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17.1 Salesforce Towers worth of empty office space spread across SF

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Re: 17.1 Salesforce Towers worth of empty office space spread across SF

#61

Post by geodel »

majormajor wrote: post #33
legitster wrote: post #23

US cities are going to be in a world of hurt here pretty soon. Cities exist as job markets. And the primary force that keeps urban areas safe and friendly is the shoeleather of middle class workers coming in and out of work each day. The vacuum left has been filled with homelessness and poverty. These people were always here, but there was enough critical mass that they were at the margins. Now they are at all of the…

> Cities often had their priorities backwards and became very dependent on unsustainably high property values. Even if you started rezoning office buildings into housing, SF would be taking a double hit - there is less reason to live in SF and more housing would bring down values everywhere. Forgetting that these business districts are pretty undesirable places to live anyway. Let's thought experiment this. In one wo…

Before I run this thought experiment, I'd like to know what percentage of top 20-30-50 cities in the world where average income people are not priced out of city centers / downtowns or other desirable areas.

Re: 17.1 Salesforce Towers worth of empty office space spread across SF

#62

Post by renewiltord »

pessimizer wrote: post #30
brandur wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually, who am I kidding- some other interest group would probably take their place. This is it unfortunately. After observing the SF NIMBY mentality for many, many years, you start to see the matrix. It has nothing to do with gentrification, inclusion, environmentalism, or any of the other purported values. It's about one thing: stasis. Keeping SF the same at all costs, and making sure no new people come here. S…

> It has nothing to do with gentrification, inclusion, environmentalism, or any of the other purported values. It's about one thing: stasis. Keeping SF the same at all costs, and making sure no new people come here. No. You're just monstering your enemies so you don't have to argue with them. Poisoning the well.

Ultimately, doesn't take much work when they tried very hard to preserve the Nordstrom Valet Parking lot over building a tower block there haha. In the end, Nordstrom left too, so now it's all just blight.

Re: 17.1 Salesforce Towers worth of empty office space spread across SF

#63

Post by prpl »

lattalayta wrote: post #22
theandrewbailey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cutting rent means that the property is worth less. That means investors are demanding to know why the property is worth less, and the city collects less property taxes which might lead to politicians asking questions. While all that may be necessary, it won't happen until it's the only thing that can happen.

How much longer do you think property managers can hold out?

probably just long enough to ruin downtown for a good decade or more

Re: 17.1 Salesforce Towers worth of empty office space spread across SF

#64

Post by renewiltord »

Ultimately, all this is not leading to lower commercial rents. So if we can wait until borrowers default, maybe it will. But for now, I'd like a cooled office where I can put a few racks of servers downtown and plug some fiber. I do want access for the moment. Let me know if interested.

Re: 17.1 Salesforce Towers worth of empty office space spread across SF

#65

Post by unmole »

legitster wrote: post #56
newsclues wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Cities exist as job markets." That's changing. Cities are beginning to exist as playgrounds for the privileged.

Maybe NYC or a few other coastal "cool" cities, but for the vast majority of urban areas I am familiar with this doesn't seem to be the case.

So, the ~9 Million people who live in New York don't have jobs other than catering to the privileged?

Re: 17.1 Salesforce Towers worth of empty office space spread across SF

#66

Post by majormajor »

geodel wrote: post #61
majormajor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cities often had their priorities backwards and became very dependent on unsustainably high property values. Even if you started rezoning office buildings into housing, SF would be taking a double hit - there is less reason to live in SF and more housing would bring down values everywhere. Forgetting that these business districts are pretty undesirable places to live anyway. Let's thought experiment this. In one wo…

Before I run this thought experiment, I'd like to know what percentage of top 20-30-50 cities in the world where average income people are not priced out of city centers / downtowns or other desirable areas.

I don't entirely understand your question, but the one bit I do want to address is that it's somewhat tautological that average incomes will be priced out of [the most] desirable places.

The issue with SF that the OP here is trying to extrapolate to US cities as a whole is rather more like "priced out of literally every part of town other than a tent on the street" while at the same time having huge amounts of empty space in buildings, which is a very precarious position and one that's far less common in large US cities/metro areas. (There's also a unique aspect about SF being quite small, city-wise, by US standards and much of its surrounding suburbs also being obscenely expensive across the board; SF itself could suffer big hits to population and desirability and that may or may not have much impact on the rest of the Bay Area).

Re: 17.1 Salesforce Towers worth of empty office space spread across SF

#67

Post by legitster »

majormajor wrote: post #33
legitster wrote: post #23

US cities are going to be in a world of hurt here pretty soon. Cities exist as job markets. And the primary force that keeps urban areas safe and friendly is the shoeleather of middle class workers coming in and out of work each day. The vacuum left has been filled with homelessness and poverty. These people were always here, but there was enough critical mass that they were at the margins. Now they are at all of the…

> Cities often had their priorities backwards and became very dependent on unsustainably high property values. Even if you started rezoning office buildings into housing, SF would be taking a double hit - there is less reason to live in SF and more housing would bring down values everywhere. Forgetting that these business districts are pretty undesirable places to live anyway. Let's thought experiment this. In one wo…

I don't disagree with anything here except the idea that (for most cities, at least) cheap housing creates growth. Especially after reading Alain Bertaud (who I would strongly recommend on this topic).

On the other side of the scale you have cities like Detroit. There is no shortage of cheap housing and culture. But without enough career prospects, the city struggles for opposite reasons. If anything, homelessness is actually worse because the city services are stretched so thin across such a large geographic area with so much poverty.

Most cities in the US are somewhere in the middle. SF is uniquely bad in how terribly they let basic livability get for even their highest income earners.

Re: 17.1 Salesforce Towers worth of empty office space spread across SF

#68

Post by majormajor »

legitster wrote: post #67
majormajor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cities often had their priorities backwards and became very dependent on unsustainably high property values. Even if you started rezoning office buildings into housing, SF would be taking a double hit - there is less reason to live in SF and more housing would bring down values everywhere. Forgetting that these business districts are pretty undesirable places to live anyway. Let's thought experiment this. In one wo…

I don't disagree with anything here except the idea that (for most cities, at least) cheap housing creates growth. Especially after reading Alain Bertaud (who I would strongly recommend on this topic). On the other side of the scale you have cities like Detroit. There is no shortage of cheap housing and culture. But without enough career prospects, the city struggles for opposite reasons. If anything, homelessness is…

> I don't disagree with anything here except the idea that (for most cities, at least) cheap housing creates growth. Especially after reading Alain Bertaud (who I would strongly recommend on this topic).

What would recommend as a starting point for Bertaud?

I think Rust Belt/NE US cities have a huge weather disadvantage that makes it hard for a place like Detroit to attract people back once they lose them; I don't think SF has that same problem. I see it as the difference between "affordable because of low demand" (where they're also competing with the literal middle of nowhere) and "affordable because of adequate supply". Once you jump-start the demand (with the jobs and all - another thing the Sun Belt cities and states did very deliberately) the cities in the latter situation that keep building so they stay "affordable-ish" will never be as affordable as the ones that simply aren't desirable, but they can also avoid being so fragile as modern SF. You gotta jump-start it first, but then the presence of continual new, affordable-ish housing becomes a factor that draws more business due to lower COL (like any of a number of relocation announcements from CA to TX).

(I would, though probably-controversially, claim that the biggest problem of SF in the last 20 years was not solely "didn't build enough housing" but "allowed way too much office space for the amount of residential they wanted" - I think they could've done slower residential demand growth in a more sustainable way if they'd better balanced what they wanted early on. The lack of balance meant the proceeds of the industry they did have couldn't be re-invested into other jobs and industries in the city, it was all just going to stupid high rent and property prices.)

Re: 17.1 Salesforce Towers worth of empty office space spread across SF

#69

Post by asdajksah2123 »

unmole wrote: post #65
legitster wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe NYC or a few other coastal "cool" cities, but for the vast majority of urban areas I am familiar with this doesn't seem to be the case.

So, the ~9 Million people who live in New York don't have jobs other than catering to the privileged ?

Americans have a strange idea of what cities are because the vast majority of Americans live in suburbs, or cities that are basically suburbs, or cities that have been modified to cater to suburbs.

Re: 17.1 Salesforce Towers worth of empty office space spread across SF

#70

Post by oofta-boofta »

Thoeu388 wrote: post #20

I would love to have my own habitable storage unit in downtown SF. 200sqf, air vents, no windows, shared bathroom with shower. It would be great as a base while traveling. I could visit between changing flights, and swap some of my gear. Occasionally I would sleep there.

You're describing a flophouse and/or SRO. They were slumlord-specials for a long time in the US, but where mostly regulated away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flophouse

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