

San Francisco can become a world capital. First it needs to get over itself - jejune06
http://pandodaily.com/2012/12/01/san-francisco-can-become-a-world-capital-first-it-needs-to-get-over-itself/

======
hncommenter13
San Francisco has lots of great qualities, but constantly telling ourselves
that it is the greatest place in the world home to the greatest (or, in the
author's words, the "smartest, most creative") people is tiresome. As South
Park memorably put it, San Francisco has an abundance of "smug." The city has
real problems, of which housing is only one.

The SF Weekly (an alternative newspaper here) has published several thought-
provoking articles on the state of the city over the years. They are all
titled, "The Worst Run Big City in the US."

Those articles include: [http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-
run-big-ci...](http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-city-
in-the-u-s/)

[http://www.sfweekly.com/2010-04-14/news/the-muni-death-
spira...](http://www.sfweekly.com/2010-04-14/news/the-muni-death-spiral/)

[http://www.sfweekly.com/2012-06-13/news/muni-sfmta-buses-
pub...](http://www.sfweekly.com/2012-06-13/news/muni-sfmta-buses-public-
transportation-maintenance-accidents/)

<http://www.sfweekly.com/2010-10-20/news/let-it-bleed/>

[http://www.sfweekly.com/2011-01-26/news/premium-pay-san-
fran...](http://www.sfweekly.com/2011-01-26/news/premium-pay-san-francisco-
city-workers-bonuses-budget-wages/)

[http://www.sfweekly.com/2011-07-27/news/san-francisco-
commis...](http://www.sfweekly.com/2011-07-27/news/san-francisco-commission-
inefficien-joe-eskenazi/)

San Francisco also has a civil grand jury that periodically issues reports on
topics of citywide concern. These are generally ignored, even though they
point out significant present and future problems (I'm thinking specifically
of looming pension issues).

[http://www.sfsuperiorcourt.org/general-info/grand-
jury/jury-...](http://www.sfsuperiorcourt.org/general-info/grand-jury/jury-
reports)

I've lived and worked here since college, so I'm not immune to the city's
charms. But we shouldn't be blind to its faults, either.

Edit: formatting

~~~
rayiner
> San Francisco has lots of great qualities, but constantly telling ourselves
> that it is the greatest place in the world

Trust me, the rest of the country finds it pretty amusing.

------
forrestthewoods
San Francisco is completely, utterly corrupt when it comes to housing. In 2011
there were a total of 418 new housing units built [1]. Really? One of the
hottest areas with the highest demand in the entire country and only 418 new
units were added in a full year? That's an absolute outrage.

[1]
[http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2012/05/san_franciscos_to...](http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2012/05/san_franciscos_total_housing_inventory_and_pipeline_rep.html)

~~~
hnriot
In case you haven't noticed sf is bounded by the Pacific Ocean. It can't just
grow and it already has a very high housing density. The only area that can
absorb new housing is china basin (3rd st) and that is being developed. The
rest is already full.

Do we really want or feel that more people in sf is a good thing? Why not live
down the peninsula or the east bay where there's an unlimited amount of space.

~~~
forrestthewoods
There is extremely high demand and artificially limited supply. Without
corruption land and buildings would be purchased at fair market value and
additional housing units would be built up in their place. As it stands the
few real estate owners can continuously increase prices without further
investment because corrupt politics prevents any new competition.

San Francisco has a love affair with beat-up 100 year old victorian houses and
outrageously high prices. If I owned one of those houses I also wouldn't want
to let any new real estate developers into my Cool Kids Club.

~~~
dguaraglia
Excuse me, how is that a problem again? The same could be said of any
exclusive area in the US. If you find San Francisco extremely expensive, then
move elsewhere. Seriously.

------
timr
I agree with nearly everything this article says, with one important caveat:
this won't last.

The Great Nerd Influx of 2012 is just one of many boom/bust cycles that San
Francisco has experienced, and it's far from the most robust -- there are a
lot of good reasons to believe that this sudden surge in activity will fade in
a few years as thousands of doomed startups hit the series-A wall. Rents have
shot up dramatically in a year, but it's almost entirely a side-effect of the
funding bubble. It's hard to fault government for reacting slowly to short-
term phenomena.

I moved here at the tail end of the last funding boom, and watched rents
_fall_ after Sequoia sent out the "Good Times, RIP" slide deck. Think it can't
happen again? It will. It doesn't make a lot of sense to run out and rip down
the victorians to make room for market-rate condos simply because SOMA is a
trendy place for startups at this particular moment.

~~~
saosebastiao
The ability to build should not depend on whether a boom will last...even if
we could trust people that predict that it won't. The entire US continues to
benefit from an overly exuberant boom in fiber-optic cables in the late 90's.
San Francisco would continue to benefit from the housing stock even if all the
nerds packed up and moved to Oakland.

~~~
timr
_"The ability to build should not depend on whether a boom will last"_

That's an assertion of fact, when it should be an argument. And it's not a
particularly good argument.

There are a lot of valid reasons for the city to regulate construction: fire
safety, traffic control, utility provisioning, transit, urban/community
planning, affordable housing, diversity, and aesthetics (just to name a few
off the top of my head). These concerns mean that the city gets to control
building policy, and once they do that, _how_ they control that policy is a
question of degree.

Every city in the world regulates the number and type of construction permits
that are issued. San Francisco may be conservative about issuing new permits,
but nobody reasonable is arguing that they shouldn't be allowed to regulate
construction _at all_. If the city regulators announced tomorrow that it was
open-season for new construction in San Francisco, they'd be doing a
disservice to everyone who lives here.

~~~
saosebastiao
It was an argument. I don't know you could confuse it for anything else. And
your counter to my argument was a straw man. I never questioned the idea that
governments shouldn't be able to regulate...just that regulating growth on the
prediction of a bust following a current boom is not only short sighted, but
that the housing stock growth presents few burdens even in the presence of a
bust.

~~~
timr
_"I never questioned the idea that governments shouldn't be able to
regulate...just that regulating growth on the prediction of a bust following a
current boom is not only short sighted, but that the housing stock growth
presents few burdens even in the presence of a bust."_

I think part of my original comment was confusing: the restrictions on
building in San Francisco aren't new. I'm saying that it's probably not a
great idea to lift those restrictions based on short-term trends. If the city
were being reactionary and _lowering_ the number of permits in response to
this boom, I think that would be pretty stupid.

------
mikeyouse
Things are getting better... the top post on HN currently refers to 2011's 418
units, but this was following a huge economic downturn. Projects in the city
take huge resources and require years of permitting and approvals, followed by
years of construction. This isn't a 'flip-the-switch' type of problem like you
can solve in the suburbs. This process could obviously be expedited, and I
hope people work toward that, but things aren't as dire as they sound.

I really think that the current administration is much more pro-growth than
previous ones have been. There are 370k housing units currently available in
the city. The pipline report has some really good news as far as housing is
concerned. (<http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?page=1691>)

* 48,000 new housing units approved (including Candlestick, Treasure Island, and Park Merced developments, but still a 13% increase in available units)

* 4,200 units currently under construction

* 9mm sq ft of new commercial real estate approved

* 3mm sq ft of new retail space approved

------
rdl
I wish there were a way to take a slice of Oakland or maybe San Jose (or
conceivably, San Mateo), make it independent with great services (Palo Alto
quality schools, UK quality police) and pro-growth policies.

Emeryville kind of does this, but isn't ideally positioned (Caltrain and/or
BART, highways to Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Francisco).

Ideally also some special tax benefits (at least California, but maybe even
federal) due to being "enterprise zones".

It would be politically unpopular to redevelop an entire area of Oakland or
San Jose (i.e. moving out everything), and segregating services, but the net
benefits would be worth it for even the remaining parts of the city and
county.

I think some of the "eastern Alameda/Contra Costa county" areas work on this
model, too -- there are a surprising number of corporate HQs for enterprise
companies out there, and especially regional offices for non-bay-area
companies. Higher density and less suburbia would make it more appealing to
startups, though. I was surprised by just how nice Walnut Creek, Livermore,
Pleasanton, etc. are.

~~~
001sky
_Emeryville kind of does this, but isn't ideally positioned_

Emeryville had great potential, I think the location is great, but as you
mention, for getting to SF or SV the public transit sucks. And is alas pretty-
unwalkable, even locally. If San Pablo had a Bart Stop (without the 1-3 mile
walk to it), it would be much more interesting place, IMHO.

~~~
rdl
Emery-go-round made up (slightly) for the BART situation. Still not great,
though, and it got a lot worse in the past year.

Also, the bordering areas of Berkeley and Oakland are sufficiently bad that I
feel uncomfortable at night in some parts of Emeryville. I don't know how you
could really set up a separate city without some kind of natural border like
the water or hills.

~~~
001sky
yeah, i should caveat the location is great strategically, in the sense that
it is well placed on the map and in (close to Sf/soma, Cal, the Water, 580,
weather, etc). in terms human geography/sociology, it has some drawbacks that
go beyond the transit issues.

------
vondur
I've read some of JWZ's blog posts about trying to get permits for the
expansion of his club in San Francisco. I wouldn't hold my breath for this
type of expansion to happen.

------
corporalagumbo
Okay. Here is how I look at it. I am a smart, focussed, imaginative guy. I
believe pretty strongly that if I lived in a city where I was in close
proximity to a lot of other smart, talented people, I could make some great
things happen. I have a lot of ideas that would require teams of such people
to realise, any one of which could become an important business or non-profit
venture. The Internet is great, and web-based collaboration and idea-
realisation tools are certainly developing and making the world flatter, but
proximity is still a very large catalyst to things happening. San Francisco
happens to sound like one of the best cities for someone like me to move to. I
happen to live very far from San Francisco, in another country. I am sure
there are a lot of people like me around the world. The cost and difficulty
and unknowns of the idea of moving to SF are pretty intimidating.

Now what would happen if all the people like me were able to easily move to
San Francisco, and start meeting and talking and coming up with ideas and
doing things together? If those big walls of distance, national borders, and
evidently prohibitively expensive real estate were broken down? I imagine some
very great things could happen. One thing this article pin-pointed is
interesting: salaries at major SF tech companies are high because of the
housing shortage. What might happen if you could concentrate the world's
smartest people in one great city with affordable housing, so that the
companies they might start could pay lower wages? Well you could definitely
start companies a lot easier, and they could be profitable at lower levels, so
it would encourage I think better and more diverse companies and internet
services. I think San Francisco would also benefit hugely.

I think eventually a city like this has to come along eventually. If there is
going to be a global village, there needs to be a global hub where the best
and the brightest can meet and work together. Currently the world doesn't have
such a place. It seems like SF has as good a shot as any of becoming that hub.
Doing so would of course require some sacrifices, so the question for SF seems
to be, do you want to go on being sorta great but holding off true greatness
because you don't want to give up any of the things you like about the way you
have things now, or are you willing to aim high?

The question for anyone else is, what can you do to make it much much easier
for people from around the world to gather together in a single place? There
are a lot of legislatory hurdles to be dissolved. Also anyone who made it
their business to help people make the jump could do well I think.

Also, as an aside, nation-states and borders are so 20th century. Eventually
the world will have no borders - a truly united world has to happen
eventually. Removing borders should be a priority for everybody.

------
weisser
"If it accepts its fate as large metropolis, San Francisco could become the
next New York, Hong Kong, or Paris"

There's a reason I want to eventually move to SF and it's not just because it
is the center of the tech industry.

------
sandipc
San Francisco needs to work on its public transportation infrastructure before
it even starts thinking about becoming as densely packed as New York, Tokyo,
etc.

~~~
Domenic_S
No doubt. Brooklyn to NYC takes 10 minutes.

Sunset to downtown is 45. Madness.

------
eshvk
There are a couple of things that really really bug me about this city:

1) The horrible state of the public transport system. Irrespective of the
recent rains we have been having, the Muni system appears completely broken
down. There are buses on the same route which appear at bizarre periodicities
(A couple of buses every 5 minutes and then one bus after 50 minutes). The
metro line (especially the N line) has way too many repairs going on. Also,
there is a ridiculously large amount of cars on the road and way too few bike
lanes. This is something the city should fix by a combination of exorbitant
tolls, making parking expensive and taxes.

2) The homeless people situation. While I am sorry for their situation, the
city's response to homeless people appears to be either switching from
completely ignoring the problem to sending out a few town cars every couple
hours in the nights so that they can chase homeless people from one block of a
street to the other.

------
bitcartel
The author writes, "Victorian houses... are very pretty. They’re also very
inefficient. Collectively, they take up a lot of space, but don’t house very
many people... if developers were allowed to do it, they’d buy up small houses
and apartments all over the city and replace them with highrises"

Funny, you don't often hear about plans to start building tower blocks in
Pacific Heights, a neighborhood with probably one of the lowest population
densities in the city. Surely, given the economic arguments, VCs and business
leaders residing there wouldn't mind a bit of construction?

The author believes "Build more houses, lots and lots more, and you’ll finally
start seeing rents go down" yet the evidence of rental prices in Manhattan,
Tokyo and Hong Kong suggest otherwise. In fact, today in Hong Kong, a car
parking spot costs double the average US house price!
[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-26/hong-kong-
parking-c...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-26/hong-kong-parking-
costs-387-000-as-cash-moves-from-homes.html)

This battle over high-rises has been going on for decades, through every boom
and bust, and this time is no different. The one constant is people falling in
love with the pretty Victorian houses on tree lined streets. Amen to that!

1971 - The Ultimate High-rise: San Francisco's Mad Rush to the Sky.
[http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Highrise-Franciscos-Rush-
Towa...](http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Highrise-Franciscos-Rush-
Toward/dp/B000K6QLPM)

1999 - Do high-rises create a healthier economy?
[http://www.spur.org/publications/library/article/proposition...](http://www.spur.org/publications/library/article/propositionM07011999)

2005 - Is San Francisco's Anti-Highrise Movement Dead?
<http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=2317>

2007 - Ugly canyons everywhere! With the latest San Francisco construction
boom, history repeats itself. <http://www.sfbg.com/2007/02/21/next-mad-rush-
sky>

------
saosebastiao
Its a great article. Unfortunately, the problem plagues Seattle too, which
also has the potential to be a world city, but can't get over its incredible
NIMBYism. You can't even remodel your kitchen without getting your
neighborhood to vote on it.

------
mikk0j
I don't buy the taller buildings = more wealth, creativity and energy
argument. New York and Tokyo are easy examples to refer to but they are in
scale and history completely different. What about other cities that build
high and are on a smaller or average size scale? Good examples? And you
couldn't double SF's size by building higher easily anyway. City and county is
800,000 people now, doubling would bring it to population of Manhattan. That's
lots of floors in lots of buildings. Tokyo is 13 million: 16x the size of SF.
Not a relevant comparison.

~~~
Resident_Geek
> I don't buy the taller buildings = more wealth, creativity and energy
> argument.

If you haven't read The New Geography of Jobs, I highly recommend it. It gives
an excellent explanation of why having a higher density of knowledge workers
increases their per-capita productivity and creativity.

------
10dpd
I was surprised that the risk of a large earthquake was not mentioned in the
article. Having lived in SF for over a year and experienced two relatively
minor 4.0 earthquakes, this is a real risk and one that suggests it doesn't
make sense to pack the city with large, high rise buildings.

SF is also a city of extremes - it contains the richest people in the world
and the poorest people. Something really need to be done about the large
mentally ill population before SF can be considered a truly forward looking
city.

~~~
ceras
It was mentioned. The author briefly stated it was not worth talking about
since other earthquake-prone cities like Tokyo have built up despite this just
fine.

------
jinushaun
It's fundamentally a culture difference. The West Coast is not the East Coast,
and SF will never be NYC.

~~~
rtfmplease
That's a little vague … could you elaborate?

~~~
ryanpers
more hallucinogens on the left coast. No surprise BSD was a left coast hippy
idea, and mainframe OS was a IBM/east coast thing.

------
tptacek
San Francisco is tiny. It covers less than 50 square miles! Liberalized
housing rules aren't going to offset that. This article is making an
observation about the greater SF metro area and using it to drive an argument
about SF proper; it's incoherent.

------
egypturnash
Meh. If you want New York, you know where to find it.

------
michaelochurch
Major agreement. Urban housing is effectively a cartel, in that the owners
spend a lot of time corrupting city councils and zoning boards to prevent new
supply so the absentee mega-owners can charge exorbitant prices. It's rent-
seeking (literally) parasitism at its worst.

~~~
anigbrowl
If that's so, how come the city still has rent control? Not that I think rent
control is a good idea, but property owners hate it and by your thesis they
should be able to get it abolished because they have the city government in
their pocket. In reality, it's usually residents and tenants who raise the
largest objections to new developments, either on environmental, value-
reduction, or affordability grounds.

~~~
001sky
SF rent control is profitable for landlords. It resets with each tenant. So,
only if you overpay when you initially buy are you ever going to lose money
b/c rent control. And if you do that, its a fault of the bid being off.

~~~
tptacek
I don't follow this. How could it be more profitable for landlords to have a
price ceiling?

~~~
001sky
Its not that its 'more profitable', it is that it 'is profitable' (enough).
And, its not only profitbale enough, but it creates a lock-in (people wont
move/give up their space) wich reduces turnover. The ideal position for a
landlord is protiable tenants that don't turnover. That's why there is more
inertia in the system than seems at first blush to be likely.

------
beatpanda
Please start a company in your own town. San Francisco is full. Kthx.

