The American dream is on life support in the Bay Area
hariraghavan.com
hariraghavan.com
I don't think you can understand SF today without starting from this foundational assumption, which is something of a narrative violation, actually. I don't see many starting from this point of view - but I do, and I think it explains almost everything in his article.
That assumption is:
San Francisco is a city for the rich.
That's what really explains the motivations and the things that matter, politically.
Furthermore (starting from there), as a city for the rich, SF cares proportionately less than other metropolises would, about things that in other places would make for strong incentives.
So, housing. Remember, city for the rich: they are housed, in nice houses that should keep their value (not have it lowered by apartments). So new housing doesn't get built.
Thefts: Eh, too bad, but if most if your shopping takes place through Postmates & Instacart... did it really happen? Do you really care? You don't feel the pain all that much. So your response is kind of lethargic. You're not personally losing money so it's not so bad really.
BART: You don't use that, lol. I mean it'll keep running and you can get from place to place on it, for the sake of working people, sure. But beyond that... whatever.
School Board: Your kids go to private school. Next.
Tech: We already have money, and jobs. We (the voters) are already very well off. It's fine it tech wants to add to our economy, but we don't need tech and we're not threatened by its departure. And that's very much what happened.
If you look at most of the problems in SF, and the way the voting public has responded, to me this model has the most explanatory power.
Now maybe the average SF voter isn't rich - but the people who shape the conversation & have the most impact are. SF is very much a city that caters to them.
SEPTA is meh. Every few years they strike and you're stranded. Short, direct trips are OK. It's a long complicated process for certain trips. Payment can be different for each type. High speed line - put bills in the money feeder, subway - tokens, regional line - buy a ticket, etc.
Schools... most are junk. It's basically a moot point though. If you have money and a family you live in the suburbs where the schools are better, not the actual city. Philly is the poorest county in the state and one of the poorest cities in the nation. Meanwhile, Bucks, Chester, and Delaware counties are very affluent.
Housing is expensive relative to pay opportunities in the area. You can find cheaper housing, but it's probably not a safe neighborhood. We are in a tech desert. It seems most jobs in the area are at or slight below the national average for pay. Living expenses are a bit above average, I think.
I literally moved to Maui during covid and was able to pay the same rent I was throwing away on an apartment in Northern liberties but instead I was 500 ft from the ocean
Maybe policies like these aren't really helping [0]. Who would blame the parents for that?
[0] https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11...
Is the issue you linked in the top 3? Top 5? I suspect top 5 or 10 issues will be about money.
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/25/468157856/can-mor...
Paraphrasing/shortening a bit: "Something remarkable happened in New Jersey in the late 1990s... as part of a school funding lawsuit known as Abbott v. Burke, the state increased spending in 31 of its then-poorest districts... spending in some of the districts eclipsed some of the state's wealthiest districts."
"But, all these years later, many are still "spending 2.5 times the national average, and there's no real evidence that they're closing the achievement gap"
It's self evident that funding doesn't matter beyond some low threshold amount where basic necessities are met. Success is about culture and especially culture of your peers. Kids are highly influenced by their parents/peers in terms of what they aspire to do and be.
Kids in wealthy districts don't succeed because of educational funding; they succeed because wealthy parents are more likely to set high academics standards for their kids. And those kids become friends with other kids with high standards. And they carry that culture forward with them.
Culture matters, sure, but if you are freesing in class, that's definately distracting.
It's often touted, but Asian students (of some persuasions) tend to be high achieving (on average) regardless of economic circumstances. A lot of that is due to cultural focus on education.
There are many ways the gap could be narrowed. One major one is to build mass housing, and stop encouraging housing as an investment. This would lower barrier to poorer families from living in certain areas/less "ghettoization" derived from cost disparity. Of course the nice areas will always be more expensive, but disparity doesn't have to be as wide as it is now.
Anyway, many other programs that could more directly attack problem, such as social programs to support regular meals etc for poorer students. But the answer is definitely not putting more funding into education. Anyone expecting good results from that is going to be disappointed, and is ignoring the real world evidence.
I think there's two things to understand, broadly:
No one is saying that math itself is racist, nor is the teaching of math itself inherently racist. Only that the way we teach math is steeped in the dominant culture and doing some pretty simple stuff like incorporating cultural artifacts relevant to your students might help them learn better.
Sadly, as many other commenters have pointed out, besides the rare private school where the teachers have adequate pay and a decent teacher to student ratio, full implementation of any of it is kind of a stretch.
Your point is analogous to telling someone looking at a Christian school guidebook full of Jesus/etc. and then saying "yeah, but what about the non-Christian parts that are completely well understood and normal? Were you just put off by the religious aspects?"
Yes. And that is a legitimate take on the issue.
To your point about religious texts -- good analogy. I'm able to read those texts and find things I agree with, and things I don't, but I'm not put off by it being a religious text.
The “white supremacy” verbiage in that document is a religion and not based on facts. I get that seems okay to you, but it is no different than any other religion masquerading as truth, none of which are appropriate.
I do not believe you are responding in good faith, however.
No idea what the factors are.
On this analysis, the effect is certainly there -- a reduction over time is nothing to sneeze at -- and yet not very effective in terms of actually cleaning up the problem.
But note that this strategy would be severely undermined by letting the price of housing in SF fall.
It's fine, it's fair game after all I m sure it s not easy being Chinese in Africa, but you cant deny there s a sort of lack of politeness in Chinese (the nationality) people when it comes to describe our friends who were born under a warmer sun... or any other sun for that matter :D
Please elaborate on this.
Sadly, this is also the case in Europe, where most major cities that were a good deal 10 years ago are very expensive now. Even taking into consideration that tech salaries are way above average.
Another thread argued the Midwest is more balanced. What are other US areas with good universities and on-site tech job opportunities?
I have empathy for the people solving these problems, because inevitably they're going to screw someone.
Yup, I've moved to Stockholm 6 years ago, house prices in this short period have shot up considerably, with a minor slump around 2018-2019 when some new regulations on credit were introduced. Still appreciating after that, getting more and more unaffordable for me even with a pretty nice salary in tech.
I don't come from a wealthy family, I don't have family money from a house sale that I could use as a downpayment. I will have to save a lot to cover a downpayment and then I will just add to the problem, getting cheap credit that will then inflate house prices. I feel completely trapped, getting into this game is personally beneficial but pretty detrimental to society in the long run.
Also, getting in the game in this all-time high feels bonkers, I don't think that timing the market is doable but it just feels pointless to embark on a 30-year mortgage without knowing what's the future in housing, simply because it already looks unsustainable this can keep going for another 20-30 years. Absolutely unsustainable.
As for the second, you realize your gain when you sell your house at which point you need to buy another which price has also skyrocketed. So unless you end up renting or you buy a smaller house, those gains will be lost. Even if you buy a smaller house, the gain might not be that important as having to sell your own house that you took care for many years could also have a psychological effect... people think of those things in theoretical terms but selling a house is not like selling stock.
That's why my point is that rising prices should not be presented as a universal good news.
I could just as easily say the poorest run city policies:
Housing - don't want gentrification and are rent-controlled anyway
Thefts - don't care about rich store owners or home owners and don't want to be hassled by the police
Schools - if they can't do advanced math then get rid of it so that no one is ahead of them
Tech - they don't work in tech and don't want to compete against rich techies for housing
I think the truth is that it's run by the entrenched, which is a mix of the rich and poor: people who already own property (because their families have been here a long time or because they're rich) and people who have rent-controlled apartments
Maybe they’re mostly liberal?
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Rent-control-s...
To the first commenter's point, most of the policies you mentioned are painful for middle class residents, but don't really affect the wealthy elite.
What you’ll notice is:
* Cops have a visible presence everywhere. They will scrutinize each and every person entering the city.
* Gated communities and guard gated communities. Neighborhoods are designed to be extremely confusing with bizarre zigzags and traffic circles, to trap would be burglars and robbers.
* Neighborhood watch patrolling the streets during the night to make sure suspicious persons are identified and monitored.
In short, SF is a city that caters to government elites and their stooges. The tech elites live in Menlo Park, Los Altos, Saratoga, Los Gatos, etc…
Edit: if you want to see a comedic rendition of what it’s like to accidentally stumble into one of these cities, I highly recommend the Big Lebowski, particularly the scene where the Dude ends up in Malibu. Someone who is not me can corroborate similar events happening when entering such enclaves. ;)
We care deeply about our schools and donate millions every year to support them.
We absolutely care about Caltrain.
We absolutely care about crime.
The whole point of living in Burlingame is good schools and low crime. Why else would we pay such insane prices for housing?
Coming up with such an explanation involves a lot of mental gymnastics. We all know why this phenomenon is happening, why the guards are not intervening and so on.
As for your other points: the idea that the rich prefer to live in a city plagued by homeless drug addicts and robbers getting away unpunished is absurd.
Whole Bay Area, is also a kind of poverty filter, or at least in a way luck filter
To make it here you need to pass through a long filter of luck, hard work and lottery to eventually make it. Most people arrive, almost all of those have to leave. In the case of immigrants this is even more true.
You are not going to Bay Area, CA to start a family, you are going there to test your luck. Its ok, to not make it, its no reflection on the merit of your case. But there's only that many bricks that go on the top of a pyramid, by very definition.
A popular luxury belief is that police brutality and mass incarceration are the biggest problems in the judicial system nationally, so the solution is to virtually stop catching petty thieves who steal from cars and shops.
A popular luxury belief on housing in San Francisco is that allowing developers to add housing supply harms poor people. So they delay and add costs to new housing in the name of helping the poor and ignore the fact that these very restrictions ratchet up the rent.
A popular luxury belief in education is that black and brown people are less prepared for academic tests so it is racist to use tests to make decisions. This ignores all the poor people who benefitted from the incentives to study. Hence the decision to eliminate admissions requirements to the magnet school Lowell.
Another luxury belief not mentioned is that vaping is just as immoral as smoking. So even while we loosened marijuana restrictions, San Francisco increased taxes and restrictions on vaping to match the restrictions on smoking.
By the way, although the decision to make Lowell High School a normal lottery-based school was reversed on procedural problems, the superintendent has vowed to bring back the resolution the first thing in January. So we're still going in the wrong direction there http://go.boarddocs.com/ca/sfusd/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=C9K2...
Vaping has reversed 20+ years of anti-smoking efforts in high schools. This is a problem.
Vaping is seems safer than smoking but this is medically unproven.
Vaping is NOT safer than not-Vaping and not-Smoking.
The vaping companies ran the Big Tobacco playbook to exactly the same effect. It is unsurprising that their opponents are running their playbook to stop them.
Citation needed.
>Vaping is seems safer than smoking but this is medically unproven.
The research is robust enough for the UK to encourage vaping over smoking. Perhaps not being lobbied by big tobacco is the only real difference between the state of public health guidance in both countries.
>Vaping is NOT safer than not-Vaping and not-Smoking.
I’ve yet to meet anyone that has suggested such a thing.
>The vaping companies ran the Big Tobacco playbook to exactly the same effect. It is unsurprising that their opponents are running their playbook to stop them.
Juul, backed by a big tobacco corp has ran their playbook. Can you name a major company that isn’t backed a tobacco company? The cynic in me expects it was to force the public to demand the fda create new regs that can allow big tobacco to catch up and capture the market.
This conversation is also pointless without bringing up the perverse incentives that tobacco taxes have on regulators and politicians. Ending tobacco use is bad for politicians because they’ll need to balance the budget by cutting services and raising taxes on everyone instead of offloading the burden to a marginalized group of disproportionately poor people. Fear mongering about children vaping is a recycled to trick to manufacture consent among the public for extortionate and regressive taxes. Alcohol, gambling and similar taxes are just perverse.
Just the ability to gradually reduce the nicotine dosage while keeping the ritual is liberating (and possible to some extent with low nicotine cigs that I smoke now) and I think it's sad there's no middle ground between "our blond angel children will become addicts in a vapping wild west" and "smokers gotta cancer happily in a vapping-free paradise". And forbidding the cigaret isnt possible, no. Or if we try, I ll he the next Al Capone smuggling them.
No argument. Vaping replacing cigarettes is almost invariably a good thing.
The problem is that "vaping" was how Big Tobacco got around the fact that cigarettes are "uncool". And the vaping companies explicitly targeted underage teens with the marketing apparatus. And it worked.
> I think it's sad there's no middle ground
This is solely due to the fact that Big Tobacco are malicious actors and will push the boundaries of legality on all fronts to increase their profits.
In addition, the "middle ground" is an unstable point. We know from experience that nothing short of force of law would create "smoke-free" bars, clubs, etc. Any leeway always tipped back into full-on "smoking preferred".
Don't get me wrong. I think that smoking bans have damaged social scenes as well as music scenes. There seems to be something integral between those and smoking. However, I'm also practical enough to realize that externalized costs were always going to be taken advantage of without laws placing restraints on them.
But a full ban, which I hear people discussing in some countries (NZ I think) is just too hard: cigarets will remain legal in China and India most likely, with 3bn people able to buy them, so smuggling will be low cost, the death and general damage of cigarets is much slower than even alcohol so smuggling cigarets will be as risky as smuggling dvds, so you ll end up making random people very rich, smokers will smoke maybe a lot less but you ll have to spend the cancer money on enforcement without the current tax revenue...
Best is to move to vaping and study it a lot, and regulate nicotine content. Children are no more at risk of vaping than smoking cigarets (meaning: very at risk) and if we can study it enough to make it a lot less cancerous, well they can smoke it just as much as the binge drinking they already do anyway.
Big Tobacco MUST move to vaping, it seems much better than cigarets already. And the addiction is for me not the worst, it's everything that goes with tar and high nicotine dosage.
1: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1559-1816....
California political leaders also are basically hypocrites. They are for masks but when it comes to their own parties in super luxury restaurants masks are a little too cumbersome to put on.
By the California Poverty Measure, Marin has fairly similar poverty rate to the state overall: https://www.ppic.org/publication/poverty-in-california/
Even by the FPL, which doesn't take into account for local or even regional CoL, Marin has twice as many poor people as black people (which it has about half as large a share as the state as a whole), so even if no one ever left their home county, you’d have your insults backwards.
Are you saying that the bay area isn't full of virtue signallers for whom poor people are more of a theoretical concept they better try not to get too close OT?
You are criticizing someone who is pushing the same anti-“woke” propaganda as you are, except they are using the version from a professional propaganda outlet that has decided that it is more effective when mixed with elite resentment.
I don’t think the term “luxury beliefs” maps one-for-one to wokism or hatred for elites. The key is that the speaker is far removed from the consequences of his actions so is able to espouse edgy but incorrect and even hypocritical theories. For example, in San Francisco blogger Tim Redmond and supervisors Dean Preston and Aaron Peskin are long-time homeowners who espouse anti-capitalist theories in order to justify their actions to prevent housing, which results in higher rents for ordinary workers. I wouldn’t call these out-of-touch people “woke” or especially elite. But I think the term “luxury beliefs” applies well.
See Noah Smith’s examples of luxury beliefs which are not simply wokism: https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1474413184891113478
The US's starting point was revolting over a few percent on a couple random assortments of goods (and a few other affronts).
[0] https://img.ifunny.co/images/bfab53583fcce050029cd61cfea5c6d...
In lifestyle, California is simply unmatched in the United States. It offers a level of abundance in produce that is just unheard of anywhere in the world. It's only natural given that California has some of the most fertile land in the world and produces roughly 30-40% of the US's fruit and vegetable output. The moderate Mediterranean weather is really great in the Bay Area, getting even better in Southern California with a large number of sunny days, low humidity, and mild temperatures for much of the year. The variety and proximity of natural beauty, whether it be pristine beaches, fragrant oak and cedar forests, majestic sequoias, towering edifices of rock and ice in the Sierras, the picturesque and barren Mojave desert or strangely lunar Mono Lake and Inyo National Forest, is simply unparalleled anywhere else. Drive 15 minutes out of a bustling metropolitan area, and you will find plenty of nature trails in breathtaking settings.
In terms of social problems, their scale just boggles the mind. The persistent homelessness that is the result of other states dumping their homeless and the complete heartlessness of the liberal coastal elites when it comes to housing; the eye-watering taxation and rampant mismanagement of revenues (and rampant corruption leading to brazen giveaways to public employees) leading to boom-and-bust budgets that swing with the fortunes of the wealthiest dozen Californians (literally); the widespread environmental degradation resulting from toxic industries including mining and semiconductors; permanently depleted water tables in the central valley because of harmful cash crops such as Alfalfa and almonds; and encroachment upon dry chaparral habitats by housing development and sprawl, not to mention the resulting forest fires. On top of all this, there is a massive underclass of internal and external migrants who have zero upward mobility because of the permanently high costs of living (a feature of California since at least the Gold Rush) and find themselves permanently on the margins. The economic dynamism of the state is shrinking rapidly and businesses are falling over themselves moving to friendlier locales. The politics is a monoculture, with one party ruling unchallenged for decades, thus causing deeply entrenched corruption and a genuine lack of ideas (one of CA's senators is 88 years old. Biden is a spring chicken in comparison).
You would be forgiven if you thought the rest of the US is free of these problems: they will soon be the problem of the rest of the US; California is just on the leading edge, that's all.
I have lived in the Bay Area for over 20 years, 12 years in SF, and now in the East Bay. I'm in SF, Berkeley, Oakland, Emeryville, and Contra Costa at least once a week.
Personally I do not know anybody who has been assaulted or robbed and I have never been assaulted or robbed. I frequently am in SF downtown, and in Oakland/Emeryville. Both considered "hotspots"; nothing ever happened to me and never felt unsafe.
I do not feel exhausted. I never did anything more than my job (and, yes, I'm in "tech". And nobody ever yelled at me for it.)
The nature, landscape, the parks, hikes, culture, weather are pretty awesome and I'll likely never move away.
Is everything perfect? Of course not!
Is there a problem with homelessness? Yes there is! Maybe we should do what other cities and counties have done and just chase the homeless out to somewhere else, kick the can down the road? HELL NO! I happen to work at a company that actually does something about that.
My sampling set is obviously small (my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances), and so seems the author's sampling set.
The author undoubtedly had his experiences and that's a shame. I'm just here to convey a different view on things and not all of us feel that way.
No, my car was not stolen and no it hasn't been broken into, yet. (knock knock knock)
Don't doubt it's happening, I have never seen a car with the window or trunk open.
I wasn't robbed but there was a person that burst out of the Victoria's secret downtown right in front of me.
My friend had her laptop stolen in the coffee shop I used to frequent, and while the thief was caught they could not recover any of the stolen stuff and she was eventually released.
Someone grabbed my iPhone out of my pocket (though I chased him down and forced him to return it).
Friend had parked a car in The Mission for their wedding held there. It was broken into and some wedding gifts including cash were stolen.
Friend had a guy "accidentally" open his back balcony door.
While working out of a pretty crowded Starbucks in the financial district some thugs came in and attempted a snatch and grab. He basically leaned in really quickly towards me but then apparently aborted when I braced and held the laptop. I wasn't even sure until the guy next to me told me after they left that they were planning to snatch it, and that one time he saw them do this and while trying to leave run full speed into a door that opened in-ward only.
I also for several years took the BART around midnight daily (after working out of a coffee shop downtown) so there's a long list of stuff I'm not even mentioning.
I think if you do short restricted trips to SF to nice areas, go with groups, take Ubers or your own car, etc, you can be pretty insulated. It wouldn't be hard to be sensible and take obvious precautions to greatly limit your exposure to crime. In fact, almost all of my friends who are there find it a great place to live because they basically do not have to interact with any of the undesirable parts or peoples of SF. I personally tried to take as much public transit (bus, walking, and BART) as much as I could, ate in The Tenderloin almost daily (and walked through it), and worked from public places frequently, so maybe I was asking for it but also I didn't want to give up the freedom to be able to do those things and not live some "alternate" city insulated life.
It's no wonder there's an anti-techie sentiment because the techies live on a complete different plane of existence here, never having to interact with the lower classes except when giving a tip, accepting a delivery, or writing a roommate rejection letter, and never having to interact with the public infrastructure that a whole class of people depend on and have no choice but to use. Some of my friends never had to leave the house except to go to work (delivery for food and groceries, Uber if they had to go somewhere specific). Yea if you can keep yourself in this bubble life is great; the city is great; the pay is great.
Of course, I did feel exhausted and left last year. If I wanted an insulated city life I'd have moved to the suburbs or LA. Planning to move to Tokyo as soon as they open up, where I can hopefully at least live in the city amongst the people, rather than above them.
BTW how are you planning to live in Tokyo? Also my dream.
Other people have noted that San Francisco residents will fight like hell against the idea of opening a BART station, whereas anywhere else in the world a subway station is a very valuable amenity that dramatically increases the value of nearby apartments.
That someone would park like this with a car full of stuff is mind boggling to me. The mission is not somewhere I’d leave anything in sight in my car let alone a car full of wedding presents.
It’s unfortunate that this happened to your friend, and it’s not right that it happened, but it’s also obvious that it would happen. Were they from out of town?
I personally don't feel at all unsafe in SF, but I do feel pretty icky there these days. Expensive and dirty and not really any fun. I moved to the country and don't regret it in the slightest.
That said, I think the east bay is still pretty fun. Much of the life that used to be in SF seems to still exist in Oakland.
This is what really blows my mind. SF is the only city I know of where you can walk out the doors of a multi-billion dollar company to be greeted by absolute filth. I'm sure there are parts of NY/DC/Boston that are comparable but I don't understand why they're so central in SF. Even in DTLA most of the economic activity is reasonably separated from skid row.
Governor Reagan closed most mental institutions in the state. Lots of them were terrible places because we humans (even doctors) are not kind to others with mental illness, especially the ones that dislike being held against their will. Also, asylum inmates are kind of hidden and politically “voiceless”. The jail/prison system was the de facto replacement, but US incarceration largely increases mental illness and our corrections system isn’t great at helping people avoid being put away again.
Then the SCOCA ruled that the prisons and jails in California were so overcrowded that it violated the rights of inmates, so the state had to quickly work to whittle down incarcerated populations while prosecutors were trying to pretend like they had any chance at a defendant would do long time for a light crime. Then the voters passed a state prop to reduce some classes of crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.
There are 2 silver linings as I see them: (1) some jurisdictions in CA are experimenting with voting other than First Past the Post and (2) voters in SF and other cities see some of these issues as political and policy losers and are eager to reject them (if given a reasonable alternative).
I loved SF back in the day, but that city feels gone. Buried under a pile of dangerous filth. Now that I’m in New York, I couldn’t be happier!
1. have seen people get their laptops snatched in coffee shops, right in front of them
2. friend mugged at gunpoint at emeryville bart station, and pistol whipped on the head even after giving up his belongings
3. had someone break into an apartment in our apartment complex
4. had a drunk guy follow me & my wife, while waving a bottle in his hand. I honestly thought a confrontation was going to be unavoidable, but luckily we got home before he caught up with us
5. a friend had her old, beat-up car broken into so often, she stopped getting the window replaced
San Francisco loves to impose regulations and collect taxes. Meanwhile tax payers and lawful citizens have to not only deal with filthy streets and mentally unstable individuals, but are also shamed for pointing out the existence of any of these problems.
the only thing keeping me sane is that I’m moving out of this shithole of a city in a month.
Other than the fact that I may never be able to afford to buy a home here, I love it in the Bay Area. The only thing that will ever force me out is money, and I'm doing my damndest to make sure that doesn't happen.
> Is there a problem with homelessness? Yes there is! Maybe we should do what other cities and counties have done and just chase the homeless out to somewhere else, kick the can down the road? HELL NO! I happen to work at a company that actually does something about that.
We totally agree here. BTW, I'm looking for a job. I have an email in my profile (not my "main" email, but it will reach me), and I'd be interested to know more about your company. I'm very interested in doing something that does some good, if your company is hiring a software engineer.
If SF built enough housing, it would mostly solve the homelessness crisis, but also generate even more tax revenue for investing in better social services, transit etc. As a resident, it feels like a lost opportunity: the pandemic has made remote work common and fewer people will want to move to the SF in the future.
So, building housing isn't going to a total solution.
Mental health issues need wrap around services and the ability to restrict their actions - which years of legislation and rulings (many will blame the ACLU) doesn't allow for such in nearly all cases.
Addicts, for them, they need to WANT to get better. Even then it is still a long road. Hitting bottom may not even happen for some.
It's not a total solution but it's a prerequisite to any solution. You will never be able to get the homeless into permanent housing when that permanent housing costs 2.5k/month.
Hint: zero.
Not every one can be a highly paid techie with a fancy pad and delivery services for everything. Geniuses are stuck working menial jobs all around the world because they’re necessary. To whom much is given, much is required. If the United States is to solve the houseless crisis then we must first get the highly compensated and wealthy to face the fact that their lives of privilege and excess come directly from the exploitation of billions of people and then accept the necessary concessions to allow everyone to live a dignified life. We can provide a clean and safe home, food, healthcare, and mass entertainment for everyone. We can’t provide sprawling estates and yachts for everyone. I’m in favor of getting rid of the yachts over a genocide of those unlucky enough to be born into privilege.
When people stop risking their lives and the lives of their children to leave counties with marxist governments, I’ll consider your argument. Until then I am just going to assume that the Marxism brochures were really good at taking the pictures from the right angles.
People already work low paying jobs in SF. They are likely living with multiple roommates or commuting from far away. Given a large influx of cheap housing would absolutely put downward pressure on housing insecurity.
Also, your perception of homeless is probably limited to the visible population that is chronically homeless perhaps in tents. Most homelessness is acute and occurs when rental prices increase, temporary unemployment, during bankruptcy, or when the renter/owner kicks out a roommate. These homeless tend to live out of their car or try to couch surf often. Acute homeless tend to have much better odds of finding housing again (maybe not in SF and maybe not during the worst of economic downturns). Lowering rent costs by 60% absolutely would help reduce acute homelessness.
The fact is that “mental illness” is super common, has many aspects (some are significant hurdles to employment and others are less significant. “Unemployable” changes over time as employers look at the cost trade offs and the hiring market.
And Section 8 vouchers (one of the largest programs to increase housing stability) already pay $x00/mo, so there is absolutely some dollar about above $100/mo where additional rental supply does start to reduce the homeless population.
Those were the people I’m speaking about, those are people that many of us see daily, and those are a large portion of the homeless wrecking havoc.
I think you are agreeing with the parent comment here even if you dont think so. These are the people that would take new inexpensive housing - people living with roommates or parents that want their own place, people commuting from far away. These people aren't homeless.
You _assume_ homeless are not among that population, but I would argue there are. Obviously not 100%, but we are arguing about moving the supply curve up, so there is a corresponding adjustment as we move along the demand curve.
But the core point I’m making is that the difference between enough rental units to move an average rental price of $2500/mo to $1000/mo means there are A TON of new units and it would reduce rent pressure even for rental units that are cheaper than $1000/mo.
You seem to have interpreted that phrase as the new policy itself.
Then something happened…
The extent to which people ignore the obvious point that homelessness is exploding in the most expensive cities, like SF, but not in less expensive cities, I find mind boggling.
Having spoken to a number of homeless folks, a common pattern is that they really aren’t interested in housing. If you have no dependents, would you rather spend your life a slave to the capitalist corporation/mortgage/property-tax/landlord complex, or just camp out in an area with nice weather year-round, in a community of like-minded people, doing whatever suits your fancy?
I don't know what dynamics were at play when you asked this question or what you specifically asked, but those things can affect the answers quite a lot.
It's generally not "they really aren’t interested in housing" but "they aren't willing to accept the terms on which that housing is offered."
> It's generally not "they really aren’t interested in housing" but "they aren't willing to accept the terms on which that housing is offered."
What’s the difference? Being “interested” in something means being willing to pay its price it in order to reap its benefits. There exist plenty of folks who aren’t willing to pay the price of “work all day and live in a less desirable area” to reap the benefits of “have an address” when they can pay the price of “live as a vagabond” to reap “do as they please 24/7 in some of the most desirable regions on earth”.
Anyway they got homeless people in frozen ass places like the twin cities too. What's your read on the benefits they are reaping?
Regarding homeless folks in areas with inclement weather, as I have not had the opportunity to get to know any of them I will not attempt to speak to their experience.
Nobody is living on the streets in SF because houses cost too much money. If money was the only issue then they could easily move to a different town where housing is cheaper, there are many places to live that are cheaper than SF.
In my opinion whenever someone says the main problem is the price of housing they are saying it because that is their own personal problem. They want to buy a house, and they think the prices are too high. Why do they not mention unemployment? Or addiction? Or lots of other issues? Because those aren't their own personal problems, so they focus on the one thing that matters to them personally, and that's the price of housing.
"Solve" is a big word, but substantially ameliorate? Yes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29193206
https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2021/mar/...
This is extremely short-sighted. Expensive real estate is a blood-sucking vampire squid on the real economy, on every economically productive citizen
You are paying for that overpriced housing every time you buy a coffee, you pay $1 for the coffee beans and you $4 for the coffee shop rent. You pay rent of every person who's services they need, from a delivery man to a plumber.
The idea that rising house prices are okay because you own a house is just as daft as the idea that rising food prices are okay because you have a full fridge.
The optimal strategy is to drive down relative cost of food, housing and energy, and other nessesities of life to zero, that's what we call 'economic growth'. Thats why we no longer live like peasants.
Now do food, utilities, energy, transportation and government.
The idea that amount of people's resources is dedicated to these "overhead of modern life" type things shouldn't be minimized is mind boggling.
Not just this, every last bit of economy is designed to benefit the exclusivity enjoyed by land lords.
No wonder the biggest beneficiary of the big salaries in Bay Area, CA is eventually the real estate market.
If land/housing/space is in short supply then every economic transaction is a kind of rent, you just don't notice it because you are paying for it instalments, its rent nevertheless.
Essentially, if you make it easier for people to buy a home, then you will end up with more buyers, when you have more buyers then the demand for the product is increased and that results in the price of the product to rise. If you restrict the buyers then there is less demand for the product, and less demand results in the price of the product dropping. If less people are able to buy, then less people are able to sell, if people can't sell then they will lower prices.
It is hard to restrict buyers for houses, the only way I've thought of that is possible is to increase the minimum down payment size. If the minimum down payment size was increased to something really big like 50% for a few years, that would drastically reduce the number of people that would be able to buy a home, and that drastic decrease in buying demand would result in a drastic decrease in prices.
Conversely, where I live the minimum down payment is 5% if tomorrow the gov were to say "we want to make it easier for people to buy a home, and so we are reducing the minimum down payment to 2%" that would mean that more people would qualify to buy a home. More people qualifying would mean that there are more buyers and buying pressure is increased, and increased buying pressure would result in rising prices. So lowering the minimum down payment size, while well meaning, would soon result in the prices for homes going even higher and we would be right back where we started with many people being priced out of the market.
Increasing the minimum down payment size would also mean people effectively get priced out of the market because they would be unable to afford the minimum down payment, but conversely, the prices of houses would fall drastically because of the decreased buying pressure. People would be forced to save for a bigger downpayment, but the total they would pay when they actually buy the home would be decreased.
The pandemic has made a lot of things (everything?) about the city much worse while opening up an avenue to leave. Thus, many people have taken it.
As they're leaving behind a network, a likely fractured group of friends, and a never ending lockdown threat, it's created complicated feelings.
I made it a point that I would never return to California for as long as I lived (unless you're willing to pay me a lot).
For point of reference, I'm from NYC so this isn't a blue-state/red-state thing like it has become for a lot of people. There's something about the California vibe that does not mesh with me.
I'm not sure how exactly to say this, but I imagine it's a lot less worse for us than it could be if we worked in many other professions. I get the impressive that relative to a lot of careers and industries, our network and even friend group in many cases is much more global by nature.
Of course, you can't go throw a frisbee with your online friends, so they'll have to find new people to do those things with. I guess I'm just trying to say that if there's any demographic that could keep in touch if they want to, I get the impression that we're it.
How many times in a life do you move across the country with a spouse? I wouldn't call that routine, you need to ensure both of you can find new jobs etc, and likely they are thinking about their future kids and where they should be brought up. When you move on your own, sure, but the more things you add to your life the harder it gets.
There’s certainly valid reasons for wanting to move away. But these posts aren’t really saying anything new, they tend to feed off of each other creating an online impression of SF as some kind of hellhole.
Yet you can’t be brave enough to give any kudos to Florida’s red politics, and instead call it a “political train wreck”. This kind of social fear is the other half of the bay areas failure. It’s not just the politicians, it’s the people. You’ll need to get over your holier-than-thou political perception to enjoy Miami (and life).
Texas and Florida are having a huge upswell because they are basically making an anti-political stand to go “back to normal”. It’s attractive to people who don’t want politics.
I think for many citizens it is the same, they finally have their "moments" of importance, just as previous generations had their wars.
or their constituents don't care about covid, in that case the govt is getting out of the way. which seems more correct, and why Miami is attracting so many. the people want it.
The idea of government 'getting out the way' is itself a political/propaganda construct, if people actually sat down and thought about it they'd realise that in fact they actually quite like the government getting in the way.
People in the south have been able to live without restriction, as if covid doesn't exist, and the result is pretty much the same. So are the authoritarian/mandate style policies doing anything meaningful to help?
Obviously there are many variables to consider such as age, prevalence of obesity, density etc, but you would expect to see stark differences in outcomes if mandate/lockdown policies had a substantial impact.
Somewhere along the way the covid hardliners lost the plot and continue to focus on the case counts rather than consider the holistic/multivariate model of second order effects of policy. Seems pretty unscientific to me to have a policy function with a single variable input.
That might have been true pre-Delta. The delta wave was about 4x worse in deaths per capita in Texas and about 7 x worse in Florida than in California or New York [1].
Overall, New York has 2 bad months at the start of the pandemic, and then has done pretty well in the subsequent months. Florida, Texas, and California have been doing worse than New York for most of the time after those first couple of months. Florida and Texas were substantially worse that California for about 2 months of the late summer 2020 wave. California was slightly worse than Texas, and Florida was the best of the 4, for a month during the early 2021 wave. This was enough to put Texas above Florida on deaths per capita, but not enough to unset California at the lowest deaths per capita of the 4. Then delta moved Florida to near New York totals and moved Texas to about 60% of the way between California and New York [2].
On other words, statistically if you survived the first two months of the pandemic and then had a choice between New York, California, Texas, and Florida until the present the chances of dying from COVID were lowest in New York. In California they were about 28% higher than New York. In Texas they were about 35% higher than in California and about 73% higher than in New York. In Florida they were about 12% higher than in Texas, 52% higher than in California, and 93% higher than New York.
[1] http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-...
[2] http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-...
Instead of a definition of equity that raises the floor (a rising tide floats all boats), we’ve adopted a definition that institutes a ceiling on achievement:"
Despite repeating the "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" motto literally ten times, it should be noted that upwards mobility is highest precisely in countries that implement policies the author laments (a phenomenon known as the 'Great Gatsby Curve' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve#/media/File...).
The explanation is fairly straight-forward and intuitive, shorter ladders are easier to climb.
Ideally every person would be able to invest in themselves and their community to the fullest extent. Teach themselves and others new skills, start their own business, sell themselves and their talents to others, and create a robust ecosystem of success and opportunity at scales ranging from the individual to the mega-corporation. I dream of a culture (both interpersonal and governmental) that strives for such an ideal.
In practice this does not happen though because it is a lot of work, not all people are able, not all people are willing, not all people are as open, sinscere, and imaginative, “the system” is not really favorable to being so self-starting, and the reality is that most available jobs are awful and it is very hard to have such a clear and vivid imagining of one’s own future when bogged down by a series of dead-end line cook jobs.
When I see things like the anti-work meme/movement I get where it’s coming from, but I also wonder what such a person would do once their goal of anti-work is achieved.
I worked in equity research at a financial adviser, I am not anti-markets at all (although am probably towards the left of things, for economics more than anything...substantial inequality is not sustainable economically) but the reason why the US doesn't have downward mobility is because rich people do not need skills. You need money to get rich, not skills.
If you look at other countries with similar economic models, for example the UK, you see much higher downward mobility. Again, the simple reason for that is less buoyant financial markets (and btw, UK property has gone through the roof and wealthier individuals in the UK own proportionally more property...the US is really, really out there). The only place that is really comparable are explicitly corporatist states like Germany and China...and the former has (tbf, fairly weak) mechanisms to guarantee a certain living standard.
I don't really understand the US system at all. The welfare state is Bezos and Musk's space projects. And people wonder why their fellow citizens are struggling? You are rich, but you live in a society where many other people are suffering...that isn't wealth.
Yes it would be nice if people cared more about doing good than being seen to talk about caring about the correct things, but I can't imagine any other place in the world where I could've grown my personal wealth from zero to "As much as my parents did in a lifetime" in 6 years. Whether that's because of or in spite of the environment I don't know, but it sure wasn't happening back home.
That said, would be nice if all the friends I made in the past few years stopped salmoning and stayed in the city. You don't have to move back out to the burbs just because it's family time. Cities are a strictly superior place to live (imo) and being exposed to the riffraff is a feature, not a bug.
edit: There is research that says mixed income neighborhoods are the fastest way to lowering crime, lifting kids out of poverty, and improving life outcomes for all.
https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/27116/...
I feel the same way about Los Angeles. What once was a funky chill city, has rapidly turned into a massive homeless encampment. When watching recent shows based in LA I've never seen a tent on the sidewalk. So you have a fantasy which gets broadcasted.
You can either complain or leave.
Since I've left LA every aspect of my life has been outrageously great. Had a girlfriend within a month , cut my living expenses by a 1/3rd. I haven't owned a car in years !
I think people get too attached to defending the idea of their hometown. I know the LA I loved is long gone.
But life moves on, I had to estrange myself from much of my family to move, but frankly a life in LA isn't much of a life.
I do enjoy reading these articles, no matter how liberal you are you get sick of homeless people commiting various crimes without consequences. You get sick of paying 10% in state income tax for practically nothing.
I had no idea that women are more willing in other areas of the country. Good to know :)
LA has one of the worst for a straight guy. This means someone like myself would never find a partner. Imagine two cities 4000 miles apart.
In PoorCity unemployment is 45%, and due to bizarre zoning laws a 1bdrm is 3800$.
In GoodCity, unemployment is 3% and a 1bdrm is 1100$.
Which city would you rather live in ? Where do you think life will be easier ? You can read a dozen books on finding a job, won't really help if your in PoorCity. Likewise dating books are essentially useless since I've never seen one address gender ratios.
I've had no trouble outside of LA. In fact I dated a girl who took the initiative to introduce herself. She was beyond great! More than worth moving for !
Did I mention I really really hate driving ? I'm saving so much money now that I'm car free.
Sleep with the dogs - you'll wake up with the fleas.
A lot of people that would have preferred Bloomberg, some center left, or any center right non-trump Republican.
I’d guess the author is in this more moderate camp.
The interspaced boxes with emojis make the text harder to read.
"I think it’s now officially more inconvenient to live in San Francisco or Oakland than when I lived in Chennai or Bombay growing up." - I definitely don't think this is a fair assessment objectively.
The main downside is winter but aside from that it's a pretty great area. Especially on a tech salary. People say, "Yeah but... Ohio". To which I say, they really, acutely and deeply don't know what they are talking about.
It’s okay, you can adapt to any place and make the most of it. But I think the coastal cities are much better places to live. More opportunity, more food, more people to learn from and things to do, more variety. There are cost of living trade offs for sure, but I wouldn’t go back.
I hope Garry Tan is successful fixing SF. I’ll do what I can to get the bad politicians out.
And for those with families, especially those with young children, I think life is pretty hard right now, just about everywhere.
I know software engineers who went from living with roommates in a tiny apartment in SF to paying less for a penthouse in other big cities.
Assuming healthy, no kids, and that the landlord agrees to rent you the place, which may be difficult if you’re a person of color or have a low salary.
According to this calculator [1] post-tax a $100k salary nets you $5500/mo in San Francisco. This is mostly due to high state taxes. So you are basically living paycheck to paycheck despite making 6 figures and living a pretty standard life, which is moronic no matter how much you look at it.
[1]: https://smartasset.com/taxes/paycheck-calculator#XhSaiPp5Sy
Some aspects of the article are true generally in the Bay Area: expense and a feeling that the government leadership seems indifferent to the difficulties many people are having.
On a related note, it would be a good idea to harden your home so future break ins are only "attempted" break ins.
The American Dream is generally in a similarly bad position all across the country. At least my area doesn't have a severe crime problem and the state comparatively allows us to defend ourselves. But the rest of it seems just normal.
That would mean reinforced doors and no windows.
Nothing is impervious. The goal is to slow them down and potentially make it too difficult for the majority of the unskilled criminals to be successful. Or for them to choose a weaker target. Of course Good security hygiene is another one that is sometimes overlooked (not using the deadbolt, leaving a spare key out, etc).
Is that true?
> Hours later, about 80 people, some wearing ski masks and wielding crowbars, ransacked a Nordstrom at an outdoor mall in Walnut Creek
"Proposition 47 was passed by California voters on November 5, 2014.
It made some 'non-violent' property crimes, where the value of the stolen goods does not exceed $950, into misdemeanors.
...
Under California law, though, if two or more person's conspire to 'cheat and defraud any person or any property, by any means which are in themselves criminal' they can face no more than one year in county prison, a fine of $10,000 or a combination of the two."
It wouldn't surprise me if this just accelerates the total disappearance of retail businesses. Next up: smash and grab the Amazon warehouses.
I only reported one break-in incident, because… what’s the point?"
ouchie
The cancelling of gifted programs across the countries sure seems like this. The easy way to achieve equality is to make like shitty for everyone.
I feel this, so much.
California policies are an absolute disaster for poor people. This is true for most other big cities in blue states as well. Although California and Bay Area are far and away the worst offenders.
I live in Seattle. It’s not nearly as bad as the Bay. We’ve made a lot of the same bad decisions. And a handful of better ones. But the trend line is very bad and getting worse.
It's really just one policy and it's the policy of making it near impossible to build housing.
https://uselessetymology.com/2019/11/07/the-origins-of-the-p...
The beauty of words and law is they can be incredibly absolute and incredibly vague, so people can project their feelings into this domain and then go to the state to justify its existence. Its just another form of religion in a way and no doubt uses the same techniques religion uses.
Plus how many sock puppets exist, has anyone every met anyone featured in the news and witnessed this sort of crime, or is social media an amplifying echo chamber?
Who would have thought AI on social media could be such expert trolls?