Trump's Racist Dog-Whistling Could Actually Aid the Diversification of Suburbia

[lfromnj]

Can you articulate your point more clearly? I see compelling evidence but I'm not following the train of thought to your argument. (Not sarcasm.)

Homeowner's associations and city zoning ordinances stipulate that certain neighborhoods (as lfromnj just pointed out, 75% of SF) can only have single-family homes. So in a city where land is in short supply, this basically guarantees that developers can't make efficient use of the land that's available to them. The fastest and cheapest way to solve the Bay Area housing crunch would be to zone the Sunset District for modern, multi-story apartment complexes. This would incentivize homeowners to sell to developers, who would now be able to make a profit for the first time.

To explain further, see it this way. A single family home in SF with a plot of land is say worth 1.2 million dollars. If a developer buys 4 of them that are connected rn all they could do is rebuild similar homes and renovate them. If the zoning was deregulated the developer could build a fertilizer plant  large apartment complex and say 20 floors with 8 apartments each floor for 150 apartments. Sure the land value of the single family home might increase for the total cost to be 10 million but the developer could still sell the apartments after building for a very handy profit while increasing housing supply exponentially.

Okay, and that's a bad thing because... why?

The current situation is bad? I want the second situation.

Also to go on further , if someone really likes their single family home but also loves SF, me and Dule would never force them to move, but however those people shouldn't have the right to prevent sale of houses to create apartments.

[Saint Milei]

Trump ending racism in white lefty suburbia by dog-whistling might be his greatest achievement

[lfromnj]

Is forcing municipalities to develop low income housing really the answer?  This will just accelerate class flight out of the suburbs and further expand urban sprawl. Poverty brings crime. It's time to address poverty.

Building functional public housing or government subsidized housing is one of the best ways to eliminate poverty. I'm not talking about housing projects that you neglect, isolate, and concentrate poverty in but affordable housing that's maintained, has a diverse mix of people, and is supported by the governemnt/private partners to thrive so families can actually make a living and make ends meet.

... Or you could go the simple way and just scrap city zoning regulations and get rid of rent control laws. Then you might actually incentivize builders to increase supply to meet demand. But yeah, you're right-- let's instead spend government money building drab brutalist monstrosities and ignore the fact that the housing shortage was caused by overregulation in the first place. After all, housing is a human right! And not only that, but it's a human right to live in downtown San Francisco! I mean, what do you want people to do? Move to some city in Oklahoma that's actually affordable for their budget? Sacrilege! Don't you have any empathy, you bigot?!

Libertarians always have the dumbest answers for social policy. No sir, zoning law reform isn't going to create affordable housing. The same way that selling insurance across state lines isn't going to solve Health Insurance coverage.

 There is a big world out there outside of America. Explore how Singapore, The Nordic countries have all used government subsidized housing to solve the problem. The United States did too post WWII. They also created the suburbs. The suburbs would not have existed back then or even today if they were not massively subsidized with government policy and resources.

Denmark's ghetto policy is so good
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43214596

The Danish government plans to double the penalties for crimes committed in deprived "ghetto" areas, where immigrant numbers are above-average.

This was done by the left wing party btw.
/s

[Devout Centrist]

... Or you could go the simple way and just scrap city zoning regulations and get rid of rent control laws. Then you might actually incentivize builders to increase supply to meet demand. But yeah, you're right-- let's instead spend government money building drab brutalist monstrosities and ignore the fact that the housing shortage was caused by overregulation in the first place. After all, housing is a human right! And not only that, but it's a human right to live in downtown San Francisco! I mean, what do you want people to do? Move to some city in Oklahoma that's actually affordable for their budget? Sacrilege! Don't you have any empathy, you bigot?!

It's nowhere near that simple my friend, and your unbearable smugness doesn't make these discussions any easier.

[John Dule]

Okay, let's do a brief history of housing in the Bay Area just to clear everything up for those who are confused. Because this is most definitely not a free market problem. The housing crisis in the Bay Area was caused 100% by NIMBYs and city policy, and to suggest otherwise is simply misleading.



1945: WWII ends. The GI Bill, as well as FDR's Federal Housing Administration, make it their job to find homes for returning soldiers and to effectively create the suburbs as we know them. Trouble is, both of these institutions discriminated against African-Americans. The FHA used a practice called "red-lining" to racially segregate new homes and prevent black families from moving into white neighborhoods. The GI Bill also favored white soldiers over black ones. This practice was prevalent in both San Francisco and Oakland for several years to follow.

1960s: Beginning in 1960, San Francisco starts to enact zoning regulations that essentially put 70-80% of the city off-limits for developers. Buildings over 40 stories tall are banned in the vast majority of the city. Laws are passed to make it much easier for homeowner's associations to prevent new developments in their neighborhoods. The rate of construction slows dramatically over the next 20 years.

1985: The Ellis Act is passed. This law allows landlords to evict tenants if the landlord goes out of business, thus taking all of their housing off the market and selling their real estate. This is a good law, but in the subsequent years, it becomes increasingly hard to evict tenants in California. Many landlords instead choose to take advantage of the Ellis Act, forcing many small landlords out of business due to squatting tenants.

1990s: The tech boom hits the Bay Area, dramatically increasing the demand for new housing. However, due to the way that San Francisco and neighboring cities are zoned, it quickly becomes impossible for the region to build enough new units of housing to meet demand.

1994: A ballot initiative passes that drastically expands San Francisco's rent control policies. 75% of units are now rent controlled. This disincentivizes the building of new housing even further. At the same time, there is now officially a shortage of housing in San Francisco, and homelessness has begun to spike. To solve the problem of homelessness, the city starts restricting evictions. Landlords, now scared of renting to unreliable tenants, often choose to let their units sit empty for months on end rather than rent out to a tenant who they might have to evict. The housing shortage gets worse.

2000-2019: Big tech and finance jobs continue to flow into the City. In the period of 2012 to 2016, the Bay Area adds nearly 400,000 new jobs to its economy but builds only 50,000 new units of housing. The remaining 350,000 people are pushed to the margins of the metropolitan area and are forced to commute upwards of three hours every day. Homeowner's associations continue to block and hinder any effort to alleviate the housing crisis. Because rent control caps only apply to certain types of homes, construction companies start building high-rise apartment skyscrapers in downtown that are immediately gobbled up by wealthy programmers and executives. Most of the new housing in San Francisco built today falls into this general category.

2020: Some ignorant twit on the internet says "Hey, I have a solution to this. Let's use eminent domain to force some of these homeowners to sell their houses at below-market value to the government. Then the government will tear down their houses and build 'affordable' housing for 90 people, which will surely solve this crisis! This will obviously not deteriorate into a poorly-maintained, dilapidated husk like all other housing projects do. After all, the free market has proven itself incapable of solving this problem!"



The libertarian solution: Scrap the laws that make it easy for HOAs to prevent development. Gradually lift the zoning restrictions on neighborhoods, starting close to downtown and then working outwards toward the suburbs. Get rid of rent control laws so that developers are actually able to make a profit. Abolish the restrictions on a landlord's ability to evict, so that landlords won't sit with their properties empty and will be incentivized to rent their units out. Raise the limits on building height everywhere in the city. If people don't want to sell their homes, they don't have to-- but because their land is now worth more (because developers can now build more units on it), they will be incentivized to sell. New housing will spring up quickly, the people who were pushed out of the city will be able to move back in, the government will in fact make money off of tax revenue (rather than squandering it on a few housing complexes), and in a few years the market will reach an equilibrium. Everybody wins.

[John Dule]

... Or you could go the simple way and just scrap city zoning regulations and get rid of rent control laws. Then you might actually incentivize builders to increase supply to meet demand. But yeah, you're right-- let's instead spend government money building drab brutalist monstrosities and ignore the fact that the housing shortage was caused by overregulation in the first place. After all, housing is a human right! And not only that, but it's a human right to live in downtown San Francisco! I mean, what do you want people to do? Move to some city in Oklahoma that's actually affordable for their budget? Sacrilege! Don't you have any empathy, you bigot?!

It's nowhere near that simple my friend, and your unbearable smugness doesn't make these discussions any easier.

Housing is a rare area where there is virtually no controversy among economists. Over 90% of economists agree that zoning regulations, rent control, and eviction restrictions decrease the quality and quantity of housing units supplied to renters.

It is exactly this simple, and the unbearable ignorance of Bay Area socialists doesn't make these discussions any easier either.

[lfromnj]

Just wondering Dule how would building another bridge to Marin work while also reducing zoning laws there too?

[Devout Centrist]

... Or you could go the simple way and just scrap city zoning regulations and get rid of rent control laws. Then you might actually incentivize builders to increase supply to meet demand. But yeah, you're right-- let's instead spend government money building drab brutalist monstrosities and ignore the fact that the housing shortage was caused by overregulation in the first place. After all, housing is a human right! And not only that, but it's a human right to live in downtown San Francisco! I mean, what do you want people to do? Move to some city in Oklahoma that's actually affordable for their budget? Sacrilege! Don't you have any empathy, you bigot?!

It's nowhere near that simple my friend, and your unbearable smugness doesn't make these discussions any easier.

Housing is a rare area where there is virtually no controversy among economists. Over 90% of economists agree that zoning regulations, rent control, and eviction restrictions decrease the quality and quantity of housing units supplied to renters.

I don't dispute any of these; I disagree with your attack on public housing spending.

Also, San Francisco's problems go beyond HOA's or overregulation. Land itself is at a huge premium within the city, for rather obvious reasons, along with earthquake risk, overcrowding concerns, etc. In some cases, regulation goes hand in hand with the earthquake risk as well.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

How does NIMBYism have a "Jane Jacobs mask"!?

[DrScholl]

It's important to note that single family housing isn't going to be approved anymore and the days of these sprawling SFD tracts are long gone.

Incentive doesn't convince landlords to lower rents, just like corporations don't use the savings from tax cuts to hire more people. In California, developers do receive density bonuses for building low income units.

[John Dule]

Just wondering Dule how would building another bridge to Marin work while also reducing zoning laws there too?

The Bay Area in general needs 100% more roads and bridges. The current infrastructure just cannot handle the traffic. As for lifting zoning laws in Marin, that's all well and good, but the big issue that California leftists have with housing in the Bay is that they aren't able to live near where they work. Hopefully this will be less of a problem in the future as jobs move online, but in the meantime, the focus of construction should be in San Francisco because that's where the jobs are. The only jobs in Marin are trimming millionaires' hedges and working at rustic candle stores, which are done by Mexicans and/or by the teenage children of said millionaires. Once the options for construction in SF are genuinely exhausted though, it would make sense to start building high-rises in San Rafael or somewhere similar.

I don't dispute any of these; I disagree with your attack on public housing spending.

Also, San Francisco's problems go beyond HOA's or overregulation. Land itself is at a huge premium within the city, for rather obvious reasons, along with earthquake risk, overcrowding concerns, etc. In some cases, regulation goes hand in hand with the earthquake risk as well.

Yeah, the earthquake issue is a huge problem. I should note, however, that pretty much any new buildings you put up are going to be safer than the ones that are currently there. One of the government regulations for single-family homes is that they have to have on-site parking. This makes sense, but it has caused a lot of buildings to be built with "soft" first stories-- garages downstairs from the main house. These houses are often built from stucco, which easily fractures in earthquakes, so they're all at a high risk of collapsing and killing entire families in the event of an earthquake. I would much rather have a few well-engineered ten-story apartments with off-site parking in a large garage.

[T'Chenka]

Can you articulate your point more clearly? I see compelling evidence but I'm not following the train of thought to your argument. (Not sarcasm.)

Homeowner's associations and city zoning ordinances stipulate that certain neighborhoods (as lfromnj just pointed out, 75% of SF) can only have single-family homes. So in a city where land is in short supply, this basically guarantees that developers can't make efficient use of the land that's available to them. The fastest and cheapest way to solve the Bay Area housing crunch would be to zone the Sunset District for modern, multi-story apartment complexes. This would incentivize homeowners to sell to developers, who would now be able to make a profit for the first time.

To explain further, see it this way. A single family home in SF with a plot of land is say worth 1.2 million dollars. If a developer buys 4 of them that are connected rn all they could do is rebuild similar homes and renovate them. If the zoning was deregulated the developer could build a fertilizer plant  large apartment complex and say 20 floors with 8 apartments each floor for 150 apartments. Sure the land value of the single family home might increase for the total cost to be 10 million but the developer could still sell the apartments after building for a very handy profit while increasing housing supply exponentially.

Okay, and that's a bad thing because... why?

The current situation is bad? I want the second situation.

Also to go on further , if someone really likes their single family home but also loves SF, me and Dule would never force them to move, but however those people shouldn't have the right to prevent sale of houses to create apartments.

Ah okay. In this aspect, I agree.

[Del Tachi]

We don’t need more rent-controlled housing.  We need more market-rate housing, so older housing stock can filter down to poorer households.

Housing policy is probably the one issue where liberals are the most obviously anti-empirical.  There’s no real world situation where dedicating development for below market-rate housing is a good solution, it’s all just ideologically-motivated social engineering. 

Market rate housing always has vacancies because no one can afford it. The idea that more supply will meet demand and therefore drive down the price is not really true since property owners want to make a bigger profit and will drive up the price. If you can charge a poor family double what an apartment's worth because you know that they have no other choices then that is what a you will do as a landlord.

Teachers, firefighters, nurses, etc. cannot afford housing some places. It's not even about being poor anymore, it's about overpaying for housing. No one should be paying more than 30% of their income for housing.

If your conception of market economies is anywhere near correct, then why aren't bakers learning from the playbook of evil landlords and charging $25 for a loaf of bread?  The idea that thousands of landlords organize to "gang up" on poor families and intentionally charge them more than they can afford is laughable.

Market-rate housing is unaffordable to many families because the supply is often restricted by government policies.  If housing could be more easily and cheaply built, rents would be lower.  Vacancies exist in market-rate housing because the price doesn't truly reflect supply and demand in hyper-regulated cities like San Francisco, and some level of vacancy is going to occur just because of transaction-related mis-matching.

[Del Tachi]

let's spend government money building drab brutalist monstrosities

One of my favorite uses for government money.  Every city should look like Montreal 

[T'Chenka]

let's spend government money building drab brutalist monstrosities

One of my favorite uses for government money.  Every city should look like Montreal 

Quoi?

[lfromnj]

Just wondering Dule how would building another bridge to Marin work while also reducing zoning laws there too?

The Bay Area in general needs 100% more roads and bridges. The current infrastructure just cannot handle the traffic. As for lifting zoning laws in Marin, that's all well and good, but the big issue that California leftists have with housing in the Bay is that they aren't able to live near where they work. Hopefully this will be less of a problem in the future as jobs move online, but in the meantime, the focus of construction should be in San Francisco because that's where the jobs are. The only jobs in Marin are trimming millionaires' hedges and working at rustic candle stores, which are done by Mexicans and/or by the teenage children of said millionaires. Once the options for construction in SF are genuinely exhausted though, it would make sense to start building high-rises in San Rafael or somewhere similar.

Also if it wasn't for how incompetent the CA gov has been with the bullet train extending BART through Marin and San Mateo would be a pretty good idea.

[DrScholl]

If your conception of market economies is anywhere near correct, then why aren't bakers learning from the playbook of evil landlords and charging $25 for a loaf of bread?  The idea that thousands of landlords organize to "gang up" on poor families and intentionally charge them more than they can afford is laughable.

Market-rate housing is unaffordable to many families because the supply is often restricted by government policies.  If housing could be more easily and cheaply built, rents would be lower.  Vacancies exist in market-rate housing because the price doesn't truly reflect supply and demand in hyper-regulated cities like San Francisco, and some level of vacancy is going to occur just because of transaction-related mis-matching.

Bread and housing are not even remotely comparable. You can buy cheap bread just about anywhere (of course poorer neighborhoods do end up spending more money on food in corner stores more expensive than supermarkets, but that's another story) and a baker wouldn't make much money that way.

Where I live there are subpar apartments going for luxury prices and poor families have to struggle to pay those rents if there are no low income housing openings. When supply is low then landlords can charge whatever they want. If you think landlords are noble then you are naive.

Building cheap, unsafe buildings is not the answer and is just another way keep money in wealthy developers pockets. Rents go up while wages do not. That is the problem.

[John Dule]

If your conception of market economies is anywhere near correct, then why aren't bakers learning from the playbook of evil landlords and charging $25 for a loaf of bread?  The idea that thousands of landlords organize to "gang up" on poor families and intentionally charge them more than they can afford is laughable.

Market-rate housing is unaffordable to many families because the supply is often restricted by government policies.  If housing could be more easily and cheaply built, rents would be lower.  Vacancies exist in market-rate housing because the price doesn't truly reflect supply and demand in hyper-regulated cities like San Francisco, and some level of vacancy is going to occur just because of transaction-related mis-matching.

Bread and housing are not even remotely comparable. You can buy cheap bread just about anywhere (of course poorer neighborhoods do end up spending more money on food in corner stores more expensive than supermarkets, but that's another story) and a baker wouldn't make much money that way.

Where I live there are subpar apartments going for luxury prices and poor families have to struggle to pay those rents if there are no low income housing openings. When supply is low then landlords can charge whatever they want. If you think landlords are noble then you are naive.

Building cheap, unsafe buildings is not the answer and is just another way keep money in wealthy developers pockets. Rents go up while wages do not. That is the problem.

Yeah, the key phrase here is "when supply is low." We are trying to propose policies that will increase the supply, thereby creating more competitive prices. When you've had fifty years of HOA's, strict zoning, and rent control, and you've created a housing crisis, the answer is not to double down on those policies.

[DrScholl]

If your conception of market economies is anywhere near correct, then why aren't bakers learning from the playbook of evil landlords and charging $25 for a loaf of bread?  The idea that thousands of landlords organize to "gang up" on poor families and intentionally charge them more than they can afford is laughable.

Market-rate housing is unaffordable to many families because the supply is often restricted by government policies.  If housing could be more easily and cheaply built, rents would be lower.  Vacancies exist in market-rate housing because the price doesn't truly reflect supply and demand in hyper-regulated cities like San Francisco, and some level of vacancy is going to occur just because of transaction-related mis-matching.

Bread and housing are not even remotely comparable. You can buy cheap bread just about anywhere (of course poorer neighborhoods do end up spending more money on food in corner stores more expensive than supermarkets, but that's another story) and a baker wouldn't make much money that way.

Where I live there are subpar apartments going for luxury prices and poor families have to struggle to pay those rents if there are no low income housing openings. When supply is low then landlords can charge whatever they want. If you think landlords are noble then you are naive.

Building cheap, unsafe buildings is not the answer and is just another way keep money in wealthy developers pockets. Rents go up while wages do not. That is the problem.

Yeah, the key phrase here is "when supply is low." We are trying to propose policies that will increase the supply, thereby creating more competitive prices. When you've had fifty years of HOA's, strict zoning, and rent control, and you've created a housing crisis, the answer is not to double down on those policies.

To increase supply you need more vacant land and land is at a shortage. Suburbs built out rapidly over a few decades. Redevelopment is the path forward and that is all there is too it. Plenty of places in California are allowing mixed use and changing land use definitions to allow for housing.

[John Dule]

If your conception of market economies is anywhere near correct, then why aren't bakers learning from the playbook of evil landlords and charging $25 for a loaf of bread?  The idea that thousands of landlords organize to "gang up" on poor families and intentionally charge them more than they can afford is laughable.

Market-rate housing is unaffordable to many families because the supply is often restricted by government policies.  If housing could be more easily and cheaply built, rents would be lower.  Vacancies exist in market-rate housing because the price doesn't truly reflect supply and demand in hyper-regulated cities like San Francisco, and some level of vacancy is going to occur just because of transaction-related mis-matching.

Bread and housing are not even remotely comparable. You can buy cheap bread just about anywhere (of course poorer neighborhoods do end up spending more money on food in corner stores more expensive than supermarkets, but that's another story) and a baker wouldn't make much money that way.

Where I live there are subpar apartments going for luxury prices and poor families have to struggle to pay those rents if there are no low income housing openings. When supply is low then landlords can charge whatever they want. If you think landlords are noble then you are naive.

Building cheap, unsafe buildings is not the answer and is just another way keep money in wealthy developers pockets. Rents go up while wages do not. That is the problem.

Yeah, the key phrase here is "when supply is low." We are trying to propose policies that will increase the supply, thereby creating more competitive prices. When you've had fifty years of HOA's, strict zoning, and rent control, and you've created a housing crisis, the answer is not to double down on those policies.

To increase supply you need more vacant land and land is at a shortage. Suburbs built out rapidly over a few decades. Redevelopment is the path forward and that is all there is too it. Plenty of places in California are allowing mixed use and changing land use definitions to allow for housing.

... As I said a few posts above, there won't be a land shortage if you scrap the law that bans buildings over 40 feet tall from being built in most of the city. That would increase supply rapidly.

[Badger]

... Or you could go the simple way and just scrap city zoning regulations and get rid of rent control laws. Then you might actually incentivize builders to increase supply to meet demand. But yeah, you're right-- let's instead spend government money building drab brutalist monstrosities and ignore the fact that the housing shortage was caused by overregulation in the first place. After all, housing is a human right! And not only that, but it's a human right to live in downtown San Francisco! I mean, what do you want people to do? Move to some city in Oklahoma that's actually affordable for their budget? Sacrilege! Don't you have any empathy, you bigot?!

It's nowhere near that simple my friend, and your unbearable smugness doesn't make these discussions any easier.

Housing is a rare area where there is virtually no controversy among economists. Over 90% of economists agree that zoning regulations, rent control, and eviction restrictions decrease the quality and quantity of housing units supplied to renters.

It is exactly this simple, and the unbearable ignorance of Bay Area socialists doesn't make these discussions any easier either.

I think you two are in a bizarre way arguing the same point. To wit, zoning and other local laws/regulations inhibiting the the development of lower cost multi-family homes should be relaxed.

Add necessary government subsidies because the market alone will create affordable multi-family housing, and I'm all for it.

[Devout Centrist]

Yeah, the earthquake issue is a huge problem. I should note, however, that pretty much any new buildings you put up are going to be safer than the ones that are currently there. One of the government regulations for single-family homes is that they have to have on-site parking. This makes sense, but it has caused a lot of buildings to be built with "soft" first stories-- garages downstairs from the main house. These houses are often built from stucco, which easily fractures in earthquakes, so they're all at a high risk of collapsing and killing entire families in the event of an earthquake. I would much rather have a few well-engineered ten-story apartments with off-site parking in a large garage.

That would be a nice solution, but such complexes have a tendency to be very expensive to meet current building code regulations. This increases the price to construct an apartment complex and by extension, rent.

Additionally, almost all of the Sunset District rests on top of beach deposits. This raises the earthquake risk to high buildings and makes it more difficult to place a sturdy foundation for taller structures. Again, this increases the cost to build an apartment complex.

Any realistic proposal for creating affordable housing in San Francisco will require public investment. Relaxing HOA's and easing zoning regulations may increase housing stock, but developers have little incentive to create affordable housing when it's costly to build and there are renters willing and able to pay a higher monthly price. It may lower year to year rent increases, or even bring them to a brief halt, but it won't provide relief to the people that need it.

... As I said a few posts above, there won't be a land shortage if you scrap the law that bans buildings over 40 feet tall from being built in most of the city. That would increase supply rapidly.

It's San Francisco, dude. There's always going to be a land shortage on a tiny, earthquake rattled peninsula.