I think the real tl:dr of this article is: making affordable living spaces is easy if the laws and NIMBYs allow it. But they don't. So it's not.
Buckminster Fuller discovered this back in the 1930's with the Dymaxion House.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_house
>"The first Beech-produced Fuller House was widely publicized. Soon 36,000 unsolicited orders, many with checks attached, were received for the Fuller House... None of the building codes would permit their erection. The severest blow of all was that both the national electricians and plumber's organizations said they would have to be paid to take apart all the prefabricated and pre-installed wiring and plumbing, and put it together again, else they would not connect the otherwise "ready to live in" house to the town's or city's electrical lines and water mains. They held exclusively the official license to do this by long-time politically enacted laws. No banks were willing to provide mortgages to cover the sale of the Fuller Houses."
-Grunch of Giants
George Carlin had a great bit about NIMBY-types, but in that bit the NIMBY-types, who don't want a prison built near them, have a "logical" viewpoint that he deconstructs: criminals don't hang around outside of a prison. Inmates who escape want to get as far away from the prison as possible, that's the point of escaping, after all.
From what I can tell, the NIMBY-types in SF only have...aesthetic concerns? is that really what is keeping housing from being built? concerns over an eyesore? I don't see the "logical" viewpoint that can be deconstructed here, no wonder it's such a headache.
The problem is more about the Sunset, the Richmond, Forest Hills, Excelsior -- just these huge sweeping neighborhoods which are incredibly underzoned and underdeveloped. Or the people who fight development in SOMA because it blocks part of their view.
I can't imagine how you could make it any more developed. There isn't an inch of breathing space is there? If you built up how would anyone get around? In higher rise places even like London there are parks and a variety of spaces and variation in the layout to get around the extra vertical density.
There are plenty of restaurants and shops, most of which is not yet gentrified, and they just fit into the regular grid as mixed-use urban buildings (restaurant on the street level, apartments on the floor(s) above. There are no strip malls, big box stores, etc.
Like much of the city, developing it further would likely mean building "up", yes. There are also an enormous number of single family homes in the Sunset, some of which could be converted into multi family apartment buildings to increase density.
All that said, I'm not clear on how you'd actually accomplish the above. My family and I live here BECAUSE we wanted a single family home, a backyard, etc. SF obviously needs a vast increase in residential availability, but I'm certainly not the guy to ask about how to make it happen.
Other big cities like London are crowded as well but at least no two streets are the same and there's always some breathing space.
In many non-tech fields jobs aren't concentrated so heavily in just a couple of cities. You can decide what you are looking for in terms of climate, commute, recreation, culture, transportation, and so on, find a city and neighborhood that has that, and then go there and find a job.
These people often pick a place to live, with the intent of staying there for the rest of their working life, and raising their families there.
It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with greed when they oppose changes to the factors that led them to be there in the first place, especially when the people who want that change are people who came there not because they particularly wanted to live there but rather because some company they wanted to work for requires its employees to live there, and those people have no intention of staying long term.
Next time I move, I'm going to be looking for a place with reasonably dark sky, good bicycling, a climate that is warm enough that I mostly don't need to turn on the heat, low enough density that if I want to listen to music or watch a movie at 3 AM I won't be bothering my neighbors (and vice versa), a decent chess within 60 miles, and good internet access. You can bet afterwards I'll vote against change that would change any of those, even if the proposed changes would raise the value of my property, because I'd be buying the property as a home, not as an investment that I can incidentally live in.
They also often have economic concerns, to wit, that increasing the supply of housing will, ceteris paribus, reduce the market clearing cost, reducing the value of the housing that they own.
There are also quality of life concerns relating to expected effects of increased density on crime, on transportation and other infrastructure, and other things, as well. Those and aesthetic issues are more likely to be cited in public debate than the economic issue above, but I suspect for homeowners the economic issue is actually the overwhelming one.
There's also a question of quality of life. A prison is one, extreme example. But an apartment building aimed at college students or young professionals might be another. High density housing might create more traffic, noise, parking problems, property issues, mess, and so on. As someone who recently moved out of a "low rent" neighborhood, I had my property thrown up on and vandalized multiple times, and been woken up in the middle of the night more times than I can count. I was not sad to move to a neighborhood not far away, but significantly quieter. I realize these problems are not related to the property per se, but certainly people chose a neighborhood for a variety of reasons that are not aesthetic.
This isn't to dismiss the need to improving access to housing. I don't want to be NIMBY, but we seem to have this immovable dichotomy between liberal "expand access" policies and conservative "if you don't like the neighborhood, move" policies and no real way to reconcile them.
EDIT: I have a short anecdote to try and illustrate my point. In my former neighborhood I was lucky to have a small, one car garage on an alley. Parking was at a premium and most residents in the converted rental housing (houses that were turned into multi-unit rentals) did not have parking. At least a handful of times per year, I would find a car blocking my garage. Perhaps I didn't leave for work until later in the day or something, but whoever needed that spot thought they were OK there for a while. This is not a trivial problem for me. I needed that car to get to work and now I either have to track down the owner or wait for a tow truck (and incur the owner's wrath which usually involved yelling at me from my yard or smashing my mailbox) and be late for work or wherever I was going. The problem is that this wasn't a serious issue to most people reading an article on HN (or even the local paper). It's not an issue that you make policy based on, but it is an issue for everyone who lived in the neighborhood, including the people who were forced to block my garage for lack of other parking. I can't call the cops and tell them I think my irate neighbor smashed my mailbox or call my city and tell them to do something about parking. I'm stuck with that problem until the slow wheels of planning fix it, and by then I've been late to work a dozen or more times.
In most places where property value growth is fast, tax relief does not keep up. And it can become a significant part of your home's upkeep, especially if you own it and have been there for some time. Rapid growth in value disproportional effects residents on fixed incomes. This is not a problem unique to San Fransisco, but to all "boom towns", large and small.
Additionally, services you once were able to afford such as parking, grocery stores, restaurants, etc. become expensive quickly. Think having your bodega replaced by a Whole Foods.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197...
Still, it's a good policy and I wish my state would pursue it. The oil boom priced many people out of their homes.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/09/22/california_s_...
There are plenty more.
Why should the interests of potential future residents outweigh those of people who already live there?
In those situations, high property prices are directly impacting the quality of life of a lot of people who have the same justification for being in the area as the NIMBYs do, but have less of a voice.
If all the residents agree to not sell or build more densely or whatever, fine, but once someone does, why should their right to do as they see fit with their own property be trampled?
Most people would agree there's a line somewhere, but 1) no one actually wants to build a nuclear waste dump in the middle of a suburb and 2) we've gone way over the line to the point where people freak out about a little bit more housing in an area full of housing like it's the end of the world.
The problem with not having zoning is that you end up with a two tiered housing system. People who can afford it move into private communities where standards can be enforced, and people who can't just live wherever they can find, despite their neighbors. Since I can't afford a private community where I can distance myself from my neighbors, I will support zoning restrictions, thank you.
I think modern zoning is way too restrictive. Central planning was best left to die with the Soviet Union.
Because otherwise the people who own land in that area get to extract massive rents from everyone else for no reason.
But medium term, BART is already at maximum capacity and long term quality of life continues to drop and the economy chokes as housing cost per foot rises.
The real solution is removing the policies that drive up housing prices. Repeal prop 13, eliminate the mortgage deduction, tax capital gains on house sales aggressively, limit realtors to hourly compensation, end collusion among apartment management firms, improve social security so the middle class is no longer dependent on equity to survive old age, don't use tax funds to bail defaulters on mortgage payments while there are other people living on the street.
Eliminating the mortgage interest deduction will do similar damage, as will eliminating the capital gains protections on primary residence sales. That would just encourage more people to sit on their houses instead of paying an extra 20% or so.
Limiting realtors to hourly compensation? Why don't we limit you to hourly compensation? That's the nuttiest, out of left field suggestion I've ever heard.
So much of your reply is nonsense that I'm tempted to think you're trolling, but nonsense isn't always a good indicator of that.
Would put houses that the owner can't afford on the market thereby increasing supply. Adequate social security would mean they don't then get dumped on the streets.
>Eliminating the mortgage interest deduction...
Waiting changes the tax burden? No. But a capital gains tax would deincentivize flipping houses, a practice that serves little purpose other than inflating prices.
All the benefits of mortgage deduction are immediately swallowed by a commensurate increase in house price. People will always budget the same monthly payment, the only difference is whether the non-home owners (or future generation due to budget deficits) are unfairly burdened by having to make up for the missing tax revenue. The mortgage deduction is simply a funneling of money from the treasury to lending institution and provides zero long term benefit to the home owner. And Canada does not have it and their country has not fallen apart.
>Limiting realtors to hourly compensation?...
Hourly is good enough for lawyers, but salaried would also work. Seriously though, anything that does not incentive maximizing the sale price (such as pegging compensation to sale price) would reduce housing prices. Better would be tech simply replacing realtors entirely but unfortunately they have such clout in the assembly, their privileges are sacrosanct.
>I'm tempted to think you're trolling...
That is because you have never hear these ideas before exactly because they are not disseminated exactly because they would reduce housing prices which is political suicide and will cause TV views to turn the channel. I assure you not one of these ideas is my own and indeed they are well understood and discussed by very serious people eg[0], [1] and [2]
[0]http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-tax-deductions-econo...
[1]http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/14/the-worst-ta...
[2]http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/04/15/heres-a-way-...
When this refers to the beneficiaries of land grabs (either directly or indirectly), I don't think an appeal to the natural rights of property owners holds much power.
I reject the idea that "political feasibility" can ever be a conversation-ender, especially when put against a true injustice.
Prop 13 (and all other subsidies for special interests) are unjust and unsustainable; they persist due to the support of these special interests (and the indifference of everyone else). With the proper education and elegance, one can hope for a day that we can see through this and implement the right policies.
And incidentally it's probably easier to argue for fairness and fiscal responsibility than to argue for bulldozing open space to put in a high-rise apartment.
At any rate, I'll always fight for dialogue upon the BEST policies before settling upon a compromise, as this will guide us in the right direction.
If there are X number of jobs in the city, and less than X apartments, people need to commute.
By building houses next to jobs, transportation usage goes massively down.