
San Francisco's zoning makes it illegal to build apartments in 73.5% of the city - oftenwrong
https://sfzoning.deapthoughts.com/
======
ttul
Speaking as your neighbour to the north, Vancouver has a similarly horrible
NIMBY zoning problem.

[https://imgur.com/a/CftAdv5](https://imgur.com/a/CftAdv5)

All the grey areas are single-family only zoning. Just eye-balling it, I'd say
80% of the land is for low density use only, despite Vancouver having some of
the world's most expensive real estate relative to incomes and rents.

This situation is perpetuated by successive city governments who owe their
existence to wealthy single family home owners. Oddly, those same single
family home owners would become rich if they could subdivide their properties
for intensive development. I have never understood this paradox.

~~~
BurningFrog
This reminds me that SF's _actual_ neighbor to the north, Marin County, is
mostly real unbuilt wilderness.

This is all such an epic waste.

~~~
butterfi
Oh yes, lets turn one of the last Bay Area counties that isn't urban sprawl
into another vast wasteland of concrete and strip malls. Redwoods are
overrated. Wetlands are just swampy land that need an In-n-Out. Mt.Tam would
be so much nicer if it had some restaurants and gift shops.

~~~
docker_up
That exact same argument can be made about building more high density
buildings in SF. "Let's turn one of the most beautiful cities in the world
into an urban jungle filled with high rises so that it blocks out the sun."

At some point something has got to give. Building more apartment buildings and
decreasing the amount of "open space" to accommodate more housing makes sense.

~~~
nine_k
If built right, these high-rises can be beautiful, and provide welcome shade
in summer.

(Disclaimer: I live in New York.)

~~~
UncleEntity
> If built right, these high-rises can be beautiful, and provide welcome shade
> in summer.

“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” -- Jack
London

~~~
fastaguy88
Actually, more commonly attributed to Mark Twain, but apparently he did not
say it either.

------
rb808
Lol I have a friend in SF who complains about high house prices and wants
increased development. When I said he should move to NYC he said its too big
and crowded and he doesn't want to live with a family in an apt. Didn't even
blink.

~~~
gascan
It could be as my father always said decades ago of BART- support was high,
but ridership was low- because everyone was thinking:

 _other people will ride BART, which will reduce traffic for me so I can
drive_

In other words your friend wants development so other people will live in
apartments, so he can then afford to live in a nice ranch.

(I do hear BART has better ridership now)

~~~
danans
> other people will ride BART, which will reduce traffic for me so I can drive
> > (I do hear BART has better ridership now)

Not just better ... It's literally bursting at it's 1970s-designed seams.

The culture around driving vs rapid transit access has changed dramatically in
the Bay Area since that time. In those days, people who couldn't afford to
drive (very poor) used mass transit, which is why people of means preferred to
drive. Today, people pay for the privelege of _not_ having to drive to the
workplace.

There's a lot of evidence that housing near good non-car transit is in higher
demand than equivalent non-transit accessible housing.

For proof you need look no further than the price/sqft for housing within a
few blocks of BART stations vs farther away:

"A condominium located within a half mile of BART is worth 15 percent more
than one located more than five miles from BART, all else being equal" [1]

Admittedly that's a study by BART themselves, but you can see the same pattern
around the price of housing near tech company shuttle stops, which has in turn
attracted the ire of anti-gentrification advocates.

1\.
[https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2014-08%20BART...](https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2014-08%20BARTPropValues_Final_0.pdf)

~~~
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
> There's a lot of evidence that housing near good non-car transit is in
> higher demand than equivalent non-transit accessible housing.

Anyone paying attention to house prices knows this well. 1,000 sqft. bungalows
near BART stations are going for 1.5mm, while 5 or more blocks away, they're a
more 'reasonable' 1.1 or 1.2. The price difference is stark and easily
observable.

What kills me isn't so much the lack of apartments in single-family home
areas, it's the resistance to _ideal_ apartment development projects. 1900 4th
St. in Berkeley is a perfect example: it's high density, right by Cal Train,
nearly commercial/shopping, and currently a parking lot that's poorly
utilized. It's the perfect example of sustainable high-density development,
yet the resistance has been withering. Not to mention the exploitation of
Ohlone culture and history. It's despicable.

~~~
danans
> right by Cal Train

I think you mean Amtrak, but overall point taken.

------
27182818284
If you're looking to move to the Bay area, you should also look at moving to
the like Lincoln, NE or Omaha, NE or Kansas City. A lot more so if you have a
family. I know that sounds strange, but....

The Midwest is cheap. Albeit harder than the past, it is still possible and
common in the Midwest to live a middle-class-ish lifestyle on a single income.
A two bedroom apartment can be less than $500 a month. I have friends with
$830/month mortgage payments on their house.

The Internet is solid in the Midwest too, unless you're actually out on a
farm. In the cities you can get Gigabit up/down for $90 a month. Most places
don't have Google Fiber, but other fiber companies have sprung up. The
majority of my tech friends have fiber in to their walls for Internet.

It is very much a culture of YIMBY right now too. Driverless shuttles? Yeah
sure. New apartment building? Yeah sure. New tech startups? Yeah sure.

Lastly, (this is a hot topic issue so I am reluctant to put it in, but it is
something that comes up from my friends on the west coast) the states are red
states, but the cities are blue. As an example, Omaha is blue enough that it
split the electoral vote of Nebraska to Obama in the past. (NE is a state that
can split its electoral vote rather than winner-takes-all.) Yes it is true
that if you start driving out in to the country you will see "Trump" painted
on to barns and such, but in the cities you don't.

~~~
hunter23
The midwest is an underrated area of the US but unfortunately the lack of
diversity makes it hard for me to live there. It's a hard area for certain
cultures to live in.

edit: not sure why I'm downvoted as my wife lived in the midwest and it was
hard for her to practice her culture. She has fond memories of the area but
knows how unpractical it was for her parents. Her family had to make a monthly
1.5 hour drive into Chicago to find Indian groceries, she got picked
incessantly for being the only Indian kid in school, and her parents couldn't
eat out because there so few options with vegetarian food. It's just hard
living in a place where so few people have a similar skin tone, religion, or
culture as you which is why most Indians move out of the midwest. People make
fun of the racism of the South, but I grew up in a diverse metro in the South
and didn't have to deal with any of this since about 25% of my school was
Asian. Obviously, Chicago and some of the other large metros are ok. I'm just
pointing out that in all these threads there is this argument to "move
somewhere else" but there are huge regions of the country many have to rule
out because they are ethnic minorities.

~~~
refurb
_unfortunately the lack of diversity makes it hard for me to live there_

You don't think non-whites live in Detroit/Chicago?

I'd argue SF isn't that diverse, especially some neighborhoods. It's mostly
rich whites and asians. African Americans got chased out long ago or forced
into Bayview.

~~~
volgo
Asians are minorities. Also, Asian subcultures are extremely diverse - East
Asian, South East Asian, South Asian, etc. You don't need every single
minority involved to be called diverse.

------
tranchms
The problem isn’t even San Francisco. It’s the entire Bay Area. In 1 hour in
any direction you have exorbitant rent/ housing.

Building codes make it next to impossible anywhere in the bay to affordably
build.

I live in Belmont, and my gf lives on Van Ness downtown.

They need to create more housing pretty much ANYWHERE in the bay. And
somewhere close to the major business areas.

When I moved here years ago to work at a startup, the cheapest housing I could
find was $800 sharing a house with 10 roommates. Having 4-8 roommates it’s not
uncommon.

Who is making money off this scheme?

And on an unrelated note, downtown San Francisco has turned into a writhing
cess pool of filth. Homelessness, unstable/ crazy people. Rampant drug use and
needles everywhere. Tents lining the streets. Prostitution. Human excrement
all over the sidewalks.

The only way to avoid it is stay in your bubble and pretend is doesn’t exist.

~~~
incadenza
Have you or your gf been there for a while? Is the homelessness worse than
before? I lived there about six years ago so I’m curious.

~~~
nradov
Based on my subjective observations, homelessness definitely seems to have
gotten worse in the South Bay Area in the past few years. If you go biking or
walking along the various creek trails and railroad tracks you'll see more
encampments. Some of them are fairly well hidden but if you stop and look
you'll see the signs.

By the way, this is one of the reasons why it's tough to get people out of
their cars and commuting by bike. Many people don't feel safe cycling through
those areas.

------
kindatrue
It's surprising how "Owning a home is the most important investment you can
make" collides with "Why isn't housing affordable?"

Here's what parents are telling their kids:
[https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/999364778907914245](https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/999364778907914245)

~~~
refurb
If housing wasn't viewed as _the_ middle class investment, housing prices
would be much lower.

------
scottlegrand2
SB827 would have overturned zoning near transit hubs. It was shot down by a
coalition of NIMBYs and Bernie-progressives accusing it of not being good
enough despite acknowledging the existence of the problem. The upshot for me
was making a donation to Scott Weiner's warchest - we need more new ideas and
original thinking to get out of this mess.

[https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/04/californias-
transit-d...](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/04/californias-transit-
density-bill-stalls/558341/)

~~~
java_script
Seems like a total misrepresentation of what the critics to the left said
about it, and like you're trying to pull a "both sides do it" / "the truth is
in the middle" act without substance.

For example the Los Angeles DSA argues that SB827 would not have even lowered
rents [0] and would have worsened housing for poor families. You can disagree
with that, but that is absolutely not the same as it "not being good enough".

0: [https://www.dsa-la.org/statement_in_opposition_to_sb_827](https://www.dsa-
la.org/statement_in_opposition_to_sb_827)

~~~
scottlegrand2
So that's the problem. No plan is going to be perfect. Better remains the
enemy of good enough and I think this would have been a really good start.
Note that the rebuttal posted here demands the repeal of Costa Hawkins. Doing
so would strip all homeowners of the right to evict renters from their own
home. Please tell me how that helps any homeowner whatsoever. Or if you don't
care about homeowners (in which case why should they care about renters?),
please tell me why California would be a better place by doing that to every
single homeowner in the state?

I personally think you need to build bridges not tear them down and there's a
lot we can agree on when it comes to California infrastructure

But if you're going to veto everything that's imperfect, IMO you're just
perpetuating and exacerbating the existing situation. I suspect SB827 will be
back next year because the hyperbole (from the left BTW not both sides in this
case) about Scott Wiener being a closet Republican was absurd and it took an
insane degree of cherry picking of his voting record to make that case.

I read that ~54% of homeowners vote as opposed to ~28% of renters. I think the
proposition to repeal Costa Hawkins is really going to bring out the vote here
and the numbers are not on the side of renters. I note also that the cost of
California Home Ownership is just not all that high once you get out of the
major cities. I had to give a talk at UC Merced a couple months back and I was
really tempted to immediately move there and buy a mcmansion for the price of
a single room condo in SF.

Finally, this could have been a wonderful opportunity to put an additional
proposition out there that we could all agree on. Too bad we're so busy
fighting with each other while the other side of the political fence slowly
assimilates power.

------
danepowell
Honest question, is it truly possible to build yourself out of a housing
crisis? Or is housing like roads, where an increased supply just leads to even
more demand?

In other words, traffic exists not because of a lack of roads per se, but
because people are willing to accept a given level of traffic when deciding
whether to drive somewhere. In an area as beautiful and in demand as SF, will
people essentially keep on immigrating until it's unattractive enough that
they stop, regardless of supply?

Edit: thanks everyone for the thoughtful replies and for pointing out some of
my potentially flawed assumptions. It's refreshing to have civilized exchanges
of opinion on the internet every once in a while :)

~~~
saosebastiao
Yes it is possible.

[http://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-
your-w...](http://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-your-way-to-
affordable-housing/)

As far as the roads situation, a lot of people confuse that phenomenon with
induced demand, which is likely incorrect (and very hard to prove, even if it
is correct). The much more likely scenarios is that because roads are
underpriced (we don't make people pay their full costs for use), there will
always be unmet demand. If people were paying $8-15/gallon for gas
(approximately what the unsubsidized cost would be), it would be much easier
to build a new road and actualize the intended effect of reducing congestion,
because you wouldn't be trying to catch up to pent up subsidized demand.

~~~
abalone
Roads are literally the classic example of induced demand. The price is the
opportunity cost of using them. You build more, you lower that cost, more
people decide to start driving. Not that hard to understand. Perhaps a fair
proxy for tech professionals who’d love to move to SF if only the price came
down a bit — But way higher than what working class folks can afford.

That article is not immune from criticism. The first example it gives is
Houston which it directly notes solved affordability through “sprawl”. It is
totally invalid in an SF context where we live on the tip of a peninsula.

The second example is Tokyo. It is true that Tokyo is more liberal on building
codes, but there are many other differences that go unmentioned. For example a
massive, generation-defining pop of a real estate asset bubble and resulting
30 year recession. That that goes unmentioned smacks of cherry picking.

A more successful example is Vienna where the government was heavily involved
in housing.

~~~
saosebastiao
> Roads are literally the classic example of induced demand. The price is the
> opportunity cost of using them. You build more, you lower that cost, more
> people decide to start driving. Not that hard to understand.

Apparently it _is_ hard to understand, because what you're describing isn't
induced demand, it's the same exact supply and demand curve working as it
always has done. Induced demand is where a shift in the supply curve shifts
the demand curve, not simply adjusting to a new equilibrium on the existing
demand curve (as would be expected for literally everything). We can prove
this quite simply: in countries where driving is priced correctly, road
expansions reduce congestion. And they don't reduce congestion in countries
where driving is subsidized, like ours.

> That article is not immune from criticism. The first example it gives is
> Houston which it directly notes solved affordability through “sprawl”. It is
> totally invalid in an SF context where we live on the tip of a peninsula.

You didn't get the point of the article at all if you think that's a criticism
of it. The whole point was that you can attack housing affordability in tons
of different ways, but they all have something in common: they increase supply
to meet demand. You can do it with sprawl, you can do it with tall density,
you can do it with short density, you can do it with social housing, you can
do it with market rate housing, etc. It doesn't matter, supply is the key
factor. There isn't a single one size fits all solution to the housing crisis,
but there are plenty of different ways to realize the goal of reducing rents
via increasing supply.

> For example a massive, generation-defining pop of a real estate asset bubble
> and resulting 30 year recession.

Tokyo's economic reality has been different from Japan as a whole, with Tokyo
booming for at least 20 years now. Tokyo has been one of the fastest growing
megacities in the world for those two decades, highlighting exactly how
successful they've been at keeping rents flat.

> That that goes unmentioned smacks of cherry picking.

Kind of like how you point out how Houston's model could never work for San
Francisco, but conveniently forget to mention Montreal's or Chicago's model
while jumping directly to your preferred solution that would require the most
dramatic shift in American politics that we have ever seen?

~~~
abalone
_> Induced demand is where a shift in the supply curve shifts the demand
curve_

That is incorrect. You fundamentally misunderstand induced demand. You can
literally google “induced demand” and see a graph showing that the demand
curve does not shift.[1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand)

------
tovkal
SF is in a similar situation as Barcelona, kind of. SF is 121.4 km2 while BCN
is 101.9 km². SF is sea-locked on three sides while BCN is sea-locked on one
side and on the other has mountains. As per the map, SF is mainly single-
family housing while BCN is mostly multi-family housing (average is 12 homes
per building). Population (in 2016) is 870k vs 1.6m.

If all those low density areas in SF were converted to high density, SF could
grow a lot and housing issues could be plaited temporally (years?) but after a
while it be the same thing, where there's more demand than supply.

Personally, I think having single-family housing inside a city is a waste of
space but a city full of 30 story buildings usually is not very pretty. I like
the Eixample, were streets are wide and buildings just the right size so there
is plenty of sunlight, airflow and all that. Obviously if I were an owner of a
single-family home in SF I would be against of converting my quiet, low-
density neighborhood into all high-rise.

Tricky problem to solve.

~~~
reaperducer
Very tricky. Tourism is still a very big industry in San Francisco. One of the
reasons people go there is to see the charming old houses and nice old
neighborhoods.

While we think SF would look great if it were like in the Star Trek movies,
that would pretty much destroy a large part of what makes San Francisco San
Francisco.

~~~
namesbc
Think about that for a moment.

People come to SF to visit the attractions at the high density parts e.g
fisherman's wharf, union square, chinatown, ghirardelli square, coit tower,
etc.

Look at a standard tourist map of SF: [https://www.sftodo.com/sanfrancisco/wp-
content/uploads/2018/...](https://www.sftodo.com/sanfrancisco/wp-
content/uploads/2018/02/san-francisco-map-mini.jpg)

No one comes to SF to visit the vast tracts of suburbia in the sunset:
[https://goo.gl/maps/p91HMQTcXBQ2](https://goo.gl/maps/p91HMQTcXBQ2)

------
Karrot_Kream
Maintaining its culture is one thing, but it's irresponsible that SF has
continued to allow commerical zoning and jobs to increase without upzoning for
housing accordingly. It places strain on cities around SF and causes the
transportation infrastructure to be unnecessarily stressed.

SF is trying to pull a Palo Alto where they reap the benefits of having many
jobs, but push the cost of housing to neighboring cities. It's irresponsible.

~~~
zjaffee
This 100%. We need federal legislation around zoning and job growth, as has
been seen with the bay area, it leads to wealthy people moving to cheaper
areas and causing property values to artificially rise there.

SF are by under no obligation to grow, where the vast majority of times when
they grow, they aren't doing so due to interest from residents, but from the
interests of businesses.

The only areas in the US that I've seen that truly want this sort of growth
are ones in the sunbelt regions, and especially Texas. While these areas don't
often have the same urban feel that NIMBY cities have, I'm sure part of that
comes from the fact that theres less that's worthy of being preserved.

~~~
macinjosh
> This 100%. We need federal legislation around zoning and job growth, as has
> been seen with the bay area, it leads to wealthy people moving to cheaper
> areas and causing property values to artificially rise there.

Yeah, more government meddling in the housing and jobs market will solve the
problem! /s

The dichotomy you present of it being the interests of residents vs. the
interests of business is false. I am sure many businesses want to build more
housing for residents but the government prohibits it with zoning laws. If
more companies were allowed to build new housing in and around the city it
would be to the detriment of the landlords and businesses benefitting from the
currently sky high rents as there would be more openings for residents and
prices would be driven down accordingly.

~~~
zjaffee
The sort of legislation I'd be interested in seeing is more similar to SB 827
than it is to existing zoning laws. Namely, don't allow cities subsidize job
growth while keeping housing constrained, or additionally, upzone for
office/industrial space and then downzone housing.

And it's absolutely a battle between residents and businesses. Cities
subsidize multinational companies to grow within their borders and then allow
them to contribute very little to the infrastructure needed to support these
people. Due to the lack of proper transportation and educational investment,
enabling high numbers of new comers just leads to more congestion and
overcrowding.

If we had employment head taxes (or any other sort of program that could solve
infrastructure challenges in a 1:1 way with job migrant growth) around solving
these sorts of problems, they wouldn't be problems.

~~~
macinjosh
> If we had employment head taxes (or any other sort of program that could
> solve infrastructure challenges in a 1:1 way with job migrant growth) around
> solving these sorts of problems, they wouldn't be problems.

How is a city going to resolve a housing shortage by collecting a head tax? Is
the city going to get into the housing development business and build more
housing themselves?

> And it's absolutely a battle between residents and businesses. Cities
> subsidize multinational companies to grow within their borders and then
> allow them to contribute very little to the infrastructure needed to support
> these people. Due to the lack of proper transportation and educational
> investment, enabling high numbers of new comers just leads to more
> congestion and overcrowding.

Again, the government is the problem here. Why is the city treating certain
businesses with favor over others (i.e. multinationals over the housing
industry)? It is corruption! If the government was removed from the picture
there would be more housing (i.e. no zoning issues) and multinational
companies wouldn't get sweetheart deals (i.e. subsidies) which would mean
growth would happen at a more natural rate that the infrastructure could
support.

------
matchbok
Senate Bill 827 would have helped a lot of this. Unfortunately it was killed
by "affordable" housing advocates and other NIMBYs.

~~~
debt
I think that was the moment I finally understood the insanity of California
politics. Anti-development, pro-housing groups actively lobbied against a
housing bill.

------
davidw
Get involved: [https://yimbyaction.org/](https://yimbyaction.org/) \- there
are YIMBY groups springing up all over the place, as well as groups like
Strong Towns [https://www.strongtowns.org/](https://www.strongtowns.org/)

This isn't an easy fix, but it's possible, and, hearteningly in this divisive
day and age, something that people from all political points of view can find
a reason to support.

------
stevehawk
Oh, so it's still expensive to live in a city that refuses to build more
housing? And here I thought that had changed since the last weekly article on
the same subject. ;-)

------
kyleblarson
Eugene Wei summed it up well on Twitter: There should be an SF Fortnite mod
that replaces the shrinking storm circles with encroaching zoning
restrictions. Eventually no one can build any structures and all players are
homeless and running around trying to avoid stepping in poop while getting in
a long line for brunch.

------
Aloha
Rent Seeking by incumbents is a huge issue with land use.

I'd love to see a map like this of the whole Bay Area, or the Seattle area.

------
ClassAndBurn
San Francisco is only 7 miles square and nearly a 1/3 is the Sunset and the
Richmond which is almost entirely 2 story max, single family homes. Measure K
which limited most of the big construction to South of Market pushed
everything into an already packed downtown. Not everyone wants, or can afford,
a condo on the 30th floor.

I also hadn't realized how much of the city is green space. Kind of amazing
that has been preserved.

~~~
mikeryan
(San francisco is 7 miles across, about 46 square miles)

~~~
nwatson
(7 miles square == 49 square miles)

~~~
16bytes
"Step 1: Assume a square San Francisco" yields 49 as you say, but actual area
of the actual non-square city is 46.87 sq miles.

------
macinjosh
Here is an instance of government getting in the way of the free market. The
reason SF's housing market is so messed up is because of government meddling
in the market. That's not to say the government shouldn't regulate anything
and that all zoning laws are bad, but it is clear in this situation it is not
helping. IMHO the answer here is less government, not more.

------
mrfusion
At this point wouldn’t it be profitable to buy an old cruise ship and park it
offshore and sell living space? Give folks a high speed ferry running back and
forth.

~~~
kilroy123
That's what I've wondered. Maybe the solution is to build land out in the
ocean like Dubai has done. It would cost billions, but building enough housing
to meet demand will already cost billions.

I don't know, building a mile high building in the ocean doesn't sound so
crazy anymore for San Fran.

Like this: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/Tokyos-mile-high-
sky...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/Tokyos-mile-high-skyscraper-
to-be-the-tallest-in-the-world/)

~~~
nradov
The Reber Plan called for filling in San Francisco Bay, and it was seriously
considered. In retrospect it was obviously a terrible idea.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reber_Plan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reber_Plan)

------
siavosh
I've been really confused at why cities are becoming exponentially more
important rather than less despite better and better remote-working tools and
the general de-industrialization of America (reducing the benefits of
agglomeration economics). I find the economic claim that a firm being close to
other firms being a significant productivity advantage unconvicing. My current
theory is after 2008, the suburbs pretty much went belly up. So young people
had less money and no desire to get stuck with a dangerous mortgage like their
parents. With no desire to own a house or even a car and an emphasis on
experiences, people started moving to the cities and the companies followed
them there which created a positive feedback loop. So the jobs followed the
people, not the other way around. My sense is that there just aren't that many
good jobs even in the cities since there isn't any real advantage any more
outside some old industrial sectors of being geographically close to others.
It's primarily a cultural phenomena not an economic one of the growth of
cities. So at what point is the cultural gain no longer rationale and trend
flows back to the suburbs?

------
imh
I can't think of a way to write this that doesn't come across as a little
facetious, but I swear this is an honest question. Would the YIMBYs here be
happy replacing the parks in SF (especially Golden Gate Park) with high
density housing? It would be a huge and likely effective trade of city
character for affordability.

------
ww520
I'm going to throw out an unpopular opinion. I think it's great that 73.5% of
the city is low rise. 26.5% of the city having apartments is already more than
plenty. 100% apartments would destroy SF. People fighting to get to live in SF
because of its character. Destroying that you won't have San Francisco.

~~~
Qworg
The character is what brought them there? Not jobs?

Also, which SF are you proposing to maintain? The 1850's version? Early '90's?
Whenever you decided to move there?

The only constant is change and renewal - you can't live in a museum.

~~~
arethuza
I lived in the centre of Edinburgh in the UNESCO World Heritage Area for 30
years and that is pretty close to living in a museum and I was pretty happy
with the experience

[https://ewh.org.uk/](https://ewh.org.uk/)

~~~
khuey
The west side of San Francisco is nobody's idea of a World Heritage site. It's
just bland California sprawl.

~~~
arethuza
And there are many parts of Edinburgh that aren't that exceptional (or even
very nice) - you don't keep everything in a museum but the things that are
worth protecting should be protected. The catch is getting the balance right
between the two extremes - it always seems to be presented as a false
dichotomy between "no controls" and "no change".

NB I'm no claiming that the Edinburgh planning process is perfect - just
reacting on my experience of owning and living in listed properties in an
extremely heavily controlled area.

~~~
greglindahl
So the unexceptional and un-nice areas of Edinburgh are also extremely heavily
controlled? I can't figure it out from reading what you wrote.

For SF, the whole place is heavily controlled.

~~~
arethuza
No there has been amount of new development in the last 20 years -
particularly along the coastline where old harbour and dock areas have been
redeveloped. Edinburgh does also have the advantage of excellent public
transport links into the centre (e.g. hence the old joke "nice castle, pity
they built it so close to the railway").

From what I remember of walking around SF - parts of it are very nice and
large parts of it are pretty unexceptional. Not sure why would want to apply
the same rules to both. But the nice parts are _definitely_ worth of
protection in my view.

------
abalone
We need more density. Serious question: do you guys think market rate
development will push down prices enough to make SF affordable to the working
class (service industry, teachers, etc.)? Or do we need subsidized / below
market rate housing?

This is an issue that affects all of us. Commuting in 1+ hours for low wage
jobs is not a viable growth model. Already small businesses in SF are having a
very hard time hiring. Unless Elon Musk builds us some tunnels, we need local
housing for the working class just to function as a city that’s desirable to
live in.

My thought on market rate: it will certainly make it more affordable for folks
like us (upper 5 - lower 6 figure incomes). But there is a long queue of white
collar professionals particularly in tech that would like to move into the
city. All that demand needs to be soaked up before the market rate becomes
“affordable” for the working class — which means dirt cheap for professionals.
How many tech professionals would decide to move here if SF was dirt cheap?
That’s a lot of induced demand to satiate.

So that’s where the real debate is here when it comes to upzoning the west
side. Do you open it up to maximum market rate, or do you negotiate with
developers for maximum BMR units? I feel the “nimby vs yimby” dichotomy here
tends to cloud that issue.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Serious question: do you think guys think market rate development will push
> down prices enough to make SF affordable to the working class (service
> industry, teachers, etc.)? Or do we need subsidized / below market rate
> housing?

Just a thought, but maybe no to both questions.

You need working class people to be able to work in SF, but is it necessary
(with adequate transit) that they live there?

~~~
abalone
_> (with adequate transit)_

Well, do we have adequate transit?

I saw some maps that visualized where you could get from affordable neighboods
on public transit within an hour in several major metros. Can’t find it now
but it was striking. Even in NYC you could go from affordable parts of
Brooklyn or the Bronx to most of Manhattan. But in the Bay Area... it was tiny
areas around BART stops only. Most of SF was cut off. That’s why businesses
are having such a hard time hiring.

I tried to address this when I noted that either Musk needs to build tunnels
or we need local working class housing.

------
josh2600
FWIW, I would totally live in Berkeley if my commute to the dogpatch could be
shortened. Right now, there's no obvious mass transit way to get to my office
in SF in less than 80 minutes (assuming every connection is hit perfectly).
With an Uber, it's highly variable (between 40 minutes and 90 minutes
depending upon the day).

------
nickstefan12
The problem with "just build more" is that eventually you run out of space the
same as now, only you get to do it with a worse quality of light / space /
light / traffic / noise / etc. I wish more cities fought to maintain true
pristine open space.

There is no housing crises. There is a concentration of jobs problem and a
wealth inequality problem. The internet's winner-take-all nature has created a
world where one office in one city can do what used to require more sprinkled
out offices of different businesses. Couple that with too many rich people,
who will always have more money to park in desirable places than we have time
to out build, and you get people priced out of the "one place" they can get a
job.

It's not housing. It's the structure of our economy. If you don't believe me,
notice how every city in America right now talks about its "housing crisis".
It's wealth inequality and job monopolies.

~~~
jknz
> The problem with "just build more" is that eventually you run out of space
> the same as now

This argument misses the point. In the process of building more, you have made
a lot of people richer/happier/commuting less, because now they can live
within the city walls. Making a lot of people richer/happier/commuting less
should be done everywhere where it's possible to do so.

> The problem with "just build more" is that eventually you run out of space
> the same as now, only you get to do it with a worse quality of light / space
> / light / traffic / noise / etc.

By admitting that you will eventually run out of space again, you acknowledge
that demand will always keep increasing until saturation even if you build
more, _because people are even more interested in denser city lives and its
work/leisure/community opportunities than they are interested in suburban-type
light/space/traffic/noise_. If people were interested at all in suburban-type
light/space/traffic/noise, dense cities would not be in such high demand.

~~~
kousatsu
That assumes that building more creates more diversity among the services or
that the people living there are the McDonald's kind of non-picky persons that
accepts whatever is being served.

People move to dense areas in belief that a dense city has more to offer in
terms of jobs, but end up moving to country-side in their mid 40s despite
commuting due to realizing what truly is quality in life.

~~~
jknz
Let's trust people to choose for themselves. Currently, people would like to
live in cities, but they are denied that because of zoning laws.

Your second sentence is anecdotal. My observations is that a lot of people in
their 40s move out of the city because it's too expensive to buy enough rooms
for a family with current zoning laws. If rents were affordable they would be
happy to raise their kids in the city.

I don't see how telling people to go live elsewhere, ignoring their current
wishes, because they haven't understood yet what quality of life truly is, is
anything but condescending.

------
CodeSheikh
Stop selling real estate to foreign investors and we might be able to solve
one piece of the puzzle. NYC/SF has same issues. Greedy American based real
estate investments companies are corroding the system for rest of us.

~~~
ahoy
If it wasn't going to foreign investors wouldn't it be going to oil
millionaires from texas?

~~~
CodeSheikh
Still USA citizens, not ideal either.

------
jagger27
Will SF reach a point where homeowners decide to build downwards (like they do
in London) to gain living space? Is it feasible given the geography?

~~~
spike021
Not sure if that's even possible. From what I can recall of SF history, much
of downtown isn't really stable ground (see the Millennium Tower as an
example, with the ground underneath shifting and the foundation not being
built to consider that issue). Also, I believe there are ships buried
underneath the ground in SF from the 1800's.

------
throwaway5752
Where does San Francisco get its water supply and how secure is in the
present/project climate?

~~~
TulliusCicero
Is that really relevant to a housing discussion? California has water issues,
but they're largely caused by agriculture, not residents.

~~~
throwaway5752
Yes, you shouldn't zone/permit for residential construction unless roads,
utilities, and education systems can accommodate the increased load. I really
didn't know the answer, and appreciate Aloha's response.

edit: I left unsaid that my understanding is that a lot of CA water is snowcap
melt, and that there is some degree of uncertainty about how the changing
climate will impact that.

~~~
Jamerson
The people who want to increase housing don't ever bring up either the
infrastructure of the city or the effect of urban density on communities. They
just want to live close to work.

Soon, I'm sure, the capacity will increase and in 20 years all of the articles
will be about how to move tech companies to a nicer, less urban city.

~~~
closeparen
Living close to work has a drastically smaller infrastructure footprint than
living far from work. Arguing against an urban development on traffic grounds
is essentially always in bad faith: if the potential residents can’t take up
space in your neighborhood, they will take up space on your freeway.
Neighborhoods can scale; roads can’t.

Every third sentence out of the YIMBY camp is about the effect of urban
density in communities: how complete streets, walkable businesses, public
space, etc. bring us both physically and socially closer together, walking
back the hyperatomization of drive-alone commuting and automobile-scaled
environments.

~~~
throwaway5752
I'm not the tone police, but I don't see how that is a de facto bad faith
point. I think your "potential residents .. will take up space on your
freeway" as being way too reductionist. First, there's light rail which has a
global and domestic track record of mitigating this. Second, "potential"
residents can move elsewhere. There is no law or ethical principle that a city
has to make housing available to all comers at the price they want.

I think your second paragraph has great points about what makes a good/livable
community, and is closer to what I think zoning should take into account.

~~~
closeparen
>There is no law or ethical principle that a city has to make housing
available to all comers at the price they want.

That's essentially what's being litigated in this debate. YIMBYism argues that
there _is_ such an ethical principal: society ought to be inclusive, the
playing field ought to be level, haves ought not to have too much power over
have-nots, etc. We contend that they apply just as much to urban land use as
to healthcare, immigration, and tax policy.

Modern zoning is a deployment of state power to help reinforce and grow the
asset values of a small group who were in the right place at the right time,
valuing their aesthetic enjoyment above others' ability to make a living.
Maybe we don't have a positive obligation to create an unlimited amount of
affordable housing, but we at least have the obligation not to use the power
of the state this way.

------
gweinberg
For some people the glass is always 3/4 empty. I would say zoning allows
building on 26.6%.

------
stlava
There was an NPR clip a month or so ago that likened homeowners to a cartel.

~~~
saosebastiao
It isn't a simile. If they are colluding to reduce supply and increase prices,
they actually fit within the dictionary definition of a cartel.

------
samstave
when you talk about high density housing, the only people who then own land
are billion dollar investment funds with robotic inhuman desire to maximize
per square foot profit because fuck you thats why.

sure, we need more housing - but it also perpetuates another set of problem
factors by having such.

as far as building and ciy planning, id look at singapore and other high
density asian ities for lessons. heck, we cant even have good quality
transportation. if you think bart and muni are good services, then you havent
been to places like singapore, hong kong, tokyo or beijing.

singapore digs down for every floor it puts up.

sf will never solve true density problems. period.

~~~
Wohlf
Real estate is not limited to land, plenty of people own property in large
cities with condos and coops. Even if the building is owned by a business
homeowners in multi-family buildings have the same protections as those in
single-family.

------
frgtpsswrdlame
Seems like the best fix is to make a new city.

~~~
jccalhoun
I'm kind of surprised that we haven't seen someone like google try to build a
company town in another state where they just buy up tons of land, build nice
homes/apartments for employees, and move their headquarters there.

~~~
rsynnott
In general, this probably isn't an option for the likes of Google, because you
won't get the best employees this way. The best people will want to live
somewhere where, if their employer lays people off or they just want to switch
jobs, they can do so without having to uproot their life and move.

There's a _reason_ that places like Silicon Valley tend to emerge in the first
place.

------
gaius
It’s weird how NIMBY is a pejorative

“Other people should sacrifice their wellbeing for me me me”

~~~
gbear605
It's because NIMBY is equivalent to defection in an iterated prisoner's
dilemma[1]. By being NIMBY, you'll be a bit better off today, but because
someone else is NIMBY, you'll be a lot worse off tomorrow. YIMBY makes
everyone better in the long term.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma)

------
Jamerson
Good. You can't always fix housing demand with increase in supply. The streets
and sidewalks and parking don't increase when the buildings get taller. After
living in NYC for 11 years, I can tell you that just adding housing makes the
real city: which is everything at street level worse.

I know that many people that want to increase housing in SF just want to
commute to their tech jobs, but that's what turned NYC from neighborhoods and
communities into a hellish wasteland: too many people in a single area can't
form a cohesive community. The people who already live in SF understand this,
I think.

Edit: Some specifics:

The things that fall apart when density is too high. Here's an article about
how density is making the subway worse than ever:
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subw...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subway-
delays-overcrowding.html)

Schools overcrowded: [https://www.dnainfo.com/new-
york/20170921/riverdale/overcrow...](https://www.dnainfo.com/new-
york/20170921/riverdale/overcrowded-schools-nyc-class-size-matters/)

Traffic congestion: [https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/18/16903152/nyc-traffic-
congest...](https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/18/16903152/nyc-traffic-congestion-
cost-analysis)

Trash infrastructure overwhelmed: [https://citylimits.org/2015/04/20/new-
report-nyc-trash-is-wo...](https://citylimits.org/2015/04/20/new-report-nyc-
trash-is-worse-than-public-has-been-told/)

~~~
ww520
Hear hear. People want NYC style living should just move to NYC. SF character
is what makes SF unique and people want to destroy that.

~~~
stale2002
Lol, NYC doesn't have enough housing either. Have you seen their rent prices?

It would be wonderful if there was an actual city out there where everyone
decided "hey, let's drive rent prices in the freaking ground by actually
allowing high density building EVERYWHERE".

~~~
cameronlpmoore
No developers would be building if that were the case. Ever notice how every
new apartment building is a "luxury" building? That's because construction
costs are so high it only makes sense for developers to build if they can
charge top dollar for rental prices. If the rental prices were low they
wouldn't build.

~~~
saosebastiao
Construction costs aren't much higher than they have been historically.
Slightly higher because of demand for things with inelastic supplies (like
tower cranes), but we're talking average cost change by a few percent at most.

And yes they would keep building. Land owners are the ones who gain/lose by
fluctuations in demand, not developers. If demand drops and rental prices
drop, land owners lower their prices that they sell to developers. This has
been proven so substantially by Housing Economists that it's basically
considered consensus by now. Spend some time with the Journal of Housing
Economics if you would like to learn more.

The real reason why developers only build luxury buildings is that they can't
build enough to satisfy all demand, so the few buildings that they can build
will obviously go to the types with the highest margins. If we allowed for
more development, developers would still build luxury buildings as long as
there was unsatiated demand for them, but they'd also build normal and
affordable housing as well.

