The solutions seem pretty simple: - Add housing - Add staffed public toilets - Pilot office conversions that assume only half the workers show up on a given day.
pay the toilet staff very well, these are the true heroes
Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks
31–40 of 272 posts
Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks
#32I'm still absolutely furious that SF managed the boom times by handing over massive amounts of cash to landlords and property owners, by restricting construction, that came directly out of the pockets of workers and has resulted in massive displacement. Sure, the tax revenue looked great, but it happened in a way that caused great human suffering by making occupancy in the city zero sum, and awarding it to only those…
> to appease those with conservative views on construction More like "enlightened views on wealth preservation." You can follow the incentives on this one. It's not that complicated.
Generally, it isn’t preserving wealth though. Being able to build more densely increases my property’s value.
Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would people want to live in relative expensive housing if there are no jobs in the city for them? Converted apartments are not going to be "affordable" (by say the likes of students, and people just out of college not in finance or tech. Once the white collar workers leave, there is less demand for service workers to live there. Sure maybe some salaried workers like in emergency services and policing might choos…
We could reduce the cost with increased supply. Conversions are cheaper than new buildings by a large margin. Plenty of people would appreciate living in a metropolitan area for its own sake.
People appreciate places they can live that affords them earning a living (work). Yes, you may get an influx of people wanting to live in a city, but it's not going to solve the issue for people who can't afford an apartment in the city.
If the work itself is leaving, why would they want to live in a city, just to live in a city? To what end? I guess retirees with deep pockets, ok?
Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks
#34I'm still absolutely furious that SF managed the boom times by handing over massive amounts of cash to landlords and property owners, by restricting construction, that came directly out of the pockets of workers and has resulted in massive displacement. Sure, the tax revenue looked great, but it happened in a way that caused great human suffering by making occupancy in the city zero sum, and awarding it to only those…
Genuine question: How much of this caused Prop 13?
We bought a home in the Bay Area a few years ago. We considered the pros/cons of moving out of state and one pro of staying here was Prop 13 in California. We plan to retire in this home and figured Prop 13 will help make our post-retirement living expenses negligible.
I only recently had the realization that Prop 13 could cause some serious problems like cities being incentivized to encourage resident "turnover" because new residents would be subject to current level property taxes.
Another issue is cities having to rely more on sales taxes which discourages building residential housing and encourages building of commercial properties. Also when a recession hits then the cities are hit even harder because they aren't able to collect those sales taxes.
We found that Bay Area schools are begging for money constantly and theorized that very low property tax income is a big part of that too.
I mean... I like paying less but something about it feels wrong. Property taxes are a big source of income are they not?
Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks
#35How about this false dichotomy:
> "My biggest fear is the city either has to slash spending on, say, police, or it aggressively puts up taxes on businesses to cover the shortfall and drives them out of the city," he said.
It's always "we'll have to slash spending on basic city functions!" or "we'll have to raise your taxes!" but never "we'll have to cut all these unsustainable social policies!"
Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks
#36I live in SF & read these articles, which all have a tone of “What is to be done?” They seem reluctant to draw unpopular conclusions, even if those conclusions are inevitable. So here, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Downtown as a healthy fully occupied business district is dead. Cause of death: remote work. You can wait 50 years if you want and see if it comes back, but it never will; there’s no going back. Yo…
If there's enough demand for it (and risk appetite), change can happen swiftly. Just see how rapidly the Mission transformed (particularly Valencia-Dolores and adjacent) over the past decade.
Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks
#37I really hope L Breed and her leadership approve more residential conversions of office spaces in downtown. A few developers are interested but there seems to be a holdup for whatever reason. SF has already had some successful conversions like 100 Van Ness. While I don't think that is a surefire way of fixing dtsf but it is a start. The superdense neighborhood of chinatown and somewhat dense neighborhood of little it…
It's absolutely insane that the government has any say in what a building gets used for. I can see some arguments why the government has a say in constructing a building in the first place, but controlling what it's used for is just planned economy, communist hubris!
Ironically the most conservative areas are the ones who fall the hardest for the communist hubris, which is why you can’t get a beer without driving in so much of the USA.
Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks
#38I really hope L Breed and her leadership approve more residential conversions of office spaces in downtown. A few developers are interested but there seems to be a holdup for whatever reason. SF has already had some successful conversions like 100 Van Ness. While I don't think that is a surefire way of fixing dtsf but it is a start. The superdense neighborhood of chinatown and somewhat dense neighborhood of little it…
It's absolutely insane that the government has any say in what a building gets used for. I can see some arguments why the government has a say in constructing a building in the first place, but controlling what it's used for is just planned economy, communist hubris!
Zoning, in general, is a compromise to a set of mutually-exclusive philosophies: individualism (e.g., private property ownership) and collectivism. Society can't function with only one or the other; there needs to be some mediation. Local governments are theoretically responsible to represent the wills of their voters, so this is probably the best way to do that. We can always argue, however, about where specifically particular zoning rules fall on that spectrum.
Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks
#39It was a crazy valuation-driven fashionable thing to have high tech offices in a city center. The whole Bay Area went from being a reasonably efficient place for high tech businesses to an irrational "that's how we do things" consequence of funders wanting everything within a stone's throw of Sand Hill Road. Urban revival is good but it was taken waaay too far and made unaffordable. "Affordable" isn't going to come b…
Isn't SF kinda far from Sand Hill? And on slow-ass 280?
All the cool people roomed up with friends in the Mission and biked to work. Even the millionaires. That is until they got hitched.
Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks
#40How about this false dichotomy: > "My biggest fear is the city either has to slash spending on, say, police, or it aggressively puts up taxes on businesses to cover the shortfall and drives them out of the city," he said. It's always "we'll have to slash spending on basic city functions!" or "we'll have to raise your taxes!" but never "we'll have to cut all these unsustainable social policies!"
>My biggest fear is the city either has to slash spending on, say, police
I don't want this to turn into an ideological battle, but my understanding was that in SF, that is not an unpopular stance. Is this not the case?