So having more people to split that cost with would help! To be clear Hong Kong island is far harder to build on.
> Plus there are a lot of people that like the character of their neighbourhood and don’t want to live in an apartment building. It isn’t their fault that SF became the global tech capital.
They’re also not entitled to that. In a democracy the many decide.
Actually, yes they are. San Francisco is a participatory democracy. Between a large # of ballots voted for each November, we elect our board of supervisors and attend supervisor meetings to tell them how to vote.
If people don't vote, well, that's their fault.
I say that as someone who owns property in San Francisco.
In a democracy the people who inhabit a place decide. Not the people who want to inhabit it. That's not democracy, it's colonialism.
Colonialism: the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.
We did decide, and continue to do so in supervisor meetings and in the ballot box. You might want to read up on federalism.
People always ignore this fact. Infrastructure isn’t free. When all is said and done the Central Subway extension will likely have cost over $2bn for 1.7 miles of subway. [1] The new transit center cost $2.2bn [2]. Rebuilding 1/2 of the bay bridge cost $6.5bn. [3]
Consider that money for all of this is artificially restricted by Prop 13, and by California being a net-giver state, paying about $40bn per year more to the fed than we receive back, effectively being a piggy bank for poorer states.
> Plus there are a lot of people that like the character of their neighbourhood and don’t want to live in an apartment building.
Many commenters with a lot of hatred for San Francisco’s unique brand of dirext democracy are sadly OK with overruling the expressed will of the people not to turn our home into New York just so some tech billionaires can sell more banner ads.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Subway
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transbay_Transit_Center
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_span_replacement_of_th...
> Many commenters with a lot of hatred for San Francisco’s unique brand of dirext democracy are sadly OK with overruling the expressed will of the people not to turn our home into New York just so some tech billionaires can sell more banner ads.
Who's our? Generally voters tend to be older, wealthier and landowners. The large pile of younger, less wealthy, more transient renters isn't represented well. I don't think the outcome means the system works.
Citation?
> Who's our? Generally voters tend to be older, wealthier and landowners. The large pile of younger, less wealthy, more transient renters isn't represented well. I don't think the outcome means the system works.
That’s how democracy works. If you don’t vote, you don’t have a voice.
All costs below are in $USD nominal per mile of fully-underground subway system.
NYC subway extension, east side: $3.7B per mile.
SF Central subway: $928M per mile.
Tokyo: $400M
Beijing: $240M
Berlin: $327M
Naples: $194M
Milan: $175M
This is backed up by a Citylab analysis:
Alon Levy at Citylab shows approximate range of underground rail construction costs in continental Europe and Japan is between $100 million per mile and $1 billion. Most subway lines cluster in the range of $200 million to $500 million per mile.
The US has a range of subway construction costs of $600 million to $2.6 billion per mile. The US median price cluster is $800 million to $1 billion per mile.
> That’s how democracy works. If you don’t vote, you don’t have a voice.
Indeed.
[1] https://www.marketplace.org/2019/04/11/subways-us-expensive-...
[2] https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/01/subways-and-light-rail...
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-26/the-u-s-g...
[4] https://pedestrianobservations.com/2011/08/22/construction-c...
[5] https://public.tableau.com/profile/romic2976#!/vizhome/EnoTr...
The cost of upgrading infrastructure in a busy city is enormously expensive. San Francisco is on a peninsula with no room at all to expand outward. The only solution is to build up and that’s a real problem in an area prone to earthquakes.
Plus there are a lot of people that like the character of their neighbourhood and don’t want to live in an apartment building. It isn’t their fault that SF became the global tech capital.