I have never seen a highly populous city be affordable. It becomes a pressure cooker of market forces with the initial subsidized affordable housing ending up costing more and resources being redistributed to the point of infrastructure failing leading to more taxes leading to more unaffordability. It’s a vicious cycle.
Affordable houses pay less taxes than market rate. High density still absorb more infrastructure.
Where one house used stand, if there are 10 apartments..it’s that many x 2 cars on the street. It’s almost that many more children in public schools. It’s that many more households consuming water, power and need for general services. But schools don’t multiply..fire stations and police stations don’t increase to cater to the increase in population. Roads are not built to take care of the traffic nor is public transport improved.
More housing = more taxes. That’s why the govt encourages. Affordable housing actually fatten up the funds for the care and feeding of big Gov more because what they don’t offer in high per household tax, they make up in volume.
Net net, govt gets more $$ and the public gets less services. These 20 and 5@ year old multi billion projects never translate because they never see the light of day as they get obsolete quickly. That’s why the Bay Area looks so run down and unaffordable housing and traffic woes only keep increasing and never finds solutions.
Bay Area isn’t NYC. We are earthquake country with dismal public transport. We are more people and more sprawl. And definitely more jobs. Not comparable.
Do you think NYC is affordable for those earning 51k? Really?
The dismal public transport is what the proposal on the table will be taking aim at.
What makes you think NYC is unaffordable to households making under $51k, and how do you explain the fact that half the populace is doing exactly that?
What do earthquakes have to do with it? Half the megacities of Asia are in earthquake country.
On NYC: NYC is affordable to them only with rent control. Most people don’t have cars due to its public transport network that we lack in the Bay Area. The city has entertainment, easy access so people don’t have to leave their boroughs..never mind the city.
We have land in California and can provide housing IF we improve public transport. Sacramento takes money earmarked for public transport and channels it for affordable housing. It is a pattern of deception.
On Asian mega cities with high density, I am going to assume that you have lived there as you brought it up. Is that the kind of standard of living you think affordable high density housing advocates want in California? I see that you are housing advocate and I assume high density as you are dedicated to building more housing stock in San Francisco.
I have lived in high density Asian cities and have commuted at 20 km/hour. Which is what is happening in the Bay Area too.
How many parts of Asia do you think are earthquake prone? Please name them and their population density. I would like to compare quality of life between them and the bay area.
It is better than many other parts of the world tho’...I do agree that Europe wins in some respects. American comfort and quality of life does come from over consumption. We consume(and are wasteful too) at 350 million people more than the 1.3 billion Indians.
So yea..there is that..but surely we can have a middle ground between wasteful sprawl and high density, bumper to bumper trafficker life style.
Our local art gallery and indie coffee shops have closed down due to no foot traffic as home-office-home commute begins at 6.30 to 9,00 and then 2.00-7.30 pm. They use side streets and clog arterial infra city roads due to various traffic apps suggesting short cuts. The local mission that used to press olives every year from the olive trees in their property won’t do it anymore because they sold the land to build more condos. The community college wants to sell its land to build apartments and they aren’t even student housing. Everyone is in the speculative high density market rate housing game. Cities have no identity and they are nothing but bedroom communities where people come back to eat and sleep before getting up to go back to work again battling traffic. Are high density cities worth this zombie existence? That’s what Bay Area is becoming.. I hope it isn’t so!
You have things 100% backwards. High density should mean improved public transport because the economic incentives will shift to favor it strongly.
Low density sprawl is a huge factor in traffic because it pulls people apart. You can't walk anywhere because you have to live more than half an hour walk from the local shop, the local butcher, florist, cafe, gallery. Zombie existence? The low density shit hole that is the Bay Area is a zombie existence. European lifestyle with its much higher density and much better road traffic is the antithesis of zombie existence.
Right. I agree that it should improve public transport and infrastructure. But it hasn’t in the Bay Area. We vote for propositions and bond measures every election cycle only for the state to disappoint us again and again. The end result is high density without community benefits and infrastructure improvements.
Case in point, I can’t go out to get a bottle of milk between 2.00-7.00 because of traffic. People are cutting through residential roads due to traffic apps diverting them away from freeways which are clogged anyways. There are no shops within a mile of most homes. There are shopping hubs and then there are residential developments. Due to greed, Bay Area cities (ABAG is the name of the org) has zoned everything residential and there are no shops, no green spaces, no parks..no parking and no public transport! Just homes and homes and more high density homes to extract as much property taxes as possible. So these are not even affordable homes but expensive million dollar homes. These tax dollars go to improve other areas in California that is not as well off as Bay Area. Hence the awfulness of our region.
You’d think as a cash cow we would get some benefits for shouldering the economy of this state massively, but no...we are just a place where Sacramento can milk and milk and milk more for taxes. You’d think they’d improve other parts of California.
So obviously something is off..if this is a repeating pattern, then perhaps we must correct our assumptions about the benefits of high density vis a vis sustainability and quality of life. The data doesn’t deliver the promised benefits.
In the Bay Area, we don’t have low density sprawl. We have high to medium density already and most land is built out. We have a public transportation problem with both intra and inter city gridlocks.
The solution is to build outside and developing the public transport system to connect the hubs in the state. They have already wasted millions and millions on this with no impact except creating unsupported high density dwellings leading to more traffic woes.
Fifty years is ridiculous. Most of us won’t be alive and our children would already be burdened with debt before they are born. In China, roads and bridges and homes are built in months. Not even years. Here the bureaucracy of big govt makes any project going like one is rowing a boat through a creek of molasses.
So how do we fix this? Certainly not by handing over more tax dollars to Sacramento every time they come up with another hare brained scheme.
I mean..even this post here..check the article. They only know that they need 100 billion. No plan. No ideas as to how to collect it. No way for us to perform due diligence.
That's the fault of lack of public transport investment, but you will never get that investment if you don't increase density. If you bring the entire Bay Area into the South Bay, people's commute distances will be shorter. You then build much better public transport and the traffic will be alleviated.
"High to medium density". Absolute nonsense. Have you seen the South Bay? What looks high density to you?
In the Bay Area, they merged ABAG with the transport authority last year. It’s like ..how you say..a cartel.
I don’t know what you mean by ‘bring the entire Bay Area into the south bay’? It makes no sense to me.
I see no logic in asking for more and more high density housing developments with NO plans and NO supporting infrastructure. You can’t cram people into a closed and bounded geographical region without providing adequate resources and essential services and infrastructure.
And why should the South Bay bear the burden of supporting the entire inflow? Is it punishment for being successful and productive?
You BUILD infrastructure FIRST and then plan cities around it. That’s common sense.
Yes. South Bay is high density. I believe that. Next?
I am looking at for value for money and quality of life. Bay Area is not a ‘tiny ghost town’. It’s crowded and struggling with a serious deficit in imagination wrt city planning. It’s my town. I have a vote and I intend to use it. Please use yours if you want to change the system.
That’s right. Zoning laws are stupid. Who needs trees in a city? Or parks? Right? Let’s keep building high density homes and let our kids decide if they want to stand in a queue to go to the rest room or have lunch because new schools aren’t being built to accommodate the high density homes. Sounds like a plan.
Why ON EARTH would people work their arses off if they can’t live well and be a proud NIMBY? This is such fundamental human psychology that I am amazed that so many people don’t get it. I have never met a person who is a home owner in the Bay Area who is fighting for high density. Not one. It’s those who want to get in here who wants to build more and more. It’s pretty clear why and once they get a foot in..boom! The transformation to NIMBY begins. And I completely understand that!
Build responsibly. Build infrastructure. Build community benefits. Don’t take tens of thousands of dollars in taxes from high earning zipcodes and distribute it all to lower earning zip codes. The community deserves benefits. Everyone who is productive will QUIT the Bay Area they created if they don’t feel rewarded. And space is a luxury. And omg..do we pay for it through taxes and cost of living!!
Or.
People could move to Copenhagen. It’s a dream, I hear.
Reminds me of the high-speed rail project. They got federal grants but repeatedly failed to comply with the agreement and missing deadlines.
1 billion dollars in funds were canceled, and the state might have to pay back 2.5 billion already paid to them. [1]
I don't think California knows how to use any money they get ahold of. Some of the worst roads in the nation yet the highest gas taxes. People are leaving California in masses for places like Texas. California is one of the most moved out states. People are sick of high taxes and not being able to afford anything. Those taxes get passed down making everything else more expensive too like food and other needed things in life.
I know someone who recently cashed out their retirement investments accounts a little earlier than planned. He mentioned that his advisor was chit chatting while waiting on the computer to process something, and if he would have lived in California it would have been a 10% tax just for California alone, not even counting the fed taxes. They don't live in California luckily as it would have been about $15,000 more in taxes they'd owe than where they currently are.
While if they lived in Texas or Florida they'd save so much money since no state income tax, plus it's warmer and nicer too.
Also some people retire and decide to live in an RV full-time exploring around the US so then South Dakota is a great choice too as no income tax either plus since you still need to be a resident somewhere to have a driver license and registration even if you don't own property anymore so they are a great state to set up a home base as they are friendly to full-time travelers. Some people's former states where they sold their lifelong homes won't let them stay being a resident because they are basically considered homeless even if they own an expensive RV like a diesel pusher, so they risk their license and registration being canceled if they don't change their domicile to a friendly state to travelers. If you own a $100,000 house you aren't homeless but if you live in a $250,000 or half a million dollar RV you are homeless according to most states.
I guess with recognizing full-time RV living it increases South Dakota population count so it helps them get more federal funding and in return, they allow you to be considered a resident after spending one night at a hotel or campground while also renting a mailbox with a mail forwarding company. They even give you a new license the same day too, no waiting for one to be mailed, also no retesting either other than a eye test, walk in the next morning with the receipt for mailbox, hotel/campground, SSN card, birth cert and marriage license if your last name is different without even making an appointment then within a few minutes you are done. Then since full-timers will be mostly on vacation from South Dakota, they pay into the roads they hardly even use too. So another win-win for the state. Very small and efficient government up there.
While if you move to California they make you retake the test again, and you have to wait weeks to even get an appointment while being fined for not changing it without 10 days of signing a lease or buying a house because they're all booked up for over 2 months in advance.
People are getting sick and tired of California, parts of the midwest and the northeast so they are moving to the South. [2] Sadly some people can't really afford to move right now or have a family though but I think it's great people who can vote with their feet to try and better themselves are doing so.
Not only for economic reasons people are leaving California. People are also feeling unsafe due to them harboring illegal aliens. Someone who had been deported 5 times, ended up in the San Francisco County Jail on a drug charge only to be released instead of being turned over to feds... Then after being released the man ended up killing a woman at a popular tourist spot.
I could spend days talking about all the problems in California. California is a huge mess, and I think people who say otherwise are living in a bubble. However, I don't think people like to get into too much politics on here so will refrain from that, but probably enough bad with California I could write an entire book about.
I agree with you that CA has a lot of problems to solve.
I wouldn't want to live in Texas or Florida. Too much culture (and political) clash, different values, and everything is spread out, even in cities. I'll take CA's (and specifically SF's) problems over that.
Yeah, I guess FL and TX are more conservative which I lean... However, I think my view of what a conservative is and some others differ a bit.. I heard some people are running as Republicans just because they feel that’s what will give them the votes even if they aren’t really truly aligned. Then again I even disagree with a few ideas too. I guess you have to pick a label though. I’m for smaller government, leaving people alone if they aren’t harming anyone else, so personal freedoms and spending where they break even so spending within their means.
I know the governor here raised the gas taxes, and people on Facebook were commenting saying he isn't even a real Republican... Not sure how true that is or not.
Not sure about the more spread out part. I know a lot of places are designed around the car but I hear that’s even a problem in Los Angeles. Miami is supposed to be a walkable city, then Austin too... but been looking at Austin as an area to move to once I start having some success but it seems only downtown is really walkable. So seems like having a car would be useful unless using Uber or Lyft if you rarely go outside of the downtown area.
If money wasn’t an issue I’m not really sure where I’d want to live... Maybe Austin but not sure if forever would want to live there. One of the largest cities with unsynchronized traffic lights apparently as traffic is really bad there. But I guess they are a growing city with growing pains, some statistic says 100 people a day move there.
Central Florida around Disney would be nice too, and less worrying about hurricanes but you still get a lot of wind. East Tennessee, always thought a cabin in the mountains there would be nice but cold winters. Utah is very nice too but also gets cold. Used to want to move to San Francisco but kinda realized it was a bad idea due to both the costs of living and some politics. However a lot of investors and networking. I know startup communities are growing in other places though like Austin, TX, and is center between both the west and east coasts. So maybe you need to fly to SF for some event only 4-hour flight. Just seems friendlier to businesses. Fewer regulation headaches and get to keep more money in your pocket. However, I guess tech startups don't really have to deal much with permits unless doing something physical like the Hyperloop, recycling, building a new office instead of existing one or dealing in a regulated industry like medical or banking.
I was watching a story about a company who wanted to do a recycling plant... California seems to promote recycling a lot more than other states even with bag bans, etc... Waste Management spent over 10 years trying to get the permits approved to build it at an old landfill site in the LA area, at some point the company decided to move the project to Arizona and got the permits needed approved within a single day then spent 2 years to build it. [1] Los Angeles even has a Freelancer Tax for people who work from home. Sounds like some other cities are catching on and starting to tax people who work at home... Was looking if Austin did a thing, and it looks like nothing special is required but there's a set of guidelines to follow... However, just someone sitting on their laptop coding wouldn't break them it looks. Some cities though don't even mention this though so I guess working from home isn't a problem unless you have like customers visiting that disrupts things. I think places across the country are getting greedier though for some reason and I think it will drive people away.
I know where I am currently, we have a bunch of taxes. There's city taxes, school district taxes, state income taxes, a CAT tax if you make more than $150,000 and of course fed taxes... When I was looking at Utah a few years ago since I have a friend there, I was shocked they didn't have city taxes. I figured that was everywhere so surprised me. There's a site that ranks states as friendly California ranks 49. Looks like Ohio is ranked 42, while Texas is a 15. South Dakota is a 3. I feel like we're turning into the next California or New York.
So I think I have my eyes on Austin, Texas right now. Be nice to be able to work on some code, get frustrated and be able to go on a long walk. Where I live we don't even have sidewalks everywhere, so walking along the street but I even have had people in cars flick me off. Maybe if I was somewhere like Cincinnati maybe would be better as a bit bigger city for someone interested in tech, but hey it's cold and an area hit hard by the heroin epidemic so might have to walk over dead bodies on the sidewalk of people who overdosed. Well maybe not that bad but would seem so if I listen to the news. So If I made enough money to get my own place there since I still live at home and, might as well just leave for Texas. Fly there and get a small apartment and ship the few things I own. Seattle has a huge drug and crime problem too. KOMO did an hour special called "Seattle is Dying" back in March. [3]
I know some people call this the "brain drain". Even the local governments themselves are having trouble hiring people with the skills they need. Young people grow up, and leave to never return. [4] The midwest seems to be suffering the most brain drain. Probably partly school problems too. I remember I used to play online gaming a lot and voice chat with people on them, and someone told me their school had brand new iMac's while our school still had computers that ran Windows 95. Even mentioned they were doing web design stuff too, well sounds like Dreamweaver type of stuff but amazed me hearing that. Seems crazy using an operating system released when you were a 3 year old when you are in middle school.
Overall though I really feel like the nomadic lifestyle would make me the happiest though if can figure out how to make it work. Live out of a suitcase traveling the world or an RV across America. However, I do want to check out some of the bigger cities but some don't seem to have any or many RV park choices nearby.
There is even some guy who goes by Super Mario who lives on cruise ships full time sailing out of Miami. Interesting lifestyle, I believe he does some type of investments off of his laptop. I think if I made enough from my computer I'd do the same for a while. Reading some stories on HN is inspiring though. Right now been researching blockchain related stuff, got some ideas in that space... So maybe make it big in that area haha. I asked my folks why they didn't move since always talked about Florida but the family was one of the main reason to stick around. Also, I know a lot of people collect so much stuff, looks like junk to others but to them, it has stories and meanings. So I guess if you lived at the same house 30 or 50 years getting up and going for another lifestyle can be a hurtle emotionally. While I'm young without much stuff, so a bit easier.
Could you clarify this? There are countless affordable neighborhoods that are all apartments.