"But for a beautiful moment in time, we created a lot of value for homeowners."

http://www.derekchristensen.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/s...

I'd say people in the state being disadvantaged by the housing crisis vastly outnumber those profiting from it. It's just that people in power (richer, older folks, those sitting on local councils, state legislatures, celebrities, corporations, pastors, power brokers, other influential figures) all fall into the latter category.

"They also vote a lot more, and a lot more predictably"

Literally the words out of the mouth of a close friend of mine who sits on city council for a mid-size CA suburb

An upvote is not sufficient to convey my support of this comment. Seriously, CA would be vastly different if people just showed up to vote. Unfortunately that never seems to change.

As controversial and as energizing as the 2020 election was, and despite breaking voter turnout records, 33% of the voting eligible population still did not show up to vote!

With Covid, person id verification apps became common. Can't they be used for voting? Instead of registering and going to polling stations, just get a popup "Do you want more houses built - Yes/No". Press a button, done.

No because such things should never become digital. Voting should never become digital or rather processed via the internet.

To get a National ID system done there should be an earnest effort to ensure that EVERYone gets one free of charge , at the fastest connivence and earnest effort and no future legislation can infringe on its obtainment and replacement. Anything lesser would be I adequate.

Don't make the mistake of assuming all people in favor of the status-quo only "profit" monetarily:

http://radicalcartography.net/bayarea.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/priceonomics/2016/05/11/the-afr...

"Get the poor's out of here!"

But they also want a barista to serve them a latte, it doesn't matter if the barista has an hour commute each way and shit benefits.

I'd say eat the rich, but this place hates that meme xD

Because if you eat the rich then youre only naturally selecting for the faster and more ellusive rich that you wont be able to catch.

With seriousness, a slogan that accomplishes nothing takes the teeth out of a protest. Tax the super wealthy at x% ans enforce minimum corporate taxes simply doesnt have a ring to it.

But sir, if you keep exploiting the poor you're only naturally selecting for a meaner hungrier mob.

With seriousness.

It's worth noting that while upzoning can help the whole housing market go down in price, it can also unlock value for existing home owners.

If you currently own a home and a law is passed that allows you to turn your upstairs into an apartment, then your home may now be worth more, and you actually can access the value stored in your home (by renting it out).

Similarly, if any home in your neighborhood can be turned into a fourplex or larger, and there's the demand to do so, then the supply of large single-family homes in your area shrinks. So your house price can increase as it becomes a rarer find.

But since the total supply of units is going up, rent goes down. And since rent goes down, you don't need pay people extra just to accommodate for crazy expensive housing. For the home owner, cost of living goes down, as every store and restaurant they go to gets cheaper.

Plus, it means that they pay less in taxes, or at least get more for the taxes they're already paying. Places like San Francisco are so inefficient with their tax bases because you need to pay every random bureaucrats $100k+ just to keep up with cost of living.

If you stop restricting the size of the pie, it grows and benefits everyone.

Only half of California homes are owner occupied. [0] So, there could be more CA voters renting than home owners. To put that in perspective, Texas has over 60% owner-occupied housing [1].

[0]https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/CA

[1]https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/TX

I live in a single family house, I've lived in apartments. For me quality of life is way better in SFH. Don't care if house price gows down or up, won't sell this house.

It's not a popular opinion here, but quality of life is important for many of us.

There is nothing wrong with sfh. The problem is when only sfh’s are allowed.

An sfh next to a high density apartment building feels a lot less like a sfh.

When you don't pull a CA and let things grow organically there isn't much of a discontinuity so you don't get much development like that. It'll be a gradual increase from SFH in the exurbs with more and more mutlifamily and small apartment buildings increasing in density to the city core where it's basically all purpose built apartment buildings with dozens of units at a minimum.

A neighborhood that's got a lot of 2/3/4 family homes feels about the same as a SFH neighborhood if those homes have one unit occupied by the owner.

quality of life is important for all of us. That’s the problem.

Isn't it more reasonable to think that maybe the people in single-family zoned neighborhoods want to live in that kind of neighborhood, completely apart from the price of their houses?

But home values will plummet is a common bogeyman used in local zoning battles, so separating the two concepts is not as trivial as you suggest.

Precisely.

I don't know of any SF voters who think "oh yeah, I need to fight this new development so the price of my house continues to rise".

It's more like "I like the way my neighborhood is and don't want it to change".

I'm afraid a change is inevitable. But it can be a softer change that mostly preserves what they care for, or a rough and dramatic change if no adaptive measures are taken.

I suppose that SF residents probably liked what their city was in, say, 1985, and did not want any change. Has SF changed somehow by 2020? Was in to the better?

If you talk to people who have lived in Mountain View, CA for 30+ years they aren't thrilled about Google moving in. Sure their property values are huge but quality of life is worse. Property appreciation doesn't mean much if you're not planning to sell and just want a nice place to live.

Don’t be crazy - everyone wants to live in a pod!

Money is less of a motivator than the preservation of a lifestyle.

It's the most economically rational decision for a very large voting block, but it is openly screwing entire generations as well.

Depends on what percentage of California voters are renters...

Housing can't be both affordable and a good investment.

You have that backwards. Housing can only be affordable if it's not a good investment. If it's a good investment, people will buy houses expecting to get much more out of it than just a place to stay.

Look at Japan, for example, where houses lose their value after 40 years. I pay cheaper rent in Tokyo than I ever did in even mid-sized American cities.

Both of these are wrong because they confuse buildings and land. Land can be a good investment even if shelter is affordable. My understanding, for example, is land in Tokyo is quite expensive.

Random, but what do you do in Tokyo? I’ve been trying to break into their market for two years. Had an offer rescinded from Rakuten because immigration shut down.

The housing market boggles my mind how houses don’t appreciate at all there.

Houses are like cars. Nice when they're new, but problems accumulate over time, and eventually with the march of technology and fashion, no one wants an old beater if they can afford otherwise.

Why the downvotes? Housing can’t increase in value faster than real wages over time without making future generations measurably poorer. Of course, caveats apply. It’s reasonable that land prices in urban areas will on average grow as the population does, but if no development is allowed to be able to offset those higher prices then essentially nobody benefits from that increase in value besides existing homeowners.

It an be if you're allowed to improve it.

People have children, sometimes multiple. They're not exactly thrilled about the outlook for them. Also, people have stories about the types of people who have offered them these outrageous prices for their homes. I don't believe this is a situation that will be strongly supported by the average home owner.

>People have children, sometimes multiple

Legend has it people even have those outside of single family zoned regions in California!

I’d be more worried about my children growing up in a world where the only places left to live are zoned and built like termite mounts.

don't question unending economic growth :) it's definitely not the root cause of many modern existential problems!

When I think of somebody converting their house to a duplex, termite mound is not the picture that comes to mind.