Also, which SF are you proposing to maintain? The 1850's version? Early '90's? Whenever you decided to move there?
The only constant is change and renewal - you can't live in a museum.
NB I'm no claiming that the Edinburgh planning process is perfect - just reacting on my experience of owning and living in listed properties in an extremely heavily controlled area.
For SF, the whole place is heavily controlled.
From what I remember of walking around SF - parts of it are very nice and large parts of it are pretty unexceptional. Not sure why would want to apply the same rules to both. But the nice parts are definitely worth of protection in my view.
Why does the everyone below them have to be forced into cell block apartments?
I am getting severely voted down for having this opinion, but I think my definition and the history of density in urban areas is on my side. When you put a bunch of young males in a crowded urban center, crime, violence, drug addiction happens.
https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
I also dislike how MDU exhausts, particularly the laundry exhausts, are not sent out a scrubbed (E.G. water filtration) negative draw system to remove the fine particulates. I have never in my life even seen an MDU with such a setup, let alone filtered air ingress delivered to each unit.
Jobs could still be a component, but I would say it's the character of the jobs, and the character of the area, that draws people.
Very often, yes. Especially in the 1960's. Thousands of people moved to San Francisco in the 60's just for its character.
Itinerant tech workers may not understand that. But once the tech bubble moves on to the next hot location, the locals who love the city and loved it before Google and Facebook will still be there.
And people forget that the reason there was so much culture in California in the 1960s was because of the booming economy, driven in large part by defense industries. Everybody was coming to California, and that drove cultural dynamism. SF was an extremely politically conservative city when the hippies came. They certainly didn't come to SF because they liked the locals; they came here along with everybody else and changed the city.
You do realize that age discrimination is a federal crime, right?
Character and cost played a part in the early post dotcom techwave. They didn't start coming here for the jobs. They came here because they already had a job in the valley (with >70% low-density housing) and it was cheaper and hipper to live in SF. They slept on my couch for weeks while apt hunting. Then that wave required busing. Then some employers decided to move/expand in the city because workers wanted to be where it has hip.
I'd be happy to bring a bulldozer to Valencia or Dolores. Problem is, a few thousand early-adopter otherwise glibertarian techies will be the first to jump in front of it.
And for some reason, it's those baddies in the zoning department who refuse to adapt to the latest fad. To think of all the strip malls we could have had. Or that freeway running thru Hayes, the Panhandle and GG.
By whose measure? If it is more than plenty then you dont need to put any rules limiting it, it already satisfies the demand.
> 100% apartments would destroy SF. People fighting to get to live in SF because of its character. Destroying that you won't have San Francisco.
San francisco has been destroyed many times over. Its not the gold-digging town it used to be in the quaint 1800's, or the low-cost, cheap city it was in the 1930s, etc etc. If san francisco doubles its population it will be another city: it is inevitable and it is good. This is not SF's first iteration and wont be its last.
A thousand towns and cities in Europe would disagree.
and it is good
Your opinion. Fortunately, not the opinion of the majority of voters in San Francisco.
Which cities of any significance in Europe have avoided high-density development? There'll often be protected areas of historical interest, but it's not normal to freeze the city as a whole in time.
A mere electoral trick. If every person that works in SF voted you would get the opposite result.
Also, all the people you mention will die and will be replaced by others.
As will you. And people who don't respect or understand what you love will destroy it and replace it.
Countries have declared independence protesting taxation without representation.
But this is now a red-herring. Arguing that its justifiable because the voting has resulted into this can only be contested with a vote, not with any other argument like "destroy the city" or "good for whatever X". Is a pure political power argument.
There are so few actual apartment buildings here that half the buildings that look like apartment buildings are hotels.
If you aren't, then your online opinions are akin to writing in chalk on the nearest fence, and just as valuable.
This is the default case no matter what. Either way, I can explain my opinion if I feel like it, adding a "disclaimer" feels like some sort of weirdly perverse anti-pattern to make someone feel as though their opinion is invalidated by having a reason for holding it in the first place.
I'm guessing that you're a relatively recent house/condo owner in the Bay and you want to make sure your investment is relatively protected by creating fewer (or ideally no) housing units. It's fair given your point but don't make it about the lack of public green space. No one is arguing for 100% apartment zoning rights in SF but you seem to create this false dichotomy to support your point.
What's wrong with 50% apartment zoning or regulations that allow building as long as all zoning requirements are met?
I don't care about my investment in housing; I don't even live in SF. I just don't think rezoning will help. NYC has way denser than SF and its housing is also more expensive than SF.
Speaking of building more. I think getting rid of rent control will greatly help the situation. I don't see people wanting rezoning clamoring for getting rid of rent control.
It's because YIMBYs are already a minority to begin with. The only political pseudo ally they have are pro-affordable housing organizations. Arguing for both rezoning AND no rent control will be the end of their platform and they know it.
The problem is that as people are slowly priced out of the city, out of the region, and out of state by these asinine policies, digging in the heels is only going to make the backlash worse. The fact that we are talking about it at all shows that we are in the early stages of a massive reform in housing policy. If you wait until the median family is living in poverty because they're paying 60% of their income to housing, the reform is going to be far more severe and undesirable (to you, at least) than you can even imagine.
You're so worried about "losing" something that you're forgoing the creation of something new and better.
NYC has zoning, too.
If you can’t find somewhere you can afford to live, go somewhere else.
We are a nation of immigrants. Our ancestors relocated from every corner of the planet, yet we incessantly whine about having to move to Modesto.