All the rhetoric and oddly empowering blame game to the tech industry (at least for us tech people) is merely trendy.
The only thing that stopped keeping up are salary increases.
"Unfortunately" the area has been a source of economic growth for the last century as well. So you need two things for high housing price growth: 1) factors that restrict housing supply from responding to the market 2) economic growth or some other factor to make people want to move to the city.
For the NIMBYs, they are ok with #1. They desire that their city stays the same, it has the same architecture, unblocked vistas, the density they are used to, the natives they know.
So the NIMBYs argue to those affected by high housing costs that #2 is the real factor, i.e. "if rich people stopped moving here we would be ok". #2 is the easier argument to make, as it casts the narrative as outsiders vs natives. #1 appeals to the existing natives since they don't want change.
We have to figure out a way to change the message to awareness of #1. The average Bay Area resident has no idea how many of our state and local laws are in place to make sure that market rents / housing prices can be as high as possible.
Ever been to Chicago, New Orleans, Austin, San Diego, Denver, Santa Fe, Boston, Providence, Miami etc?
I think you misunderstood the term, it's loosely geographical, and more geopolitical.
And yes, I've heard people refer to the Midwest as "fly-over" country, ignoring specifically Chicago, Denver, Austin, Houston, and Dallas.
Not New Orleans. Like any city, you can identify areas where you might live and work without a car but you're going to have pretty limited mobility. Public transit is somewhat better than it used to be but it's still fairly limited--now a variety of streetcars but no subway for obvious reasons.
But then you don't really have easy walkable access to Burnet, East Side, SoCo, etc. I mean, you get 6th. Maybe Rainey depending on where you live downtown.
But yeah, I lived halfway to Bee Cave and worked on 360. That made me much happier than being directly downtown.
Clearly, people are walking there, but the city doesn't seem to give a shit.
For example, the west portala Sherwood Forest area is essentially a suburb within the city. There are huge lots that are 5000 sq ft when next door neighborhoods you have 1600sq ft lots with 2-3 units. Essentially you have suburb neighborhoods right next to others that have 10x the density.
A developer would love to buy units in those areas and convert to duplexes but is literally impossible to do this.
So again, it's not a question of preserving our parks but a question of preserving our suburbs within the city so rich people get to live in a suburb within the city and watch their property prices skyrocket instead of allowing the city to expand and accommodate the middle class.
[0] http://metro.kingcounty.gov/travel-options/bus/rapidride/ [1] http://soundtransit3.org/map#map [2] http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-sees-b... [3] http://stb-wp.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/09...
[1] - https://www.bustle.com/articles/155686-which-us-city-has-the... [2] - http://www.infogroup.com/defining-the-hippest-us-cities
Of course if density weren't outlawed SF would look different, but it would still be a very appealing place to live. You could triple the number of housing units in SF and it would be a city of low apartment buildings and townhouses with great views. You could increase the housing supply 10-fold and it would be a city of midrise apartment buildings with a fantastic climate and beautiful parks just outside the city.
Of course, if SF actually had 3, 5, or 10 times the population it does today then there would probably have to be a lot of infrastructure changes too. But the limit probably wouldn't be available water for residents.
We can get two birds with a stone by building housing: make our city more walkable and beautiful, and also alleviate the housing shortage .
Want to support infill, upzoning, and want to beat the NIMBYs? Consider joining SF Yimby.
It's a small group of ppl who care a lot about this, they're smart and effective, and many of these local issues are right on the bubble around 50% support in low turnout elections. This means, with a bit of activism, you can swing the outcome.
There are plenty of pro-housing organizers in San Francisco if you're willing to get plugged in and volunteer.
there are meetings every month, next one should be posted soon. https://facebook.com/pg/sfyimbyparty/events/
As you can see, there's at least one thing to do per week. Our monthly meetings are the 1st Wednesday of the month but there is a ton of stuff to do besides that.
Putting together a list of technologists who care about Yimby stuff.
https://www.facebook.com/MakeItFairCA/videos/164108883947055...
They pulled out all the stops in Brooklyn (or most of them) and let me tell you it is not pleasant. Unless you like "modern" looking condos that fall apart in five years.
But I guess people don't move to SF for the sturdy quaint old houses. Apparently there's not much love for an urban-looking Brooklyn either. Generic rules.
The whole "we need to preserve the architecture of my city" is a first world problem. What comes before that is the ability for the middle and lower class to survive in the city. Cities are living dynamic entities and should be capable of change.
I can see why it's tempting to think about it as a supply and demand problem. But be realistic about the motivations of developers, too.
And it's not like "affordable housing" requirements work, either, when those are defined relative to average income.
That's why we're all "build baby build": Increase supply enough to meet demand and you can get prices to drop. It's worth it in order to help maintain the existence of affordable housing.
But it's hard to argue against an average of 1 day of precipitation per month in June, July, August and September...And if you live in the right neighborhood, it's also sunny from 10-4 every day in that period as well...
Nah, it's easy to argue against that, you just have to had lived in SoCal where it's sunnier and a nice comfortable bit warmer :p
It is not a problem unique to SF, it just shows its worst there because its the highest growth.
You have small cities dying all over the country side because it becomes difficult to justify paying for general amenities like hospital, schools, ... and cities where you quickly hit the limit of high density too. You can replace a suburban sprawl by high density block of flat, but you need to upgrade the infrastructure to support it massively and the cost does not scale linearly past a point.
Seems to me there is a sweet spot there in the middle where the cost of public infrastructure is effective, a variety of living style at various price points, and there is still enough people for modern service to be cost effective. A bit like Europe if you get rid of the top 3-4 largest cities in each country.
If there is something that is prime for disruption, here you have it: this is a problem everywhere in the world, this is a problem that is solved the old non technological way, but with an already proven way to solve the problem using technology. The only bit that is missing is the proper incentive and a well balanced set of already existing technologies thrown in to make up for the major incentive of moving in a large city: the jobs are all packed in there too.
... which is a totally reasonable, perfectly rational position. Further, it is a policy regime that has been achieved democratically.
Personally, I am very much in favor of infill. There is a lot of crappy two story housing stock in san francisco that has no charm and no aesthetic value and would lend itself perfectly to at least doubling of density.
But let's not talk about the opponents of this as if they are flat-earthers or white supremacists or something - their stance is just as reasonable as any other socio-economic-political view.
Sure, but NIMBYism is in direct opposition to a more socially equitable and environmentally sustainable future. To claim to be progressive while espousing gated-community like values (which is quite common in the Bay Area) is, well, a bit troublesome.
I hate to nitpick, but ...
NIMBY is a general term that refers to preserving a particular, entrenched environment.
So yes, San Francisco NIMBYism in early 21st century does seem to be in opposition to increasing environmental sustainability. I'm sure there are plenty of NIMBY environments around the world that don't fit that mold, though.
The socially equitable part is more of a reach, however.
Nobody has a gun to their head forcing them to live in San Francisco and likewise, nobody[1] is starving in San Francisco. John Smith who bought a home in SF in the early 80s and is retired on his post office pension and social security shouldn't be redistributing his wealth to anyone.
[1] That is to say, nobody that isn't mentally ill or detached from reality.
>[1] That is to say, nobody that isn't mentally ill or detached from reality.
I too hate to nitpick, but...unless we're taking a very literal view of starving, as opposed to a constant struggle to feeding yourself, you should check out the percentage of SF schoolchildren on subsidized lunches or perhaps spend some time among the homeless, particularly homeless youth. I can assure you there are plenty of people going hungry in SF.
I suppose you are correct in that no one is holding a gun to their head though, just a case of bad luck I guess.
Middle class americans priced out of SF are among the global 1%. It's stupendous luck.
And yet it's your hypothetical John Smith homeowner who I should be sympathetic to.
If John Smith is renting out his house for $4,000 a month it's other people who are redistributing their wealth to him.
Privately owned land is essentially another form of privatized tax collection and all the same rules about guns being pointed at you apply.
Sure. The NIMBYs are not flat-earthers but they are definitely an impediment to attracting the next generation of young entrepreneurial people to this area. While building more housing might hurt them slightly in the short term, it needs to be done for the greater good. If this needs legislation at the state level, so be it. In this scenario I have very little sympathy for the rational NIMBYs. They had the opportunity for years to responsibly increase the housing supply so that we didnt need heavy handed approaches, but they chose to be greedy and short sighted which means they will have to loose their power.
You should note that young women in cities earn more than young men: http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274...
> The holdout cities — those where the earnings of single, college-educated young women still lag men's — tended to be built around industries that are heavily male-dominated, such as software development or military-technology contracting. In other words, Silicon Valley could also be called Gender Gap Gully.
So I'm not sure what you mean to prove by citing it. If you mislike and mistrust gendered rhetoric, you're welcome; so do I. But perceiving a lack of intellectual consistency on the part of one's interlocutor is no cause to hold oneself to a similarly weak standard.
Also there's the wrinkle of the down payment, mortgage interest, property taxes, and maintenance. You aren't required to save up $200,000 down and borrow $800,000 to buy $1 million worth of stocks at once. The most I've ever had to save up was $3000 for a Vanguard fund and then you can dollar-cost average your investments after that.
Returns on property in SF, on the other hand, will almost certainly require paying tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest, property taxes, and maintenance. This reduces the rate of return below that of stocks.
However, you would have these costs elsewhere, just lower.
I'd be really interested in an analysis of this problem of stocks vs. Bay Area real estate. This analysis would take into consideration the real rates of return, financing costs, rent lost while saving up a down payment, salary differentials, career risk due to job concentrations, mortgage default risk due to career risk, and loss risk due to lack of dollar-cost averaging.
I suspect that living outside the Bay Area and investing in stocks would come out ahead up to a certain income level, which is attainable for only a small number of people (probably smaller than the number of people who think they can handle it and are discounting certain risks/being irrationally optimistic).
1: http://www.cnbc.com/2014/09/08/the-stock-gap-american-stock-...
While I agree with you on the whole "tech blame game", the quoted statement makes no sense. Of course housing prices mirrored salary increases previously. That's a natural phenomenon. As you know, this is a supply issue being mistaken by the rebellious barista set as a demand issue.
What's wrong with your overall summation of the situation is that the housing crisis is -- like most things that go systemically wrong in economics and public policy -- a product of multiple sources of causation, acting in concert.
That's why you can't (meaningfully) just say, "See, there's this other favor X [lack of middle class salary increases] at play. Therefore this factor Y everyone keeps talking about [high-salaried tech workers pouring into town] can't be the major factor. In fact, it's merely trendy."
Because in reality the housing crisis is a product of X, Y, Z, and a host of other factors acting in concert.
The CA housing market, if nothing else, gives newspapers something to chat about on slow news days.
Those prices don't show up on most historical charts because there were very few sales overall, and of course most sales were at the very high-end which are typically much more inelastic price-wise.
Most of the market was exceptionally illiquid, which is why many of those listings were so slow. Alot of renovations and new construction that had just come onto the market were discounted to fire sale prices, dragging other listings with them, and _still_ didn't sell until a year or two later. Banks simply weren't making loans, and the all-cash buyers weren't around either because the stock market had tanked.
The market rebounded much faster here than elsewhere. But, still, if you actually had hard cash at the time, and an appetite for risk (nobody knew if and when things would rebound) you could have made a killing. Some people did.
That's a pretty big only.
That's by no means comprehensive, but I'd just suggest a) more sources and b) a more holistic look at the issue than housing prices.
Prices have appreciated, but if you're not trying to buy a house, and you're willing to compromise a lot, I think you can live in the city on a teacher salary ($60K/year).
~~I'm trying to find an article I'm sure I've seen on HN of marriages mapped by occupation. I'll edit if I can find it, but I believe I remember that teachers tended to "marry up".~~
EDIT: et-al found the link I was looking for. However, it doesn't seem to support my memory of teachers "marrying up".
Like just about every other major city.
SF housing has averaged 6.6% yoy increases for the last 70 years.