San Francisco zoning: Needs more density and tall buildings
slate.com
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The current Mission Bay and South Beach stuff seems to have gone really well.
Leaving Haight, Noe, etc. with the Victorian character would probably be enough to preserve SF's historical features.
I'm not really sure about increasing density in "suburban" SF (Sunset, Richmond) -- it's already 2-3 story apartment buildings and townhomes, so the next jump is up to 5 or so, and it's not very well served with transit now.
That area is prime real estate though. It's crazy to think that it's adjacent to down town.
I don't think there's an inherent right/need for people to live in a specific area of the city. I'd far prefer to see the land used for market-rate developments and then some of the profits taken as fees to fund programs to de-fuck these people somewhere else.
I know this sounds harsh, but I can't see how incentivizing low-income people to move to an unaffordable city is feasible or prudent.
For a city infamous for its high rent, small rental stock, and boom in highly paid jobs to leave miles of water-front property undeveloped is near criminal. AFAIK, there are some complexities around industrial clean-up, but either way someone needs to get it done.
The fact is that HP will one day be a gorgeous place to live and watch the sun rise over the bay. The question is whether that's a 100 years from now, or whether we start on it now, so we can see the benefits in our life times.
If you captured most of those riders for a subway (which should have been done instead of this central subway mess) that patched into the current MUNI system, that line alone would be the 8th most ridden light rail system in the US, and put SF to the top of light rail usage in the US.
The people and property owners of San Francisco may not be able to make the sacrifices that going ultra-dense require, even though San Fran is putting a huge amount of effort toward becoming far more dense than it already is.
IMO Los Angeles is more likely to have the ducks lined up for becoming ultra-dense over the next 25 years. Perhaps the demographic and geographic conditions are making this possible. Perhaps the strong, small property owners are also removed enough from where the corridors density will occur.
Sure, but you have to let people actually decide, instead of municipal zoning boards.
I honestly think a lot of people in SF don't understand how much better big cities can be; there's a reason you don't see many NY transplants in the Bay. In more ways than one, the Bay Area is in a bubble.
San Francisco doesn't have that commuting pattern. It's daytime population is only about 200,000 larger than its night-time (less than 25% increase). A neighborhood designed to accommodate 50,000-75,000 people per square mile doesn't look like Midtown Manhattan. The near north side of Chicago is in that range, and it's very light and airy.
This is what a neighborhood of 60,000 residents per square mile looks like: http://goo.gl/maps/V8IS6. That's about 2.5x as dense as the Mission.
Until the 1970s, anyone could basically build whatever residential housing they wanted to anywhere. Not coincidentally, prices were low and relatively stable (by modern standards). During the 1970s, the city of Petaluma in CA passed the Petaluma Plan, which drastically restricted development. Courts accepted this and more and more residential restrictions.
In the short term they didn't seem to matter much. But in the last 40 years, as the population has grown and as people have realized that cities are pretty awesome in many ways (including economically), supply and demand have gotten way out of whack. One example is Santa Monica, which has the same number of residents it did in 1970 but vastly higher prices: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/10/12/sustainable_s.... Existing property owners, especially of existing single-family houses, like restricting property so the value of their property goes up (although they often disguise this in other rhetoric). Potential new residents can't vote, and courts have empowered existing residents and municipal boards.
Hypothetically, if we had some kind of national zoning / municipal board setting policy across the country, people in Texas or Arizona who wanted to move to SF would get equal weight with the people already in SF. As it stands, property owners in SF can exclude Texans through voting. I cite this as a thought experiment, not as a proposal.
Further reading: Edward Glaeser, The Triumph of the City.
City of Quartz is also goot to read and goes into NIMBYism and other related issues for the case of LA.
Worse, deeper thoughts about the future of "the city" and what projects make sense for the greater community to invest in are both crowded out.
This is happening on a smaller scale where I am right now in Ann Arbor. In our case, density is briskly proceeding downtown without enough thought toward things that people living downtown need such as parks and social services for the homeless.
Not sure what you mean by national-strategic, but sure cramming people in like sardines makes it easier to make things efficient - but it's very realistic to make less dense populations efficient/sustainable too. Urban developement isn't some kind of ecological optimization problem. There are factors you are completely dismissing, like overall happiness, contribution to the community and the nation as a whole, cultural value generated etc.
The culture and appeal of SF are contingent on it staying small.
However, I am not saying that we should promote massive growth of concentrated centers without addressing the social, psy, and enviro impact! Because the purpose of a great city is not to build buildings but to create the best conditions for people to cooperate and concentrate their efforts.
Also, I am not saying that a place like San Fran has to or even should make the sacrifice. Because going big is a huge sacrifice that destroys a lot of wonderful things.
So, as a former resident of LA: "I choose Los Angeles to be sacrificed for the betterment of the nation" LOL.
SF is a unique city on the west coast. It would be a travesty to let a bunch of out-of-towners come here for a few years, complain loudly enough to get their changes passed, then leave a barren and soulless modern wasteland once the boom dies down. Dont do radical expansion during a boom! The south and south-east bay will look like Detroit in a few decades, dont let it happen to SF.
Of course the politicians wont help. Brown and Newsom were so greedy/ambitious respectively, they would probably have loved to work with the tech crowd. Lee achieved what he set out to do the day he was elected; he will now most likely look to consolidate his financial situation and his power. I dont think theres been a mayoral candidate since Jello Biafra who has actually cared about the city itself.
Some of the problems SF would have if density increased significantly: -public transportation is made a for a much lower density than other big american cities. That wont be fixed until bart turns into a comprehensive subway system, which isnt happening while the state is broke. -highways and their off-ramps in the city are made for a much lower density city. -The zoning laws for big-box stores and (i think) grocery stores is pretty restrictive. That will need to change. Which is pretty significant. Maybe we dont want SF turned into SJ/LA?
My personal suggestion would be to impose a severe, severe congestion charge within city limits. This would help to separate the wheat from the chaff, but also to keep services in line with population. The problem is that city leaders are making so much money from tourism and the boom (and potentially development) that they have no interest in helping the city.
The hippies moved to haight because it was cheap and that was all they could afford. The techies moved to SF because it is a first world playground that hadnt been used up yet. Well congratulations, youll get there.
The "detroit" problem that you mention is of a different kind. What do you do with derelict areas?! Thats politics and something you can figure out later. But not at the expense of everyone who now is paying way too much for shitty housing.
Secondly, you don't just build apartments and you're done - a density increase requires more services to handle those new people. That's supermarkets, restaurants, hospitals, police, etc. All of that needs to be built up as well and usually isn't considered. If you DON'T add any of that, all you have done is reduce the services available for everyone in that area. What's the advantage of this again?
Finally, comparing the density of SF to Manhattan is not remotely accurate. Manhattan is the highest density part of NYC. SF contains a number of huge parks, mountainous areas like Twin Peaks, deeply residential areas like St. Francis Wood, etc. If you compare the density of the Mission vs. Greenwich Village or something like that, I could see it being relevant, but SF vs Manhattan is apples to oranges.
If you go neighborhood by neighborhood, you'll see that San Francisco isn't really very dense. No neighborhood besides Chinatown and the Tenderloin are more than 50,000 per square mile, and popular areas like the Mission are only 25,000 per square mile. In New York, the UES and UWS are over 100,000 per square mile. Greenwich Village/SoHo (same community area) is 60,000 per square mile. Chelsea is about 45,000 per square mile.
Washington, D.C. is an interesting & relevant case-study in this regard because of the Heights of Buildings Act of 1910 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heights_of_Buildings_Act_of_191...) which restricts the maximum building height in the District. Depending on your viewpoint, the law has led to the desired "lightness and airiness" of D.C. as envisioned by planners of that generation; it has also led to expansion and sprawl into Northern Virginia and the Maryland suburbs of D.C.
As for bus service thats even worse. One of the original goals of muni was that residences should be within 2 blocks of a MUNI stop. That sounds great on paper, but in reality it makes trips excruciatingly long. When a bus route has to stop at every other block, or in some cases every block, especially on flat terrain, it exemplifies the absurdities of MUNI's grand plan.
Why more density? What will that accomplish?
There are a lot of cities that could use the business.
The other side of the Bay. Stockton.
Stop cramming people into a closed space, it will result in a miserable and still expensive place.
The general idea is that more housing supply should drive the cost of housing down.
People in SF right now are already OK with a high density environment. Lots of people who want to move to SF are, too, but can't because there is no space for them.
The idea that "density" is "miserable" is a uniquely post-war american one. It really doesn't work that way.
Right, once Americans were able to afford cars and could physically remove themselves from urban density, they did, and it became part of the "American Dream". More so on the East Coast, where farm-land for development was cheap and relatively accessible to urban centers of business. On the West Coast where cities are either crammed between mountains and coast, or stuck in the middle of a desert, owning property required paying the higher prices driven by high demand and little supply.
> It really doesn't work that way.
It works that way for anyone who doesn't want to live in dense urban environments.
Yes, I lived in a college dorm, tiny, but not miserable (college helps, of course ;) ).
Now, see this: "http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/03/07/san-francisco-micr...
160 sq. ft. (or around 14m2 for the metrically able, or my favorite measure, this is the size of a square with a side of 3.7m)
That college dorm I lived, no kitchen, no shower, was around this size.
You're equating living space with physical land area, and that's not right at all.
Increasing build height poses a burden on the road/transport system.
Believe me this is a bad idea. You can't do that with either a good investment in public transport and road work (which is usually not possible since you can't reduce the size of the buildings to make roads wider)
That's one of the reasons for massive traffic jams in cities like Sao Paulo for example.
New York has a higher density, but a very good public transport system.
It's fine that you don't want to live in SF. But that simple fact doesn't make increasing density a bad idea for those who do. And to be clear: there are a lot of people who want to live in SF.
... and it is our best hope against climate change: http://www.alexsteffen.com/carbon-zero-2/
100,000 per square mile is not at all miserably crowded. I was working here right after Hurricane Sandy when all the commuters were staying home, and it was not crowded at all. My neighborhood in Chicago, which is probably around 50,000 nighttime density, feels positively empty on the weekends.
You could double the density of most parts of San Francisco and still not even be approaching "uncomfortably dense" (that would take the CBD to ~100,000 and areas like the mission to ~50,000).
Like anything else, it just has to be done well.
Not to mention London and Paris have a very good public transport system
In the Bay Area you have Caltrain and company shuttles mostly.
But yes, the SF<->SV corridor is Caltrain and company shuttles mostly.
Nor will you have people in San Francisco saying they don't want to become the next Paris.
In a lot of people's mind there's only one way to have a high population density. And they're just incorrect.
Doesn't it make sense to keep cities confined to relatively small areas? It helps eliminate the need to travel long distances, waiting in traffic jams.
Something similar to the Manhattan Project, in New York, but instead of looking back 400 years, look forward 400 years.
The Manhattan Project, gives a mapped 400 year history of New York. One can watch the TED below.
Source: http://welikia.org/ http://www.ted.com/speakers/eric_sanderson.html http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_sanderson_pictures_new_york_be...
For example, here in Vancouver we have more condos per capita than anywhere else in North America--with maybe New York ahead of us and San Francisco just behind. In areas where there are 4-6 story buildings, I find that the communities are vibrant and have a lot of activity on the sidewalks.
However, go into neighbourhoods like Yaletown or newer developments in North Burnaby, you'll find that the large towers are actually not very vibrant and just act as terminus-es for those who live there.
I believe that there was an Economist article a few years back that discussed this very problem affecting Tokyo, which is pretty much the epitome of urban densification.
Cities need density in order to thrive, but there is a point where too much density leads to problems. It might be premature or naive to call for San Francisco to make itself even more compact considering that it is already one of the most dense cities on this continent.
Once you start mixing things up, though, it gets much better. Add some restaurants and shops and other businesses on the ground floors of the condo towers (even better, mix in a few two-to-three-story retail centers), and some small parks, squares, and other public areas, and the density can be leveraged to create a thriving street-level area.
Is more, and rapid, development critical today? Sure, maybe. Do I support it? Yes.
But its complicated...
After people flooded the city and drove up rents during the dot com boom and then fled the city when the bubble burst, real San Franciscans were still there. And if it happens again, they'll still be there afterward. And in 50 or 100 years, they and their families will still be there. How many coders working at startups in the city today can say the same? Who do you think should have more say in the future of the city? Those who care deeply about it's past, present and future - or those who are only looking out for their own short and medium term housing needs?
The old guard - who have the power - wont allow your suggestion to happen in our lifetime. The best you can hope for is slow, methodical babysteps in that direction.
As an aside, San Francisco is denser on paper than in real life because of how its borders are drawn relative to other cities. The core of Chicago fits the population of San Francisco into 31 square miles with an average density of 25,690 per square mile. 1.3 million people in Chicago live in a neighborhood with at least the average density of San Francisco, with a total average density of 22,240 per square mile. If you take a subset of Chicago neighborhoods with the same average density as San Francisco, it has about 2.4 million people.
On the other hand the fastest growing cities in the US are the low density type: Houston, Raleigh, Phoenix, etc. Cheap housing and easy growth, and new vehicle technologies (hybrid, electric) are challenging the transit energy advantage. Most cities have a hard time building new housing and becoming more dense after a certain stage (SF) and a large proportion of the lower-class workers starts to commute as they are priced out of their workplace.
http://www.newgeography.com/content/003629-houston-rising-wh...
The author has his biases, but offers a different perspective from the mainstream.
It seems like "improvement" is the modern code word for "build housing poor people can't afford so we can get rid of the poor people"
Has the author ever tried to ride a bus down Mission street now? It takes like 45 minutes to go 8 blocks and you're packed in there like a sardine can.
Imagine if you made the buildings twice as tall you'd have to triple the amount of buses. Which probably wouldn't help because with the current amount of traffic you spend more time stopped than you do moving.
That said, as SF gets more expensive the Peninsula will slowly become more attractive, and I suppose things will work themselves out.
To wit: stop limiting buildings to single-block dimensions. Span the roads, not just with the occasional bridge, but by extending whole buildings.