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Comment by eli_gottlieb | Hacker News Reader

Gosh, wouldn't the world be such a nicer place if society solved its housing problems by building more housing with a higher density instead of having these pointless zero-sum dominance contests?

But of course, that would defeat the whole purpose. The point is not to build more housing, it's to have a zero-sum dominance contest and come out on top!

</extreme cynicism>

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The point is not dominance contests, the point is people want to keep their low density housing even as housing costs rise in their city.

Imagine if you lived in Hawaii, and the island was just starting to become popular because it is so nice. Everyone was moving there, and rents were going through the roof because there is nowhere to expand. What you want isn't Manhattan sky-rises on your little island; you want cheap, pre-discovery Hawaii with its thatch huts and casual atmosphere back.

Ah, yes, let's have our 50's idyll back. That's what we need. The world obviously has not changed a bit since, so the neighborhoods don't need to meet any change.

I didn't say it was a tenable position, just pointing out what I believe the complaint is actually about.

In general, I agree that building up can harm the character of a neighborhood, but this is often presented in the context of SF and Oakland as a false choice.

The difference between skyrocketing prices and stable ones is on the order of 3,000 new units per year, not 30,000. This is a goal we can hit with skyrises restricted to one part of town, or with three family homes in place of a lot of single family homes, or in a number of other tasteful ways.

It's not as if 500,000 techies are moving to Oakland at once. It's a slow trickle, but, with a fixed supply, prices spike.

Hawaii is an interesting example. You should check out this supreme court case: (HHA v. Midkiff) http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/467/229

Basically, a few people owned a majority of the homes on Hawaii, and there was a supreme court case about the right of the state to seize and redistribute them.

I'm not sure I can see strong ties between that case and this issue, but it is an interesting case! Thank you for the link :)

>The point is not dominance contests, the point is people want to keep their low density housing even as housing costs rise in their city.

I was told by an SF native that the problem was also one of wanting to keep older housing rather—some historic styling reasons.

Does anyone know more about that aspect? I mean every city / town has historically designated homes, is there a more aggressive form of general legislation like that preventing new housing?

FWIW, the unhip parts of San Francisco have had relatively stable rent and housing costs. It's just the 'cool' parts that took off, and then the 'cool' parts of Oakland.

The last time I looked, it was only slightly pricier where I live in SF, compared to even 10 years ago, when I moved here.

I don't think it's preventing new housing. Take a look at all the new developments going up along Market St and in SOMA. They are very ugly. Absolutely no character whatsoever.

Not sure what the legislation is regarding maintaining existing buildings. Twitter has hung an awful sign outside their historic building. Butt ugly.

Except Oakland really sucked before the late 90s/early 2000s gentrification happened.

In other words, they don't want pre-discovery Hawaii back - they want post-discovery Hawaii back and for all these latecomers with more money than them to fuck off.

Right, Hawaii is not a perfect parallel, but rather how I expect things look like through their eyes. Their perception is their reality.

Ah yes. In both New York and San Francisco there are fun and exciting zero-sum dominance games, combined with the overhanging threat that some communist like Bill de Blasio might get elected and decide to take away your future rental income by tightening the rent control regime. And people wonder why the rent is too damn high.

Not sure which city has it worse today. Of course, in New York in the sixties and seventies, over a third of the apartment buildings in Harlem were simply abandoned and left to rot, and the Bronx was burned; I'm not aware of similar destructiveness in San Francisco (notwithstanding even the Japanese internment which replaced Japantown with the abominable public housing in the modern Fillmore and Western Addition).

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