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Comment by jefflinwood | Hacker News Reader

There's a huge demand for housing of any kind in the Bay Area, so it doesn't surprise me that areas like East Palo Alto and the Bayview are going to face a lot of demographic upheaval, unless new housing units are brought online in other areas.

There doesn't seem to be any appetite whatsoever for filling in more of the San Francisco Bay to create land, and there are restrictions and conservation easements on most of the land stretching from 280 to the Coastside.

One possible area to expand into would be Coyote Valley, south of San Jose, which was a growth target during the first dot.com bubble in 1999, around a Cisco campus. If Caltrain could put in a station there, along with express lines, that may open up a middle-class area to new housing opportunities.

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It seems very silly to me that people want to bulldoze Coyote Valley in the name of housing when "downtown" Mountain View, flanking a mainline commuter railroad, consists entirely of single-story buildings and parking lots. There are many, many, MANY opportunities around the Bay to replace wasteful developments with real ones. Just look at the grotesque waste of the Blossom Hill Caltrain area. It's strip malls, parking, and sprawl for miles. If you go further out, you'll get more of the same.

Quite right. I think the whole Camino Real strip from San Jose to Daly city could be turned into a high density corridor with subway line running below (or above) connecting SF to SJ and all the new downtowns in between. Like a really long Van Ness going down the peninsula.

Old timers could keep their quaint towns --whatever, but at least allow a modern city corridor down The Camino with good density and the accompanying amenities (design it with self-reliance in mind so as not to incite needless driving). The thing that irks me most is the anti building anti progress contingent which aims to keep the whole of the bay area preserved as it was in 1964. Look at China Japan Singapore Holland get a clue learn to change with the times

I think there is something to be said about the quality of life in these individual cities.

From San Jose through Carlmont, Burlingame etc., each city already has a large amount of development and more importantly, are residential neighborhoods containing schools, parks, and the like.

There are already very large amounts of traffic congestion at certain points (currently have Ralston and Hillsdale in my mind), and near the various high schools in the area.

I'm not saying we shouldn't strive for better infrastructure and development planning but the Camino Real strip is not the low hanging fruit in my opinion.

The thing is lots of those towns cry foul when someone wants to introduce development. It's virtually a crime. But if you could make the corridor self sustaining with a good efficient transit line up and down the corridor -- that would be my dream. In reality it's going to be piecemeal with old timers kicking and screaming at every occasion.

Quite right. I think the whole Camino Real strip from San Jose to Daly city could be turned into a high density corridor

Redwood City is doing that. Check out the huge new buildings next to the railroad tracks.

Besides, this boom is probably temporary. Social and apps have probably peaked.

It may have but there is still too little housing stock for the current pop. In addition there are lots of old units which should leave the market... But this market is taking anything and everything available.

Just like how chips peaked and telecom peaked? There's always a next technology, and odds are it'll be worked on in the Bay Area. It's where the money and talent is concentrated.

Just like the public pension debacle in Illinois, it seems like the entrenched interests of Bay Area's housing problems would rather watch the whole thing burn to the ground than admit that their positions are untenable.

There's a little more to it than that. NIMBYs and outdated housing density restrictions are a problem, but prop 13 is incredibly harmful as well. The entrenched interests for that particular mantle includes "anyone who owns property".

But you can't treat those details, the restrictions on growth, the way that poor people were pushed into substandard locations that only now face demand, the lack of new housing elsewhere, as something that just happened. These are systemic issues.

Nothing about this has just happened - if you read the article, they even have a link to a 1994 article in the Christian Science Monitor about the divide between East Palo Alto and Palo Alto.

Rent control ordinances in East Palo Alto probably help the current community stay in place (unlike other Peninsula towns).

The article also explains the role of subprime loans (in the context of refinancing for existing homeowners) in causing a loss of home equity with the existing community, especially between 2003-2008, which was in-between the booms in the SF Bay Area.

Yeah, if it wasn't clear, that's what I was saying.

problem is no one with money is taking a chance there. Everyone with money goes to other areas that have more of a chance to turn into a "good" neighborhood.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'money' but people with professional incomes have moved into units in EPA. But, it's double edged. Middle class people move in, drive up prices, bring their expectations (parks, education, culture, etc), tax base and slowly drive out long time residents --and then you get people who bemoan 'gentrification'. They want the coffee without the caffeine, as it's put. But then, if it does not gentrify, then others lament the lack of investment and 'flight' of those who can leave due to some success, or whatever --it's not as if people living there would not move out and find a better neighborhood if they could (with few exceptions of the kind of people who love 'grit' and 'authenticity' as if other people are inauthentic, somehow.

Basically, it's a complex situation and many (but different) people will be unhappy with the different possible outcomes of change in the community.

There is an interesting discussion of this phenomenon in the Winter 2014 issue of _Boom_[1] called "On Becoming a Historic Resident of Oakland".

1: http://www.boomcalifornia.com/2014/12/winter-2014/

I read that piece, and I agree it was well done. It's not available for free online, alas. The summer issue had a Nu ber of takes on the SF housing crisis and they are all free online: http://www.boomcalifornia.com/2014/06/summer-2014/

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