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Comment by alexandercrohde | Hacker News Reader

Well, London and SF are historic and beautiful cities (at least architecturally). Part of the reason people WANT to live there is because they aren't full of skyscrapers and megacorporations.

In fact, one of the defining traits of San Francisco is that it disallows chain restaurants, walmarts, etc. It also has many parks. When I see a stone church that has stood for 200 years in a city, I think it's priceless.

If you don't, well there's plenty of cities that don't give a crap about aesthetics at all, and so they're cheap, and so they're full of poor people, and so they're full of crime.

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> Part of the reason people WANT to live there is because they aren't full of skyscrapers and megacorporations. > When I see a stone church that has stood for 200 years in a city, I think it's priceless.

I think that actually there are megacorporations in SF (or within commuting distance in the Valley), and they are the reasons people want to live here. I see no less than 6 historic churches out of my window in a historic city in Poland, and yet rent is $300 a month and no one wants to move here. Why? No megacorporations.

Your argument is that affordable market rate housing allows poor people to live in a city, which you don’t want?

I think we’ve found the world’s most honest NIMBYist!

> one of the defining traits of San Francisco is that it disallows chain restaurants, walmarts, etc.

For very narrow values of "chain restaurants, walmarts etc." Target is basically the same thing as Wal-mart. Chain restaurants are common. (For example, I used to eat lunch at a nearby Jimmy John's, a sandwich chain from Illinois. Which Jimmy John's I ate at might vary; there was more than one nearby.) There's a Starbucks on every block.

Yeah, I always assumed that ban just means the chain has to bribe the right officials.

Megacorporations are actually the reason SF has become the real estate nightmare that it is -- but hey, no poor people.

When a city makes decisions that don't favor its residents, it becomes an unaffordable haven for transplants, speculators and people who value the facade of the 200 year old stone church as opposed to the poor people the church was created to serve/bilk.

I’m pretty sure SF is making the decisions it’s residents want and that’s the problem - most of the residents don’t want more density.

It's not so much about the density. It's about ludicrous mortgage that they signed up in past and want their house to at least maintain its price.

It's not the corporations, but the current mortgage system. Corp workers with 100-200k pay pair up and put their entire life earnings (30 years) towards a house. Banks back this deal and the couple gets a house they can't really afford. Same with our education system and healthcare. If the gov made a law that mortgage can't exceed 1 year income, prices would adjust to that number.

If SF really gave a crap about aesthetics, they would tax residents like you in order to clean up its streets and build affordable housing (hello skyscrapers) for the homeless people who are ruining the aesthetics of such a 'beautiful' city. Good luck bringing your kids to one of the 'many parks' in the city to play without being worried about getting pricked with a used needle hidden in the grass, or walk to that beautiful 200year old stone church without getting harassed by the homeless.

SF is overrated. The reason you would pay $3000 for a tiny studio is because commuting into the city to work for one of the megacorporations is untenable. There are much nicer places to live in the Peninsula and South Bay, or even in other states.

Presumably you need some people to be poor in every metropolitan area, because six figure software developers are not going to scrub the office floors after hours or serve brunch. Without poor people basic services start falling apart, and they have to live somewhere.

You must be kidding if you’re suggesting SF isn’t full of crime and poor people. It’s a city known for being full of bussed-in homeless lining the streets, covered in shit and used needles, where you can expect to have your car broken into on a regular basis.

This speaks to a much larger problem. As opportunity concentrates in dense areas, the lucky few elite will try their hardest to keep it all to themselves, one way being by hoarding it in an artificially-low population city like SF. Eventually they’ll start building a wall to keep the undesirables out, or have police harass everyone who isn’t driving a luxury vehicle like in Marin.

> Well, London and SF are historic and beautiful cities (at least architecturally)

One is not like the other.

Seriously. You can't compare any American city with a European counterpart from a "historic" perspective.

Boston was founded in 1632. Mexico City is even older if you want to pull in Latin America.

There is plenty of history in North America.

Wouldn't it be much more efficient to require a minimum income/wealth of would be residents and so lower the demand for housing enough that all these rich people can invest into something more productive than real estate?

Yes; laws like that can get into trouble with US laws against segregated neighborhoods.

And SF isn't?

> When I see a stone church that has stood for 200 years in a city, I think it's priceless.

Meh. When I see it, I see a monumental squandering of human labor.

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