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To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

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Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#31

Post by jseliger »

nwah1 wrote: post #15
rb808 wrote: post #8

Because big dense cities like NY are affordable?

Your point is valid and you shouldn't be downvoted. Empirically, we know that high density of residential units is correlated with high rent. Why is this? It ultimately comes back to the Law of Rent. The amount that landlords are able to charge directly corresponds to the produce obtainable at that location over their next best alternative... and that alternative is likewise set that way up until you reach the "margi…

No, we don't: https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3...

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/californi...

We know that artificially restricting the supply of housing increases prices.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#32

Post by manacit »

rb808 wrote: post #8

Because big dense cities like NY are affordable?

Manhattan (and parts of Brooklyn) != NY. I wouldn't call it "cheap", but there are plenty of places in NYC where one can rent a bedroom for under $1,000 a month easily (and maybe closer to $500/m in some places). That, coupled with not having a car, actually makes quality of life very good if you're someone who seeks out city living.

I know plenty of people that make $30k-$40k/y in NYC and can afford to live in Bushwick with a few roommates and live nice lives. Single train commute into Manhattan, plenty of things to do that don't cost a lot of money, no need to worry about a car, etc.

Edit: a lot of people are replying that having roommates isn't tenable for $x or long-term. I agree, and I don't think we disagree.

Solving a housing affordability problem for people making $15/h starting their careers is part of the overall picture - housing available for people at every income level. An experienced worker with a family won't be looking to live in a 3br apartment with two roommates, but that same 3br apartment that was affordable can also house a family of 4 with two wage-earning parents.

NYC is _filled_ with people in all sorts of jobs who, because there is housing stock available in many levels, can afford to live alone, with a family in an apartment in Queens, or in a house in NJ.

It's not panacea - transit is not as reliable as I wish it was, goods are expensive, but it works for a lot of people

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#33

Post by mdc2161 »

DataWorker wrote: post #10
wklauss wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several ways, including congestion taxes and more public transportation options, like it's been pointed out. But, also, a 50% increase in housing supply means higher density of population, with higher buildings instead of single family homes and therefore more comercial space in large populated areas, meaning more jobs will be at walking/biking/short-bus-ride distance.

Sorry but you are totally naive if you think a 50% increase is possible in that time frame. You just can’t, or don’t want to do the math. What you are suggesting amounts to jail cells with no infrastructure.

26 years and 100% in Shanghai https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/08/26-years-of-growth...

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#34

Post by rhapsodic »

manacit wrote: post #32
rb808 wrote: post #8

Because big dense cities like NY are affordable?

Manhattan (and parts of Brooklyn) != NY. I wouldn't call it "cheap", but there are plenty of places in NYC where one can rent a bedroom for under $1,000 a month easily (and maybe closer to $500/m in some places). That, coupled with not having a car, actually makes quality of life very good if you're someone who seeks out city living. I know plenty of people that make $30k-$40k/y in NYC and can afford to live in Bushw…

>I know plenty of people that make $30k-$40k/y in NYC and can afford to live in Bushwick with a few roommates and live nice lives.

Being an adult who needs to have "a few roommates" to afford rent is not compatible with my idea of a nice life.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#35

Post by conanbatt »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #13

If this is true then I think the Bay will need to let go of it's ideas towards rezoning. Deregulatory zoning adjustments just won't be able to stimulate this level of building. Why not just build out and do greenfield development but put some mandatory density requirements in place for new building?

I personally believe SF is just f'ed. Its not a problem of choosing a solution, its a political problem. It would require politically unfeasble solutions. Removing rent control, changing sales taxes to land value taxes, reducing superfluous city government spending, etc.

San francisco will not change without a back-breaking situation: tech companies moving away, homelessness getting to untenable levels, median workers leaving the city, etc. Its already happening, but not hard enough to curb the expected profits of the last generation of landowners.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#36

Post by freyir »

manacit wrote: post #32
rb808 wrote: post #8

Because big dense cities like NY are affordable?

Manhattan (and parts of Brooklyn) != NY. I wouldn't call it "cheap", but there are plenty of places in NYC where one can rent a bedroom for under $1,000 a month easily (and maybe closer to $500/m in some places). That, coupled with not having a car, actually makes quality of life very good if you're someone who seeks out city living. I know plenty of people that make $30k-$40k/y in NYC and can afford to live in Bushw…

> I know plenty of people that make $30k-$40k/y in NYC and can afford to live in Bushwick with a few roommates

This sounds fun for a bit and then you grow up. If the Bay Area wants experienced workers filling non-tech/finance/medical jobs, they’ll need to better than this.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#37

Post by st26 »

hedora wrote: post #22
epistasis wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really need to stop assuming that people are going to make heavy freeway use, and permit more scalable transit. Run BART the short way between SF and SJ, build many clusters of high density along heavy transit routes. Let the current freeway dependent population continue to use them, but build housing so that people can get to jobs without using single-occupancy passenger cars.

They need to assume people will use transit and also roads, and increase the capacty of both. The capacity of the bay area road network has been systematically decreased over the last ten years, even as the population has grown. Also, compared to most other places, traffic laws out here are ridiculously inefficient. For example, light cycles that include a “yield on left turn” step and then skip the left arrow if the…

The capacity of the road network cannot be increased forever. The Bay already has some damn big freeways, and Texas has already shown that "wider" does not mean "uncongested", with their 26-lane Katy Freeway, one of the most congested in the country...

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#38

Post by weeksie »

Just a reminder that the growth rates for SF, SV, Seattle, Portland are all pretty puny compared to the growth rates of, e.g. Detroit at its peak. Hell they're not even that crazy compared to growth rates those cities have handled before.

People just aren't interested in any perceived threat to their property values so they're strangling growth based on an entitlement mindset. No, sirs and ma'ams, your home's price appreciation isn't a right.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#39

Post by charlesdm »

sampo wrote: post #25

Just quoting the last paragraph. This is the kind of honesty people need. > Intellectual honesty requires taking numbers seriously. Either we prioritize making the Bay Area affordable for all of us or we don’t. The less housing we build, the more wealth will be trapped in high housing prices. Unless we decide to grow our housing stock to accommodate our economy, we are continuing to choose the interests of those who…

Who could have guessed, policy makers that serve the hand that feeds them?

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#40

Post by mistermann »

rb808 wrote: post #30
sampo wrote: post #25

Just quoting the last paragraph. This is the kind of honesty people need. > Intellectual honesty requires taking numbers seriously. Either we prioritize making the Bay Area affordable for all of us or we don’t. The less housing we build, the more wealth will be trapped in high housing prices. Unless we decide to grow our housing stock to accommodate our economy, we are continuing to choose the interests of those who…

If density increases the people who will benefit the most are current landowners. If you have single family home on a big lot, its value will go up many times if you can suddenly build an apartment building on it.

That is:

a) Correct.

b) Beneficial to most participants in the market, well off (mainly due to luck in timing) NIMBY's being the exception.

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