
Can Portland Avoid Repeating San Francisco’s Mistakes? - trusche
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/05/the-real-roots-of-portlands-housing-crisis/482988/?single_page=true
======
rconti
The problem this article (and others) make is assuming that "progressive"
policies are good for housing affordability. For example, the "There are
limits to urban white liberalism" lament from the Community Alliance of
Tenants. He's apparently upset that people don't follow through with their
politics, but, as far as I can tell, there's no requirement that, in order to
be liberal, you have to support specific housing policies.

Maybe some of your liberal friends are in favor of ACTUAL affordability,
rather than a litmus test of policies that you need to support to get street
cred, but don't actually do anything for housing?

------
jdminhbg
A truly odd article. The posited question is whether Portland can avoid making
SF's mistakes, but then it goes on to lament that Portland isn't committed to
the same "progressive" housing policies that SF is (rent control, "affordable
housing" minimums, stronger lease termination regulation). In fact, I don't
see anywhere that SF's mistakes are even enumerated, so maybe the headline was
just written by editor who wished that the writer had explored them.

~~~
readams
It almost leads you to suspect that these policies have been an utter failure
in San Francisco. A rational person might suppose that to avoid the fate of
San Francisco, that Portland should try something different. Perhaps something
that recognizes that supply and demand are real, and that setting price
controls at a level below the market-clearing price will lead to shortages.

~~~
btilly
There is almost no evidence that rent control is the primary, secondary or
even tertiary cause of San Francisco's woes. As
[https://medium.com/newco/a-guy-just-transcribed-30-years-
of-...](https://medium.com/newco/a-guy-just-transcribed-30-years-of-for-rent-
ads-heres-what-it-taught-us-about-sf-housing-prices-bd61fd0e4ef9#.r7qldtd56)
shows, the long-term price curves barely change in 1979 when rent control came
into existence.

The three things that matter are the amount of housing, the number of jobs
there are, and the total salary paid for those jobs. See the article for the
formula. I am sure that a similar formula applies in San Francisco. The result
is that having or not having rent control is immaterial. Being unwilling to
build housing is a problem.

~~~
aorloff
Rent control helps the well connected, not necessarily those who need it :

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122126309241530485](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122126309241530485)

and ties up existing inventory. I know people here in SF who have an
apartment, and own a house or two outside the city, but will never give up
their apartment because its just so cheap. Rent control definitely ties up
supply.

~~~
btilly
In theory, absolutely!

In practice the effects seem to be small.

~~~
dietrichepp
The evidence presented in the article you linked is really not strong enough
to support your conclusion with reasonable certainty. It's using a massive
"post hoc ergo proper hoc" fallacy to prop up a weak argument.

"Ties up supply" is also a statement that is not necessarily connected to
"increases price". I'm not entirely clear on the economic theories behind rent
control, but from what I understand, it affects availability more than it
affects price.

------
api
"But there has been pushback on these efforts, too. Many Portlanders say they
don’t want more density in their neighborhoods, that they oppose big housing
complexes and in-law units in neighbors’ backyards. (There is a similar
attitude evident in some San Francisco residents’ responses to that city’s
housing crisis.) Some neighborhoods are actually trying to downzone to
decrease density."

Good economy, affordable housing, NIMBYism: pick two.

------
jrapdx3
As a long-time Portland resident I've seen how the city has grown. It's said
Portland is a "hot destination", inspiring a continuing influx of new
residents. In any case, we knew increased density was inevitable given state-
wide stringent constraints on sprawl via urban growth boundaries. A building
boom has been going on for some years now with little sign of abating.

Despite the construction happening all around, housing prices have been
rising, quite a hot topic here now. There's a political problem insofar as
many are convinced that elected officials didn't force developers to create
the number of lower cost housing units as promised when the building projects
were proposed to the city.

Furthermore many citizens believe that overall the governing bodies have also
not looked after the interests of the community, for one thing, allowing real
estate developers to do what they want regardless of effects on neighborhoods.
There is also dissatisfaction with deterioration of infrastructure, massive
increase in traffic congestion, demolition of historic structures, loss of
small businesses and overall reduced quality of life.

Whether this replicates San Francisco or Seattle or not, when growth-related
problems are greater than necessary there's something wrong with the process.
FWIW it is an election year, I suspect the views of the electorate will be
clearly rendered and overdue changes made.

Edit: grammar

~~~
apsec112
"Despite the construction happening all around"

How much construction is there, really? Politicians in SF talk about a "big
construction boom", but 2014 was the first year since the 1960s that SF
construction even kept up with the US's baseline population growth (~1% per
year). So it's "booming", but only in the sense of returning to normal after a
decades-long depression.

"allowing real estate developers to do what they want regardless of effects on
neighborhoods"

This might not bear any relationship to reality. Many people believe this in
San Francisco, even though SF is the #1 most development-hostile major city in
the world.

~~~
jrapdx3
It's different here since much of the construction is happening in areas that
have been vacant. We have the Pearl district, Slabtown and others in which
many new structures are going in. Even in downtown Portland, there are plans
to build on street level parking lots, adding to the structure inventory.
There is a real expansion going on in this region.

Population of Portland proper has actually grown substantially, >= 7% in the
last 10 years or so. The entire metro area may have increased even more, I'm
not sure about that. Portland State University maintains a demographic study
center with the data but I didn't check there for this comment.

The necessity for constructing more housing units isn't questioned, but
there's a lot of discussion about projects that the city planners allowed to
exceed the originally planned height restrictions without the issue being open
for community input. The lack of procedural transparency in these cases has
evoked the ire of concerned citizens.

As far as neighborhoods go, close-in areas have experienced marked
"gentrification", displacing lower income populations to the "high number"
districts of east Portland where housing is less expensive. So indeed
development has had substantial effects on some neighborhoods, whether that's
"good" or "bad" can be debated, but it is a reality.

~~~
apsec112
"without the issue being open for community input"

Are you sure this is an accurate description? Many neighborhood groups will
ignore opportunities for input, sometimes for years, so they can later block
the project and retroactively claim they "weren't given a voice".

For example, when San Francisco put bus-only lanes on Mission Street a few
months ago, neighborhood activists said:

"“SFMTA’s red carpet bombing of the Mission was a surprise attack and is
wholly unwelcome,” Raeleen Valle-Brenes, an activist from the Cultural Action
Network told the board."

Mike Schiraldi describes what really happened:

"Actually, the MTA took out multiple ads in 8 different local papers, notified
31 neighborhood and merchant groups, 8 schools, neighborhood senior centers,
posted on Twitter and Facebook, rode the 14-Mission Bus to distribute 1500
postcards, handed out 1700 flyers, and mailed out more than 25,000 more
postcards.

They also had these community meetings:

Public Open House #1 (2/18/15)

Mission Merchants Association (2/18/15)

Mission Bernal Merchants (3/9/15 & 3/27/15)

Calle 24 (3/10/15)

Mission High School Principal (3/12/15)

14 Mission Rider Open House @ 24th BART Plaza (3/25/15)

MEDA (4/16/15)

Public Open House #2 (4/21/15)

Public Open House #3 (5/30/15)

Public Hearing (10/16/15)

SFMTA Board of Directors meeting, with public comment (12/1/15)

Prior to all that, the Chronicle wrote about it in 2014:
[http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Muni-overhaul-
spe...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Muni-overhaul-speeds-up-
with-route-changes-ahead-5316083.php)

And before that, they wrote about it in 2012:
[http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-transit-agency-
s-p...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-transit-agency-s-plan-to-
speed-Muni-service-3422561.php)

And that last article says they'd been trying to get this done since 2008."

(source:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/4i5n66/critic...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/4i5n66/criticism_of_busonly_lanes_in_the_mission/))

~~~
jrapdx3
> "without the issue being open for community input"

> Are you sure this is an accurate description? Many neighborhood groups will
> ignore opportunities for input, sometimes for years, so they can later block
> the project and retroactively claim they "weren't given a voice".

I'm sure that's happened here though ATM I don't remember particular
instances. What I had in mind are decisions being made by the city council or
bureaucracies with little or no notice to the community. Portland has many
active neighborhood associations that try to speak up on relevant issues, but
their voices are often unheeded.

As an example, my neighborhood association recently succeeded in getting some
attention from the city concerning traffic/safety issues. Without going into
the gory details, the salient point is that the neighborhood had been trying
for _> 15 years_ to work with the city to find a solution before something was
done.

So that kind of history is more or less the inverse of the situation you
described. IMO the lesson in both cases is that problems within a community
aren't going to be solved unless all participants are willing to listen to,
and work with each other.

------
sien
Surely Portland won't wind up like SF.

First, look at a map. SF has Vancouver WA across the river. Portland itself
can also expand more easily. SF is a Peninsula and so it's much harder to
expand around the place.

Secondly, Silicon Valley is a well known global hotspot for IT. Everything
else is miles behind. The pressure of all that money in the Bay Area is huge.
It's worth noting that these problems were not nearly as bad during the 1980s
or 1990s boom. It's only been after multiple booms that the SF real estate
market broke. Portland isn't as likely to have multiple booms to the same
degree.

Portland and Austin are certainly seeing the price of real estate going up
substantially. But surely it's a sign of success and is largely a good thing,
unlike the super pricey real estate of SF or Sydney of Melbourne AU, NYC or
London.

~~~
shas3
Yeah, I don't understand how Portland will be the next SF or even the next
Seattle. SF and Seattle are years ahead in economic growth. Further, SF and
Seattle have solid schools and universities. Portland is quite mediocre in
that respect. The local universities in Portland and in wider Oregon are
eminently mediocre.

------
joshAg
probably not. The only real solutions are discouraging enough people from
moving that population remains static over years, or making it super easy to
build as many units as needed to cover the influx of new residents.

Anything else will just result in downtown portland and the nearby areas
becoming unaffordable for anyone who isn't rich.

------
santaclaus
> It’s all the newcomers, some say. They’re driving prices up and they’re
> pushing long-time residents out.

Well, there has been a _massive_ influx of investment [1] in the Portland
housing market, driving up overall prices. While this wouldn't be happening if
people didn't want to move to Portland, simply blaming it on 'Californians'
seems to be a bit naive.

[1] [http://invw.org/2015/04/17/portland-cash-
housing/](http://invw.org/2015/04/17/portland-cash-housing/)

~~~
erispoe
The fundamentals that create an opportunity for speculative investment is a
lack of supply and an excess of demand. It's very rare that investment itself,
in a vacuum of demand, will result in a price surge. Sure, it can happen, but
the basics is that Portland is attractive and, like San Francisco, does not
build enough to support the new demand.

~~~
skybrian
It sounds like you're saying that investment alone doesn't make a bubble. But
investment (or speculation) is another kind of demand, and it's well known
that speculation can create bubbles when investors predict future demand that
turns out not to exist. So I'm not really sure what you're getting at?

~~~
erispoe
Real demand for housing is here in Portland and in San Francisco. It's not
created by real estate speculation. Real people, by the thousands, come to
these metro areas, faster than the housing stock grows to accommodate them.

Before asking ourselves if price surges are created by the smokes and mirrors
of speculation, a second-degree hypothesis, we ought to look at the simpler
hypothesis first: is there a real demand for housing? Yes, there is. Is the
housing stock growing fast enough to satisfy that demand? No, it is not.

------
ck2
Not right to be squeezed out of a city you call your home but "weird people"
will find/build new places hopefully.

I am sure there are up and rising places similar to the previous forms of SF
and Portland that are kept off the radar?

~~~
dublinben
Sure. Places like Detroit are very affordable for "weird people" looking for a
challenge. It's a shame that cities like San Francisco have decided to raise
the drawbridge on future inhabitants and set their current density rate in
stone.

~~~
pessimizer
The shame is that they waited so long to do it. There's very little San
Francisco left.

~~~
TulliusCicero
San Francisco is more in its people than its buildings. By constricting the
supply of housing, they've inadvertently pushed out the very 'weirdos' they
were trying to keep; it's pretty easy for the rich to outbid the poor.

------
digitalthething
[deleted]

~~~
svachalek
How does this anecdote contradict that Portland is more affordable than
Seattle?

------
realitycheckxxx
It is just me or do these startup hubs also happen to be hipster hubs as well?
San Francisco, Portland, Austin, Seattle etc.

------
Animats
I'm not worried about SF. The boom will be over soon. After the last dot-com
crash, about 40% of the twentysomethings left.

~~~
tsunamifury
People keep saying this and year and year it keeps "booming"

~~~
spc476
Reminds me of a saying: The market can remain irrational longer than you can
remain solvent.

~~~
Animats
We're getting past that. Look at TWTR stock for the last year.[1] Twitter
tried to pull a Myspace - the number of users started dropping [2], so they
increased ad density to try to get revenue up. It's not working.

Twitter is so highly visible in SF that when they tank, it will shake up the
real estate market.

[1]
[https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=TWT...](https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=TWTR&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)
[2] [http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/twitter-declining-
month...](http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/twitter-declining-monthly-
actives-1201702526/)

