
Exploring the dividing lines between rich and poor in American cities - misnamed
http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2016/wealth-divides/index.html
======
eldavido
Am I the only one who hates how it's become received wisdom that, to quote the
article, "A skyrocketing real estate market, fueled in large part by the tech
industry" is the main culprit for this?

What about height and floor area limits, surrounding communities on the
peninsula that won't build, aggressive neighborhood associations in San
Francisco, overly-restrictive building and zoning codes (wife is architect in
SF, currently going through 2-year permitting process on one of her projects),
and excessive developer fees?

It's telling that other cities, e.g. Washington, DC, are experiencing similar
levels of economic and population growth, without all the hand-wringing, just
by building more hosting stock.

It doesn't have to be this way. It's this way because SF's electorate
_chooses_ to make it this way.

~~~
hguant
There are three legal entities governing housing in and around the D.C.
Metropolitan area - the District, Maryland, and Virginia. The laws and
geography have worked such that Virginia is currently experiencing the
benefits (from an economic/tax point of view) of the whole tech fueled growth
in DC.

Housing is being built in the district, but there are hard and soft limits to
how much can be made available. DC is tiny, and land in and around the city
center (or near a metro stop) is at a premium. Furthermore, the District has
laws restricting the height of buildings - no new building is allowed to be
taller than the top of the Captitol building. That's the hard limit - the soft
limit is that D.C. politically is really pushin back against gentrification in
all forms. There's a lot of effort being spent to keep neighborhoods and areas
the way they are, which makes developing rather difficult.

Maryland has had cheap housing for a while, but it's been developed already -
there's nothing new being built, because it's either already at capacity, or
the land is never going to be built on because it's in a super rich community.
Maryland (well, the parts of Maryland amenable to housing) also has the
complication of being separated from the city center by north east D.C., which
is mostly residential and terrible to commute through. This wouldn't matter if
the metro functioned properly, but it's been on the fritz for about 3 years
now.

This has resulted in a massive building spree of high rises, both for luxury
condos and cheaper apartment blocks, on the other side of the river in
Virginia. The Ballston area in particular has had three new apartment building
open up in the last year, with more being built as I type.

Sorry for the ramble, it's just interesting having grown up here, and seeing
some of the reasons why things are the way they are.

~~~
massysett
Your description of Maryland is completely inaccurate. There is plenty of
housing being built, and lots of buildable land. NE DC is not "terrible" to
commute through: quite the opposite--there are many major commuter routes
built to accommodate many cars.

~~~
antisthenes
Where exactly? I've been in the area for a decade and there's maybe 1-2 luxury
high rises going up at once at the most.

Needless to say that's not even close to keeping up with population growth,
let alone to qualify for the definition of "plenty"

~~~
massysett
OP said "there's nothing new being built" and now you're just talking about
"luxury high rises". There is plenty of housing being built that is not
"luxury high rises," though even plenty of those are being built too--parts of
Silver Spring have been transformed over the past decade.

~~~
antisthenes
> There is plenty of housing being built that is not "luxury high rises,"
> though even plenty of those are being built too--parts of Silver Spring have
> been transformed over the past decade.

That is even less true. There's almost no affordable housing being built in
the Silver Spring or Bethesda/Rockville area.

All the condos in new construction start at ~$300k for a 1BR, which is
definitely not in the affordable category.

Still waiting for those counterexamples with Zillow listings and the such.

~~~
eldavido
DC's household median income is 75k. [1] Your "unaffordable" condo is 4x the
household median income.

In SF, the median household income is 84k. [2] The median 1br sale in SF was
for 827k. [3]

I'm willing to debate what constitutes "affordable" but let's call a spade a
spade. SF is in an entirely different league of affordability than DC. And my
contention is that anti-development policy plays a big part in it.

[1]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/09/15/d-c-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/09/15/d-c-
and-maryland-have-the-highest-median-incomes-in-the-
country/?utm_term=.c44c893f1529)

[2]
[http://www.sfhip.org/index.php?module=DemographicData&type=u...](http://www.sfhip.org/index.php?module=DemographicData&type=user&func=ddview&varset=1&ve=tab&pct=2&levels=-1&varid=2419&vl=tb&sregcomp=1)

[3] [https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/San_Francisco-
California/...](https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/San_Francisco-
California/market-trends/)

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nugget
Housing is the real problem. Let's call it what it is. Once you have a place
to live, then the cost of a pleasant existence is a) pretty cheap, b)
controllable [eat out versus eat at home], and c) more or less the same in
many parts of the country. Education and health care costs are close runner
ups but the real affordability crisis that we have to solve for is affordable
housing in desirable areas (job centers). On the other hand, there is so much
household savings tied up in housing that any major effort to reduce prices
would cause a lot of economic pain. I don't have any answers.

~~~
DoodleBuggy
Housing is really cheap in the midwest and south. Maybe everyone who can't
afford the expensive areas can relocate and telecommute?

Kind of silly, but not entirely.

~~~
psyc
I would happily move to Nowhere, Kansas, if I could find a semi-stable remote
job. I've been looking for about a year and haven't found anything suitable.
Meanwhile, I know I can land a decent job anytime, within weeks, in Seattle or
Boston. The availability of remote jobs does seem to be on the rise - the
problem is that it's small and rising slowly.

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madengr
Gave up reading after it crashed 5 times on my iPhone. What ever happened to
plain HTML?

~~~
gumby
on my computer the space bar didn't let me move through the article either. I
guess they didn't want either of us to read it.

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elastic_church
Areas of household income around $16,000, what reported occupations are these?
Part time temp work on and off?

Also, isn't there a lot of utility by looking at assets as well. It wouldn't
seemingly change a discussion around the article presented, but it is kind of
pointless to have a discussion of annual income and neglect people that have
assets greater than their income, liquid or not.

~~~
ap22213
Retail and service jobs. I have a few friends who are single parents and make
less than $12,000 in retail. Many want full time work, but it's rarely
available.

~~~
DoodleBuggy
Wow that must be really tough.

Many people are really struggling out there, that is something I think many
either aren't aware of, ignore, or forget.

~~~
pryelluw
It is so tough that I never want to experience it again and motivates me to
work as hard as I do. But not everyone is as lucky as I've been.

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JauntTrooper
"the upper five percent of Manhattan residents earned more than $860,000 in
2014"

Really? 1 in 20 people make that much money annually?

~~~
otoburb
Only on the island of Manhattan. The other boroughs of New York City do not
have the same concentration of households making this much.

The article's sources are listed at the bottom of the page, and they are
primarily household income statistics.

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arcanus
I'm surprised they didn't adjust for cost of living across each city. I lived
in D.C. for four years, and it was certainly less expensive than NYC/SF,
broadly speaking.

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massysett
Pointless summary of original. Please link to original:

[http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2016/wealth-
divides/index....](http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2016/wealth-
divides/index.html)

~~~
sctb
Thanks, we've updated the link from
[http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/12/esri-map-income-
inequ...](http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/12/esri-map-income-inequality-
washington-dc-new-york-san-francisco/510398/).

