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.
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.