> I never got a straight answer whenever I pointed out the problems
What are the problems?
What are the problems?
Rent control and the heritability of Prop 13 are the best California can do to prioritize incumbents. They do work somewhat, but the next generation of natives is still as screwed as prospective migrants re: forming their own households in the place, at least while their parents are still alive.
There's a lot of places where very few people can afford to live. Like Manhattan for example.
> Cities and states can't privilege natives over migrants.
If native own property they can continue living there as long as they wish.
Provided they can afford to pay the ever-rising property taxes. Your take may apply in some places, but it is certainly not universal.
This is causing huge problems in Utah right now. Great if you have a house (or condo/etc) you don't want, bad if you have a house you like because you might get taxed out of it, terrible if you want a house. Every house and condo has dozens of unconditional cash offers on day one.
It's really a shame that any evenly applied attempt to privilege existing residents (not necessarily property owners) runs into legal issue.
Obviously we don’t always live up to that ideal. But this would be a big step in the wrong direction.
It's really bad for a community and a country when there is massive forced migration due to price pressure.
When new graduates are detached from their support networks, they have to pay more for things and services they could have shared with their family/friends/community. When new couples are detached from their support networks, they and their kids suffer from higher costs and reduced mentorship from extended family.
When there is a constant flux in and out, like I saw while I was living in SF, nobody has any commitment to the area, and nobody has lived there long enough to know what "normal" is.
When people who invest their entire lives into a community are forced out of it, and/or their kids are displaced by lucky rich in-migrants, you amplify people's natural defensiveness and, whatever points you may have had, they will oppose you on everything. Those communities are desirable places to live because of the years of time invested by those who came before, and they deserve not to be forced out by people with no prior stake.
When every avenue for just starting a life, let alone advancing it, is closed off to people, especially because of outsiders trouncing in with no appreciation for the history of a place, you have all the ingredients for revolt and revolution.
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In places where there is ample land (like my native Utah), but supply targeted at natural growth can't keep up with in-migration and investor speculation, I would favor policies that significantly bias toward natives. Keeping churn low, but not zero, is absolutely essential for the health of communities.
- Favoring live-in owners over landlords, but still allowing for some renting
- Very strongly favoring live-in first-home owners over investors through tax, HOA, and zoning policy
- Breaking up the very large parcels currently owned by and being developed for billionaires -- hating on single-family housing is a scapegoat for this real issue
Mass internal migrations, like those that built the West in the first place, are an important part of American history. It is an incredible arrogance towards history to assert that now every town is the right size and everyone is in the right place, no more growth or movement.
It would be convenient if this were a financial problem, but it's a geometry problem. People are moving into boomtowns to actually live and work, they take up space, and if you don't add new space on the dimensions you have (e.g. vertical axis), the only possible result is to squeeze out others.
At that point where do they go? Presumably other cities will be allowed such caps so they can't move to those either.
Then there are historical population control tools like redlining, and racist applications of eminent domain used to remove "undesirable" (a euphemism for black) neighborhoods.
By placing a cap on population you ensure that the victims of that discrimination never have the opportunity to return to the places they used to live - and as an added bonus you get to claim that your policy isn't racist because it has no stated racial bias.
Say your rental lease is up, and the only place you can find to rent is Colma. Now you've left SF are you ever allowed to return. What if someone else moved into SF while you were away thus taking your position under the cap? Honestly if anything this possibly right here could easily cause rental and housing prices to go up even more.
Then there's SF's claim to be an open and welcoming multicultural city - you can't claim that well disallowing new residents, and so new cultures, from entering.
The only real way to reduce hoisin cost is to build more housing. Where and what type you build are the only actual questions that you need to answer.
I'm sure white trash neighbourhoods were not welcome there as well.
Anyway, I'm not ready to continue conversation where everything is considered racist, sorry.
Only, there are still racially restrictive covenants on many properties to this day. Yes, in San Francisco. Thankfully, they're unenforceable, but the evidence is writ large on the legal system. And no, they didn't forbid white people from living anywhere -- if you've got reams of evidence to contradict that, show it.
Deeper dive into the history:
https://haasinstitute.berkeley.edu/system/tdf/haasinstitute_...
Frisco isn't special here, for example, Seattle's timeline (including these covenants still being on the books) is pretty much the same
Don't we have birthrate below replacement levels?
[0] Unless the place is not actually worth striving to live in, but in that case you probably don't have a rent price problem.
Why is that a problem?
> if you start limiting the people, the ones remaining will most likely be the rich
Why is that a problem?
It doesn't achieve the goal, in fact further distances it.
Shelter is one of the few goods which a society necessarily needs. The alternatives (being homeless) are unacceptable. People give up food, electricity and healthcare before they give up shelter.
It's fine at a micro scale (oceanfront is expensive, but a few blocks away is affordable), but causes incredible problems at a macro scale as the bay area demonstrates (people not able to live within 50+ miles of their support networks). It is VERY hard to uproot an entire life and move to an area where cost of living is lower, especially when you are poor. People in poverty form informal local support networks (neighbors watching kids, friends that can loan you $5 to top up your phone), making it that much harder to move to a lower cost area.
This is like asking why high prices for food or health care are problems.
It's a necessity of life, man. Do we really need to explain why basic necessities being very expensive is bad?
The grand-grandparent stated:
> I enjoyed challenging my friends on what they would do to make the city more affordable.
So, when the solution results in increased pricing, his challenge was inherently failed.
1. Picking who is worthy of living in San Francisco as determined by the City and County of San Francisco
2. Removing current residents that don’t fit the criteria
And 3. Controlling who may then migrate in?
You tell me, Ford. You tell me. I have faith that you can do it. I’ll give you exactly one hint: San Francisco is not a country.
No it is decided by the free market.
> 2. Removing current residents that don’t fit the criteria
Only those who rent. People who own property can continue to live there as long as they wish.
I apologize for the sarcasm in light of this. Cheers!
Then suddenly it's not a good solution for him anymore.