in San Francisco, so please humor me, but are you talking about dog poop or human poop? I know this is an absurd question -- I've never seen human poop on a sidewalk in my entire life -- but I've heard stories about SF...
Against the health code for someone to not cleanup their dog's poop in SF SEC. 40. DOG TO BE CONTROLLED SO AS NOT TO COMMIT NUISANCES. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person owning or having control or custody of any dog to permit the animal to defecate upon the public property of this City or upon the private property of another unless the person immediately remove the feces and properly dispose of it; provided, ho…
Most people do, but I still see plenty around where I live in the Sunset. Enforcement is basically nonexistent like the leash law.
Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash
#290The city officials are asleep at the wheel. Blame it on remote work and pandemic as much as you want, but the reality is that the city was in decline even before that. It is too expensive to live in the city. It is too expensive to commute to the city. It is too expensive to feed yourself in the city. Crime is rampant. Drug use and filth is everywhere. Most importantly city has been hostile to tech and business owner…
Companies needs people. It is the most important resource. Cities not hospitable for humans, are bad for business. Local authorities in Vienna,Austria, still has control over 25% of the real estate. This ensures that the city will be affordable for many years to come.