
Rise of the yimbys: the angry millennials with a radical housing solution - readams
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/oct/02/rise-of-the-yimbys-angry-millennials-radical-housing-solution
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some-guy
Slightly-off topic rant, but as a Bay Area millennial in the tech industry, I
find it completely preposterous just how much even us with six-figure salaries
are _willing to spend_ for the opportunity to live above their favorite brunch
spot in the Mission District.

A lot of fresh grads in the industry think that spending 50-70% of their net
income on rent is a completely reasonable thing to do. Though my observations
are unscientific, plenty of my friends are living paycheck to paycheck, eating
out all the time, constantly travelling, _by choice_ because their friends are
doing the same. They don't want to take the extra 15 minutes on a train to
visit their friends by living in a more affordable area. When I lived in
Oakland for instance, my friends in SF would almost never visit me because it
was just a bit too far even though I'm walking distance from the Oakland City
Center BART station.

This insatiable desire for young techies to spend a stupid amount of their
money to be part of this elite club is astounding.

~~~
sjg007
I mean, first it was Noe Valley... SF is gentrifying. The Mission isn't
necessarily immune to this. People will be pushed out East down the Bart
lines. Also I'm surprised East Palo Alto hasn't gentrified completely.

~~~
DrScump

      Also I'm surprised East Palo Alto hasn't gentrified
    

I don't think parents want to be in the Ravenswood school district, for one.

~~~
sjg007
You can do an inter district transfer, Zuckerberg and Chan have some
initiatives going and I believe the high school kids go to me li-atherton.

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vorg
This scheme is doomed to fail. 51% of the people will vote for rising house
prices because that's their greatest asset. When highly geared property
doubles in value, the owners can make 5 or 10 times their initial investment.
They don't think about the other 49% of the people -- that's the result of
governments chosen by democracy. And to make the prices go up, boost the
demand and restrict the supply. So governments bring in long-term visitors to
boost the demand: immigrants, international students whose parents buy
apartments for them, and guest workers to rent the houses. But governments,
especially local ones, also restrict the supply: many regulations to slow down
new development, rules against long-term hotel stays, and crackdowns on
campervan living in urban areas. The people fighting the yimbies have cash
flows and retirement nest eggs to protect, and that's the main decider on
which way they vote. The yimbies are fighting a losing battle.

~~~
corpMaverick
> This scheme is doomed to fail. 51% of the people will vote for rising house
> prices because that's their greatest asset. When highly geared property
> doubles in value, the owners can make 5 or 10 times their initial
> investment.

You are correct that people think like that. But it is nearsighted because
even if the price of your home goes up, you cannot sell it because you need a
place to live. It is a lose/lose. It takes away a significant part of
purchasing power. Money that could be spent on shopping, entertainment, etc is
used to pay the mortgage. Younger people are even more screwed, it is a tax
from the young to the old.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> But it is nearsighted because even if the price of your home goes up, you
> cannot sell it because you need a place to live. It is a lose/lose. It takes
> away a significant part of purchasing power. Money that could be spent on
> shopping, entertainment, etc is used to pay the mortgage.

It is forced savings for retirement. Most people downsize once their kids
leave home, cashing out their equity (as long as you haven't cash out refi'd
your home to buy cars and vacations).

~~~
_chris_
_> Most people downsize once their kids leave home_

Except you can't do that in California, because then you're walking away from
your Prop 13 "rent-controlled" property taxes.

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NumberSix
In Mountain View, home to Google, there are over 2000 luxury apartments and
condos under construction. The situation is similar in several other Silicon
Valley cities. This is a huge increase in apartment construction since 2010.

It is a similar pattern to San Francisco and other big cities mentioned in the
Guardian article. The new construction is aimed toward generally young,
generally single, tech workers at Google, Apple, Facebook and other employers
within easy commuting distance of Mountain View. Many existing apartments have
remodeled and boosted rents, effectively evicting many people with lower
paying jobs. There is minimal construction of apartments for lower paid folks.

Google has the political clout in Mountain View to get more apartments for its
tech employees despite the NIMBYs. Rental costs are a major negative for
Google since the high cost means California tech salaries are actually among
the lowest in USA adjusting for local cost of living. The disparity with the
Plano Texas region (so-called Telecom Corridor) is astonishing.

People with lower incomes who are disproportionately Hispanic in California
don't have a powerful force like Google to stand up for them.

There was a rent control measure (Measure V) passed in Mountain View about one
year ago and remarkably actually enforced despite legal challenges.

[https://mvtenantscoalition.org](https://mvtenantscoalition.org)

~~~
readams
More units, even luxury units, are good for everyone, even lower income
people. The people trying to advocate for lower-income people by blocking
housing are making it worse for the very people they're trying to help!

~~~
NumberSix
That is not necessarily true. Under some circumstances it can be true. For
example, if a community builds more luxury apartments entirely in addition to
existing apartments, then yes some well paid people will probably move out of
the existing apartments into the new luxury ones, making apartments available
to the lower paid.

However, if inexpensive apartments are either bulldozed or remodeled to become
luxury apartments, eliminating inexpensive options for the lower paid. That
has been happening in Mountain View and probably in San Francisco which the
Guardian article directly discusses.

~~~
readams
That is not "more units."

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clairity
i agree in principle to the yimby movement, but i don't agree with some of the
antagonism described in the article against the mission's latino population.

isn't there a compromise to be reached between the two groups?

latinos want to stay in the neighborhood but can't afford $4K rents (who
really can? or should? $48K in rent, yikes!). yimbys want more units. so give
developers a sweetner so they can be profitable but also build more affordable
units. i know it's harder than it sounds, but it's been done many times
before, so it's achieveable. but when it starts becoming us-vs-them, that just
makes it so much harder.

~~~
readams
The fundamental disconnect is there's a (large) group of people that think
building expensive housing is bad for the housing crisis. This is 180 degrees
wrong: what's needed to solve the affordability crisis are more units.

Below market rate units ("affordable" units) are by definition always in short
supply.

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joshuas
Sounds more like YIYBYs to me. Doesn't have the same ring to it tho.

~~~
geebee
Fair point, I had that thought myself.

If you'd permit me to add another couple letters, though, I might call them
YIMAYBY (yes in my and your backyard).

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pascalxus
Finally, someone gets it. People are finally starting to see the light. This
is encouraging.

