http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-pol-ca-housing-supply/
San Francisco rents have sometimes gone down slightly, but they never returned to sane levels, and affordable housing for the poor hasn’t been abundant in many, many years.
http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/11-a-good-walk-spoile...
Ultimately, the original sin was racism.
http://www.oaklandmagazine.com/May-2017/The-Real-Cause-of-Ge...
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/zoning-...
The simple fact is that if you own a Bay Area home, you will oppose increased supplies because it makes your home less valuable. Homeowners are simply attempting to protect their equity. If housing prices dropped 20% because of increased supply, suddenly tens of thousands are now upside down on their home.
I know the actual reason, but I still can’t help but wonder why Hong Kong/Seoul/Shanghai style high rises are not more of a thing in the Bay Area. There seems like a ton of good spots along the 280 from San Bruno to Woodside.
I live in one with < 1% vacancy rate and it's also a tourist city. Apartment prices have gone up more than 50% in the past few years.
[1] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-17/houston-commercial-...
Yeah, this is a bit of "yimby" rhetoric that's pretty simple-minded. People don't oppose new construction because of abstract fears like "property value"...they oppose them because of concrete fears, like changing the character of the neighborhood, or increasing traffic.
I'm not saying I agree with those fears, but it's helpful not to make cartoon characterizations of the other side's arguments, when many of those arguments have merit. If you spent most of your life savings on a house in a cute suburban neighborhood, you'd (rightly) be pretty pissed if people suddenly wanted to surround it with high-rises.
Again, I don't agree with these arguments, but it's helpful to actually understand them.
Traffic goes down when we have mixed use zones vs. Euclidean zoning.
I see. Because people have used this complaint to do bad things, it is therefore always incorrect. Got it.
Writing off the whole notion that people fear their property value falling is illogical.
When you go to planning meetings, people are not generally complaining about property values. They're complaining about neighborhood character, traffic, parking, etc. I'm not going to say it never happens, but when it does, you should dig deeper. There are always real concerns.
What is true is that for decades people who came here at some time in the past complain about how newcomers are overturning its way of life, despite having been newcomers themselves at one point.[1] Aging hippies complained in the 80s that yuppies were ruining the Haight, despite having been "neighborhood-ruiners" themselves when they came in the 1960s; the Mission used to be an Irish and Italian neighborhood before it was the center of Latino culture in the city, but it's the neighborhood most vociferously complaining about newcomers and insisting on building moratoriums to stop the neighborhood from changing.[2] It's all deeply hypocritical and unprincipled, but also completely unsurprising.
tl;dr: San Francisco has always been an expensive place to live and we've never built enough housing to meet demand [3]
[0] https://experimental-geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employme...
[1] https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/04/15/san-franciscos-current-...
[2] http://sfist.com/2015/10/07/san_francisco_has_always_been_a_...
[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/san-francisco-housing-cr...
Actually, everything I wrote is a fact, and you can verify it. SF rents went down as recently as 2012, and are currently in a pronounced, acute period of hyperinflation [1]. San Francisco's population declined rather dramatically from 1950-1980 [2]
I'm sorry if this doesn't fit with your preferred narrative, but citing opinion articles does not provide data for your position.
[1] https://medium.com/@mccannatron/1979-to-2015-average-rent-in...
[2] https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2FrCiZiCNaMFiUqWC_RK8sh3NnU=...
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/4660089/Population-Growth_SF.0.jpg){kind=link}
Edit: even your sfist link confirms the basic facts, despite its (inaccurate and hyperbolic) headline. To wit:
"Dips in the population, urban flight, and a decaying Edwardian housing stock — much of which was built between 1907 and 1910 and was in great disrepair by 1970, when areas like Alamo Square were extremely "low-rent" and dilapidated — may have made life cheaper for the hippies, but that all began to change by the early 1980s."
So yeah...SF hasn't "always" been an expensive city. No more than any other city, anyway.
Yeah, it might be nice if the US tech industry were more geographically distributed throughout the country (though that would also potentially have negative consequences due to constant relocation necessary when switching jobs). But NIMBY policies have broadly failed at getting people to move away. They have, in fact, just made the situation worse.
I'm coming late to this just to make a narrow point, but I'm not sure you should put nurses into that sentence. Take a look at US News Best Jobs and see a roundup of BLS stats for salaries in San Francisco.
Registered Nurses earn a median salary of $133,650 in San Francisco
https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/registered-nurse/...
A software developer in SF earns a median salary of $117,770
https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/software-develope...
Now, that does seem suspiciously low to me (in San Jose, the salary is over $140k). And every time I mention this, I am careful to point out that I have no objection whatsoever to nurses making lots of money, more than programmers. It's a tough and important job that deserves good pay, and while I wouldn't argue that it should pay more, I certainly wouldn't argue that it shouldn't, either (I do think programming is a tougher and more stressful job than people generally realize).
But the notion that programmers with their high pay are driving out nurses seems a stretch. I would argue that programmer compensation is higher than what is cited here, and there are other factors. But none of this is enough, to me, to overcome these numbers. While low income people are driven out of SF by the presence of higher earning workers, I don't think you can really say Nurses are driven out by programmers. Doesn't really work.
And programmers, I assure you, are most definitely hurt by the high housing costs in SF.
OK...but that's also an argument for creating public policy that discourages tech companies from locating in the city. We could start by eliminating the mid-Market tax incentives.
The "yimby" movement is at least as much about tech companies who have invaded and now want to change their environment, as it is "everyone else who isn't a programmer." I wish we could be honest about that fact.
My parents are poor, so I watched the market from the bottom end. What I experienced was that the amount we paid for what we got was sort of dumb, but at least we could afford an illegal in-law. Then, in the early 1990s, we got an OMI eviction and moved in with relatives. And now I’m paying twice as much for a fourth of the space in the same neighborhood, while my parents were ripped from their communities and moved out of the Bay Area.
For the low end of the market, any restriction will make housing more scarce, and San Francisco is not short on restrictions. That is why I support the YIMBY movement.
https://sf.curbed.com/2013/4/3/10257506/navigating-the-treac...
Even without the tech boom, California hasn’t been keeping up with housing demand:
“Every generation, civilization is invaded by barbarians - we call them ‘children.’” - Hannah Arendt
http://ochousingnews.com/california-nimbys-dont-love-childre...
Except, it isn't. As I've documented in this thread, like most American cities, the SF population was declining for ~30 years, until the mid/late 1980s. The first tech boom really kicked things off for local real estate again, starting in the early 90s...which was the last time the city saw a building boom. Developers build in times of increasing demand, and that's exactly what happens in SF.
In any case, repeating the "supply and demand" mantra doesn't change basic facts about the timing and cause of this boom. The problem is not that developers "didn't build enough" in 1980...it's that we've disproportionately grown demand starting in ~2012, and large housing projects don't get built that quickly in tiny, landlocked cities.
Cutting the counter-productive tax incentives for tech should be on the very short list of ideas for restoring sanity to SF.
As you say, developers build in times of increasing demand, yet there hasn’t been a real building boom since the early 1990s.[3] In a normal situation, increasing prosperity would bring both jobs and homes to an area. Here, we have the jobs but not the homes.[4]
The developers intimately know how price is caused by supply and demand, and do not build unless they are reasonably certain that they can make a profit. They avoid causing gluts. The problem here is that California has some of the most misguided regulations,[5][6] and municipalities some of the worst processes,[7][8] that prevent housing from being affordable to build.[9] Developers can’t be certain to make back their investment when housing is not in crisis, and we need to fix this.
Like sea urchins in a kelp desert,[10] mega-developers with large projects are not the core issue. Mega-developers work best when trampling over pristine wilderness. We need to build inside cities.[11] The core issue is that we collectively do not have the imagination to enable thousands of small-time landowners to undercut the mega-developers with naturally affordable housing.[12] Zoning makes it illegal,[13] and government process makes it impractical, for ordinary non-developer people to build around here.
The Republican mantra is that “Government is the problem.” But at the local level, the government is the people, or a funhouse subset of them. The policies that create the housing crisis enjoy bipartisan support. My support for the YIMBY Party[14] is not about supply and demand. It’s about creating a political demographic for getting people into humane homes.
[0] http://www.sightline.org/2017/07/05/stop-blaming-foreign-hom...
[1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-tax-deductions-econ...
[2] https://sf.curbed.com/2016/10/12/12945854/bay-area-cities-jo...
[3] https://twitter.com/mottsmith/status/856553360278736896/phot...
[4] https://sf.curbed.com/2017/7/26/16040938/san-francisco-jobs-...
[5] http://www.builderonline.com/building/regulation-policy/the-...
[6] http://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2003-07-01...
[7] https://sf.curbed.com/2013/4/3/10257506/navigating-the-treac...
[8] http://www.oaklandmagazine.com/May-2017/The-Real-Cause-of-Ge...
[9] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/6/15/affordable-hou...
[10] https://cdfwmarine.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/perfect-storm-de...
[11] http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-climate-ch...
[12] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/6/12/the-power-of-g...
[13] https://www.curbed.com/2017/3/7/14837014/affordable-housing-...
No. That's what YIMBY people keep repeating. Regulations account for only ~20% of the cost of new construction in SF. The "cause of the crisis" in SF is acute demand on a tiny peninsula where there is no unbuilt land. I can't speak for the rest of the bay area, but the YIMBY line is almost entirely wrong when it comes to San Francisco.
"In a normal situation, increasing prosperity would bring both jobs and homes to an area. Here, we have the jobs but not the homes."
San Francisco has been in the midst of a dramatic building boom since ~2013. There are projects all across the city. Mission bay went from vacant land to fully developed in less than four years.
In other words, aside from the fact that huge multi-family housing projects take a few years to get built (everywhere!), things are working exactly as they should. But no, you can't build giant housing projects faster than the tech bubble has inflated in SF. That part is true.
"The problem here is that California has some of the most misguided regulations, and municipalities some of the worst processes, that prevent housing from being affordable to build. Developers can’t be certain to make back their investment when housing is not in crisis, and we need to fix this."
Repeat after me: 80% of the cost of building in SF is land, labor and materials. Meditate on that fact every time you're compelled to repeat something about regulations. When developers in SF complain about regulations, they're dog-whistling to the BMR housing subsidy. That's the bulk of their "regulatory" costs.
Also, stop confusing "California" and San Francisco. They're different. Atherton's building policies have nothing to do with SOMA construction projects.
"The core issue is that we collectively do not have the imagination to enable thousands of small-time landowners to undercut the mega-developers with naturally affordable housing. Zoning makes it illegal, and government process makes it impractical, for ordinary non-developer people to build around here."
Nonsense. Small-time landowners cannot fix housing density in dense, fully-built cities like SF. To create any meaningful amount of housing, you need the capital to buy large amounts of land, labor and materials for high-rise buildings. That's why big developers are doing the construction -- not "regulation", and certainly not "zoning" (while I agree that height limits can/should be higher in many places in SF, it wouldn't suddenly enable small landlords to build skyscrapers. Your "evidence" for this claim has very little to say about zoning; it's merely a collection of snarky graphics).
I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but San Francisco is in California. Bad state laws are being abused in San Francisco,[2] and the entire state is in housing crisis.[3] Additionally, Atherton affects San Francisco because it is within commuting distance. If Atherton built 500,000 units of housing especially within a mile of their Caltrain station, that would dramatically affect housing prices in San Francisco.
You keep using words like “dense.” San Francisco is not dense.[4] Most of the recent development has been on 20% of the land.[5] Go west or south of the Mission District, and except for small “transit corridors” and a few pockets of housing, it’s like a time capsule from the 1950s. With a lot more cars.
The idea that an area once built is finished, is a disease that threatens the viability of this country.[6] Small-time landowners cannot fix the crisis because around a third of the privately owned land is zoned for single-family homes (even worse down the peninsula).[7] It is actually illegal for most landowners to increase density, so they don’t even try.[8]
We do not need mega-developers with mega-towers at this time. Those have very high building costs. We can satisfy current demand with a whole lot of medium-sized buildings with much lower building costs.[9]
[0] http://sfist.com/2017/02/15/another_study_contends_sf_housin...
[1] https://sf.curbed.com/2017/4/28/15476540/1924-mission-review
[2] https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/how-cities-bypass-...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/us/california-housing-cri...
[4] https://sf.curbed.com/2017/3/8/14856316/san-francisco-densit...
[5] https://archpaper.com/2017/05/san-francisco-housing/
[6] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/4/17/sprawl-is-not-...
[7] http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/11/25/bay_area_zoni...
[8] https://yimbyaction.org/upzoningletter/
[9] http://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-density-thought...
The equal protection clause of the Constitution establishes freedom of movement for all Americans. Native and longtime San Franciscans have no more or less right to be there than the Iowans and Wisconsinites flooding in.
If you want to change that, then secede from the United States.
It’s been a problem since the 90s but it eases off for a year or 3 every recession.
Same deal here - it’s been crap for decades but the 2008 crash deflated the balooon a little for a while.
...and yet, this crisis is only about 5 years old. Between 2008 and 2012, San Francisco rents were going down, not up. San Francisco's population declined in the 1980s. Say what you will about construction rates, but this is an acute housing crisis, brought on by an asset bubble, instigated by historically low interest rates.
One way to look at the current situation is to get upset and say "how dare this community not overturn its way of life to accommodate our industry!", but another, equally valid viewpoint is to acknowledge the simple fact that it's painfully stupid to try to cram the entire tech industry in a 49-square-mile patch of land (or realistically, a 20-square mile patch; nobody in tech believes there's life west of Divisidero or east of Embarcadero).
So no, people don't "need" to live here. There's no practical reason that the tech industry couldn't be spread all over the world. It was actually always kind of dumb and impractical to found startups here. But it's trendy for 20-something tech bros to live here right now, and therefore, everyone else is expected to move aside and make room.