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California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

nytimes.com

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Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#71

Post by rhinoceraptor »

xvedejas wrote: post #27
uniformlyrandom wrote: post #11

How about we talk about building infrastructure? The whole Bay Area is building like crazy, and yet the roads are getting worse (more building? more traffic lights!). Public transportation is a big joke around here. Caltrain from South San Jose to Mountain View? We have the tracks, we have the train... the train just does not go this route on weekends. We have the same situation as a startup focused on developing a p…

I'm not sure that the roads really support more peak traffic at this point. Rather, we can reduce the traffic and train crowding by building more housing near jobs so that workers need not embark on 50+ mile super-commutes each day. Housing _is_ infrastructure, and it's the piece of infrastructure we're most sorely missing.

Adding extra lanes to a road just increases the amount of people driving on them, instead of easing traffic. So I would bet the same is true of public transit.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#72

Post by xvedejas »

notJim wrote: post #49
uniformlyrandom wrote: post #11

How about we talk about building infrastructure? The whole Bay Area is building like crazy, and yet the roads are getting worse (more building? more traffic lights!). Public transportation is a big joke around here. Caltrain from South San Jose to Mountain View? We have the tracks, we have the train... the train just does not go this route on weekends. We have the same situation as a startup focused on developing a p…

Isn't SF building two new subway lines right now? I agree it should be faster and better, but I don't think it's true that nothing is being done. Also, in this case, they have the infrastructure, the NIMBYs are just hoarding it to themselves, as they do in Berkeley as well.

SF is building one new subway, and its ride-able underground portion will be just over one mile long. I agree it's something being done, but it's such a small drop in a large bucket of needs. We shouldn't wait for a public transit silver bullet to bring people to jobs, we need more housing near jobs so that people aren't forced to commute across the region.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#73

Post by ilamont »

fortran77 wrote: post #8

The answer _is_ building more. (I'll say this before the people on Hacker News who are opposed to all private property suggest that "prop 13" is the problem. It's not.) The problem is they don't build enough. Build build build! They need the California State Government to overrule local zoning limits. We need to allow dense housing near rail lines and major roads. And I think that anywhere a single-family detached ho…

Build more housing! It's that simple. Prices will fall fast.

How fast, and how much?

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#74

Post by pixxel »

DonHopkins wrote: post #29

This is what I chant when I'm waiting for my code to compile. I was hoping this was an article about how to make it compile faster. (Edit: the original title was "Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build Build"! ;)

In Steve Ballmer’s voice I hope.

(https://youtu.be/Vhh_GeBPOhs)

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#75

Post by Robotbeat »

rossdavidh wrote: post #34
aty268 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Texas, and I don't understand the stigma against developers building more housing. It drives down prices, and increases competition. Why would California citizens ever be against this? Edit: The reason is because homeowners are competing with developers, so their own asset depreciates when supply increases. I was just thinking from the perspective of renters.

Speaking as someone who lived in Bay Area California for a few years, and Texas for several decades now, the first thing to know if that not all California has the same attitude on this, for much the same reason that Waco and Austin have different attitudes on a lot of things. In the Bay Area, there are geographical (water and hills) limits to expansion, whereas in Texas when you build more, it usually is out into th…

> 1) made for high-income dwellers, thus not reducing prices, because the high-income and low-income housing markets are often effectively separate markets, like cars and semi-tractor trailors.

This is really a misnomer (and it is the linchpin of NIMBY arguments, especially in the Bay Area). If high income housing is not built, then high income people will inhabit and buy up the middle income housing, who in turn will inhabit and buy up low income housing, if they can find any at all.

You can see this clearly in the Bay Area. You have tiny houses going for like a couple million dollars.

In such an environment it's impossible to build stuff (at least, legally) that ISN'T high income housing as high income people are the only people who can afford any kind of housing in the area.

"But it's only made for high income dwellers." Build a cheap (but code-compliant) 600sqft studio in the Bay Area? Around $900/ft^2 would be the market price. It's only affordable to high income folk. A studio. This 161sqft studio in San Fran is $2300/month: https://www.businessinsider.com/smallest-apartment-for-rent-...

How is it even possible to build housing that isn't for high earners in San Francisco?

The only way to change is to build a LOT more and keep building. Or, I guess, destroy the entire local economy.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#76

Post by staplers »

Articles like this and the subsequent comments always reinforce to me that the human domain will never, or perhaps can never support wildlife and fauna.

As much as we like to grandstand against mass extinction of wildlife and deforestation, we will always cave to economical and social pressures of modern life which almost exclusively require resource extraction and destruction of the biosphere.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#78

Post by pound »

rossdavidh wrote: post #34
aty268 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Texas, and I don't understand the stigma against developers building more housing. It drives down prices, and increases competition. Why would California citizens ever be against this? Edit: The reason is because homeowners are competing with developers, so their own asset depreciates when supply increases. I was just thinking from the perspective of renters.

Speaking as someone who lived in Bay Area California for a few years, and Texas for several decades now, the first thing to know if that not all California has the same attitude on this, for much the same reason that Waco and Austin have different attitudes on a lot of things. In the Bay Area, there are geographical (water and hills) limits to expansion, whereas in Texas when you build more, it usually is out into th…

When there isn't enough housing for high-income buyers in their "separate" market, what happens is that 'separate' low-income market becomes market for high-income buyers to go after.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#80

Post by xvedejas »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #71
xvedejas wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that the roads really support more peak traffic at this point. Rather, we can reduce the traffic and train crowding by building more housing near jobs so that workers need not embark on 50+ mile super-commutes each day. Housing _is_ infrastructure, and it's the piece of infrastructure we're most sorely missing.

Adding extra lanes to a road just increases the amount of people driving on them, instead of easing traffic. So I would bet the same is true of public transit.

Right, so you reduce crowding by shortening trips, not by adding service. Ideally we do both and get lots of people using public transit for short trips.
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