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Comment by keneda7 | Hacker News Reader

I think you may be the one missing the dots. The comment you responded to is pointing out that cycle you list (gentrification -> disparity -> flight -> neglect) is a direct result of the residents actions. They are the ones that elect the politicians and vote on propositions. The residents made a choice to go the route they did. What you see is a direct result of the residents' choices.

I live within a couple hours of SF and I got to say I 100% agree with the person you responded too. The residents of SF caused the mess they are in.

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I think it's an oversimplification and ignores the fact that a large number of renters in SF were displaced all along the way.

The existing old residents (50+) were already homeowners before the SV wave, and the new homeowners (who are younger and richer) followed the same bad habits of the older generation (albeit, for some different reasons).

The controlling political power in SF are homeowners and both new and old have come together to try to keep more people out, which has subsequently caused a bigger problem than what they originally feared.

SF is extremely liberal in some senses, but when it comes to housing they're extremely conservative. It's basically the worst combination you can make in the US right now.

Who are the people who were displaced, and where did they go?

This is all very handwavy. Why do you believe this narrative without concrete facts?

https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=A_Decade_of_Displace...

I left San Francisco in the early 00s... this was well underway by then, and the most recent boom was the nail in the coffin.

That link doesn't really have any data and it's not from a credible source. It's also an 19-year-old article.

An entire generation of San Franciscans have been born and become adults since that article was published. Even if you accept the premise that there was significant displacement in San Francisco in 2004 that doesn't say anything about whether there is today.

I do not believe there is a large amount of displacement happening in San Francisco today because I have not yet seen any evidence.

Not the original poster but here is an article on SFs population

https://sfstandard.com/research-data/san-francisco-bay-area-... From 2020-2022 SF (city) -65,522 SF Bay Area -249,389

Its also worth noting the SF (city) decrease was -7.5% or number 1 amongst all US counties with more than 100k residents.

Pretty hard to argue there is no displacement happening when it leads the country.

People leaving is not the same as displacement. Many people chose to leave during the pandemic for a variety of reasons, including tech workers moving away to work remotely.

After all, why stay in a city when everything is closed when you can get the same experience cheaper somewhere else?

Any time window that includes 2020 is going to include very strong pandemic-related effects.

>>After all, why stay in a city when everything is closed when you can get the same experience cheaper somewhere else?

If someone is moving due to cost that is displacement in my eyes. If there was not a cost, they would stay.

You claimed there was no evidence, I offered evidence now you say oh no that evidence doesn't count because it doesn't fit my narrative.

All you provided is evidence that people moved away from San Francisco during the pandemic. We all know that. Many of the people who left could have afforded to stay and chose not to. That is not displacement.

Proof of displacement requires demonstration that people left SF because they could not afford to live there anymore. It's really that simple.

Techies with six-figure incomes leaving town to move back in with their parents during the pandemic doesn't count as displacement.

I'm still a little confused by your point. Your last comment seems to support what I and the other poster was saying.

The residents (home owners new or old and renters are included in residents) caused this issue. You refer to them voting themselves into this mess as a bad habit. But who has that bad habit? The residents of course. Hence I lay the blame at the residents feet. I know numerous people that saw the writing on the wall and moved away from SF because they knew the end result (where we are today) of path the other residents were voting for.

A quick google search (number of renters vs number of home owners in SF) says SF is 65% rental household. Not sure how accuracy of that but lets assume its reasonably accurate. That would mean the renters have a larger voting power than the homeowners. If the renters choose to vote against their interests or not vote for decades in my eyes they are to blame.

The current renters are an entirely different class of people than the previous generations and they're generally young wealthy people working for tech companies. In my experience they do not care about the SF that the people they displaced built, and they're not at all politically active. The homeowners gradually took over through the dot-com era and again in the latest boom... there's no one (in numbers) left that cares enough about SF to stop them.

But yet again here you are arguing my point for me. The residents of SF caused this. If the current renters don't care enough to do something about it by voting in different politicians/policies are they not to blame? The population of SF (city) is ~815k. The voting portion of that population could vote in different politicians if they wanted too. They have not. Hence once again we are back at SF being the way it is because of the residents voted and continue to vote it that way.

Also please remember the homeowners are residents too. The are exercising their right to vote the things they want. If the renters are not exercising their right because they just don't care or are not political active that is the RENTERS issue. No one else's.

>>The homeowners gradually took over through the dot-com era and again in the latest boom... there's no one (in numbers) left that cares enough about SF to stop them.

So what you are saying here is the residents of SF that are renting and not owners do not care enough to try and fix the issues. Or to put it another way, SF is the way it is because the residents refuse to do anything about it.

> I think it's an oversimplification and ignores the fact that a large number of renters in SF were displaced all along the way.

And the government's answer is always rent control, eviction moratorium, and etc, despite that many landlords are hardworking people who carefully managed their finances.

The real answer should be increasing supplies, yet SF's tourism has a strong lobby group...

Landlords shouldn't exist at all. What benefit do they provide? they only serve to gobble up real estate and profit off of people who can't afford it.

That's an interesting view. If there's no landlord, who will supply the rental properties? Government?

> Government?

Sure. Why not? It works in Singapore very well, and notably Singapore also has some of the lowest crime rates on earth.

Yes, it seems absurd that rental housing is an enormous for-profit industry. There should be a harsh cap on how many housing units individuals can own and rent.

Of course landlords and homeowners don't want to expand housing in their areas, it's watering down their investment.

No government is perfect, but there's a much greater incentive for governments to build and encourage housing than landlords.

Every major city in America has slum-lord landlords that own dozens of properties, fights all development that isn't their own, and barely maintains their stock so they can increase their profit margins.

Landlords do not provide value, they horde it.

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