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There are several answers to this question. On a moral level: major cities are the economic engines of the US, and are unrivaled in the opportunities they can offer their residents, in terms of education, employment, upward mobility, etc. I don't think you have to think everyone should have a right to live wherever they want to be uncomfortable with the idea that only people that already come from money should have access to those opportunities, just like a lot of people aren't comfortable with the idea that only rich people should be able to go to college. It smells of entrenched aristocracy of the kind that at least in theory Americans aren't wild about.

On a more practical level: even many (most?) gentrifiers with money like to live in vibrant and diverse cities. They want there to be people to work in their coffee shops and clean their officers, and they want access to the pho joints and bodegas that come with immigrant populations. That requires making accommodations for people less well of than them to be able to live in their cities.

I don't live in a major city, I live, ostensibly in a suburb of San Jose/Silicon Valley (have for 25 years, and a bay area native).

Living close to Silicon Valley (being in tech) as well as being a part of a community that is tied tightly to agriculture, looking at how people work and what they require/demand from society is interesting.

Santa Cruz, based off of really questionable "point in time counts", has a homeless population of around 3500. If Santa Cruz was to scale to the size of San Francisco, we'd have nearly 50k homeless. Basically 5% which is absolutely nuts.

We are a mixed community, tech, service, labor, farm, etc. Even with a "day labor" center, I daily see individuals from central and south america looking for work. Do I see the "indigent" white kids freeloading downtown trying to work? No. There should be a need to require (or at least work towards a path of) doing something gainful for the community in exchange for services, housing, and rehab.

Homelessness is a real issue. Unfortunately, the majority of those in the "industry" can't/won't/refuse to distinguish different categories and that is a problem. The 20-something meth-head from Santa Barbara, I reached out to her "friends" on Facebook to get her the hell out of the local spiral, no response. Our community owes her nothing. A friend of mine who lived across the street, works in the arts, couldn't find a single room rental in his budget is currently couch surfing and thinking about an RV/Van, he's been here 20 years; I'm trying to help him out. He has enough contacts/etc, to not enter the system based off of a housing need, he's an exception.

The system should provide for locals and those with a track record of ties. Yet, in liberal areas, like the military industrial complex, there is a homeless industrial complex...Non-profits and others that "mean well", but require those state, federal, and private dollars to "do good" and justify bloated salaries.

If "homelessness" was cured in Santa Cruz tomorrow, I estimate that 1000 people would be out of a job, at the least.

I understand the need for non-profits and those willing to do the hard job, but many times "compassion" is bandied about as a means to milk $$ and do nothing.

The notion that diversity is necessary to enjoy a variety of food is readily disproven by visiting San Francisco. You can enjoy great food from all sorts of cuisines: French, Chinese, Greek, Puerto Rican, Hungarian, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Polish, etc. But if you look in the kitchen, it's all made by Mexicans.

You can also see this in some of the whitest states in the nation. All of these types of cuisine are available in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire, in the major cities (i.e. > 50k people...) You don't need a whole lot of population to supply the ethnic food economy.

Yep. Go to many/most parts of the country and you can find a wide variety of cuisine prepared by Mexicans. :-)

Are those restaurants started by Mexicans, or just staffed by them once the founder gets busy and is looking to maintain a profit? I dare say you don't get Hungarian restaurants in a city without Hungarian people.

>major cities are the economic engines of the US, and are unrivaled in the opportunities they can offer their residents, in terms of education, employment, upward mobility, etc.

Isn't that where public transportation enters the picture? If the homeless' situation is such that even public transportation isn't within their grasp then that should be part of the solution as well.

If you are working minimum wage, the last thing you want is to spend between 2 and 4 more hours per day on public transportation or driving (if you can afford it).

It could be worse though, it could be that you can't afford public transportation either. Look at London: Unaffordable to live in if you're minimum wage (hence the unofficial "London minimum wage"), plus the train could get as expensive as £500 a month while still living 30 minutes away from zone 1. So there's the situation where what you save on housing you spend on transport (and feeling miserable spending hours on a train/tube/bus).

Economists and policy makers don't work in a competitive environment the way that software developers do.

The arena is also extremely political, unscientific, and uncompetitive--no matter how much effort the field of econ has put forth in arguing that they are scientific, primarily through quantifying the study of economics, if you can't experiment, test, observe and reproduce you're not doing science. And no one ever was untrustworthy or incorrect using math and statistics, right?

Nobody gets to make a hypothesis and conduct an experiment on 32 Seattles. Without the scientific method, I've come to learn not to expect much from the human race, what there is to see here is mostly just politics. Add to that a lack of competition (very high barriers to entry, little incentive structures to get involved seriously) in the market space for creating affordable housing... What we're left with is programs that are highly political and even often run counter to what most economists themselves would argue for: market-based solutions, lump-sum transfer payments(or at least in the form of housing vouchers), or no intervention at all.

> I can't afford to live in Carmel, Los Altos, etc, but I live where I can afford.

Have you ever considered that maybe you should be able to afford to live in those places? That the wealthiest nation in the history of humanity ought to cultivate a society that encourages freedom of movement? That cordoning off sections exclusively for the rich leads to a decrease in empathy for the less fortunate? That safe housing and access to the amenities of a city ought not to be exclusively for those who happened to have the lucky combination of skills and money?

Have you considered that the people you hope to exclude are people no different from you?

The wealthiest nation in the history of humanity had the guts to build things they couldn't afford to give everyone. Some day everyone gets those things, and somebody like you will say: have you ever considered that maybe you should have a private aircraft?

Inequalities like this only apply in the current frame of reference.

Also, from the basic market perspective, it is entirely impossible for everyone to live in Carmel; and if everyone lived there, you'd want to live somewhere else.

My inlaws are from a part of Germany where I could buy a 60 square meter apartment for cash without really thinking about it (low 5 figures), my truck cost more. A similar sized apartment in Munich would be probably be at least 20x the cost.

Should I expect the city of Munich to provide such a unit at a similar cost to the country side 3 hours away? No.

No, I do not think every municipality has the requirement to provide affordable housing to everyone that has a desire to be there.

Do I think regions need to do better at providing a balance of housing to accommodate the spectrum of people working jobs in the area? Yes. But should a single municipality be expected to accept everyone wanting to be there at a price that individual can afford? No.

In the case of individuals (there are many in Santa Cruz) that don't want to work, want to live the way they want, and have done nothing for the community, the community has every right to say "no".

If we pretend scarcity doesn't exist, and that the proper way to deal with it isn't at least partially though the free market, then ok.

Do you not see your own contradiction?

If you want to give people freedom of movement, that includes giving like-minded people of similar means the right to cluster up and live where they choose.

This is why it's so hard to take the "science" of economics and politics seriously. It's just arguing in circles.

As for me- I'm with OP. I want to live in Beverly Hills, but tough shit I can't afford it so I live in Oakland close to my job.

That said, we should keep opportunity open so that if someone wants to try to do something to generate enough value to be able to afford to live there, they should.

Does this mean that I'm entitled to have someone else give me a house for free anywhere I want to live? If not, where are the limits on this largesse?

You're essentially arguing for a "name your price" eBay. Scarcity in real estate is very much a real thing. How do you determine who gets what, if not by "highest bidder"?

I'm free to live anywhere I want provided I can find the coin; to me, that's the definition of fair.

In fact, the more you mess with that basic concept, the more you ensure someone willing and able to pay will be (unfairly) locked out of the market.

Under your scheme I demand a penthouse room on a 100+ story high rise with a view of central park. The idea that everyone has a right to live anywhere they want is untenable and frankly idiotic. It's the same as saying everyone can have as much gold as they demand.

What happens when you have no affordable housing in cities is an impossible situation for low-wage workers. All the jobs are in the city, all the homes are outside the city, and the cost of traveling back and forth is very high relative to the pay.

Also you need socioeconomic diversity to have all of the things that make up a high-quality urban or suburban life. You need doctors, lawyers, and bankers but also bartenders and cashiers. If you only have one or the other, it won't be a very enjoyable place to live. Building affordable housing can achieve this type of diversity, whereas a free market approach will likely do the opposite.

What can happen is the for the counties / cities to provide subsidized housing for those making below a certain age and working in that country / city.

I have seen this happen and lived next to a community like that. It was a peaceful and nice place, well maintained without the associated stereotypes for a such a community. It was mostly taxi drivers, service workers, construction, recent immigrants and so on.

If there's a scarcity of bartenders or cashiers, then their wages will go up until that scarcity is filled.

In a theoretical economy, maybe. In reality you'll have a small increase in wages, but likely business owners being chronically short staffed, going out of business, or choosing not to start a business. Even if wages to go up perfectly like in an econ textbook, that will increase the cost of goods and services which may not matter much for the wealthy residents but will make the city much less attractive for visitors/tourists and cut into the elevated wages. Remember, workers are consumers.

There's also the issue that raising wages will not fix the problem if landlords capture the wage increase by raising the price of housing. It's all about buying power, the absolute numbers mean nothing.

The free market can't solve all of our problems, and even if it could housing in particular is too important to wait on supply and demand forces to fix everything. Moving has very high material/time/emotional costs and humans need uninterrupted housing to maintain a decent life.

Unless there exists _any_ kind of unemployment - in that case people will travel for a ridiculous amount of time just to have a job, thus ruining their chances of a decent private life.

Things do not just adjust themselves as in the theories, weaker people are just squeezed harder. When they can't be squeezed any more, things _may_ change - but when is that?

The working poor are a pretty good example of this.

This is the theory, the practice is that there will never be scarcity since if the real alternative for these people is unemployment, they will still accept punishing conditions (long commutes, long hours and barely making the ends meet).

It's one of the cases where the market is working as expected (low wages since the offer is high), but it doesn't really translate in benefit for (some of) the people involved.

I don't believe any of the numbers I see about bartender incomes. A woman I know was a part-time bartender in an affluent urban area. She regularly took home several hundred $ in cash tips per night. And that income wasn't reported or taxed.

In my experience most bartenders aren't doing it as a full-time long-term career. So it's unreasonable to expect such jobs to pay a living wage.

I think all experiences on this will be highly variable for virtually every aspect ofyour experience. If they're receiving tips, they are supposed to report it; not doing it isn't a fringe benefit, it's just the government electing not to pursue the matter.

Likewise, some bartenders will pull hundreds based on location, their appearance, their social skills. Others will either get no tips or very few for a whole night. Some bar tenders wil work high volume bars at clubs and process hundreds of sales a night with minor tips. Others will work a bar in a restaurant or a hotel and get maybe a few customers a night.

There really isn't a blanket understanding of bar tender wages simply because it's incredibly dependent on factors outside of the work itself. Whether or not it's a long term career is kind of irrelevant; I don't think too many people go into bar-tending with the idea that this is it for their life, it tends to be a failback when other options just don't pan out. Regardless of how long they do it, while they're doing it, if a city wants to have these workers and bars as part of a city life, they should probably make an effort to ensure that the workers have a place to live and can eat at least, else they will have to leave by necessity.

Like, the idea of a career job versus a non-career job seems very arbitrary here; the expectation of a living wage is kind of basic for work - it's why most people do the work thing. Sometimes it's labor of passion, but a lot of times, it's "I can do this and someone is willing to pay me for it."

This is a good question. There are many reasons for a city to be responsible to its homeless citizens. e.g.

1. Many homeless people actually have a job in the city.

2. Many homeless people need access to services that are only available in cities. e.g. drug rehab. Having the methadone clinic close to where you live (even if you live in a tent under the freeway) significantly increases the odds that you will go there. If you live in a rural area and have to travel 40 miles every day to get your methadone, you'll not have a good chance of recovery.

Yes, large cities can provide services at scale, but two things again factor in:

1. The original commentor above has a good point, who pays? A lot of times, a regional issue ends up costing a single municipality the bulk of the costs (Seattle w/ the east side communities; Santa Cruz as the county seat)

2. Services for locals first. I hope she has left, but here in SC, we had one young lady from Santa Barbara that was arrested over 15 times (i think 30 to date all told) for assorted drug and theft issues. She was still getting services from local homeless services. She arrived here, hopped on the Santa Cruz heroin/meth downward spiral and made a nuisance of herself. Honestly, I'm surprised she's survived this long, but as a community that she was new to, what obligation do we actually have to offer her a seat at the services table versus the grizzled vet or other local who's been here for years?

Re: (2), municipalities should have an obligation to say "no". Unfortunately, I don't know about other areas, but locally, there is a cottage industry (hundreds of individuals employed, upwards of mid 8-figure overall budgets) around "homelessness".

I am jaded, but locally when I hear "we want to cure homelessness", I know it's bullshit because the number of jobs that would be lost would be in the hundreds if not thousands.

I also know, locally, those "in charge" preach "best practices" without any real evidence beyond arguing and name calling when you ask about results.

Where do those people who serve you fancy food in restaurants and coffee shops on Pacific Avenue supposed to live?

See an earlier comment -- regions should have an overall approach to affordable housing and transport.

That said, specific to Santa Cruz? As an alumnus, I'm appalled at how much the university (and bureaucracy) has grown and that on campus housing hasn't kept up with enrollment figures.

Hell, administration overhead has grown way more $$-wise than available bed space has.

Santa Cruz has limited space to build, the UC system buying up property around town (taking it off the tax rolls), and not building more housing is a huge issue.

If I decided to move, I could AirBnB my house for $200/night (like a neighbor) or charge $3300/mo for a 2/1. Things are messed up here.

But, cities, counties, and state entities don't actually plan. And in this case, the city/county can't put restrictions on what a state institution does, yet, it can take parcels off the tax records and not build housing to keep up with enrollment.

> But, one question I fail to see answered well is, why should a city that isn't affordable be required to find and provide housing for individuals in said city? I can't afford to live in Carmel, Los Altos, etc, but I live where I can afford.

Well to be selfish about it: Palo Alto was a much more interesting place to live before the SRO hotels were converted to boutique hotels and before the city council sold out the prior commitment to Section 8 housing and diversity. Until the early '00s we had a lower median income than MP, MV & LA much less PV and LAH.

Also I like that my housekeeper lives in town only a mile or so from me; that one of her kids is a scout like my son, that her kids go to the palo alto schools. I wish the cops's kids did too -- there would be less stress between the cops and citizens.

Who is going to serve that latte at Whole Foods Los Altos? Where are they going to live?

I don't necessarily agree with this, but FYI the thinking goes something like this:

If people truly don't want to come in and work in the city/expensive area, the market should take care of it. Eventually wages will have to rise to where it's worth it for someone to take that job, either because the higher wage makes the commute worth it or the higher wage enables them to live in the area.

It'll be a coffee bot first.