
Dumb rules prevent Silicon Valley from building needed houses and offices - jseliger
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/facebook_george_lucas_and_nimbyism_the_idiotic_rules_preventing_silicon_valley_from_building_the_houses_and_offices_we_need_to_power_american_innovation_.html/
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jandrewrogers
Most areas of Silicon Valley are militantly opposed to anything that looks
like high-density construction. The government won't issue permits. The
unsurprising result is that it has a really bad case of suburban sprawl,
constrained by geological boundaries. Unfortunately, this means that even if
you don't want to live in suburban sprawl and commute a long distance, it is
pretty much mandatory in Silicon Valley because the city planners have
essentially outlawed all other arrangements.

The insanity runs deeper when matched to their obsession with having more
people use public transit. Public transit doesn't work in a low-density suburb
larger than some states in New England. In typical fashion, the left-hand bans
all development that would allow public transit to be usable and the right-
hand insists that people should stop driving and take public transit. This is
just one example; Silicon Valley is full of fundamentally inconsistent
bureaucratic mandates.

This is one of those classic denial-of-reality cases that give Americans their
famously low opinion of government. In some cases, it is entrenched special
interests demanding these things; the sum of these policies may be insane but
the politicians do not care as long as the special interests are happy.

~~~
dcreemer
Sorry to be a bit confrontational, but can you please substantiate your claim
of "Most areas of Silicon Valley are militantly opposed to anything that looks
like high-density construction" with data? Are you involved in a local Bay
Area government? Are you working to change the things you don't like?

The article, and this response is very frustrating to me. The notion that the
government is broken and that our policies are insane and that politicians
don't care just does not match my personal experience. Yes, there are many,
many problems -- from the garden variety to the wickedly complex. I can
however comfortably say that Palo Alto is generally run by decent, intelligent
people responsible to an engaged, accessible city council.

Available and affordable housing for example, is and has been part of the city
plan, done in coordination with the Association of Bay Area Governments[1],
who develop regional growth projections and plans[2] that cities are required
to incorporate into their general plans. These plans are created in concert
with regional transportation, environmental, etc. plans. How the growth is
managed within each city is up to the city of course -- and that's where the
NIMBY and rich vs. poor issues are played out on the ground. I find it
absolutely challenging and amazing to see (and be part of) the balancing of
the various factors to actually govern. There are winners and losers in every
decision, and it's important to remember that we're not playing a one-round,
zero-sum game.

I can't say anything about the state and federal governments -- but it's easy
to get involved and make a contribution at the city level, and absolutely will
be enlightening. The first step in conquering the "denial of reality" problem
you complain about seems to me to be understanding how cities actually work,
and then working to make some constructive improvements.

    
    
      [1] http://www.abag.ca.gov/housing-top.html
      [2] http://www.abag.ca.gov/planning/pdfs/SFHousingNeedsPlan.pdf [PDF]

~~~
otterley
That the city council is comprised of nice people is irrelevant. What matters
is how they vote. And city councils in wealthy suburban neighborhoods have an
extremely reliable track record of preserving the status quo in terms of urban
development in order to protect the property values (dressed as "quality of
life") of the existing residents.

Here's my suggestion for constructive improvement: Ignore existing residents'
concerns about "quality of life" and allow builders to construct high-density
housing. This will have the effect of increasing housing stock and making
housing more affordable, without having to regulate affordable housing in
special cases that almost always end up pleasing nobody.

------
unim
Here's a smart idea : Build homes and offices elsewhere in the U.S. I never
understood the constant swimming against the tide in the Valley. Expand
elsewhere... It's becoming uncomfortable and unreasonable for a great deal of
people. On a grand scale this is bad for the U.S : > More expensive to hire
people here > More concentration of wealth ... > Wealth gets pissed away into
the inflated shoebox called Silicon Valley.

Think outside the box .. but the nature of the valley is that everyone thinks
inside it .. Go figure.

After some observations, A visiting friend commented : You have some of the
highest paid/intelligent people in the U.S located here yet they live no
better than the garbage man in other states... I don't know if this is
incredibly stupid or smart.

~~~
sneak
s/elsewhere in the U\\.S\\./elsewhere/;

All of the good places to live in the USA are balls-expensive, because there
aren't very many of them.

Berlin's great this time of year.

~~~
michaelochurch
_All of the good places to live in the USA are balls-expensive, because there
aren't very many of them._

The Upper Midwest (Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, Ann Arbor) is great _if_ you
can get an interesting job there. The weather isn't as bad as it sounds and
the cities themselves are beautiful (although I wouldn't recommend most of the
suburbs).

~~~
sneak
Ann Arbor has absolutely no nightlife that doesn't involve young kids and
drinking too much. Chicago's bar and club scene is full of the hyper-douches
that (for the most part) weren't smart enough to make it to the coasts. And
almost every major urban center in the US requires a car to live.

I grew up in Detroit and spent a lot of time traveling and working around the
midwest, and those kinds of places are exactly what I envision when I think of
unlivable American cities. They simply don't have the density to support the
kind of scenes that make living in a city fun. Chicago is borderline, but the
car thing and the snow thing totally ruin it. The parts of the city that are
close to anything fun are expensive to live in.

Fact is, any state with a default 2AM bar/club time is at a severe
disadvantage.

I think the list for the US at the moment is NYC, SF, and perhaps maybe
Seattle or Portland - but I haven't been to the northwest so I can't comment
directly.

~~~
mattdeboard
I'm with you on "the snow thing" but every other critique makes it sound like
your definition of a livable city is one in which you and your friends can
reliably get hammered every night.

~~~
sneak
There's a whole hell of a lot more to nightlife than alcohol, but you'd never
know it living in the USA.

I hardly ever drink, and not very much when I do.

------
RyanMcGreal
Edward Glaeser explores this phenomenon in some depth in his recent book
_Triumph of the City_. Over time, cities that refuse to let the market meet
the demand for affordable housing through height/density limits and so on tend
to transition from dynamic engines of economic development into exclusive
boutiques for the very wealthy.

~~~
msellout
Not the most scientific of books, btw.

------
lisper
These "dumb rules" are one of the main reasons that, by some people's quality
metric, the Valley is such a great place to live (if you can afford it, of
course). Oakland, San Jose (at least the downtown area), and San Francisco all
have pretty high density. Some people like cities, but I think most people
would prefer, all else being equal, to live in Portola Valley or Woodside.

~~~
underwater
Being a nice place to live is a luxury that the rich enjoy and everyone else
suffers for. Silicon Valley is the biggest tech hub in the world and home to
billions of dollars worth of industry. Zoning should reflect that, rather than
the whims of the lucky few who can afford to buy into the current inflated
market.

------
narrator
The anti-growth stuff is so that when the inevitable bust comes the whole
place doesn't clear out and turn into Detroit.

Las Vegas is a great recent example of too much over-optimistic growth being
followed by a devastating bust and urban decay.

~~~
woodpanel
Sure, the Valley won't Detroit-enize. But that doesn't mean that decay isn't
at work already. Zoning like that mentioned in the article leads to

1) urban sprawl, which means

2) more land being used inefficently (wasted) and

3) more hours of life commuting (wasted), which leads to

4) more need for cars, leading to

5) more hours in congestion (wasted)

6) poorer people getting the worst of those points above, making

7) building public transport even more political feasable, while

8) public transport is the least efficient in low-density areas (wasted)

One could say that the decay of Detroit is at least contained in terms of
space. Also, just because a bust is to be expected, it doesn't mean that
people should be deprived of Jobs that never come to existance due to
handicapped growth.

~~~
roc
The emptying out of Detroit is contained almost entirely within the low-
density residential neighborhoods. The downtown area stubbornly clings on in
large part _because_ density makes it easier to serve with new business and
core infrastructure.

Low density is what made the emptying so contagious and the costs so
unsustainable. Low density requires continual growth to pay for the long
utility runs and the long service routes for everything from busses to police
patrols to trash pickup. And because service erodes as buildings empty, more
buildings empty. And when the remaining 20 or 30% of your population is
scattered, it's very hard to introduce new businesses or retrench old ones to
serve them. The erosion is almost impossible to contain without Flint-style
abandoning of large swaths of area and relocation programs for anyone who
remains. (Detroit has been trying similar, but it's expensive and slow.)

I don't know much about SF and the valley and I'll refrain from commenting
there. But you guys know demonstrably nothing about Detroit and you may want
to follow the example.

~~~
nickpinkston
Totally true - I visited Detroit a few months back and was surprised how much
it reflects its MotorCity roots. The roads are so massive in width, lot size
in the neighborhoods is ridiculous and so much space is dedicated to highways
with sparse exists. You can see why a local business couldn't exist - the
density never gets high enough to allow a critical mass. Add to this that many
of these neighborhoods are at like 20% capacity.

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gavanwoolery
I suspect I'll be down-voted for saying it, but Silicon Valley does not need
housing or offices. People need to move _out_ of SV. Software can be done from
anywhere...why bother doing it in an undesirable area _? Everything in the Bay
Area is overpriced, and most of it is pretty boring. SF certainly is not
boring, but it has also turned into a dump (was way cleaner when I was a kid,
not sure what happened). And yes, there are VCs outside of SV, believe it or
not -- not that proximity to VCs should be a deciding factor of where to base
your company.

_ (For the record, I grew up in the Bay Area, if it matters.)

------
phamilton
They compare the growth in Detroit as though Silicon Valley were missing out.
I for one wouldn't live in Detroit today.

------
crististm
I don't know about dumb rules but (for a change) he should come and see some
properties in my area with practically no space between buildings.

However, 30% of a lot seems small for a high density area.

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jakozaur
Maybe instead of getting rid of rules, lets find a better ones?

~~~
ianrandall
I live in Sydney & for a city of over 4.6 million people, most residents would
consider it a great place to live, with great entertainment & night life, good
public transport, low unemployment, good schools & recreation facilities. That
being said we also have a housing rental shortage that keeps rents high, some
pollution problems, seriously bad crime statistics and horrendous traffic
conjestion in many parts of the city. Australia is one of the most urbanized
countries in the world and like Canada most of our population lives in a
narrow 100km band (in our case from the coast). Most parts of the world are
livable if you find your urban village. If you are not in a village the
lifestyle is crap, if you are in the village, life is great.

------
medusa666
Google "urban planning." The "dumb rules" may not be convenient for you or me
in the short run, but they exist for a reason: water, sewage, traffic,
pollution, supporting a sustainable quality of living for the long term.

I don't have the answer - and I notice that you don't really offer one - but I
know that the answer is not to throw out all our laws in a short-sighted
imitation of some polluted Chinese metropolis.

~~~
otterley
There are plenty of examples of cities that are prosperous, clean, and not
stifled by pollution: Montreal, London, Paris, Zurich, Munich, Berlin, Vienna,
and Sydney to name a few.

~~~
jbm
Montreal is a dying metropolis, with very high taxes, Greece-style debt and an
out-of-touch central bureaucracy that is more interested in culture wars than
good management. Former premiere Lucien Bouchard mentioned that he was
"shocked" when bankers threatened to cut Quebec's bond rating; the idea of
deficit spending was so entrenched that the idea of it having a negative
impact was seen as laughable. Wall to wall graffiti (and not attractive
graffiti) are the hallmarks of the town, as are the poorly built roads and
collapsing overpasses.

I left Montreal to go to "30 year recession" Japan and the difference is night
and day. I don't believe in the future of Japan, but I am even more skeptical
of Quebec's. Bringing it up as a success story makes me doubt your comment,
eventhough I strongly want to believe what you said.

~~~
rimbo789
Montreal is also thriving, creative and dynamic in ways few Canadian cities
are. Its got an actual art scene, which is pretty rare for Canada. Its great
food, decent mass transit, and fun neighbourhoods.

It may be falling down and overrun with student protesters but at least it is
not the never ending soulless sprawl that is Toronto.

~~~
jbm
I support the student protestors. Not their violence, obviously, but I suppose
violence is inevitable in these sorts of situations.

If the government cannot confront organized crime and its parasitic presence
in its construction requisition system, it is basically engaging in selective
budgetary restraint - which means it doesn't believe it "really" has to engage
in budgetary restraint. Mind you, the budget problems are real - but attacking
soft, weak targets means the gov't doesn't believe it.

It is easier to ask for sacrifice when you are seen as having tried to avoid
it. That didn't happen. Now we see the inevitable outcome, and the media spin
on it is shameful.

My personal belief is that Jean Charest's administration will be remembered
akin to Nero's, except that JC's administration will actually deserve the
dishonour.

