
Steelmanning the NIMBYs - l33tbro
http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/01/steelmanning-the-nimbys/
======
bootsz
> _But in actual Manhattan, single-bedroom apartments cost $3800 a month –
> even more than in San Francisco!_

I'm not sure this accurately captures the comparison between Manhattan and SF
housing. I'm guessing this figure is an "average cost" but probably heavily
skewed by certain downtown neighborhoods. Manhattan is super expensive for
sure but I still think the market is substantially better than SF. In NYC you
have tons of options as to where to live either within Manhattan or in one of
the boroughs, and pretty much everywhere has good transit access to get you
downtown reasonably quickly. Yeah, if you try to live in Tribeca you're gonna
pay an insane amount for a 1 bedroom, but just go uptown and prices drop off
considerably, well below SF prices, and still within quick walking distance to
multiple subways. Secondly in NY there's definitely more housing supply: you
can go apartment hunting and have a lease signed before the end of the first
day. That seems to be how it goes for most people I know here.

~~~
alexhutcheson
It's also just wrong. You can get a nice 1 bedroom in a nice neighborhood in
Manhattan near the subway for ~$3000/month. You can go significantly lower
than that in Bushwick, Astoria, Washington Heights, etc.

Not sure where the $3800 figure came from, but it's easy to be mislead by what
you see on Streeteasy, Zillow, etc. The most overpriced units stay on the
market for a long time, because they're a bad deal, so you'll see lots of them
if you check at any point in time. Underpriced units get rented quickly, so
you'll see less of them.

~~~
berbec
79th & 1st. I'm currently living in a 1 bedroom for $2300

------
village-idiot
I think the author does a lot of harm to their argument by cherry picking data
and then having to retract the points.

Furthermore, I think the author is losing a bit of historical context. For all
of human history settlements have grown from a central point outwards. There
has been a highly dense core, with decreasing density towards the suburbs. As
time progresses the density spreads too to match demand and economic growth.

Only in the past century or so have large numbers of people been able to
demand that this density spread stop or reverse itself, typically with the
application of zoning regulations. This has put undue pressure on the cities
where this happens between those trying to continue an ancient growth pattern,
and those who are trying to stop it.

So from a very large historical view, those living on the outskirts of a city
complaining about the spread of density _are_ being unreasonable, because this
is exactly what successful cities have done for all of human history.

~~~
emodendroket
For most of history, people dumped human waste into the street. Appeals to an
idyllic past are suspect to me.

~~~
village-idiot
It's not an appeal to an idyllic past. It's the recognition that human
development seems to follow a pretty consistent pattern, and that fighting it
is going to take a lot of energy and have unintended consequences.

If you notice that a certain part of a mountain near you has consistent
avalanches, then you really shouldn't be surprised if a home built near it
gets knocked flat on a regular basis. You can build a giant wall next to it,
but at a certain point you should recognize that you ought to build elsewhere.

Similarly, if you want to live a low density lifestyle, don't build close to a
thriving metropolis. The only time they don't spread is if they start to fail,
or if there is some natural barrier stopping growth.

~~~
emodendroket
For most of human history there has not been such a great incentive to live in
or near a large city. Because there is such an incentive, you now see people
struggling to build enclaves they like living in that are reasonably close to
work, rather than going to live in the Great Plains. I don't really see that
much about human development is "natural;" humans control the process and are
free to make decisions about it.

~~~
village-idiot
That’s not true at all.

For most of human history, cities did not actually reproduce enough to
maintain their own population. It’s only into the 19th century when cities
start to become self sustaining.

If there wasn’t pressure to move to the city then they would’ve collapsed
millenia ago. It’s not like there’s this permanent cohort of city weirdos
living in the great urban areas, those areas continue to draw in people from
the surrounding area.

~~~
emodendroket
The modern economy has a much bigger role for cities, and the percentage of
the population living in cities or metro areas is historically high. So in
fact I do think it is true.

~~~
village-idiot
Yes, urbanization is very high right now, although most people underestimate
the degree of urbanization in ancient civilizations.

This has less to do with a change in cities than it has to do with the
precipitous drop in demand for rural labor of all sorts, imho.

~~~
emodendroket
I'm not sure how you tease those two out, as they're kind of mutually
reinforcing.

~~~
village-idiot
That’s the nature of dynamic systems. You probably cannot tease those apart.

The overall point is that there has always been a drive to push people into
cities (otherwise they’d collapse due to mortality rates). The overall rate of
urbanism and urban change has fluctuated over the millenia, but it’s hardly
new in any meaningful way.

Hence my assertion that anyone living close to a growing metropolis should not
be surprised if the density overtakes them.

They might not _like_ it, that’s perfectly reasonable. But expecting things to
not change in your area only is actually quite unreasonable in the long run.

------
donatj
I think the problem is just the unreasonable demand to be in the Bay. Why
would any company or their workers _want_ to be in the bay? This is the part I
don’t understand.

Sure, as a bay developer I could make more money, but my actual spending power
would likely be way lower than it already is.

Sure, you as a company are near other tech companies but does physical
location really matter in this day and age?

I have a ten minute commute, live in a burb and commute to a neighboring burb.
My rent is dirt cheap. I don’t see the appeal, it feels like mass hysteria to
me.

~~~
ryandrake
What happens during the next tech downturn, when there are no companies near
your burb hiring? That’s what I asked myself before moving out to Bay Area.
I’ve been through two major tech dry-ups, both living outside of tech hubs,
and having zero employment options in a 200 mile radius sucks. During 2008 I
had two months left until I would be living out of my car. I’ll take my
chances here in Silicon Valley where there are major established firms on
every street corner.

------
rb808
It completely missed the point that allowing more people to live in the Bay
Area will likely degrade the quality of life for the people that live there
now. Sure you could turn Palo Alto into a Manhattan look alike - why would
current residents want that?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
We're not yet a Soviet bloc country. Deciding who's to be allowed to live
somewhere is not quite democratic? Nor free market, nor capitalist.

This idea is pernicious, that because I can think of a better way for things
to work, there should be rules to make them work that way. Its not in
alignment with US values, yet so many folks are on that bandwagon. Part of the
great divide in US politics at the moment.

~~~
isoskeles
We're not deciding who gets to live here, we're deciding what gets to be built
here. It's a fairly common idea in most cities.

On a case-by-case basis, San Francisco gets it wrong quite a bit. A most
recent example is the "historic" laundromat that some city officials have
prevented from being developed into more housing.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Yeah that's all foreign to me, as I live in a county that has no real code and
no inspectors. I build what I like on my property.

Also, responding to the comment that _did_ go there, talking about who's
_allowed_

~~~
emodendroket
> Yeah that's all foreign to me, as I live in a county that has no real code
> and no inspectors. I build what I like on my property.

Really? If you wanted to build an abattoir, or a factory, on the property your
house is on, that would be allowed?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
You still have to have county zoning approval to put in a business. Or live
down a quiet lane and don't say anything.

~~~
emodendroket
In that case, all that's happening is that the county is making the
determination instead of the municipality. Again, there is agreement that
there should be some kind of control on what can be built where, and the
disagreement is on what that should look like.

------
emodendroket
I really liked this article, which was a lot more thoughtful and less
"preaching talking points to the already-converted" than most articles I see
posted on the subject.

~~~
dgritsko
Highly recommend you check out more of Scott's blog posts, they are almost
always thought-provoking and insightful.

------
ryanmarsh
_There are people who like all sorts of things. Some people like being tied
up, whipped, and electrocuted by strangers. And a disproportionate number of
these people live in San Francisco. I am just saying this isn’t a
coincidence._

Best line in the article. The author legitimately raises many good points.
I’ve never understood the supply and demand argument for YIMBY’s, particularly
in the Bay Area. That’s not how cities work in the 21st century. More housing
would just make SF into a stronger more desirable economic epicenter thus
keeping rents high. Manhattan is a perfect example.

The points about Austin stand as well. Austin has had tons of available prime
real estate for a long time. It still has plenty. Having, over the past 20+
years, watched SF become Mordor, Seattle become SF, and Austin become Seattle.
I think this may just be the natural progression of things.

------
innocentfelon
It’s time we passed a moratorium on building articles like this that fail to
address the real villain in this affair: vacant properties deliberately kept
vacant, because tenants drive property values way down.

San Francisco bears way too much resemblance to an end-stage game of Monopoly,
where one player owns almost all the properties, there’s no more paper money
in the bank, and there are no more houses or hotels left in the box. That last
$150 house on Marvin Gardens (the only misspelled property) isn’t getting
built to generate a good ROI- it’s built to either ruin the competition when
they stay there (driving them to the poor house- sound familiar?), or because
there’s literally no more places to stash your wealth.

Tossing the game board sure sounds like the only good move left to make. That,
or getting up to leave.

~~~
exp1orer
Looking at data from the US Census [1], in 2017 the SF-Oakland-Hayward metro
area had:

* a rental vacancy rate of 4.2% (8th lowest out of the 75 largest metro areas)

* a homeowner vacancy rate of 0.7% (11th lowest)

The rates were similar for the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area. It's
possible there are issues with this data, or that it's not measuring the
phenomenon you're discussing, but this certainly seems to suggest that SF
doesn't have a ton of vacant properties.

[1]
[https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/ann17ind.html](https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/ann17ind.html)

~~~
innocentfelon
There needs to be a similar moratorium on this red herring of an argument.

Buildings off the rental market don’t count as vacant rentals. Failure to
understand this normally subtle distinction retards the progress of this
discussion.

If I said there are very few single women in SF because 98% of marriage-minded
women are married, you’d see the flaw in the reasoning I’m talking about.

~~~
epistasis
This is not a very effective way to convince bystanders that have not yet
already come to a conclusion.

I'm left wondering what you mean, but also afraid to engage because you're
pretty hostile to what seems to be some great data around what you're saying.
But to address that data, you now say that clearly what we thought you were
saying was not what you meant, and that we should be disallowed from bringing
up data?

But at the risk that I'm continuing to misunderstand what you're saying, could
you point out an example of a building that should be for rent but that is
vacant instead, as an example so that we can understand you?

What mechanism do you suggest that can find such buildings and compel them to
become rented?

Are you suggesting something like building on vacant land or underutilized
land (the YIMBY position), or just existing buildings?

~~~
michaelt

      I'm left wondering what you mean,
    

As you can tell from the fact the rental vacancy rate is 4.2%, the homeowner
vacancy rate is 0.7%, and the gross vacancy rate is higher than either at
6.0%, there are vacant properties that don't fall into either rental or
homeowner.

For example properties for occasional use, properties empty for repairs or
renovation, those used as offices or storage, guest houses and AirBnB
properties, properties where the owner hasn't decided what to do, and so on.

If you look at [1] (which sadly doesn't provide breakdowns by individual
metropolitan area) you'll find that inside US metropolitan statistical areas,
2.4% of properties are vacant but for rent; while 4.8% of properties are "Held
off market"

In other words, for every one vacant rental home, there are two homes that
aren't on the rental or sale market.

[1]
[https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/q218ind.html](https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/q218ind.html)
Table 10. Percent Distribution by Type of Vacant by Metro/Nonmetro Area [XLSX
- 375 KB]

~~~
epistasis
Thank you, that explains the data. I'm not following innocentfelon's point
though, because it doesn't look like that can be the real villain here.

SF's population has increased 10% since 2010, and I don't know how many people
have been priced out, but it's probably at least on that order of magnitude.
Held off existing properties don't make much of a dent into that delta, and
it's unclear how to lower them even more if they're already so low. It's also
unclear why it shouldn't be allowed to be brought up.

~~~
innocentfelon
This latest batch of census numbers still hinges on the subset of structures
considered to be rental housing or owner-occupied housing.

And I believe the census goes by what the property owner claims. “My 120-unit
condo building with nobody living in it? Yeah, that’s not housing, Ms. census
taker.” “Ok.”

And even that doesn’t include industrial, commercial, and office properties
that should be converted to housing in response to fair market demand,
artificially withheld to make them more liquid as stores of value. The town is
full of these and few people notice because they’re not housing and they’re
not for rent.

~~~
epistasis
Is there a 120 unit condo building in SF that's being held off the market? Has
a person lied to the census taker that's it's not housing? These seem like
important accusations and if true I'd be as upset as you are, but I certainly
haven't seen that.

As for commercial space that's not housing, that's up to the city government
to change, and the city government and resients who show up to planning
meetings oppose that sort of rezoning. This being a conscious action of owners
of industrial and commercial property. Are commercial sites more valuable than
residential right now in SF? What sort of use brings these owners more gain
than renting our properties that they are legally allowed to rent?

Remember the Ghost Ship fire? The proprietors were charged with involuntary
manslaughter for using a warehouse as housing:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_warehouse_fire](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_warehouse_fire)

I guess I'm just very confused about what you consider to be very obvious. I
can't see evidence of people hoarding buildings that could be used for
housing. I do see SF residents preventing more buildings being used for
housing, and preventing the building of more housing on infill sites.

------
epistasis
For those unfamiliar with the terminology, "steelmanning" is a play on the
term "strawman." But instead of making an opponent's argument that's easy to
push over, you try to make a very strong version of your opponent's argument.

------
Eridrus
I liked SF and Oakland when I lived there, but I moved to NYC and don't really
want to move back.

And that makes me take the comment about whether the tech industry _should_ be
in the bay area fairly seriously.

I work for a Big Tech company, and our org, which has highly visible products
and exciting work, is struggling to hire people in the bay area. People don't
want to move there, and there is huge competition for the people already
there, including from other internal teams, so we're expanding more at other
sites.

------
empath75
The only argument he made that I agree with is that people resisting what they
perceive as negative changes to their neighborhood is natural and not
particularly blame worthy, but it’s not particularly convincing as an argument
to heed their wishes. One of the things that government ought to do is force
people to do what they don’t want to, when it benefits the people as a whole.
That’s the thinking behind eminent domain, for example. This is particularly
true when people’s fear of change isn’t particularly rational. My parents used
to swear up and down the dc metro expanding would bring crime out to the
suburbs (by which they meant black people, of course), but the reality is that
it increased property values and improved quality of life in almost every
case.

I do think that moving tech companies out of San Francisco is the only
feasible solution to housing prices. I don’t understand why people keep
starting them there, or why they stay there. There’s no way the premium they
pay to have an office there can be worth it.

~~~
black6
> One of the things that government ought to do is force people to do what
> they don’t want to...

It doesn’t matter what is past the ellipses, because in the absence of a crime
against another, a government should never force its people to do or give up
anything.

~~~
empath75
People pay taxes to build roads etc. Unless you’re a radical libertarian
that’s how it works.

------
Balgair
Semi-related aside: What the heck is up with BART's noise!? That thing is
really really loud. Some sections are quiet-ish, sure, but the loud sections
make me cover my ears. What is going on there?

~~~
epistasis
It's the wheel design:

[https://sf.curbed.com/2018/6/11/17449460/bart-screen-
convers...](https://sf.curbed.com/2018/6/11/17449460/bart-screen-conversion-
wheel)

~~~
Balgair
Phased out by 2019! Thank you!!

------
CPLX
This reminds me of those 20,000 word articles that explain why weight loss is
impossible and diets don’t work.

Coming to the Bay Area from living in NYC or traveling around Europe, you see
a city full of 1-2 story single family homes, or Apple building a massive
campus with literally no connection to rapid transit, and it’s like watching
someone living off Mountain Dew and donuts and wondering why things aren’t
going well.

Like build some fucking apartment buildings and run some trains to places
where the jobs and housing are. It’s not that fucking complicated.

~~~
jasode
_> Like build some fucking apartment buildings and run some trains to places
where the jobs and housing are. It’s not that fucking complicated._

Are you addressing what the author wrote because it seems like Scott Alexander
says it may be more complicated than you claim. He wrote:

 _> suppose San Francisco dectupled its housing growth for decades, until it
was packed border to border with skyscrapers, and was exactly as dense as
Manhattan. In a simple supply-based model, the glut of supply should make
rents crash to only a few hundred dollars a month or less. But in actual
Manhattan, single-bedroom apartments cost $3800 a month – even more than in
San Francisco! If your theory predicts that turning a city into Manhattan will
make rents plummet, then consider that turning Manhattan into Manhattan made
rents much worse, and so maybe your theory is wrong._

~~~
orblivion
I didn't buy this argument in particular (though the article in general was
compelling). Housing follows jobs. It's not as though there are hedge funds
there because a bunch of people with finance degrees decided to move to
Manhattan. And even if such a network effect kicks in, there's a limit to what
that industry can sustain.

Also how many of those high rises are residential?

------
ucaetano
> How does this compare to other cities?

This is the BS part of the article. The author shouldn't be comparing to other
US cities, but to other large cities in the world that don't have a housing
crisis. His argument is picking a sick person, and comparing to other sick
people for differences, instead of comparing to other healthy people.

Almost all the cities he mentions have housing crisis, but he was either too
ignorant or too dishonest to realize that.

Tokyo, no available land, builds an entire new San Francisco every 2.5 years
for the past 20 years.

The article is incompetence at best, but most likely, given the "depth" of the
analysis, intellectual dishonesty.

~~~
emodendroket
Tokyo is not particularly affordable.

~~~
quelltext
If you compare by price per sqm you are probably right, but places are just
generally smaller so you are in the same boat as everyone else. People can
typically afford to rent their own apartment.

~~~
emodendroket
I think it also comes out unfavorably if you compare average income to average
rent, but I admit it's been years since I have really looked into it.

~~~
ucaetano
Not really:

[https://www.weetas.com/article/rent-income-ratio-17-major-
ci...](https://www.weetas.com/article/rent-income-ratio-17-major-cities/)

------
claydavisss
He missed one of the obvious ones that YIMBYs paper over - if you just build
more housing rapidly without building out other infrastructure at
approximately the same time, you just make everyone's life hell.

The typical response is that infrastructure will eventually address congestion
concerns...meanwhile BART still has not fulfilled the vision that was laid out
in 60s. How long are people supposed to wait?

~~~
TheTrotters
Higher density would obviously put much more pressure on local governments to
build the necessary infrastructure _and_ it’d increase their tax revenue to
fund these projects.

~~~
mannykannot
The evidence needed to assess the probability of that outcome can be found in
New York City.

~~~
Redoubts
Didn't they sell control of the MTA to the state?

------
ummonk
_> Sorry for having to say this, but YIMBYism is one of the most tribal, most
emotional, most closed-minded movements I have ever seen this side of a
college campus._

Why do supposed “rationalists” insist on trying to advocate everything through
dispassionate, logical discourse? Do they really not realize how ineffective
that is in the competition of ideas for human mindshare? Do they have zero
understanding of human psychology and sociological group dynamics?

~~~
michrassena
I think they must think it elevates their discourse, as if appealing to
emotion at all sullies them. While there is a reassuring sobriety to cold,
rational thought, in itself it often doesn't motivate me to care. It's only
really effective in preaching to the choir because they've chosen to hobble
themselves by using only a third of the tools available to rhetoric. There are
ways to rationally appeal to people's sense of ethics and to the full range of
human emotions without descending into demagoguery.

~~~
Anderkent
If your goal is to convince other people of what you believe, all of those
sound useful.

If your goal is to be convince if you're right, and be convinced if you're
aren't, they become less so.

