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Gentrification's Price: S.F. Moves: Yuppies In, the Poor Out (1985)

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Re: Gentrification's Price: S.F. Moves: Yuppies In, the Poor Out (1985)

#51

Post by SuperPaintMan »

smokeyj wrote: post #31
madrox wrote: post #21

I often wonder about how sustainable SF’s growth is. Between the issues with housing, rent control, NIMBYism, and poor infrastructure, there has to be a price tag at which this can’t continue. I live in the city, and the quality of living here is terrible compared to other cities. The only thing SF has going for it is the people, but sooner or later the right social pressures could cause a mass exodus, and I wonder w…

The entire town literally smells like crap. The people are alright. No idea why anyone would want to live there. The best thing about the gentrication war is all the trustfund liberal arts crowds shaming tech workers for trying to make a living.

Meh, soon enough you're left with the veneer of culture due to the commercial and superficial nature of it. Once this takes effect a cultural ghetto is created and the creators move elsewhere leaving a consumerist mess of boutiques and nonsense in its wake.

It's not like this is new, it's the natural order of capitalizing on development. If you want to hang with the arts kids, you'll be living in squalor. I mean hell, Vancouver used to be a giant powerhouse of culture generation, post-exodus the amount of cultural importance is rapidly decreasing spreading to other nearby locations.

Re: Gentrification's Price: S.F. Moves: Yuppies In, the Poor Out (1985)

#52

Post by DrScump »

scythe wrote: post #42
madrox wrote: post #21

I often wonder about how sustainable SF’s growth is. Between the issues with housing, rent control, NIMBYism, and poor infrastructure, there has to be a price tag at which this can’t continue. I live in the city, and the quality of living here is terrible compared to other cities. The only thing SF has going for it is the people, but sooner or later the right social pressures could cause a mass exodus, and I wonder w…

SF, and the Bay as a whole, is the northernmost large snow-free area in the country. The weather alone practically guarantees someone will find a reason to live here. If there were other negatives besides high prices, I think the concern over decline could be more well-founded, but there will always be some sort of city by the Bay.

  the northernmost large snow-free area
You can go a long way north of SF before you hit an area that has snow in any meaningful amount, excluding a few mountains/volcanoes.

Re: Gentrification's Price: S.F. Moves: Yuppies In, the Poor Out (1985)

#53

Post by DrScump »

tlrobinson wrote: post #37
madrox wrote: post #24

If you want to see the latest in the gentrification war, check out the San Francisco subreddit. On the one hand, it’s everyone complaining about the nuisance of the on demand scooters; on the other, it’s people complaining about the needles and human feces. It may have been about poor vs yuppie in 1985, but it’s a culture war now.

Wow... > Last week I saw a similar report of a man filling up syringes with blood and throwing them at people walking by https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/8hj7j7/man_ju...

One unconfirmed anecdote does not a trend make.

Re: Gentrification's Price: S.F. Moves: Yuppies In, the Poor Out (1985)

#54

Post by madrox »

maxkimmel wrote: post #29
madrox wrote: post #21

I often wonder about how sustainable SF’s growth is. Between the issues with housing, rent control, NIMBYism, and poor infrastructure, there has to be a price tag at which this can’t continue. I live in the city, and the quality of living here is terrible compared to other cities. The only thing SF has going for it is the people, but sooner or later the right social pressures could cause a mass exodus, and I wonder w…

Your question gets asked often: How long can this continue? And the answer is: It will continue as long as people are willing to pay the rent. I understand from your post that you are fed up with the high rent and the low quality of living. But the most important part of what you said is the fact that you are still willing to pay, and you are still willing to stay, despite all of the disadvantages. In other words, yo…

My girlfriend and I decided in January that the trade off is no longer worth it. Now it’s just about timing.

While I hear what you’re saying, I’m musing more specifically on what that function looks like. I understand “it will continue as long as it can” but looking for a less rhetorical answer.

Re: Gentrification's Price: S.F. Moves: Yuppies In, the Poor Out (1985)

#55

Post by madrox »

smallnamespace wrote: post #33
madrox wrote: post #21

I often wonder about how sustainable SF’s growth is. Between the issues with housing, rent control, NIMBYism, and poor infrastructure, there has to be a price tag at which this can’t continue. I live in the city, and the quality of living here is terrible compared to other cities. The only thing SF has going for it is the people, but sooner or later the right social pressures could cause a mass exodus, and I wonder w…

> but sooner or later the right social pressures could cause a mass exodus Why would that be the case, rather than the social pressures (it sucks to try to live here) reaching a dynamic equilibrium with the economic forces (companies and people are more productive here and will compensate you well for the extra trouble)? I can only think of two reasons for a sudden 'mass exodus': 1. People to 'suddenly realize' that…

A good point. I don’t know. I’d love to learn more about how this happens in practice and what the driving forces are.

Re: Gentrification's Price: S.F. Moves: Yuppies In, the Poor Out (1985)

#56

Post by nine_k »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #14
somerando wrote: post #3

I don't see what is so wrong with gentrification. As the economy expands and people become more prosperous, it restores blighted parts of the city to their full potential. I also think that rent control is disrespectful to the rights of the property owner. Other than making sure that there is no discrimination, and that properties aren't fire traps, government should get out of the way.

Let's scale up your example: why should citizens of a country have any special rights over immigrants? One can argue that immigration "restores blighted parts" of the country "to its full potential". I doubt you'd make that argument, though.

Citizens of a country usually sort of own the country, if you read the local constitution.

They are more like homeowners, entitled to protect their land with deadly force.

Tenants are more like tourists: they are welcome as long as they keep paying.

Re: Gentrification's Price: S.F. Moves: Yuppies In, the Poor Out (1985)

#57

Post by closeparen »

zethraeus wrote: post #43
joe_the_user wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose a disadvantaged woman decides to leave her abusive husband and is trying to find another place to move into. Your hypothetical disadvantaged woman would have zero ability to pay $2000/month rent for a studio, however many of these might be available. She would likely find it hard to get an apartment in a rent-controlled situation - so the situation is effectively "hard versus impossible", a condition where "h…

Why are the studios $2000/month in this alternate universe where we don't have rent control?

Because NIMBYism, height limits, and single family zoning over most of the landmass still exist, and have much stronger effects.

Re: Gentrification's Price: S.F. Moves: Yuppies In, the Poor Out (1985)

#58

Post by pmoriarty »

chollida1 wrote: post #41
crdoconnor wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm all in favor of the intentions behind rent control, but the implementation is an atrocious way to achieving its goals. If the goal is to help the poor long-time residents of a city, then do that directly. Rent control is a hack, but it's a hack that largely works. It's not nearly as atrocious as the reputation profit hungry landlords have tried to give it. Why not treat it exactly like any other kind of hack? Ta…

> Rent control is a hack, but it's a hack that largely works. It's not nearly as atrocious as the reputation profit hungry landlords have tried to give it Well I'm not sure what economics degree you have, but a Nobel winning one, says that most economists are in agreement and they disagree with you https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent... > The analysis of rent control is among the best-underst…

From [1]:

"One major problem with this argument is the lack of a definition with rent control. Yes, the statistic of 93 percent of economists rejecting rent control is all fine, but what specific rent control are we speaking about? Here is the question he either refuses to answer or does not know much about.

"In the Economics Anti-Textbook by Rod Hills and Tonny Myatt, they do talk about the neoclassical idea of rent control, but give an alternative view as well. They write:

  But knowing the extent to which the ceiling rent is binding over
  time is very tricky. It’s complicated by the fact that we cannot
  observe the equilibrium rent. A second complication is that the type
  of rent control prevalent nowadays is very different from the type
  assumed in textbooks -- a rigid rent freeze.
"What Berezow is saying is that "first-generation rent control" is rejected by many economists. For those unaware, it is, as stated above, "a rigid rent freeze." However, "second-generation" rent control is more flexible as it can allow "automatic rent increases geared to increasing costs, excludes luxury high-rent buildings and new buildings, restricts conversions, decontrols between tenants, and provides incentives for landlords to maintain or improve quality.""

[1] - https://shadowproof.com/2013/11/11/why-is-alex-berezow-allow...

Re: Gentrification's Price: S.F. Moves: Yuppies In, the Poor Out (1985)

#59

Post by joe_the_user »

zethraeus wrote: post #43
joe_the_user wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose a disadvantaged woman decides to leave her abusive husband and is trying to find another place to move into. Your hypothetical disadvantaged woman would have zero ability to pay $2000/month rent for a studio, however many of these might be available. She would likely find it hard to get an apartment in a rent-controlled situation - so the situation is effectively "hard versus impossible", a condition where "h…

Why are the studios $2000/month in this alternate universe where we don't have rent control?

They are in the present universe, where we don't have effective rent control.

And effective rent would require controlling evictions and controlling rents on vacant units (infringing further on sacred property rights, certainly).

Now, the most effective policy would involved rent control but with exemptions for new very high density units, incentivizing increases in the total housing stock for an urban area.

But we're here with weak rent control and tacit collusion of homeowners and builders, who talk about their property rights when convenient and use the state to keep their monopoly when convenient.

Re: Gentrification's Price: S.F. Moves: Yuppies In, the Poor Out (1985)

#60

Post by nine_k »

somerando wrote: post #3

I don't see what is so wrong with gentrification. As the economy expands and people become more prosperous, it restores blighted parts of the city to their full potential. I also think that rent control is disrespectful to the rights of the property owner. Other than making sure that there is no discrimination, and that properties aren't fire traps, government should get out of the way.

One of the problems with extreme gentrification (e.g. in SF or London) is that people of modest means who are required for functioning of the city, like janitors, or street vendors, or even teachers or train operators can't live close enough to their work places. (The solution is, of course, just paying them more.)
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