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Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

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Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#91

Post by dragonwriter »

Vraxx wrote: post #85
dragonwriter wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cities are dynamic, constantly changing organisms. Try to keep a city from changing over decades is like forcing a 9-year-old kid to wear diapers and sleep in a crib because you liked the way it was as a baby and you never want it to change. Well, except that cities, even if viewed as "organisms", aren't people, they serve people, and its quite natural for people to want them kept in the state that they feel best s…

I think this metaphor might actually be able to be stretched a little more. Even as an organism purposed only to serve us, the fact that us humans change means that we're likely to be better served by something that can change with us. Just because you liked it as a baby and think it is best able to suit your needs as it was, doesn't mean that it won't be better suited to serve your needs as a functional adult. I thi…

> the fact that us humans change means that we're likely to be better served by something that can change with us.

Sure, and even people that oppose change on one axis (like density) often support other changes in their city.

People, of course, disagree on what changes are desired and which are disliked, but that's the nature of subjective preferences.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#92

Post by goseeastarwar »

xienze wrote: post #17
hx87 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like many other problems in California, this one can be largely traced back to a single source: Proposition 13

Which was created to combat the problem of grandma kicked out of her house because she can't afford her property taxes. How do you get around that?

There's a simple solution:

The city puts on the lien on the home for the value of the accumulated rise in property taxes. Once the owner dies, family members sell the house, and pay off the lien.

I have no idea why Prop 13 was created when the aforementioned solution allows grandma to stay in her house without destroying the housing market in the process.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#93

Post by ryfm »

Johnny555 wrote: post #15
baron816 wrote: post #9

Why are people so adamantly opposed to density? Well, I know the reason is to prop up the value of their homes, but if you think about places like New York, London, and Paris, that argument doesn't exactly hold. Those cities are incredibly dense and expensive, but people love living there enough to pay the high prices. People who can live anywhere choose to live there. I'm willing to bet that SV could triple its popu…

I think it's because they are so attached to their cars, and more density brings more traffic. Especially when starting with a low-density neighborhood that's poorly served by transit and everyone that lives there is tied to their car. Places like NYC, London, and Paris have great public transit systems, it's easy to live there without a car, but much harder to do that in spread out Silicon Valley, even if you live n…

no, i'm not attached to my car, i just want some privacy and a quite area. i used to leave in 3 countries, changed a number of cities (from 50K to 10M) lived in all types of appartments and i finally have had enough of noisy neigbours in the middle of night.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#94

Post by Johnny555 »

ryfm wrote: post #93
Johnny555 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's because they are so attached to their cars, and more density brings more traffic. Especially when starting with a low-density neighborhood that's poorly served by transit and everyone that lives there is tied to their car. Places like NYC, London, and Paris have great public transit systems, it's easy to live there without a car, but much harder to do that in spread out Silicon Valley, even if you live n…

no, i'm not attached to my car, i just want some privacy and a quite area. i used to leave in 3 countries, changed a number of cities (from 50K to 10M) lived in all types of appartments and i finally have had enough of noisy neigbours in the middle of night.

I live in a townhouse with neighbors on both sides and never hear any of the neighbors (except for when their kids are playing in the back patio). Quality construction can go a long way toward giving you the privacy you desire. no need to separate houses by 30 feet of grass.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#95

Post by disposeofnick9 »

theseatoms wrote: post #86
disposeofnick9 wrote: post #19

I live in a VW somewhere in Silicon Valley. Ask me anything (respectful, non-troll) EDIT: I don't usually bite, but when I do, I won't eat much.

Where do you crap?

Bathrooms in corporate-owned establishments because there's no sense imposing unnecessary costs on independent shops whom cannot best afford it. Plan your day, schedule your meals and surprises are reduced. And for emergency or actual camping use only, I also have a compact, compostable toilet with the disposable bags (it's just a frame and disposable bags).

On a slightly different subject, I suggest anyone considering living a habitable vehicle not use on-board plumbing or sewage systems because they're messy, time-consuming and expensive to maintain. The vehicle I use only has a water tank but I still use water-store RO water in a washable refrigerator bottle. Using a tank and sink system requires flushing and sterilization periodically, and is often awkward to fill sanitarily.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#96

Post by hx87 »

archagon wrote: post #83
Futurebot wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You chase everyone out it means: - Service workers (everything from baristas to cops to teachers) either disappear or have to deal with punishing commutes - Brain drain. When even people making a decent salary get pushed out, it's bad for cities ( http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/05/26/silicon-valley-e... ) - Many people believe living in the place one was born/grew up in should be a right. That's a value differ…

Will highrises and density bring rent down? I think it's been shown that the number of houses needed to actually do that is enormous. In practice, what's likely to happen is that the city will fill up with even more of the well-off. (That is to say, people working in tech.) In a decade rent might come back down, but by then all those groups will be long gone anyway. Personally, I don't have any vested interest SF hou…

At any given density, replacing low-rises with high-rises will bring rent down, as long as construction isn't overly burdened with neighborhood review and low-income-unit requirements. Sure, a lot of units will need to be constructed for rents to come down a significant amount, but a massive swath of the western sections of the city consists of 1-3 story single family houses, maybe with a shop on the first floor, which are ripe for conversion into 5-story walk-ups. That alone will provide a significant boost to housing stock without the seismic and elevator costs of high-rises.

SF isn't my favorite city either, but what has happened in my current and favorite city (Boston) has made my less sympathetic to NIMBYs, both the high-income (I want my house to appreciate without doing any work!) and low-income (I want 20% of units just for me!/Screw the middle class!) types--they are the ones making things worse. Cities grow because businesses move there, and businesses move there because they want to be close to and network with other businesses. Employees can't exactly prevent that by staying in Nowhere, KS. I agree, there isn't any moral imperative for cities for keep growing, but for now at least, there is a practical one, and thus there is a moral imperative for cities to accommodate those to wish to live there.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#97

Post by archagon »

hx87 wrote: post #88
archagon wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a "technie" myself, I feel no one really addresses the undercurrent of entitlement to live in the city. Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the sense that a lot of the housing discussion in the tech community boils down to "but... I really want to live in SF for cheap". From what I understand, it's very common for programmers to live in the (very expensive) city and commute down to the South Bay for work. That's n…

It is a necessity, because the rest of the Bay Area has even higher housing costs--at least the parts that aren't subject to terrible commutes, which are in large part caused by Proposition 13 starving governments of revenue. They don't want to live in SF for cheap, but they do want to live in SF for not-soul-crushingly-sums-of-money. Wanting to live where you work is certainly not an entitlement, at least not more t…

But tech industry salaries are inflated in lockstep. The rule of thumb is 30% of your income for rent, which is appropriate for $100k+ entry-level salaries. Also, out of the (admittedly very small and anecdotal) subset of programmers living in SF I've talked to, most have indicated that they live in SF because they like it there, not because it's cheaper than South Bay.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#98

Post by gohrt »

Johnny555 wrote: post #94
ryfm wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, i'm not attached to my car, i just want some privacy and a quite area. i used to leave in 3 countries, changed a number of cities (from 50K to 10M) lived in all types of appartments and i finally have had enough of noisy neigbours in the middle of night.

I live in a townhouse with neighbors on both sides and never hear any of the neighbors (except for when their kids are playing in the back patio). Quality construction can go a long way toward giving you the privacy you desire. no need to separate houses by 30 feet of grass.

Separate houses and grass don't provide any meaningful sound protection. They may get you down from "100 offensive sounds per day" to 10, but that's far less effective than just building proper insulation.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#99

Post by dragonwriter »

xienze wrote: post #17
hx87 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like many other problems in California, this one can be largely traced back to a single source: Proposition 13

Which was created to combat the problem of grandma kicked out of her house because she can't afford her property taxes. How do you get around that?

> Which was created to combat the problem of grandma kicked out of her house because she can't afford her property taxes. How do you get around that?

No, it wasn't created to combat that problem; if it was, it would have (even had the same general approach been used) been narrowly drawn to residential property, and maybe even only to properties that are primary residence of the owner.

> How do you get around that?

Lots of ways, including going to full value annual assessment of all property, but allow, for owner-occupied primary residences, deferment of taxes in excess of the lesser of the total tax due in the year of sale [0] increased by 2% per year since the sale or some function of the owner's income (the exact function is an implementation detailed) to be deferred until the property is sold [0], with the taxing authority acquiring a lien on the property.

[0] Note that you can expand "sale" to include the same kind of improvements that allow new assessments under Prop 13, as well.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#100

Post by ryfm »

Johnny555 wrote: post #94
ryfm wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, i'm not attached to my car, i just want some privacy and a quite area. i used to leave in 3 countries, changed a number of cities (from 50K to 10M) lived in all types of appartments and i finally have had enough of noisy neigbours in the middle of night.

I live in a townhouse with neighbors on both sides and never hear any of the neighbors (except for when their kids are playing in the back patio). Quality construction can go a long way toward giving you the privacy you desire. no need to separate houses by 30 feet of grass.

townhouse is almost a house in that regard, now try a highrise where you can't choose quality construction. once when i rented appartments on the sixth floor i had to call the police to stop an argument happening on the 4th floor in the middle of the night. and i'm not even talking about some kids showing off theirs 'sporty' bikes/cars at 2am.
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