Re: Hi Atticus!
 

Change zoning to allow much more density. That is the only solution. Let the market meet the demand with a lot of new supply.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

The only hope for a fix is to build a lot more housing. There are structural reasons why that's hard in NYC, and SF won't allow it.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

When I lived in Chicago, I lived not far from Lathrop Homes. It's a pocket of low-rise to townhome low-income housing, surrounded by some of the more rapidly growing neighborhoods on the North Side. Lathrop Homes itself seems to be a fairy decent place for public housing, nothing like the horror stories that were the high-rise Cabrini Green and Robert Taylor Homes projects. The area already has a fairly wide mix of income and ethnic/racial/cultural populations. Looked at as a whole, what you see is a small group of holdout neighborhoods that are slowly being squeezed out by gentrifying new residents, flat-out high income, gated developments, and surrounding Lathrop Homes. Developers have been salivating over it for years.

When the city tore down Cabrini Green, it did a decent job spreading low-income housing, largely by making it clear to developers that if a high-end project was going up where Cabrini used to be, it was going to have some mixed in low-income and middle-class residences scattered in. That project served the neighborhood well, for those who remained. Those who were forced out tended to be shoved into other neighborhoods just as rife with crime, poverty, and lack of services as Cabrini Green, even if they were lower density

Lathrop Homes, on the other hand, is just a pure greed grab. Diversity and preservation of a relatively mixed-income residential population would be better off leaving the lower-income residents of Lathrop Homes where they are, and forcing the tear-down buyers to learn to live with the project there, maintaining the diversity they tell themselves they moved there for in the first place.

[URL=http://www.npr.org/2015/02/05/381886102/a-chicago-community-puts-mixed-income-housing-to-the-test[/URL]

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

I think rent control has a lot of bad consequences, as well. Lots of landlords either don't put units on the market for fear of being locked into long term unprofitable leases OR renters hold on tight to properties that they otherwise would have left because their rent is locked in.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

San Francisco already requires this, and it's a pretty significant percentage of units that have to be affordable (whatever that means). They also allow developers to buy their way out of the requirement, at least sometimes -- and there was a story recently about a developer paying over 1MM per unit to not build affordable housing units. This actually makes sense, in certain instances -- when you have high-rise condo developments in neighborhoods that were never strong lower-income or ethnic enclaves, a low-income family won't have any affordable shopping nearby, and it would be better to use the money to build 2 or 3 times as many units in a neighborhood that is being threatened with losing something to gentrification.

It eases the problems, but doesn't solve them. And often cities are their own worst enemies. San Francisco resoundingly rejected allowing a luxury condo development -- supposedly because it would block the waterfront, but it would really only have eliminated a parking lot on the corner of the waterfront (outside my office window) -- that would have paid $10MM into the city's affordable housing fund, and god knows how much property tax.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

I agree with you, but it will take a very long time for the market to really balance things out. And in the interim, the supply will cater to the wealthiest people that want property. How many homes would have to be built in the Mission, before rents stabilize and become affordable?

Meanwhile, the SF Supes just voted, an hour ago, 7-4 in favor of banning market-rate housing construction in the Mission District. Fortunately, they needed 8 or 9 votes in favor, so.....

Re: Also, please send more money
 

I talked to some folks in Israel about this, and they assume we are doing this on their behalf.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

I am sure this is just a zoning issue and so eagerly await Atticus' post.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

potd

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

I don't think it would take all that long, and I think that developers would be happy to build houses for ordinary people if they could. Right now they cater to the wealthiest because that's how to make the most money if you can only build a few units.

But we're talking about tearing down existing buildings and replacing them with buildings that are much bigger. There's no doubt that it would really change the city. But so is the gentrification.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

I think we've clamped down on building for so long, and the market is so hot, that it'll take quite awhile (or a significant economic downturn) for additional construction to cause the market to stabilize or drop (and really, a drop is what's needed to make this city affordable to anyone in the lower economic tiers who does not have a rent-controlled home). Last year -- where construction sites are visible everywhere -- we added just 1% to the housing stock. Ditto 2013. in 2011, it was .1%. And this is with high-rise developments in SoMa and Van Ness areas, and larger complexes replacing smaller ones throughout the city.

If what you are talking about is truly large buildings -- 30 story apartment buildings in the Mission -- you might be right. But if you are, the people who would benefit from that the most (i.e., the people most in need of affordable housing) who would oppose that the most vigorously. Or, more accurately, it would be the people who claim to represent those people. Well, them, plus some environmental wing-nuts.

I love this city, but people here are bat-shit crazy on average. The response to Google buses was a great example. You had a company that was taking 100s of cars off the road by providing buses. People treated that as a crime, because it promoted gentrification -- the theory being that, if Google employees couldn't ride buses from SF to work, they would live someplace else. They wouldn't just drive cars, and they wouldn't just go gentrify another neighborhood that was closer to work. And maybe we could just require Google to build company towns (seriously, people were saying that).

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us...=msft_msn&_r=0

Fucked up shit at Sidd's favorite place on earth.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

Even if you put low rent places in your high rent neighborhoods, you ignore the second part of Thurgreed's rant- the poor can't live in your neighborhood. there are no grocery stores, or department stores, or restaurants or anything else they need to live.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

I was responding to Ty's rant. When I responded to TM's rant, I acknowledged this point.

In many ways this is a much more acute problem -- because while some (many?) cities do require affordable housing in new developments, they certainly do not require affordable retail space. And when new housing developments go up, old retail space is more attractive and their rents go up. Hell, my local dry-cleaner left because her rent tripled, and I've heard that sort of thing over and over again in recent months.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Seriously fucked up.


OTOH, it creates potential for you to insult dying children AND say something both racist and anti-immigrant. A Hank-fecta!