> To subsidize affordable homes for 100,000 people would cost $25 billion. So yes, we should build as much subsidized affordable housing as we can.
What?! Why on earth would I want my tax dollars subsidizing your rent? I mean, charity to the poor, homeless, etc. is one thing (it's good), but subsidizing your rent so you can be closer to boutique coffee shops? Instead of, you know, helping the truly needy get health care? Or investing in education? Gimme a break.
> If we want to actually make the city affordable for most people—a place where a young person or an immigrant can move to pursue their dreams
Why does San Fran specifically have to be that place? The Bay Area's a big place.
By the end of the article, the author's right about needing a more integrated metropolitan policy, but this attitude that "everyone deserves to live in San Francisco, even people with no money" gets tiring after a while. Neighborhoods and cities gentrify. People move elsewhere, to the new-and-upcoming-and-more-interesting neighborhoods/cities. Places change. That's just how it is.
Any thriving city needs a mix of people. If for no other reason, then think out support staff. What about waitresses, cooks, cleaning staff, janitors, bus drivers or any number of low-paying/skill but absolutely needed workers. Where should they live? Why can't they live close to work? And if they need to commute into the city to work, how far out can they get pushed before it's not worth it any more?
Thinking that an entire city could consist of highly paid tech workers is a fantasy.
And what about families? It's next to impossible to afford to have a family in the city. What will those tech workers do when they want to start a family? Do you really want them all moving to the east bay instead of helping to grow the city?
This is easy, change the stupid zoning and density restrictions in SF and the builders will come and capitalize on the pent up housing demand. Increased inventory in the main parts of the city will lower prices elsewhere -- basic supply and demand, no subsidies needed.
the city remained a walkable, urban paradise compared to most of America.
Most higher density cities are even more walkable urban paradises. Plus they have the added benefit of far better public transport than SF offers.
People don't deserve to live in San Francisco (i.e. it's not some basic right that needs to be met through subsidized housing), but San Francisco deserves to have a diverse set of people if it is to be a great city, and not just a millionaire enclave.
From the city's point of view, there's a problem to be solved in terms of getting different kinds of people in the city.
You seem to only be able to see the world for the way it is now, and has been over the recent past. Getting stuck on these thinking patterns is self-limiting, much like getting stuck on a programming language like PHP-- both are one-trick-ponies. We thankfully live in a world that, long term, is driven by imagination and possibility. And not always are the "leaders" complete and massive assholes (which is our main immediate problem at this moment in time).
But urban centers are where everyone IS. Its where connections happen and where people are mutually drawn, even if their address doesn't say they live there. The opportunities for a wider range of connections and possibilities are what breathe life into a city--what has allowed San Francisco to make the transition away from industry as gracefully as it has.
Manhattan is the nucleus of New York. San Francisco is the nucleus of the Bay Area. If you lose that center, you end up with the nonsense sprawl that is LA. No common place for people to meet and come together. No way to rationalize or prioritize transit and other public needs.
The solution doesn't have to be subsidized housing. Better public transit allows people to reside further away and still have access to the city's opportunities, and gives everyone more mobility. But if it is becomes impossible for new people and young people to access the city because of pricing or traffic, how can San Francisco continue to flourish? Places change, but ensuring they change in a positive direction takes hard work and intention.
> Why on earth would I want my tax dollars subsidizing your rent?
Because service jobs and because traffic congestion and because all service job related prices.
Some counties and states provide "affordable" housing for people who work in that county if they make below a certain wage and above a certain wage. They basically make it affordable for taxi drivers, waiters, cooks, delivery people and other low paid job workers to live in that area. This way those people are not driving from farther way increasing congestion on the roads and I guess as a side-effect lower the prices in those particular areas (food, taxi, etc).
Now whether that is desirable, it is a net beneficial thing or not or just creates more problems I don't know, I am just presenting one reason some localities do it.
I've long thought that the bay area's major problem is not necessarily problems with San Francisco proper (though the strong aversion to high-rises while complaining about the increasingly cut-throat and expensive real estate market is hilarious to me), but that the "outer boroughs" are so incredibly unattractive because the transit system is incredibly inadequate.
Living in Queens, Brooklyn, hell even Jersey is an incredibly reasonable option if you live in New York. You trade some commuting time for lower prices, and certainly Flushing doesn't have the same appeal as SoHo. But it's never a question of "oh my god it's after midnight how am I going to get home?" like I experienced when living in the bay area.
It almost seems like San Francisco has a huge aversion to becoming a metropolis, but the problem is that the city really doesn't have a choice in the matter.
"It almost seems like San Francisco has a huge aversion to becoming a metropolis, but the problem is that the city really doesn't have a choice in the matter."
I've lived in the Bay Area for 30 years and this is my take on it as well. The city of San Francisco (and by that I mean its government) sounds like a 35 year old insisting they are still a teenager. The most interesting thing to watch was that some development "snuck in" in the south of market area and that really really surprised people in terms of people living there. When I moved here SoMa was 'warehouses, drunks, and a train station." Now it is a growing and thriving community of the new executive class. Oops.
"It almost seems like San Francisco has a huge aversion to becoming a metropolis, but the problem is that the city really doesn't have a choice in the matter."
You've hit the nail on the head. Something will have to give, as while rents can go up forever, citizen's income won't.
This. Transportation in the bay area is awful. I lived in San Jose and it would take me 2+ hours to get to SF by public transit, even at peak times. If I was in SF after midnight, I was literally stuck for the night. One time I had to take an airport SuperShuttle back to SJC just to get anywhere near my apt. because I tried to leave SF at 11pm on a Sunday. I can't even imagine what would happen if it was that hard to get between Newark and NYC.
This is exactly the problem. If people stop thinking of SF as its own city and rather just an expensive neighborhood in the larger "city" of the Bay Area, they wouldn't clamor so much about high costs. It's the lack of good transit connecting all these scattered neighborhoods that is the main problem.
I recently spent some time in SF for the first time, coming from Seattle, and I was amazed to find that the transit is barely on par with Seattle's (which is not a compliment) despite the fact that SF is a much denser, more urban city. Bart is a joke- there's a single line within the actual city.
I lived in Oakland (17th, on Lake Merritt) back in 97/98, coming in from Canada and attracted by the low rent. I got the hell out of there as quickly as possible (moved to Sunnyvale) - Every night consisted me of taking my life into my own hands as I tried to walk the 5 or so blocks from Bart to my apartment.
A week ago, after not having visited for about 10 years, I toured the old neighborhood and was astonished at how much it had changed - it was after dark on a friday night - and there were actually a lot of people out, walking around the lake, restaurants open.
HUGE shift in gentrification of the area. This is a very positive impact of the San Francisco housing situation.
Still not quite safe enough for me to consider a nightly walk home from BART.
Looking for a place in Oakland a few months ago, I was amazed how blasé people were about being assaulted, mugged or having their car stolen. Much as I prefer the EB vibe, I think living under constant threat of violence would stress me out.
I used to think that too, but then my friend pointed out that it just shifts the problem elsewhere. This is DC, not SF, but the gentrification of DC has meant that a lot of problems (as well as longtime DC residents who can no longer afford the rent) have simply been pushed out to PG County.
If any SF residents agree with the sentiment of this article, I'd recommend voting in the upcoming election. Props B & C will allow a project with new housing, retail, and open space to be built downtown. I support the project not because it's perfectly designed, but because it would set a terrible precedent for future development in the city if opponents successfully use the referendum process to block it. Ironically, many of the same people opposed to the project are the ones who are complaining the most about rising rents. Even though the project certainly isn't low- or middle-income housing, it will relieve some of the demand that would otherwise be placed on housing for lower incomes.
Yes, Prop C is a ridiculous attempt to subvert the planning process. For the record, 8 Washington was approved by the Port Commission, Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors. And yet, here we are with this measure.
Another one to watch out for is the Mexican Museum Tower (706 Mission). There have been rumblings that a few of the owners in the Four Seasons Tower don't care for the tall building obstructing their views:
http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2013/07/an_unfriendly_ult...
Depending on the results of the November ballot, we may be seeing more of these.
I'm not anti-development but your last statement is not necessarily guaranteed. These days new units are being sold off-plan before construction to wealthy international non-residents who simply want to park their money. They will remain empty. Unless there are provisions in the permits to prevent this, but it's difficult to enforce.
> it will relieve some of the demand that would otherwise be placed on housing for lower incomes.
I don't know if this is necessarily true, in the same way that if you build an extra lane on a freeway you don't inherently reduce congestion - traffic simply expands to fill the available space.
Many people buying these new apartments and condos will be buying as an investment and renting out, which does nothing to help those in housing need.
I've always wondered why more people don't live in Oakland or Berkeley, which are both a relatively short commute to downtown SF. The housing prices are significantly cheaper, and especially in Berkeley, there seems to be a strong tech community.
Without going into all of my guesses as to why this hasn't happened in droves, I think one of the larger reasons is the access to cheap transportation back to those areas at night. BART stops too early, so for the younger crowd that likes to stay out, it's too expensive to constantly take a $40-60 ride out of SF. Without the advent of additionally public transportation, would it be economically viable to provide a paid shuttle service to and from SF / Berkeley / Oakland?
Traditionally its because an East Bay to Silicon Valley commute hasn't really worked. Not until Twitter/Zynga/Square/AirBnb started the large SF startup presence has the East Bay really started to benefit from the tech scene.
(note I bought in Berkeley a few years ago, and looking to move to Oakland)
I've never considered Easy Bay because of its much higher crime rate. There is a reason it's cheaper. Maybe things are different now, but I wouldn't know, because I've never considered it.
"Would it be economically viable to provide a paid shuttle service to and from SF / Berkeley / Oakland?"
Perhaps Uber should move from providing premium taxi-like service, and instead offer a 24-hour bus-like service? For partygoers on the weekend, at least?
40-60 ride out of SF? AC Transit Lines 800–899 are All Nighter lines, operating from 1 a.m. – 5 a.m. daily. Some may operate somewhat earlier or later (especially on weekends).
This does happen in droves, but it's more when kids reach elementary school age. SF is a pretty difficult city when it comes to ensuring your kid gets into a decent elementary school, so that's one point at which many people leave. Not to mention that you don't have to go far in any direction (north to Marin, east to Berkeley, south to Palo Alto) and you have fantastic public schools.
The whole western side of the city could really use some development. Nothing there is particularly nice as it is now. A lot of units don't even have laundry machines in the buildings, so people end up spending thousands per month on rent while still using laundromats. The location, however, is amazing given the proximity to the parks and beaches, and there are solid commercial arteries. There's not much character there, and almost everything is relatively new, built within the past century.
There does seem to be a "center of gravity" in SF that is incredibly bizarre to me. For a lot of people, if you live west of Divis or south of 24th st, you might as well be, for all intents and purposes, in Oakland. Seems like a lot of the complacent crowd of SF lives in the Mission/SOMA/Pacific Height/Marina/Russian Hill bubble and never gets out of it.
Yet there is a whole 3/4 of the city that isn't encompassed by that part that is really, really awesome. It may not be "trendy" or anything, but they're full of great neighborhood places and "real" people. I think it's easy for everyone analyzing this situation to forget those places exist.
>> If we want to actually make the city affordable for most people—a place where a young person or an immigrant can move to pursue their dreams,
>> a place a parent can raise kids and not have to spend every minute at work—we have to fix the supply problem.
Why? Why can't it stay the playground of the rich and people who are trying to pursue their dreams can live in <insert name of nearby city>
>> Subsidizing affordable homes for 10,000 families comes at a price of tag of $2.5 billion.
>> So yes, we should build as much subsidized affordable housing as we can.
No. While I am for subsidized housing, I don't feel it should be done in extremely rich areas just for the heck of it. I'm not saying to start housing projects where nobody wants to live, but there's no sense in burning money to build them where costs are extraordinary.
I totally agree with you on subsdization. Subsidizing a few thousand people so they people can live someplace expensive is insane.
OTOH, this and other manifestations of what feels like a binary income distribution is a tricky thing. Rich neighbourhoods are one thing. Rich schools. Rich cities is a new thing. It creates feedback.
>> The gap between London prices and those of the rest of the country is now at a historic high, and there is only one way to explain it. London houses and apartments are a form of money.
I'm not sure that is in the US, but I'd wager the very British notion of the "housing ladder" has much to do with the skyrocketing prices in London. The idea, in essence, is that you buy a house (ideally under market value, but that won't happen, so you buy at value). However, since everything spins around moving up (wherever that may lead you), you now need to move into a better property (or, at least, a property/area that is perceived to be better). Thus, in order to be able to afford that, everybody now tries to "add value" to their places.
This leads to a number of things:
1) The very British sport of "extending" and, really, slapping extensions on absolutely everything.
2) Avoidance of any actual, structural work. Completely modernising a flat (or, worse even, a house) is expensive, i.e. you risk spending a lot of money without the certainty that you will get all of it (and, ideally, more) back.
3) In connection with the point above, this means "adding value" usually really means painting things over, plastering things over and superficially "fixing" (i.e. covering up) the most obvious flaws.
All of the above leads to an upward spiral, where everybody tries to sell essentially the same places for more and more money. Give it two or three rounds on the spiral, and a house that used to be, say, £300,000 is now £400,000, with nicer visible features but the same rotten core.
The other problem with London property prices is that they influence the prices of most of the South-East of England, with certain places (within commutable distance) experiencing the same price-hikes.
This is interesting. With the "remotization" of the workplace where anyone, especially engineers can work from anywhere, instead of moving outward, we're moving inward to these "hubs".
I wonder if this is in part because, now that our work is less social, we want our environment to be geared toward more social, i.e. big cities.
My wife and I are blessed to be bottom-end 1%-ers, and even we could not afford to live in SF, so we moved down into the peninsula. Well, we might be able to afford it if we got a crippling mortgage, but then we couldn't afford day care for our kids, and the 1hr+ commutes would have wreaked havoc on our lives.
You can't raise a family in SF without making enough money to afford a $1.4M house, and spending $2000/month on private school per kid because the SF schools have become really horrible (due to SF political stupidity).
Test scores don't tell the whole story, and I'll agree that there is some political stupidity, but think it's fair to say that the blanket statement "SF schools have become really horrible (due to SF political stupidity)" is incorrect.
For an urban district, I believe SFUSD has an unusually high number of extremely high performing schools. There are some very bad ones too. You'll see this pattern in the surrounding areas as well. The difference is that owning a house in a high-rent district doesn't get you priority access to that school, they way it does in the burbs. As a result, a lot of people who can afford a 1.4 mil house leave SF if they don't get their top school choice, because in Marin, your high mortgage guarantees you priority access to the good school.
Of course, a lot of people stay in SF precisely because they can get their kid into a 9 or 10 school even though they can't afford the 1.4mil house.
See, this is why I love Baltimore. We've got charm out the ass AND our rents are low.
Quite frankly i'm disappointed in how cartoonish SF's neighborhoods seem. Here's the hippie burner neighborhood, and here's the spanish hipster neighborhood, and here's the rich white boating neighborhood, and here's the dingy chinese black market neighborhood, and here's the financial district complete with skyscrapers and shops that close at 6pm. It's like a dirty spicy version of DC.
You have a very stilted view of neighborhoods here. There's nothing at all cartoonish about any part of the city. Well, Fisherman's Warf, I'll grant you that one. That's as typical a tourist trap as any.
I just bought a house in Berkeley. I wanted to buy a condo in SF, but for the same price of a 2 bedroom condo in SF with 1200 sqft I could buy a house in berkeley with 6700sq ft lot size with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and a huge backyard all to myself. Even if I had all the money in the world, I'll buy rather buy a house in berkeley over a condo in SF.
There are plenty of restaurants around berkeley, and many places to hang out. The only thing I'm missing out if I live in Berkeley is all the awesome tech events in SF.
The article mentions New York. One difference between SF and NYC is that public transport in NYC is at least 10X better. Especially as people spread out, that makes a big difference to quality of life.
Given this, and the recent article on "The London exodus", I'll just leave this new online course here because it may be interesting to some: https://www.coursera.org/course/designingcities
People keep talking about the rising prices, but what is being done? What CAN be done? Its supply and demand. San Francisco will always be expensive because it is a desirable location for certain groups of high-earning people.
Being "progressive" is great, but we live in the real world and if you refuse to do things to lower prices in the name of culture, prices will keep going up. Ironically, this will also hurt, if not destroy, the "culture" that they're trying to protect in the first place.
Subsidizing is NOT the answer. This will drive up prices for everyone living above subsidies. The problem is demand WAY outstrips housing supply. In my opinion the one thing that could kill the Bay Area economy is the aversion to residential construction.
Housing stock on the Geary corridor could be easily increased, and even a modest improvement to the transit system in that area could make a big difference.
It is absolutely crazy to artificially restrict residential building in areas where there is high employment demand. It is almost like we want to prevent economic growth.
The US is a crazy place. We complain that there isn't enough economic growth, but when it happens, we put in all kinds of restrictions that limit it.
Regarding people moving to Oakland, there has been some people here talking about how bad the crime was there. Then again to me, San Francisco is a really dirty city with a ton of homeless people. I'm from Socal, so I'm not unfamiliar with the homeless, I've just never seen them concentrated like they are in San Francisco.
Put in place a regulation that says all new buildings must be X stories high (20,40,60, whatever.) Along with that, include a regulation that force said buildings to fit in with the neighbhorhood look. UWS and the West Village here in NYC have great examples of extremely tall buildings that are not Jetson's-style eyesores.
Also put in place a regulation that says existing building that can be built higher (while keeping the existing external facade) should be. Where this isn't possible, knock it down and replace it with a building that keeps the old facade.
Change the zoning restrictions and regulations to allow the above, and supply will go up, prices will (eventually) come down, and the neighbhorhood looks will remain similar. Everyone gets some of what they want, and the place stays diverse, vibrant, and does not force local workers to deal with punishing commutes just so they can do their jobs.
The above applies just as much to NYC or any other large city that is holding back this kind of development. As per the UN:
"In 1950, one-third of the world’s people lived in cities. Just 50 years later, this proportion has risen to one-half and will continue to grow to two-thirds, or 6 billion people, by 2050. Cities are now home to half of humankind." Policies need to change to deal with this new reality.
This article makes an interesting comparison between San Francisco and Seattle.
"San Francisco has produced an average of 1,500 new housing units per year. Compare this with Seattle (another 19th century industrial city that now has a tech economy), which has produced about 3,000 units per year over the same time period (and remember it's starting from a smaller overall population base). While Seattle decided to embrace infill development as a way to save open space at the edge of its region and put more people in neighborhoods where they could walk, San Francisco decided to push regional population growth somewhere else."
Interesting point, but are we comparing apples-to-apples? Here's the wikipedia page for Seattle:
land area is 46.87 sq mi, population density is 17,620/sq mi.
Now, the article did mention "infill" which sounds more urban, so maybe there's a difference in the city and county of Seattle? I don't really know how that works up there. San Francisco is a very rare case where the city and county are the same. The article doesn't seem clear about this - how are we defining "Seattle" for the purposes of this article? If we cherry picked a 142 square mile area around SF, I think we could probably substantial construction and growth. In some ways, the article even goes on to mention this by talking about how SF and Oakland aren't part of the same city, but that this is where the growth is starting to happen.
SF is at the point where there isn't much left to be infilled. There certainly is some, but by and large, you'd have to tear something down to build something up - at least to a much larger extent than cities that get to be defined as a 150 square mile area or more.
I don't think there's much to be done here... but I think people are coming down pretty hard on SF. My guess is that you could easily circle 48 square miles of most major cities with comparable population density that haven't allowed much construction in the last 50 years or so, and you could easily circle 150 square miles around SF that make it look like it has pursued rapid growth policies. The difference is that because of the way borders work in the bay area, SF appears to be hostile to development because the new growth happens elsewhere.
[+] [-] crazygringo|12 years ago|reply
What?! Why on earth would I want my tax dollars subsidizing your rent? I mean, charity to the poor, homeless, etc. is one thing (it's good), but subsidizing your rent so you can be closer to boutique coffee shops? Instead of, you know, helping the truly needy get health care? Or investing in education? Gimme a break.
> If we want to actually make the city affordable for most people—a place where a young person or an immigrant can move to pursue their dreams
Why does San Fran specifically have to be that place? The Bay Area's a big place.
By the end of the article, the author's right about needing a more integrated metropolitan policy, but this attitude that "everyone deserves to live in San Francisco, even people with no money" gets tiring after a while. Neighborhoods and cities gentrify. People move elsewhere, to the new-and-upcoming-and-more-interesting neighborhoods/cities. Places change. That's just how it is.
[+] [-] mbreese|12 years ago|reply
Thinking that an entire city could consist of highly paid tech workers is a fantasy.
And what about families? It's next to impossible to afford to have a family in the city. What will those tech workers do when they want to start a family? Do you really want them all moving to the east bay instead of helping to grow the city?
[+] [-] bane|12 years ago|reply
the city remained a walkable, urban paradise compared to most of America.
Most higher density cities are even more walkable urban paradises. Plus they have the added benefit of far better public transport than SF offers.
SF: 17620/sq mi
NYC: 27550/sq mi
Paris: 55000/sq mi
[+] [-] alphakappa|12 years ago|reply
From the city's point of view, there's a problem to be solved in terms of getting different kinds of people in the city.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] mdakin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alightergreen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdtsc|12 years ago|reply
Because service jobs and because traffic congestion and because all service job related prices.
Some counties and states provide "affordable" housing for people who work in that county if they make below a certain wage and above a certain wage. They basically make it affordable for taxi drivers, waiters, cooks, delivery people and other low paid job workers to live in that area. This way those people are not driving from farther way increasing congestion on the roads and I guess as a side-effect lower the prices in those particular areas (food, taxi, etc).
Now whether that is desirable, it is a net beneficial thing or not or just creates more problems I don't know, I am just presenting one reason some localities do it.
[+] [-] bsullivan01|12 years ago|reply
and then another 100,000 people would move in there.
So yes, we should build as much subsidized affordable housing as we can.
Skip as many meals as you want, work as many hours and you want to do that. People can move to different cities you know...
[+] [-] bronbron|12 years ago|reply
Living in Queens, Brooklyn, hell even Jersey is an incredibly reasonable option if you live in New York. You trade some commuting time for lower prices, and certainly Flushing doesn't have the same appeal as SoHo. But it's never a question of "oh my god it's after midnight how am I going to get home?" like I experienced when living in the bay area.
It almost seems like San Francisco has a huge aversion to becoming a metropolis, but the problem is that the city really doesn't have a choice in the matter.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|12 years ago|reply
I've lived in the Bay Area for 30 years and this is my take on it as well. The city of San Francisco (and by that I mean its government) sounds like a 35 year old insisting they are still a teenager. The most interesting thing to watch was that some development "snuck in" in the south of market area and that really really surprised people in terms of people living there. When I moved here SoMa was 'warehouses, drunks, and a train station." Now it is a growing and thriving community of the new executive class. Oops.
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|12 years ago|reply
You've hit the nail on the head. Something will have to give, as while rents can go up forever, citizen's income won't.
[+] [-] habosa|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cylinder|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LordHumungous|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghshephard|12 years ago|reply
A week ago, after not having visited for about 10 years, I toured the old neighborhood and was astonished at how much it had changed - it was after dark on a friday night - and there were actually a lot of people out, walking around the lake, restaurants open.
HUGE shift in gentrification of the area. This is a very positive impact of the San Francisco housing situation.
[+] [-] auctiontheory|12 years ago|reply
Looking for a place in Oakland a few months ago, I was amazed how blasé people were about being assaulted, mugged or having their car stolen. Much as I prefer the EB vibe, I think living under constant threat of violence would stress me out.
[+] [-] badman_ting|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blackjack48|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] papa|12 years ago|reply
Another one to watch out for is the Mexican Museum Tower (706 Mission). There have been rumblings that a few of the owners in the Four Seasons Tower don't care for the tall building obstructing their views: http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2013/07/an_unfriendly_ult...
Depending on the results of the November ballot, we may be seeing more of these.
[+] [-] cylinder|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] objclxt|12 years ago|reply
I don't know if this is necessarily true, in the same way that if you build an extra lane on a freeway you don't inherently reduce congestion - traffic simply expands to fill the available space.
Many people buying these new apartments and condos will be buying as an investment and renting out, which does nothing to help those in housing need.
[+] [-] ajiang|12 years ago|reply
Without going into all of my guesses as to why this hasn't happened in droves, I think one of the larger reasons is the access to cheap transportation back to those areas at night. BART stops too early, so for the younger crowd that likes to stay out, it's too expensive to constantly take a $40-60 ride out of SF. Without the advent of additionally public transportation, would it be economically viable to provide a paid shuttle service to and from SF / Berkeley / Oakland?
[+] [-] mikeryan|12 years ago|reply
(note I bought in Berkeley a few years ago, and looking to move to Oakland)
[+] [-] nicholas73|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Apocryphon|12 years ago|reply
Perhaps Uber should move from providing premium taxi-like service, and instead offer a 24-hour bus-like service? For partygoers on the weekend, at least?
[+] [-] fourstar|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dougmccune|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] integraton|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fluxx|12 years ago|reply
Yet there is a whole 3/4 of the city that isn't encompassed by that part that is really, really awesome. It may not be "trendy" or anything, but they're full of great neighborhood places and "real" people. I think it's easy for everyone analyzing this situation to forget those places exist.
[+] [-] bluedino|12 years ago|reply
Why? Why can't it stay the playground of the rich and people who are trying to pursue their dreams can live in <insert name of nearby city>
>> Subsidizing affordable homes for 10,000 families comes at a price of tag of $2.5 billion. >> So yes, we should build as much subsidized affordable housing as we can.
No. While I am for subsidized housing, I don't feel it should be done in extremely rich areas just for the heck of it. I'm not saying to start housing projects where nobody wants to live, but there's no sense in burning money to build them where costs are extraordinary.
[+] [-] netcan|12 years ago|reply
OTOH, this and other manifestations of what feels like a binary income distribution is a tricky thing. Rich neighbourhoods are one thing. Rich schools. Rich cities is a new thing. It creates feedback.
[+] [-] r0h1n|12 years ago|reply
>> The gap between London prices and those of the rest of the country is now at a historic high, and there is only one way to explain it. London houses and apartments are a form of money.
[+] [-] rmk2|12 years ago|reply
This leads to a number of things:
1) The very British sport of "extending" and, really, slapping extensions on absolutely everything.
2) Avoidance of any actual, structural work. Completely modernising a flat (or, worse even, a house) is expensive, i.e. you risk spending a lot of money without the certainty that you will get all of it (and, ideally, more) back.
3) In connection with the point above, this means "adding value" usually really means painting things over, plastering things over and superficially "fixing" (i.e. covering up) the most obvious flaws.
All of the above leads to an upward spiral, where everybody tries to sell essentially the same places for more and more money. Give it two or three rounds on the spiral, and a house that used to be, say, £300,000 is now £400,000, with nicer visible features but the same rotten core.
The other problem with London property prices is that they influence the prices of most of the South-East of England, with certain places (within commutable distance) experiencing the same price-hikes.
[+] [-] jwillgoesfast|12 years ago|reply
I wonder if this is in part because, now that our work is less social, we want our environment to be geared toward more social, i.e. big cities.
[+] [-] wazoox|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] steven2012|12 years ago|reply
You can't raise a family in SF without making enough money to afford a $1.4M house, and spending $2000/month on private school per kid because the SF schools have become really horrible (due to SF political stupidity).
[+] [-] geebee|12 years ago|reply
http://www.greatschools.org/california/san-francisco/schools...
Test scores don't tell the whole story, and I'll agree that there is some political stupidity, but think it's fair to say that the blanket statement "SF schools have become really horrible (due to SF political stupidity)" is incorrect.
For an urban district, I believe SFUSD has an unusually high number of extremely high performing schools. There are some very bad ones too. You'll see this pattern in the surrounding areas as well. The difference is that owning a house in a high-rent district doesn't get you priority access to that school, they way it does in the burbs. As a result, a lot of people who can afford a 1.4 mil house leave SF if they don't get their top school choice, because in Marin, your high mortgage guarantees you priority access to the good school.
Of course, a lot of people stay in SF precisely because they can get their kid into a 9 or 10 school even though they can't afford the 1.4mil house.
[+] [-] peterwwillis|12 years ago|reply
Quite frankly i'm disappointed in how cartoonish SF's neighborhoods seem. Here's the hippie burner neighborhood, and here's the spanish hipster neighborhood, and here's the rich white boating neighborhood, and here's the dingy chinese black market neighborhood, and here's the financial district complete with skyscrapers and shops that close at 6pm. It's like a dirty spicy version of DC.
[+] [-] geuis|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] songzme|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] auctiontheory|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 11001|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SurfScore|12 years ago|reply
Being "progressive" is great, but we live in the real world and if you refuse to do things to lower prices in the name of culture, prices will keep going up. Ironically, this will also hurt, if not destroy, the "culture" that they're trying to protect in the first place.
[+] [-] cmbaus|12 years ago|reply
Housing stock on the Geary corridor could be easily increased, and even a modest improvement to the transit system in that area could make a big difference.
It is absolutely crazy to artificially restrict residential building in areas where there is high employment demand. It is almost like we want to prevent economic growth.
The US is a crazy place. We complain that there isn't enough economic growth, but when it happens, we put in all kinds of restrictions that limit it.
[+] [-] bparsons|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vondur|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] subpixel|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Futurebot|12 years ago|reply
1) Build higher. A lot higher.
2) Massively increase supply.
Put in place a regulation that says all new buildings must be X stories high (20,40,60, whatever.) Along with that, include a regulation that force said buildings to fit in with the neighbhorhood look. UWS and the West Village here in NYC have great examples of extremely tall buildings that are not Jetson's-style eyesores.
Also put in place a regulation that says existing building that can be built higher (while keeping the existing external facade) should be. Where this isn't possible, knock it down and replace it with a building that keeps the old facade.
Change the zoning restrictions and regulations to allow the above, and supply will go up, prices will (eventually) come down, and the neighbhorhood looks will remain similar. Everyone gets some of what they want, and the place stays diverse, vibrant, and does not force local workers to deal with punishing commutes just so they can do their jobs.
The above applies just as much to NYC or any other large city that is holding back this kind of development. As per the UN:
"In 1950, one-third of the world’s people lived in cities. Just 50 years later, this proportion has risen to one-half and will continue to grow to two-thirds, or 6 billion people, by 2050. Cities are now home to half of humankind." Policies need to change to deal with this new reality.
[+] [-] geebee|12 years ago|reply
"San Francisco has produced an average of 1,500 new housing units per year. Compare this with Seattle (another 19th century industrial city that now has a tech economy), which has produced about 3,000 units per year over the same time period (and remember it's starting from a smaller overall population base). While Seattle decided to embrace infill development as a way to save open space at the edge of its region and put more people in neighborhoods where they could walk, San Francisco decided to push regional population growth somewhere else."
Interesting point, but are we comparing apples-to-apples? Here's the wikipedia page for Seattle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle
land area is 142 sq miles, current population density is 7,402/sq mi .
For San Francisco, we get:
https://www.google.com/#q=wikipedia+san+francisco
land area is 46.87 sq mi, population density is 17,620/sq mi.
Now, the article did mention "infill" which sounds more urban, so maybe there's a difference in the city and county of Seattle? I don't really know how that works up there. San Francisco is a very rare case where the city and county are the same. The article doesn't seem clear about this - how are we defining "Seattle" for the purposes of this article? If we cherry picked a 142 square mile area around SF, I think we could probably substantial construction and growth. In some ways, the article even goes on to mention this by talking about how SF and Oakland aren't part of the same city, but that this is where the growth is starting to happen.
SF is at the point where there isn't much left to be infilled. There certainly is some, but by and large, you'd have to tear something down to build something up - at least to a much larger extent than cities that get to be defined as a 150 square mile area or more.
I don't think there's much to be done here... but I think people are coming down pretty hard on SF. My guess is that you could easily circle 48 square miles of most major cities with comparable population density that haven't allowed much construction in the last 50 years or so, and you could easily circle 150 square miles around SF that make it look like it has pursued rapid growth policies. The difference is that because of the way borders work in the bay area, SF appears to be hostile to development because the new growth happens elsewhere.