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A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

economist.com

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Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#291

Post by shalmanese »

legutierr wrote: post #282
sien wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sleeping Rough and not affording homes are related. The Bay Area definitely needs to build more houses. However, in San Fransicko and in other places it is pointed out that New York City, that also has astronomical housing prices and also doesn't build enough, has a fraction of the people sleeping rough that SF does. NYC has lots of temporary shelter for people who are homeless. SF doesn't have enough. From https://m…

It's not only that north-eastern winters are brutal. There's more to it than that. Yes, NYC housing is very expensive, but that's because Manhattan is the most densely populated island in the world having a population greater than 150,000 people. Yes, you can squeeze a few more people into NYC proper, but there are physical limits that cannot be overcome, and New York is as close to those physical limits as anywhere…

> Yes, you can squeeze a few more people into NYC proper, but there are physical limits that cannot be overcome, and New York is as close to those physical limits as anywhere else in the world.

There were more people living in Manhattan in 1920 than 2020 and the average building height was higher then too.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#292

Post by bradleyjg »

grecy wrote: post #289
bradleyjg wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a lifelong renter that would love to see yimby policies put in place, but this is misleading. Norway is cold . Show me a city where people can sleep outdoors year round without dying that doesn’t have homeless and then we can see what an effective solution looks like.

Australia has roughly 116,000 homeless out of a population of 25,690,000 [1] [1] https://www.salvationarmy.org.au/need-help/homelessness-supp...

Homeless is an ill defined term. The definition used by governments and NGOs is different from the one used by everyone else. The former seem to deliberately lean in to the confusion in order to tie policy goals related to their more expansive definition to the greater public interest in solving the narrower problem.

In any event, it doesn’t take very many homeless by the colloquial definition to make a city unpleasant. I don’t know whether or not Sydney has a homelessness problem and that link doesn’t tell me.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#293

Post by Kye »

jjav wrote: post #258
RobLach wrote: post #191

Homelessness is a solved problem. SF residents don't want the solution. Real estate is the primary wealth building asset class of long-term residents who bought property ages ago or inherited it. In California property taxes as assessed at time of sale, so you hold onto properties realistically valued at multiple millions while paying taxes at rate appropriate to tens of thousands. Bulldozing a single family home to…

> Charlotte, NC, a city with a lower population, built 160,000 new units. Charlotte, NC also has way more open space to expand than SF, which has none, surrounded by water on three sides and other cities to the south.

I hear up is the hot new dimension in other places that hit the same barrier.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#294

Post by ProjectArcturis »

mrobot wrote: post #83
ProjectArcturis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sympathetic to a leftist solution here, but let's not ignore the reality of what happened when we built huge public housing buildings in the 50s and 60s. They were a failure for everyone involved, and there aren't any easy solutions.

What is a good source on it that is not written by a bourgeoisie economist or other agent of the wealthy?

This is about as sympathetic a documentary as you're likely to find. It deals with the Pruitt-Igoe complex in St Louis. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_articl...

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#295

Post by vlovich123 »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #281
vlovich123 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm… I‘ve heard conflicting sources on this and that studies show that SF homeless don’t have a higher degree of having moved from elsewhere. The vast majority has been here a considerable amount of time. Maybe I’m misremembering though.

Pulling a 2019 source from wikipedia, over 30% of San Francisco's homeless recently came from outside San Francisco, and only 50% had lived in San Francisco longer than 10 years before most recently becoming homeless: https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDRep...

That seems like a far cry from the exponential growth described where you house one homeless person and 2 appear.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#296

Post by s1artibartfast »

refurb wrote: post #143
s1artibartfast wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author and journalist Sam Quinones hypotesizes in his book, The Least of Us , that a significant part of the increase in homelessness is due to a change in methamphetamine quality. Prior to about 2010, meth was manufactured in Mexico using high quality precursors. The government cracked down on imports, and cartels started using a much more dirty P2P manufacturing methods, which is anecdotally associated with vastly…

It’s an interesting theory but P2P meth was the standard meth prior to ephedrine being used in the 90’s. Did we see the same level of homelessness back then?

Good question and frankly idk.

Could be that that biker meth was also as bad. Could be differences in recipes/precursors/equipment as p2p can be made from hundreds of different ingredients.

I wonder if there are data sets tracking drug impurities that could test the hypothesis.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#297

Post by thoughtstheseus »

Homes are personal utilities for most people. They should be regulated as such. I would place an increasing tax based on some KPI to limit accumulation of real estate by corporations or individuals. Then I’d distribute that extra tax revenue to property maintainers and community development programs, maybe a portion where the money is required to be spent in mandatory projects. Then Get the federal government to invest in widespread underground rail.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#298

Post by thoughtstheseus »

crate_barre wrote: post #265
sien wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sleeping Rough and not affording homes are related. The Bay Area definitely needs to build more houses. However, in San Fransicko and in other places it is pointed out that New York City, that also has astronomical housing prices and also doesn't build enough, has a fraction of the people sleeping rough that SF does. NYC has lots of temporary shelter for people who are homeless. SF doesn't have enough. From https://m…

NYC has winters, it’s not temperate all year round. Think about all the poor people that would freeze to death in places like India or SF - if they had winters like the northeast). Warmer places will have the temperature to sustain a homeless population. NYC, prior to our current Democratic mayor, had aggressive law enforcement during Giuliani and Bloomberg terms. They would corral the homeless into specific areas (t…

We need better communities.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#299

Post by JeremyNT »

RobLach wrote: post #191

Homelessness is a solved problem. SF residents don't want the solution. Real estate is the primary wealth building asset class of long-term residents who bought property ages ago or inherited it. In California property taxes as assessed at time of sale, so you hold onto properties realistically valued at multiple millions while paying taxes at rate appropriate to tens of thousands. Bulldozing a single family home to…

We should certainly subsidize the building of homes and give them to the homeless (or at least make them very affordable).

Can you link to the details of the program in Charlotte?

As somebody who is from NC, most home building is driven by for profit developers and it actually increases demand. They target higher end construction since the margins are higher. This is a feedback loop since the increased density of wealthy residents results in areas gaining even more amenities that the higher density will support, and thus becoming more attractive places to move for people in higher col areas out of state.

Building wealth by ensuring new units end up in the hands of low income people is a wonderful idea, but around here it seems to be the opposite occurring.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#300

Post by wjamesg »

JeremyNT wrote: post #299
RobLach wrote: post #191

Homelessness is a solved problem. SF residents don't want the solution. Real estate is the primary wealth building asset class of long-term residents who bought property ages ago or inherited it. In California property taxes as assessed at time of sale, so you hold onto properties realistically valued at multiple millions while paying taxes at rate appropriate to tens of thousands. Bulldozing a single family home to…

We should certainly subsidize the building of homes and give them to the homeless (or at least make them very affordable). Can you link to the details of the program in Charlotte? As somebody who is from NC, most home building is driven by for profit developers and it actually increases demand. They target higher end construction since the margins are higher. This is a feedback loop since the increased density of wea…

I am in NC. All the new development in my area seems to be homes crammed as closely together as possible on mowed down property - no trees or neighborhood identity whatsoever.
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