
Sculpture of Housing Prices Ripping San Francisco Apart - dougmccune
http://dougmccune.com/blog/2016/07/21/sculpture-of-housing-prices-ripping-san-francisco-apart/
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corysama
Very beautiful, poetic, relevant to a lot of the audience of HN, and props for
detailing the tech behind it.

Meanwhile... the highest and lowest hex I can spot is 1265 / 457 = a ratio of
2.76 with both endpoints having relatively steep curves compared to the rest
of the histogram. With the graph's Z0 set to 457 and Zscale set to an
arbitrary ratio, the sculpture-graph conveys the impression that there is a
discrepancy of 5 or more times between the top of hill on the bottom tier vs
the nearby flat area of the top tier. When the reality is something more like
1234 / 810 = 1.5

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dougmccune
Very good point! Yeah, please be advised there's artistic license taken and
the Z-axis scale is arbitrary (well, not arbitrary, it's linear but stretched
and certainly doesn't start at 0). You're totally right that the difference
between the lowest areas and the highest isn't really as exaggerated as it
appears. The real delta between lowest and highest is about 2.7x. I'd argue
though that a difference between ~$500/sq ft vs $1,200/sq ft is enough of a
difference to make the top of the range feel entirely out of reach for anyone
living in the bottom of the range, and that's what the sculpture was meant to
convey.

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ramses0
Truly, you'd want to pin rent as 25% of income and then have the height be
related to where you would need to be on the U.S. income scale as a percentile
to be able to afford it.

ie: You've got a $899,000 home sale, that's supposedly a ~$4000/mo rent, which
leads towards a "25% rule" of $16,000/mo income => $192,000/yr => which is
supposedly 93.9%-ile.

Going from $4000/mo => $5000/mo, it seems like it takes you to 96.8%-ile.

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stouset
The absolute difference in dollars scales ridiculously high though once you
start getting above 90%ile though. Going by percentile practically makes it a
logarithmic scale.

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xapata
> Going by percentile practically makes it a logarithmic scale

In theory as well. Small changes of the log of a variable are approximately
equivalent to small percent-changes.

Edit: Though percentile is a little different than percent-change.

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tomschlick
As an outsider, the solution to the SF housing issues seem pretty simple...
Vote out the NIMBY politicians and replace them with people who will change
zoning laws to allow for more building. I'd assume almost no one likes the
current situation unless they are a landlord.

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umeshunni
>> almost no one likes the current situation unless they are a landlord.

Anyone who owns property in the city, whether they are a homeowner or a
landlord, likes the current situation. For non-landlord homeowners, the
current situation keeps their property values and home equity high and it
ensures that the neighborhood and quality of life they bought into stays
permanently stuck in time.

My local Nimby group, for e.g., sends out monthly notices (e.g
[http://pastebin.com/0TJiV0aM](http://pastebin.com/0TJiV0aM) ) letting us know
where the next development is, why we should protest it and sends us sample
templates on how to email politicians to protest any new development. While
large developers are probably able to lobby politicians, I doubt they're able
to do this kind of astroturfing.

~~~
lr
A lot of people who do not own (i.e., renters) in SF also do not want high
rises. They feel like SF would have a long way to go before all of the foreign
money runs out and those apartments would become affordable to them. In short,
they don't think more building will benefit them in terms of housing, but will
instead be bad for them in terms of quality of life, e.g., more people and
traffic, etc.

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honkhonkpants
High rises are one thing but they are not the way to solve SF's housing
shortage. One 5-story building on one corner of every block in the sunset
would easily relieve the shortage.

Geographically speaking most of SF already suffers from poor quality of life.
Except for the northeast quadrant of the city, SF is dominated by flat,
boring, ugly zones of car-centered banality.

[https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7398485,-122.5023375,3a,75y,...](https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7398485,-122.5023375,3a,75y,171.61h,76.92t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s1DuoxbLQ7H7iToQ9TZGoYA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D1DuoxbLQ7H7iToQ9TZGoYA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D48.55154%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656)

There's nothing in this photo worth preserving.

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stale2002
The problem with building mid sized apartments everywhere, is that now you
have to be involved in political fights everywhere.

With high rise buildings, all you need to do is convince ONE place to build a
bunch of them. Perhaps in a place such as south SOMA, which is packed with
industrial warehouses that could be replaced with apartment sky scrapers.

Nobody is going to be gentrified when the old dirty warehouses in south SOMA
get replaced.

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SilasX
Agreed. I hate how people keep casually mentioning that "oh, you could just
build up n% of the low-rise areas", as if convincing _all those neighborhoods_
to go along with it and replacing all those buildings were somehow easier --
politically or otherwise -- than 20 SoMa/FiDi high-rises.

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baddox
Ideally the political solution would be only a single step that allows
property owners to build x-story buildings in certain zones. That shouldn't
require the persuasion of every single neighborhood, because "neighborhood"
shouldn't be a political unit with the ability to stop a property owner from
building a structure that is permitted by the larger government's (i.e. the
city's) zoning laws.

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bsurmanski
The one thing that is missing from the article is a top view of the sculpture.
Although I believe it, I would like to see the sculpture align to the outline
of the city.

~~~
dougmccune
It does if you can get far enough away to take a photo without the perspective
distortion being too great. Here's the model with a few shots going from
looking directly straight down and then slowly rotating the perspective:
[http://imgur.com/a/b4SGy](http://imgur.com/a/b4SGy)

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notadoc
Why is SF so opposed to building up? Build more high rises filled with
apartments and condos, there are plenty of areas that could be rezoned to
accommodate high rise living.

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robbyking
It's not; there are literally tens of thousands of new units currently under
construction[1] in the City. The issue people have is most proposals for new
construction in San Francisco consist almost exclusively of luxury housing.

There's no shortage of housing in San Francisco, only a shortage of
_affordable_ housing.

[1] [http://paragon-
re.com/San_Francisco_Housing_Development_Repo...](http://paragon-
re.com/San_Francisco_Housing_Development_Report)

~~~
joelwilliamson
According to your link, there are about 10,000 new units under construction.
That's about 10-20 buildings worth. Not exactly a huge boom.

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JBlue42
It's better than nothing.

And developers don't tend to want affordable housing. That's why it usually
has to be enforced by regulations of some sort. They're quite cheap and want
to maximize their profit (like any other business). City, cultural, etc
concerns come second.

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audleman
Why hasn't this guy donned all black and put this piece for sale in a swanky
gallery for $1mil? It's the perfect blend of art and social commentary, and
beautiful to boot!

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dougmccune
If you come pick it up it can be yours for the low low price of a cool half
mil. But seriously, I'm just dipping my toes into this whole artist thing, I
definitely don't know how to navigate the gallery/sales world. Right now I
just like making shit, maybe one day I'll try to make some money doing it.

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mbesto
90% of artistic value is simply saying the art has value. Tell people you've
had several offers for $100k and you can probably find someone offering $101k
for it.

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dougmccune
I've had several offers for $100,000. I'd certainly consider your offer if you
can beat that. Paypal my email address :)

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mbesto
I like your attitude :)

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kofejnik
People keep saying 'SF should allow for more development' as if it's a
universal human right to live in SF; while current residents are being mean by
not wanting highrises on their block. SF is nice, more people want to live
there than there's space, hence, not everyone can afford it. Why would the
current owners/residents want to change that? I really don't get it.

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heartsucker
Think of it reverse. Is it a universal right to have luxurious places to live
in a high demand area? Why would people who want to move into or remain in SF
on a budget not want to change that?

This is why issues like this are complicated. Both sides have some merit.

(also, not taking sides since I don't live there any more)

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kofejnik
Not very complicated, there are universal human rights, plus whatever is
guaranteed in a relevant constitution. Everything else is for those who can
afford it. Luxurious place in high demand area is one example. (should we
strive to make Ferraris affordable?)

Otherwise, can people come live in your apartment? Why do you keep your place
and your food and your car to yourself? Certainly a lot of people would want
to change that.

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heartsucker
Ok, sure. It's not a universal human right, but we can do better than the
absolute minimum to give some semblance of equality to people instead of
leaving people's lives to the fate of where they were born in the world and
how rich their parents were.

If there was universal health care out in the world that said vaccinations and
emergency procedures were free for everyone, but if you were born on Feb 1st,
you also got a personal trainer and free cosmetic surgery, everyone else would
be within reason to complain about such a system. This is effectively what is
happening here.

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kofejnik
as someone born in USSR, I assure you that artificial equality sucks much
harder than natural inequality

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adt2bt
Mirror:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://dougmccune.com/blog/2016/07/21/sculpture-
of-housing-prices-ripping-san-francisco-apart/)

~~~
dougmccune
Also, in case that doesn't work for some reason, here's the post as one big
image: [http://imgur.com/a/cIk1h](http://imgur.com/a/cIk1h)

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Cenk
Wow, this looks amazing. I’d love to see more sculptures based on data.

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abritinthebay
Lovely piece! A little misleading with it's z-axis (given the range isn't very
much and it seems exaggerated or logarithmic at least) but that's more
artistic license, which is fair (and pretty).

I would be interested to see what it would look like with a more linear scale
though.

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etrautmann
I love the aesthetics and implementation - very cool. In reality, however, I
think of the rip more between everything that's there and what's not pictured.
The difference between the top and bottom home sales is not all that much,
though the social divide between those who could afford to stay and those who
can't even live here at all anymore is the underlying purpose.

I guess I don't buy that the home prices are dividing the landed gentry in Noe
valley from pac heights as much as the rich elite from everyone else who's not
buying homes in SF.

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bborud
This is indeed poetic: sculpture bemoaning gentrification realized through the
kind of technology that is celebrated by bearded hipster millionaires that
drive up housing prices.

~~~
dougmccune
The irony of a rich white male bay-area programmer using a 3D printer and data
viz to explore/comment on housing prices in SF does not escape me.

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hoprocker
Lovely idea, fascinating way to visualize demographics.

One comment, and not at all a criticism of the art: I'm not sure if relative
property values between neighborhoods really describes how SF is being ripped
apart over time; for that, it might be more accurate to graph, say,
proportional difference in median rent over the past n years, which might more
closely hew to contested neighborhoods (ie, Pacific Heights doesn't usually
catch headlines for how much it's changed in the last 5 years).

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bunkydoo
If you don't like the house prices, move out of San Francisco

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imh
I don't like the housing prices. I would love to move somewhere I could afford
a house with a nice yard, instead of my little condo. But I don't know
anywhere else I can have the career security as a data scientist that I have
here. If something goes wrong in the bay area, there are always tons of other
places hiring.

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laksjd
But I guess that means that the prices are justified. If it's better for you
to live in SF, even at the high rent/prices, than it is to move somewhere
else, then the prices seem to be low enough.

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whordeley
WOW, this is utterly profound! Like that time someone put an empty McDonalds
cup on the floor of a fine art museum and everyone stood around proclaiming
its genius.

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sliverstorm
Or, somewhat the reverse:

[http://qz.com/535482/italian-museum-cleaners-mistook-a-
conte...](http://qz.com/535482/italian-museum-cleaners-mistook-a-contemporary-
art-piece-for-trash/)

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rubidium
"but if neighboring areas are too far from each other I allow them to split,
tearing the city along its most severe economic divides."

Interesting that, from an artistic standpoint, the high delta's in nearby
neighborhoods house price leads to a more interesting sculpture. The city may
be 'torn', but in this case it's a good thing... assuming you think mixed
neighborhoods are better than the alternative (gated communities and slums).

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SocksCanClose
This is actually -- and I'm sure the artist will agree, albeit with a heavy
heart -- a really great representation of investment opportunities.

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thinkpad20
The sculpture is really beautiful, but is the real issue that San Francisco is
"ripping apart"? Even the lowest numbers on that chart ($457/square foot) are
more than double the average price per square foot in Chicago ($219 according
to trulia.com), for example. Is SF ripping apart, or simply becoming so
gentrified as to be only livable by the wealthy?

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thatsso1999
you should post this on thingiverse! you'd get a lot of appreciation there for
the impressiveness of the print itself (as a fellow 3D printerer,
daaaaaaaamn), and honestly it's so gorgeous I wouldn't be surprised if it got
featured.

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dougmccune
good call, will do!

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johnwheeler
when i first saw the sculpture, i was like, hmm...

then, when i read the article, i was like... WHOA!!!

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smoyer
I'm in awe ... it's so organic looking (but then I guess homo sapiens are
technically organic).

The only problem I see with sculpture for data visualization is when your boss
asks for an updated report next week.

Thanks for sharing!

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unstatusthequo
Maybe if he sells a lot of these he can afford a million dollar fixer upper or
teardown.

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dougmccune
I moved to Oakland

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Apocryphon
Let's hope that you won't have to build a second sculpture for there in the
future, too. But Oakland seems to have more prudent housing measures in place.

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swampthinker
Seems like the site went down, and Google Cache isn't helping.

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dougmccune
Yeah, it was up and down for a bit. If it's down again and people want to see
the visuals, here's the post as one large image:
[http://imgur.com/a/cIk1h](http://imgur.com/a/cIk1h)

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khoury
Cool

