

Why So Many Musicians Are Leaving San Francisco for L.A. - Q6T46nT668w6i3m
http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/210-they-got-the-neutron-bomb-los-angeles-potentially-huge-rocknroll-year/

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nextstep
San Francisco is fast becoming the most boring "big" city in America. Take a
look at the boring office-park culture that SV is famous for; that is the
future of SF. This change is inevitable as rents increase and the only people
who can afford to live there are white and Asian males between 20-35 who work
in tech. (I mean no offense by this comment. I fit into this demographic, but
I will admit that as group overall middle class tech workers are culturally
homogenous and thus incredibly bland.)

~~~
jseliger
_This change is inevitable as rents increase_

It's not inevitable; rather, it's because of a series of political choices.
Steel and elevators are very old technologies and as such it's quite simple to
increase the supply of dwellings on a given quantity of land. San Francisco's
development rules mostly prohibit anyone from doing so, however, per Matt
Yglesias's book _The Rent Is Too Damn High (And What To Do About It)_ (see
[http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078XGJXO?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&l...](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078XGJXO?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957)).

In the face of constant supply and rising demand prices increases. Want to
change that dynamic? Increase supply by building new stuff.

~~~
wwweston
I'm not so sure that a standard market approach to increasing supply really
drives down or even stabilizes housing prices.

I've been present at some significant housing supply buildouts in a few areas,
and each time, my observation was that the price of new housing was somewhat
above market rates... since it's brand new (and often "luxury"
condos/apartments). Plus building costs for new stuff is financed in
unamortized $RECENT_YEAR dollars rather than amortized $DECADES_PAST dollars.

For land-constrained places like San Francisco, where the only way to increase
supply is up, this dynamic is probably more true, since however old the tech
is, it's a lot more capital intensive than stick framing.

Where I _have_ observed a decrease in price, it's never been because of supply
increase. It's places like Detroit where demand drops, either because of
economic stagnation/collapse, or where there's health/property hazards.

This isn't to say they shouldn't build out/up in SF, just that I'm pretty sure
that introducing rents musicians can afford is not going be as simple as
changing development rules and letting private developers go at it.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
In DC, average rents decreased by 2% last year, largely because of increased
supply[1], so it is possible. Somewhere like SF, it's likely that demand would
increase faster than supply could so prices would continue to go up, but at
least the increase in supply would slow down the price increase.

[1] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-23/washington-faces-
ap...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-23/washington-faces-apartment-
glut-after-boom-real-estate.html)

~~~
wwweston
The cited article on DC does give some new construction numbers and credit
that as part of the trajectory. _However_ , there's also this bit:

"Job growth in the region, which is heavily focused on the government, has
been too weak to support the construction, said Greg Leisch, chief executive
officer of Delta Associates. Federal contracting has declined by $7 billion in
the last two years and the spending cuts known as sequestration have limited
employment and demand for rentals, he said.

“The supply would have been consistent with Washington’s job performance had
the federal government not shrunk,”

In other words, despite the increased supply, had the fundamentals of the
local economic activity stayed the same, they would have only matched demand
at best, and prices probably would have stayed stable/increasing.

It looks to me like this at least as much another example of a price reduction
from a demand drop as it is a price reduction from increased supply, if not
more.

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batbomb
I know Ty. Both him and my friend Peter (his roommate then, not sure if they
are still living together) moved there more than a year ago, and they both are
from the LA area. Mikal Cronin, who started playing with Ty a while back, was
also from there.

Some of it was money related, but most musicians I know live in Oakland
anyway. Ty is so busy he's not really home that often anyways. I do think a
garage is probably a step up. I know they couldn't play loud in their
apartment in the inner richmond.

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themodelplumber
"Seemingly overnight, [San Francisco] has filled up with phone-scrolling,
blank-faced wanderers (particularly in my neighborhood). I prefer a taco to a
vintage glasses store any day."

I guess all those people I follow on Tumblr aren't real artists :-(

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TrainedMonkey
Key point of the article is that many artists can't afford SF anymore.

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mrharrison
It is sad how SF is becoming a monoculture and it seemed to happen so quickly.
I moved here only 4 years ago and when I was first here it was flush with
weirdness, but now, that weirdness that made SF so fun and free minded, is all
but gone.

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triplesec
TL;DR San Francisco is too expensive at the moment and you get more garage
space in LA's cultural desert. And lots of bands move there and it's warmer.

EDIT for clarification - I don't think it's a cultural desert: I think the
article says this

~~~
groby_b
I'm glad to know I'm living in a cultural desert. Looking at both the bands
and the visual artists out here, we must have different usages of the word
"desert" :)

~~~
kevincrane
Maybe he means it's a desert with culture. At least from my experience going
to school down there, "desert" is pretty accurate for the climate/environment
in LA.

~~~
tcdent
You're correct when it comes to _some_ parts of the greater Los Angeles area;
beyond the foothills that surround it and The Valley, but that's just because
the city by that definition goes on forever.

Los Angeles proper; downtown and the surrounding areas, have a great climate
because of the onshore breeze that comes in through Santa Monica. The
indigenous foliage (what's left of it) there and up into the foothills is
quite varied, and with everything the inhabitants have planted over the years,
can be quite dense in some areas (largely supported by water from elsewhere in
the state).

The extended areas as well, Angeles National Forest and the San Gabriel
Mountains, can be comparable in density and recreation to forests across the
nation.

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jjoe
What's there in this story to decorticate that makes it HN worthy?

~~~
batbomb
John Dwyer is talking about gentrification by his old house around Valencia
and 17th, aka mission gentrification central. Of which, he recently criticized
"techies" for leading.

[http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2014/01/here_is_what_the...](http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2014/01/here_is_what_thee_oh_sees_john.php)

~~~
w1ntermute
If he spent a little while educating himself before making such comments in
public, he'd know that the real problem is draconian zoning laws and NIMBYs.

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Too-Damn-High-
ebook/dp/B0078X...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Too-Damn-High-
ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO)

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nkvl
Anything to do with gentrification?

edit: I couldn't figure out why I was a little confused reading this, but it's
because there is no one coherent answer in this article.

edit: I asked because the article doesn't answer that, aside from a small
sampling. And the phase before this seems to be from only a couple of years
ago ("Aaron Leitko wrote a 2011 Pitchfork feature about it called 'Positive
Destruction'.") I don't know SF, but I've seen gentrification up close a few
times in larger US cities, it usually takes longer. Hence my question.

~~~
w1ntermute
Try reading the article for once, and you just might be able to answer your
own question.

