Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California • Hacker News Board

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#91

Post by nostrademons » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

hnaccy wrote: post #69

snuxoll wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signs point to the 10 billionth (concurrently living) human being never being born, birth rates have begun to stabilize worldwide as more countries modernize. Remember, more educated populations with better health care reproduce less. It’s not an issue of limitless growth of the population, it’s an issue of the population consolidating into a smaller footprint (which from an ecological perspective is a Good Thing) an…

We're already over the carrying capacity if the world wants first world lifestyle.

Only if they want a first-world lifestyle, though.

Cut out meat, suburban lawns, and the cars that go with them, and the earth could support 10B people right now, at the living standards of a typical Millenial in a cosmopolitan metropolis.

Unfortunately, there's pretty good indications that most people on earth want those meats, suburban lawns, and cars, so I think it's more likely we'll get war instead. But it's totally doable, at a standard of living that people will grumble at but could abide.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#92

Post by carapace » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:22 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #27

opportune wrote: post #13

I walked around downtown San Bruno recently and it's honestly pathetic how this city is squandering their potential. Even on el camino real itself a lot of the property is being wasted on auto repair shops and fast food places, 2-3 story buildings, etc. This place could be way, way better given its proximity to the airport and SF.

I mean, I don't know how to tell you guys, but from the perspective of an east coaster, the entire peninsula (including SF) looks like this. It feels like some kind of parallel universe where nothing makes sense. Like I hear about a housing crisis in SF but I go there and there are supermarkets surrounded by parking lots in the middle of the city. There are literal big-box stores like you'd see in the suburbs adjacen…

It's because we're hella young out here. Relative to the East Coast anyway (I mean, London has Roman ruins...)

Do an image search for old timey SF and you'll see: the Sunset was sand dunes until about last Tuesday, etc. Dudes used to pan for gold out by Lake Merced.

Also, this was the weirdo town. Bohemia on the Bay. Serious folk didn't really come here to be serious and sane. The old line was, "All the crazy people move to California, and all the crazy people in California move to San Francisco." To which residents add, "And all the people too crazy for San Francisco move to Berkeley."

So yeah, you've got a young town full of nuts and flakes that no one really paid much attention to until the last ~50 years or so, whadda ya expect, eh?

Things are changing though. I was over in the Inner Sunset the other day and the beautiful people were there casting me in the shade because I look too close to homeless on the hipster/homeless spectrum.

My concern is the weakening of the commitment to keeping the wild areas of the Bay Area wild. SF is the largest city with the most wilderness around it in the world. Marin Headlands, Wildcat canyon et. al., nearly half of the peninsula is forest. I saw a coyote in someone's front yard on Junipero Serra the other day not three blocks from Stonestown Mall! In a neighborhood of single family homes, FWIW.

I don't think it would be the best of all possible worlds to make the bay area look like Manhattan or Tokyo. On the other hand, it sucks that I can't afford an apartment in my home town, let alone ever own a home, despite making programmer money. I can't imagine what it would be like if I didn't have tech skills. I'd probably be living in a tent under the freeway.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#93

Post by ctdonath » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:22 PM UTC

floren wrote: post #78

ctdonath wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looked. Prolific lakefront opportunities, lots of suitable roads in place. Base town already there. LinkedIn shows >25000 tech jobs in the state, many well into the $100k range (remember, extremely low cost of living). Just need someone to (profitably!) take on making it easy to move there.

> LinkedIn shows >25000 tech jobs in the state, many well into the $100k range (remember, extremely low cost of living). They don't even have to be in the state, right? Because the core concept was that a remote-working code-slinger could live anywhere. Another neat point about Rugby: it's apparently got gigabit ethernet service through North Dakota Telephone Co, although you'll pay $220/mo for that service.

I gave in-state jobs to show there is a tech environment. Indeed, the goal is to promote remote work, make living there point-and-click easy, and attract a critical mass of introverts who want open spaces and who, by simply being there en masse, attract a growing population.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#94

Post by ericd » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:23 PM UTC

markbnj wrote: post #59

btilly wrote: post #51

I have suggested this before, and I'll suggest this again. The whole problem could be solved if we gave people the choice of voting where they work rather than where they live. Currently every city wants all the businesses that they can get because businesses generate lots of tax revenues. Cities do not want apartments because that doesn't generate revenue, and locals object on the basis of NIMBYism. But when everyon…

> Cities do not want apartments because that doesn't generate revenue The property owners still pay tax on it don't they? I'm sure it is less lucrative per square foot than commercial development, but I assume it is still better than the revenue from the closed furniture store and parking lot, and after all you need people to patronize businesses.

Prop 13 makes it so that revenue from residential doesn't keep pace with costs over time. Parking lots don't really add much in terms of city services costs - no schools, parks, water treatment, etc.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#95

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:23 PM UTC

i_am_proteus wrote: post #70

markbnj wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cities do not want apartments because that doesn't generate revenue The property owners still pay tax on it don't they? I'm sure it is less lucrative per square foot than commercial development, but I assume it is still better than the revenue from the closed furniture store and parking lot, and after all you need people to patronize businesses.

Perhaps it's something to do with how California has lower property taxes (partially due to Prop. 13) and higher income taxes-- but those income taxes go to Sacramento, not to municipalities. In other parts of the country, municipal treasuries grow as volume and prices of residential units grow.

California does feedback some income tax revenue to localities (mostly to schools).

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#96

Post by r00fus » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:24 PM UTC

markbnj wrote: post #59

btilly wrote: post #51

I have suggested this before, and I'll suggest this again. The whole problem could be solved if we gave people the choice of voting where they work rather than where they live. Currently every city wants all the businesses that they can get because businesses generate lots of tax revenues. Cities do not want apartments because that doesn't generate revenue, and locals object on the basis of NIMBYism. But when everyon…

> Cities do not want apartments because that doesn't generate revenue The property owners still pay tax on it don't they? I'm sure it is less lucrative per square foot than commercial development, but I assume it is still better than the revenue from the closed furniture store and parking lot, and after all you need people to patronize businesses.

Not in CA - Prop13 + corporate shell board of director transfers means the tax rate never increases, and after 40+ years, that means a lot of properties essentially pay a fraction of the taxes they should.

Prop13 has had a LOT of unintended consequences.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#97

Post by joe_the_user » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:24 PM UTC

i_am_proteus wrote: post #37

CPLX wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I don't know how to tell you guys, but from the perspective of an east coaster, the entire peninsula (including SF) looks like this. It feels like some kind of parallel universe where nothing makes sense. Like I hear about a housing crisis in SF but I go there and there are supermarkets surrounded by parking lots in the middle of the city. There are literal big-box stores like you'd see in the suburbs adjacen…

There I was, thinking I was the only one. It's insane. When I first got here from the east coast, I thought maybe there was some reason involving earthquake codes. And then I learned. I used to live in NYC, a city that's had its own difficulties adding new housing, corruption in the permitting process, considering too many areas "historic." But the Bay Area is something completely different. It seems that everyone wh…

Oddly enough, the housing structure of the SF Bay Area has a certain resemblance to ... the Boeing 737 Max. It's a system where some one parts/aspects/dimensions are kept at a certain backward (but once functional and "good") level while other parts/aspects/dimensions are automated/modernized to the hilt (basically to game regulation and so markets).

Elaborate efforts have been made to adapt the contradictory parts, efforts that worked adequately for a while but which are now coming apart, leaving a situation with no way forward at all.

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#98

Post by opportune » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:25 PM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #88

It's not peak housing dysfunction, but rather peak entitlement. Why is it important to accommodate people who might want to live in or move to an area despite local incumbents' wishes to not have their neighborhood change? Does everyone have the right to live anywhere they want to live without having to pay the necessary price to be there? For example, does everyone have a right to expect a residence on a Hawaii beac…

>and they/others should not demonize those who were already there and want to preserve their culture/way of life/standards of living.

This has a limit, namely, that we who move in are going to vote to change things, and the only way bay area property owners can prevent that is to not get rich off their property by selling or renting it at sky-high prices to new residents. To put their money where their mouth is and not change things, bay area residents need to not be getting rich off the density that they are nominally trying to fight. Otherwise it's just delaying a lost cause - population growth, and a shift in demographics from owners to renters, will inevitably happen barring some big tech recession. Once there are enough renters voting in municipal elections, change will come

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#99

Post by evilolive » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:26 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #3

It's being overdone. A solid wall of railroad flats (cheezy "luxury" condos) is going up for miles along the Caltrain tracks. Those wooden multistory buildings are the slums of tomorrow. It's about time for the next Bay Area recession. Some of those buildings will never be fully occupied. Remember 2008? 2001?

So .. you prefer seeing a derelict furniture store and its empty parking lot in your community than a maybe "cheezy condo" unit, a new grocery store, and some affordable housing units. Care to explain the motivation for statu quo here?

Re: Approaching Peak Housing Dysfunction in California

#100

Post by ff317 » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 9:28 PM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #48

ctdonath wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just spent 3 weeks in the US Midwest. There is plenty of land to use, thousands of square miles of empty rolling grassy plains. (Ex.: South Dakota averages 11 people per square mile.) Apply a little modern technology (solar/wind, water storage/purification, insulation, Starlink satellite internet) and nobody need complain of population density. There's a startup waiting to happen: self-sufficient high-tech prefab h…

If people are going to live anything resembling a modern American lifestyle, then gathering people together in cities has much lower environmental impact and lower infrastructure costs than spreading them around South Dakota. People don’t expect just electricity and plumbing, they also expect modern construction techniques, roads, police, fire suppression, emergency response, schools, full-service hospitals, telecomm…

South Dakota (and other such places) have most of those things up to reasonable standards, except perhaps the (well-connected) telecoms and airports in some cases. All of those things can come together as the population scales up and demands them.

I agree that gathering people into larger population centers is way more efficient for us and the planet, but I don't think anyone's arguing for us all to spread out on 10 acre farmsteads.

The middle ground is just to build more decently-sized cities in all of the vast available land. Why fight for overpriced artificially scarce land in San Francisco when there are 20 other SF-equivalent cities a state or two away (existing ones, or ones that could be hypothetically built). "Location, location, location" has got to stop being the reason people choose a city.

As a side bonus: by moving a bunch of coastal persons back into the flyover country, you're re-exporting newer cultural norms into those backwaters, perhaps enough to cause meaningful cultural and political reform in places that sorely need it!