The battle to save Silicon Valley's oldest trailer park
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Just a few days ago there was a heated conversation on our community's facebook "chatters" group about how online shopping is hurting our community. Another local business is closing up shop, and people were encouraging others to shop locally whenever possible. "Encouraging" is a kind word; many were chastising anyone who talked about shopping through amazon. One person commented that he had grown up here, and lives on his fishing boat because he can't afford to buy a home. He says he buys as much as he can through amazon because it's the only way he can make ends meet. This is a guy who catches the "wild caught Alaska salmon" that many people ask for in nicer restaurants, or buy in fish markets like Pike Place in Seattle.
Our community is responding in some interesting ways, like helping people figure out how to build small homes that are easier to heat efficiently in the winter. We're looking at more efficient ways to use the land that's available for building. But all of this might be for nothing in the face of economic disparity; I wonder if we'll continue to sort things out, or if it will take a large-scale economic collapse to force the issue. I hope for the former, but I won't be surprised by the latter.
If this is so important to the culture of the city, let the city buy it for that price and maintain it as a living museum like Colonial Williamsburg dedicated to educating the public of the history and culture of trailer park lifestyle.
While probably good for those few in the short run it could end up making the low income housing problem worse.
The bigger problem is that California has so little supply of housing relative to demand that prices are just astronomical.
I think it's obvious that there are serious problems with supply and demand but to say a person's options are 'live in one of the most expensive areas in the world' or 'live on the street' is more than a little ridiculous.
There is pretty clearly the option of not living in an expensive place. Yes it might make a commute to the same job crazy, yes it's far from ideal, yes it's not necessary when looking at the system as a whole, but this idea that people are entitled to stay wherever they are just doesn't work out.
If someone was living in a hollywood mansion and couldn't afford it, people would say 'move somewhere cheaper'.
The problem is not that people are entitled to housing that they can't afford. The problem is that humans need decent housing, and the housing price situation where they live is created by policy choices. Housing policy has generated this high-price dynamic that is leading to the removal of poor, low-income, and other vulnerable people, after changing the rules on them about where they can live.
Now, it's true that a trailer park is never going to be consistent with any policy that can effectively bring the supply/demand curve into line enough to supply decent and affordable housing.
This is another generalization that doesn't hold up in this particular situation.
This trailer park cost $830 a month 5 years ago.
Don't paint this as 'being cruel to humans' and 'human beings need a place to live'. Yes there are a lot of rough edges, but this idea that rising housing costs due to market pressures are some sort of inhuman dynamic in this extreme outlier situation isn't reasonable. People might have to move and ideally they would get some sort of money to help them do it as a deal with the developers.
To think that the way something was is the way it needs to be in the future is irrational.
I don't actually disagree that the trailer park should probably be torn down and be replaced with a denser condo development. And the property owner certainly has a right to sell the property to developers (gentrification would not be so problematic if renters had property rights in their home).
Rising housing costs is not at all due to some inhuman market pressure: it is a policy choice against densification. And surely to think that the way something was is the way it needs to be in the future is irrational. But shouldn't that be true for people who live in single-story houses also?
That isn't what the article is about.
You don't even need to fire anyone -- just hire more slowly than otherwise when things are growing, and potentially not replace people when they leave (although that's less scheduled).
The entire peninsula is unaffordable for low-income workers. Crossing the Dumbarton bridge is a ~30m commute in itself and costs $5/day. Downtown Palo Alto just instituted parking restrictions on the surrounding neighborhoods so low income commuters no longer even have a place to park.
To clean a house in the area can cost ~$150. Good nannies can make $50-60K a year. Plumbers are expensive. Gardeners are expensive. And so on. This is just basic economics.
Also, I think the commutes are somewhat blown-up. Plenty of cheap places in San Jose that aren't much more than 40 minutes away if you avoid rush hour.
Leaving aside the question of whether or not 40 min is a reasonable commute, you don't get to determine if you avoid rush hour, and you probobly won't. So 40 min is at best a lower bound rather than what you would expect to see.
My commute was 2 hours in the morning, and 2 1/2 hours back at night. It was miserable, and I would never wish it on anyone. I feel for these people possibly losing their homes (some who have lived there for 30+ years!).
So look, I read Ayn Rand when I was in college, I get economic impact of rent-control, and how it actually ends up hurting the lower socio economic strata - It's not like I'm ignorant of all these things.
It's just, at the end of the day - I can appreciate how it would suck to have your entire world ripped apart.