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San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

sfchronicle.com

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Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#51

Post by eropple »

jleyank wrote: post #28
baron816 wrote: post #4

It all comes down to housing. If you make it affordable to build housing, you make housing affordable. If you make housing affordable, then you make services affordable.

I wonder whether homeowners talking about more affordable housing realize that includes their own house likely declining in value….

Dunno about in SF, but I certainly realize it. And I don't care. I bought the place to live in. I don't plan to sell it for decades. I will have gotten my money's worth out of it no matter what.

Which is why I absolutely advocate locally for more housing.

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#52

Post by McScrooge »

"This is the city where it can take 87 permits, 1,000 days of meetings and $500,000 in fees to build residential housing projects. This is the city — the only one in the state — that allows housing permits to be appealed even after projects are entitled. This is the city where it costs an estimated $100,000 to build one tiny home for the homeless — up to 10 times more than in other Bay Area cities — and almost $1.2 million to build a single unit of affordable housing. This is the city that at one point celebrated plans to build a single public toilet for $1.7 million."

"1,000 days of meetings" sounds like the ultimate office horror movie.

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#53

Post by Der_Einzige »

thot_experiment wrote: post #16
floren wrote: post #2

Hey, congratulations SF. You spent over a decade whining about tech-bros and Google buses. Guess those problems are solved now!

after the huggingface event last night a group of us wasn't let into a bar/club because "y'all are nerds, we don't want your patronage" I don't think it's solved enough yet for their taste, what a beautifully schizoid city, never change, we should just throw money at the problem forever as a monument to hubris XD

The resentment happening from society towards us is spiraling out of control, and I say this as someone who was also at that meetup event yesterday. Pretty sad but we should expect it given how fast AI is going to hurt a lot of these people.

The world is finding that they want to always treat us nerds how they treated us in our formative years...

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#54

Post by JumpCrisscross »

McScrooge wrote: post #52

"This is the city where it can take 87 permits, 1,000 days of meetings and $500,000 in fees to build residential housing projects. This is the city — the only one in the state — that allows housing permits to be appealed even after projects are entitled. This is the city where it costs an estimated $100,000 to build one tiny home for the homeless — up to 10 times more than in other Bay Area cities — and almost $1.2 m…

The author follows up with measures the mayor is taking to fight this.

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#55

Post by kevingadd »

jleyank wrote: post #28
baron816 wrote: post #4

It all comes down to housing. If you make it affordable to build housing, you make housing affordable. If you make housing affordable, then you make services affordable.

I wonder whether homeowners talking about more affordable housing realize that includes their own house likely declining in value….

Home value does not (generally) matter to you day to day if you plan to actually live there. Hell, if the value of your home goes down that could lower your property taxes!

Of course in the US, homes are first and foremost an investment, so losing resale value is one of the worst things that could happen to a homeowner, or something.

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#56

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #53
thot_experiment wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

after the huggingface event last night a group of us wasn't let into a bar/club because "y'all are nerds, we don't want your patronage" I don't think it's solved enough yet for their taste, what a beautifully schizoid city, never change, we should just throw money at the problem forever as a monument to hubris XD

The resentment happening from society towards us is spiraling out of control, and I say this as someone who was also at that meetup event yesterday. Pretty sad but we should expect it given how fast AI is going to hurt a lot of these people. The world is finding that they want to always treat us nerds how they treated us in our formative years...

> we should expect it given how fast AI is going to hurt a lot of these people

It has nothing to do with tangible harm and a lot with the attitude of techno public figures, as well as, in San Francisco, the civic detachment of its tech workers.

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#57

Post by trgn »

jleyank wrote: post #28
baron816 wrote: post #4

It all comes down to housing. If you make it affordable to build housing, you make housing affordable. If you make housing affordable, then you make services affordable.

I wonder whether homeowners talking about more affordable housing realize that includes their own house likely declining in value….

House value means nothing. For home owners, it's a guarantee to be able to stay in place. Californian home owners are all millionaires, but will never see that wealth materialize if they or their children want to stay in the same area.

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#58

Post by ghaff »

dehrmann wrote: post #44

I'm not convinced. There's a reason people came back faster to almost every other major city. This makes me think a lot of people were just there for the money, and once they could get the same money without the hassle of the city, they did just that. The problem is adding more housing downtown doesn't really help the problem beyond making a shorter commute (to WFH jobs?). Especially for the people who moved out, SF'…

There are certainly reasons other than jobs why some people choose to live in a major city. But eliminate the job/commute reason and the calculus changes for a lot of people given that "live near work" is at least one of the main reasons they would choose urban living.

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#59

Post by scottydog51834 »

Starting 1-2 months ago, many people, myself included, have started saying "SF is back" after observing the excitement surrounding, attendance at, and quantity of Generative AI events. It's too early to know how permanent this effect will be, but an article discussing SF collapse should at least mention the possibility that decline has ended and attempt to explain why event attendance won't be the first step towards recovery.

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#60

Post by adrr »

jleyank wrote: post #28
baron816 wrote: post #4

It all comes down to housing. If you make it affordable to build housing, you make housing affordable. If you make housing affordable, then you make services affordable.

I wonder whether homeowners talking about more affordable housing realize that includes their own house likely declining in value….

If you own a single family home, your home value is going to skyrocket like NY. Remove restrictions around height and multi family zoning.
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