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Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

sfchronicle.com

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Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#51

Post by viraptor »

daenz wrote: post #40
nathanaldensr wrote: post #35

How 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?

It normally comes with "and fund mental health, social care, non-lethal first response, etc." so it's not necessarily a short term saving.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#52

Post by rootusrootus »

julianeon wrote: post #24

I 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…

> Cause of death: remote work

It seems premature to say this with confidence, though. Last time I saw the stats, remote work overall is down to 10% and still dropping pretty fast. Yes, prevalence is higher in the tech world, but still, we should wait until it stabilizes (especially with an incoming recession) before proclaiming that two years of remote work has changed the world.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#53

Post by Aloha »

rcpt wrote: post #49
0xFACEFEED wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bein…

Low income seniors are covered by the California Tax Postponement Program. Most states have something similar. Prop 13 is wholly unnecessary.

Try to repeal it, you'll find yourself drummed out of politics.

I think someone who spent enough money could repeal it, and it'd help.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#54

Post by tootie »

julianeon wrote: post #24

I 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…

Honestly this seems like unmitigated blessing that there's so much spare real estate to alleviate the monstrous shortage of housing. SF was a vibrant, thriving city with a ton of character before it became the new Babylon of the technology era. It could stand to lose 50,000 tech bros and let some families and earnest weirdos move back in.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#55

Post by Aloha »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #32
rebelos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But not it's value in its current state, it's as much about preserving the status quo.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#56

Post by 0xFACEFEED »

rcpt wrote: post #49
0xFACEFEED wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bein…

Low income seniors are covered by the California Tax Postponement Program. Most states have something similar. Prop 13 is wholly unnecessary.

I'm not following. Postponing those taxes doesn't mean they don't need to get paid. I quickly googled it and saw "The deferment of property taxes is secured by a lien against the property which must eventually be repaid."

Which sounds like a recipe for... grandpa dies, grandma can't pay property taxes so defers it for 10 years. Grandma dies and whoever inherits the home needs to be pay a massive deferment (unaffordable?) or give up the home.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#57

Post by alexpotato »

rcpt wrote: post #49
0xFACEFEED wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bein…

Low income seniors are covered by the California Tax Postponement Program. Most states have something similar. Prop 13 is wholly unnecessary.

New Jersey, a famously high residential property tax state, has the senior "tax freeze" statue in many towns.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#58

Post by jltsiren »

mc32 wrote: post #9
forthwall wrote: post #5

I 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…

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…

Housing remains expensive only if too many people want to live there. If the demand goes down, housing costs must eventually go down as well.

Once the balance between supply and demand is similar, urban living should be cheaper than suburban living, because urban areas need less infrastructure for each resident.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#59

Post by alexpotato »

ajmurmann wrote: post #28
forthwall wrote: post #5

I 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!

You should talk to people in Houston.

It effectively has no zoning which means you get oil processing plants built next door to elementary schools.

The Austrian Economists will jump in here and say that's why certain private property developments buy the equivalent of "sky rights" (or "land rights" I guess) with adjoining properties to effectively create their own zoning.

Re: Downtown S.F. on the brink: It’s worse than it looks

#60

Post by bushbaba »

tootie wrote: post #54
julianeon wrote: post #24

I 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…

Honestly this seems like unmitigated blessing that there's so much spare real estate to alleviate the monstrous shortage of housing. SF was a vibrant, thriving city with a ton of character before it became the new Babylon of the technology era. It could stand to lose 50,000 tech bros and let some families and earnest weirdos move back in.

There’s still a risk of being the next Detroit. Those office spaces didn’t need schools. Didn’t need showers, laundry. As you retrofit the cities cost goes up and tax revenue might decline further. Leading to a slow death event.

Sf would be smart to make deep cuts now to free up budget. Going as far as putting a ballot initiative to end maybe prior proposition earmarks.

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