
Bay Area tech boom not cause of region's problems - kunle
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Bay-Area-tech-boom-not-cause-of-region-s-problems-5080195.php
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epicureanideal
Although I generally agree with the sentiment of the article, I strongly
disagree that we need specifically "affordable" housing. State-subsidized
"below market rate" housing that enables people with low salaries to occupy
highly-demanded space is incredibly inefficient and also likely doesn't serve
the interests of the people it is supposed to help.

I don't see why the ability to live in San Francisco is any different than the
ability to afford a BMW or a Tesla. Should the government subsidize "below
market rate" luxury cars too? What would be the incentive to get an education
or work hard? Personally I feel somewhat offended when there are dozens of
below market rate units available and I'm actually excluded from attempting to
buy them because I earn too much money. Meanwhile there are hardly any homes
available for people who can afford the houses without subsidies and we bid up
the houses to obscene prices due to lack of supply.

Also, if the people who work in SF or other high income areas cannot afford to
live there at current wages, there should be pressure on them to leave and
work elsewhere. This would increase demand for their labor and drive prices
up, all else being equal. (I know, there are other factors here, but those
should be dealt with separately, not by adding more layers of complexity to
the problem.)

Further, if those workers cannot afford to rent or buy, lowering the cost of
renting or buying also reduces the pressure on employers to raise their wages.

~~~
scoofy
As a recent nyc -> sf transplant, i think the best short term solution to
making living in the bay area more affordable is to run one track of bart back
and forth from 12am - 4am. SF needs a brooklyn, a real brooklyn, that you can
get to when your shift at the restaurant/bar/other-service-job ends at 1am.

Public infrastructure is a public good, and service industry workers can't be
expected to cab it to oakland when their shifts end. Heck, the bikelane on the
new bay bridge segment ends before treasure island. I could NEVER have lived
in brooklyn if the non-auto infrastructure was the way it is between sf and
oakland.

~~~
epicureanideal
I also wouldn't mind if they would add some extra cars so it isn't standing
room only during commute hours. How hard is it to add an extra car to an
existing train? Raise my fare, I'll pay not to have to be packed in like
cattle.

~~~
sologoub
I'd imagine the length of the train is limited to the shortest platform it has
to support. Not from SF, so not sure if there really is room for expansion.

Frequency might be another answer - run the trains closer together, but again
there are limits there too.

~~~
prodigal_erik
I've never seen a BART station shorter than ten cars, though many rush hour
trains only use eight or nine.

I seem to remember that BART has an outdated and overwhelmed computer system
which requires greater spacing between trains (and sometimes fails all the way
down to manual control). At least new cars will have three doors instead of
two, which should get a train out of a station faster.

------
kunle
The most striking figure in here is this one:

"The hard truth is that the Bay Area's housing and transit systems are
bursting at the seams. According to the San Francisco Apartment Association,
last year the city added 68,000 new jobs and just 120 new housing units.
Silicon Valley's rental vacancy rates are even lower than the city's."

That's math that just undeniable.

~~~
nb13
This one really jumped out at me too. I haven't read this anywhere before:

"research from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute showed that each of
these tech jobs had an astounding effect of creating an additional 4.3 jobs in
the local economy."

~~~
kunle
Yeah I thought that was striking as well. I'm generally skeptical of stats
like this but I'd love to see the paper and see the structure of those gigs
(eg which industries, where geographically are they concentrated etc)

~~~
nb13
I found it. It's mentioned on page 5 in the executive summary. I don't have
enough time to read through the whole report right now.

[http://www.bayareaeconomy.org/media/files/pdf/TechReport.pdf](http://www.bayareaeconomy.org/media/files/pdf/TechReport.pdf)

------
timr
So, first off, it needs to be acknowledged that this was written by the "Bay
Area Council", which is a PR machine for a dues-paying group of bay area
corporations, including Facebook and Google [1]. Consider the source.

Second, while I'm the first to acknowledge that SF needs to build up, it's
clearly _absurd_ to say that the tech boom is "not the cause" of the city's
housing problems -- that's like saying that skiing isn't the cause of Aspen's
housing prices. Nonsense. It's plain that tech is the _proximal_ cause, even
if you believe that the boom has brought both positive and negative
consequences to the city (as I do).

Fair debate on this topic has to begin with the acknowledgement that the tech
companies' policies are _indirectly driving_ a displacement of non-tech
workers from the city. It's dishonest to claim otherwise.

[1] [http://www.bayareacouncil.org/about-us/member-
companies/](http://www.bayareacouncil.org/about-us/member-companies/)

~~~
surrealize
> It's plain that tech is the proximal cause

It's half of the proximal cause. Housing prices have increased because of the
interaction of supply and demand. Blaming the tech boom focuses only on the
demand side, but the supply constraints (height limits, zoning density limits,
etc.) are just as important.

~~~
timr
The supply didn't decrease. The demand increased. That's the proximal cause.

~~~
surrealize
If you like. The policy levers are all on the supply side, though (unless you
want to start kicking out major employers or something). So it's pointless to
complain about demand side changes.

~~~
timr
_" The policy levers are all on the supply side, though"_

Are you kidding? Remember the big white buses that everyone is mad about? They
play a role here.

The valley tech companies have mitigated the natural barrier that would
ordinarily limit the number of tech employees living in the city -- the pain
of commuting. So rather than staying close to work and building communities
where they live, they use the city as a glorified suburb, but with cushy
private transportation. There are a variety of things wrong with this, not the
least of which is the fact that they reduce housing supply for the natives.

Econ 101 theories about supply and demand don't apply when large external
forces are subsidizing the demand side of the equation. One can quite
reasonably argue that instead of "building up" (which is expensive and
disruptive) SF should just ban the private buses -- it would be cheaper, more
natural, and would solve the same problem.

~~~
surrealize
Ban private buses? You mean, like, prevent people from operating private buses
entirely? No greyhound? You can't mean that, because it's ridiculous, but I'm
not sure exactly what you do mean.

A huge number of people employed on the peninsula would absolutely live close
to work and build communities there, if those peninsula cities weren't so
hell-bent on preventing dense development. There just isn't the supply there.

And what the f do you mean by "natives", anyway? Native Americans? Everyone
else is an immigrant. If you moved here a year before I did, do you have some
more legitimate claim to live here? I don't think so.

Of course supply and demand applies to the situation. Your suggestion of
banning private buses, while ridiculous, is specifically an attempt to
influence demand. Your own suggested solution assumes that the "Econ 101"
theory applies.

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radley
"tech's shuttles are a godsend, eliminating 327,000 cars"

That doesn't seem accurate. Over a third of San Francisco's population leaves
town on tech buses?

~~~
cloudwalking
"tech's shuttles are a godsend, eliminating 327,000 cars and 10,000 tons of
carbon every year at no cost to the taxpayer"

I presume this means 327,000 car trips per year.

~~~
sethhochberg
That seems much more reasonable - assuming 260 work days a year and 2 trips
per day, we'd be looking at just under 450 cars off the roads due to shuttles.

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wpietri
This just in: young PR guy for for business lobby group thinks business is
awesome.

