
How shortsighted neighborhood activism fuels SF's housing crisis (1999) - apsec112
https://web.archive.org/web/20001001083046/http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/1999-08-18/feature.html/printable_page
======
GuestNetwork
In the similar city ( to SF ) Vancouver, Canada, pro development policies have
allowed developers to build tons of very tall housing developments.

Guess what, housing costs in Vancouver are almost as ridiculous as in San
Francisco.

I'm not sure what the answer is anymore, besides revolution!

~~~
ktothemc
It really depends on how your country treats housing. Is it a consumable good
or an investable asset? If your country conflates the role of housing as
shelter with it being a primary store of wealth, then demand doesn't just
reflect demand for housing. It reflects demand for a safe, appreciable asset
in a ZIRP world, which is what urban housing becomes because cities will never
be able to physically scale their infrastructure or capacity as rapidly as
capital can move through their property values.

Not only has Vancouver built a lot, it simultaneously cultivated immigration
programs to bring external capital into the local housing market.
[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616718.2015.111...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616718.2015.1119776)

Other countries, like Japan & Germany, treat housing as a consumable good or
even something that depreciates. So even though Tokyo is one of the most
developed cities in the world, housing actually goes down in value.
[http://freakonomics.com/2014/02/26/why-are-japanese-homes-
di...](http://freakonomics.com/2014/02/26/why-are-japanese-homes-disposable-
full-transcript/)

~~~
kazinator
> _Other countries, like Japan & Germany, treat housing as a consumable good
> or even something that depreciates._

Vancouver isn't a country. The country is Canada, and Canada has places where
your real estate will depreciate, like somewhere in the middle of
Saskatchewan. How properties value over time is determined by the market
conditions. Neither Canada, nor Germany nor Japan are communist states which
flat-out dictate your property value.

The values of the _buildings_ on a property themselves depreciate as they age,
everywhere in the world. Nobody will pay as much for a run-down place that
needs demolition as for a newly built or renovated, "move in condition" place.
That doesn't matter so much if the property is valued 10:1 or more over the
structures on it.

Tokyo is an ambiguous term because it simultaneously refers to a metropolitan
area in which some 37 million people live, which spreads far beyond the city,
and the property market prices and dynamics differ.

Japan as a whole went through general _deflation_ through the 1990's and early
2000's and it may be returning. Its population has also been shrinking.

------
jmcgough
This is crazy, I feel like this could have been written in 2015.

~~~
shaftway
Except for the prices. :-)

