Hey, folks! Perhaps those of you on the East and West coasts need to discover "flyover country"! A family of 4 with an income of $117,000 can live very well there = nice house, good schools - plenty of jobs. It's a big country - get out of your provincial rut and come explore it!
96
Timothy Egan always poses thought provoking questions. What's in a name? San Franciso. Seattle.
Just cities. Now these cities and others could be renamed. For a price. Say, 50 billion dollars, a drop in the bucket for Jeff Bezos, to rename San Francisco Bezos City or Bezopolis. The money would be used to help the homeless, reduce the drug and opiod crisis, mental health issues, so forth and so on. Same for Seattle, let Bill and/or Melinda Gates choose their citie's name, for, say, 25 billion. Other cities suffering from the aforementioned problems, like Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York City. Change their names just like sports stadiums all over the country now named for companies that make fruit juices, or telephone companies, etc. The names would revert back to the original under a contractual agreement. Oh my goodness. Such potential! Thanks Timothy Egan. We can dream.
7
I was last in San Francisco 20 years ago. Beautiful, magical city. My sister and brother-in-law lived there. In a row house 4 or 5 doors from Golden Gate Park. With, if you mashed the right side your face against the living room window pane, a view of a sliver of the Golden Gate Bridge. That they sold not too long after for right at $1M. Too bad their mortgage was for about $900,000.
Tony Bennett may have left his heart there.
They did not.
And so it goes, wrote Kurt Vonnegut. Too-dee-weet.
21
I'm not quite sure what Egan means by "An unholy alliance of socialists and developers threatens to destroy the city’s single-family neighborhoods with a major upzoning — further disrupting trust between residents and politicians." Would love to hear examples, surely he doesn't mean the community-based "solution" of ADUs, does he?
13
San Francisco refuses to accept that new 'housing' must be vertically developed and over their 'magic' four stories limits.
All you have to do is look at a zoning map of the city and see that it is impossible to build any modest towers there for people to live. Imagine NYC if you couldn't build a tower.
23
Lord knows the Bay Area has problems--and there has been a totally inadequate response to the housing crisis up and down Silicon Valley, not just in SF.
But there isn't a single suggestion or solution in this piece, just snide comments--you can do better. At least someone making a good grilled cheese sandwich is trying to improve things, instead of just complaining about the sad state of grilled cheese sandwiches.
34
This is the "deep, dark, dirt, unreported side" (sarc) of living in blue states.
All of that emphasis on diversity, free trade, tolerance, sustainability, education, rule of law, has created a demand that supply cannot keep up with.
If only the West coast could be more like the Gulf Coast, then the homeless problem and the issues of affordability would go away.
Darned liberals!
14
When I lived in White Plains, NY, a family income of $77,000 qualified you for housing assistance. I don't live in White Plains anymore.
13
One problem is foreign investors/speculators that have purchased many of the new condos and don't live in them. There are empty condos all over my neighborhood and yet technically the building is 'sold.'
The other problem is poor transit. Yes, there is BART, but it doesn't go everywhere, the parking lots are over-full, and BART is disgusting because they let dirty homeless people rides the cars all day long. I've had people defecate/urinate in front of me countless times on BART. And, unfortunately, BART is the only viable way to get from the suburbs to downtown for work, unless you want to spend literally hours a day in your car commuting.
So the only alternative is to pay through the nose and live downtown. On the flip side, the wages here are much, much higher than most of the U.S. which is to compensate for the high cost of living. Mostly it's a wash.
For all those commenting that companies like Facebook should just move to a cheaper city: Moving to a less-desirable city will not attract talent. Think of it like a sports team. Which teams consistently have the best players? Places where people want to live. It's just common sense.
34
A big part of the problem is the structure of our economy.
Take Google for example. It has near monopoly on part of the US economy (internet advertising). This makes huge profits and repays investors very well. Investors don’t complain.
But Google’s profits are so big that it squanders a lot of it on really bad investments (Google Glasses and Jucero for example) and really bad very over-paid employees. To a name a few in the executive ranks alone: Amit Singhal, Forrest Timothy Hayes, Marissa Mayer , Anthony Levandowski and the list goes on. And this doesn’t include much lower level employees like that software engineer who didn’t actually write many programs but did spend his time documenting his views on the inferiority of women. Or that creep at Google X who created a cartoon espousing the view that Google could use all the information it was getting to control everyone else in world.
The Google monopoly that allows ridiculous pay for employees destroys the lives of everyone else who doesn’t work for them. And despite the fact that San Francisco has as much human feces on the street as Mumbai, India (according to the Economist Magazine), it continues to try and hire more employees to work in the San Francisco Bay area. Take a look their jobs web site. Google has a desperate need for employees basically because it doesn’t get much done.
10
I visited San Francisco for a week last August on a business trip...I looked forward to seeing the City by the Bay for the first time. I arrived in the afternoon and saw that the Giants were in town. A huge baseball fan, the ballpark was about a 15 minute walk from my hotel.
I enjoyed the game and headed back to my hotel. I could not believe my eyes...tents and homeless people EVERYWHERE...on the sidewalks, in the doorways of buildings, under bridges. The sheer amount of people I saw in a 15 minute walk was literally mindboggling.
The next morning, I rose early and decided to take the 20 minute walk to my office building, rather than Uber as my colleagues were doing. Again, I was dumbfounded. The downtown area is FILTHY...from the streets, the buildings, everything just looked grimy. Then I walked past human feces...the highlight of my journey.
I am born and raised in Philadelphia...I went to college at Temple University. I am not some shrinking violet. But the conditions in SF are truly bad. I wish the new mayor well, because she has a tremendous challenge ahead of her. With the homeless situation and the high cost of living, you could not pay me to live in San Francisco. I hope one of our great American cities can come back from this.
129
How sad my home state is going this way. I can't afford to live there and in some ways, I'm glad I can't.
8
In a nutshell: Taxing speculation, foreign buyers and those who own homes that sit empty would go a long way to solving problems in all of our major cities, from Seattle to New York, San Francisco to Boston, and everything in between. But the greedy billionaire developers and their sycophant city managers will never allow it.
34
From on the ground here in SF, here's the actual story. High tech is driving extreme income inequality up - and, concurrently, families that make $100,000 or less (a year) out. I re-read the article, thinking I must have missed something the first time I read it. An entire article about the high cost of living in West Coast cities -- San Francisco, particularly -- and not a word about the VERY high salaries West Coast companies like Airbnb, Apple, Facebook, Google, Ebay, Lyft, Twitter, and Uber pay their employees. Considering that most of their employees are single 20-somethings with loads of discretionary spending power, it's hardly surprising that prices go up. It's not rocket science. It's basic supply-and-demand, boom-town economics. That the article doesn't go into this leads me to wonder if perhaps Mr. Egan didn't set out to write a bit of dystopian fluff with a catchy title and a few eye-popping statistics. Unimpressive reporting.
45
Alas, Vancouver used to be slacker heaven. That was back when the government basically gave away what belonged to B.C. taxpayers, all the Expo lands, to Li-Kai Shing, what is now worth... gosh... billions...
Since then there's no such thing as a home. Just a physical space that is an 'investment'. No tax break on the interest. Prices seem close to the Bay Area, but jobs don't pay as much. And there's been so much construction, it feels like a CGI city now.
13
Although it won’t solve the current homeless problem but has anyone considered birth control. It will have a definite impact on the future.
15
The solution is simple but requires help (tax $) of all surrounding cities and is not cheap. Build a reasonable public transportation network.
The solution to the homeless problem is also simple, the government should offer free reeducation with paid-stipend and job placement around the country on in-demand jobs. AND if you do not want to be reeducated, we let you be but get off the streets.
6
C'mon Tim,
On the Left Coast, like everywhere in the ideologically disabled United States, the game is don't pay for anything communal (I'm not talking about having to do with Communism; I'm talking about having to do with Community.) Don't pay taxes. Don't redistribute wealth for the common good. Washington State is a prime example: no state income tax ! Man, they can't pay for education for all, let alone housing for the homeless.
Like that great Calvinist, Frank Zappa, said so well, "Freedom is when we don't have to pay for nothing or do nothing - we want to be free ! we want to be free !"
Do you think THE MARKET or corporations or charities will solve the problem !?
C'mon Tim, you know the answer....
21
Alright, hold the Brussel sprouts, so how about ordering a side order of heart attack or broken hip? Something where you have to be transported by ambulance to a hospital. In other words, how immediate is the healthcare in S.F. compared to other cities and towns? Point being, there are some “best places to live towns” where a 30 minute ambulance ride is required to transport patients to the next major city for critical care and surgery, without major cardiac support in the ambulance. Point being, whether or not you make more than $117,000, be thoughtful and choose where you have your heart attack, otherwise, it is all a coin toss. Gambling seems to become more legal in more states each year. When you get into a rat race, can you get back out of it without getting bitten?
6
Um yeah. Seattle neighborhoods DO need an upzoning. We need to build high density housing IN THE CITY, and the "but the character of my neighborhood" NIMBY-ism is, in fact, part of the problem. Not the only problem, but we aren't going to solve the housing crisis here with single family homes.
21
"An unholy alliance of socialists and developers threatens to destroy the city’s single-family neighborhoods with a major upzoning — further disrupting trust between residents and politicians."
Tim, respectfully, as a big fan of your work this casual dismissal of upzoning and its proponents is beneath you.
Upzoning near frequent-transit corridors can pose challenges. But is reducing housing inflation, traffic congestion, and carbon emissions. Unexplained, unjustified assertions about its capacity to "destroy single-family neighborhoods" sounds more like primal NIMBYism by the affluent than thoughtful concern for the well-being of all Seattle's "residents".
24
There's a one-word solution to the problem of high rent in San Francisco: Density.
10
Sounds bad.
But we need facts.
What is the population of SF?
What is the birth rate of the population of SF?
What is the growth rate of SF (birth rate + immigration)?
What is projection of this growth rate to 10, 25, 50 years?
Is this sustainable?
I'll bet not.
We need facts, and leadership with the facts and foresight.
14
I recently visited San Francisco for the first time in 15 years. WOW. My understanding is that even back then the city was already transforming into a city for the rich, but the metamorphosis is certainly complete now. It is bizarre to contemplate that this is a city that was once a stand-in for the American counterculture.
It's a city completely devoid of the rebel energy of its past. The idea that a Richard Brautigan or Jefferson Airplane or Tim Leary would emerge from this bland yuppie beigeness is laughable.
It's too bad. The city was once hailed as a truly American original. Now it's just the most muscular example of the homogenous gentrification of the American city.
44
The description made of Seattle is simply inaccurate. None of the Seattle small business owners would have been affected by the head tax. Only a couple of large corporations were targeted to contribute. Secondly, the head tax initiative was shut down by a consolidated small sample of corporate lobbyists, and not by the citizens who vastly support the head tax.
For a far less biased information, please refer to https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/technology/seattle-tax-amazon.html
The author of this article seems short of satisfying and defining what type of so called 'urbanism' he dreams of. Besides restating a problem with more or less accuracy that we are all too familiar with, he does not seem to propose any possible solution.
19
"The latest backward move was a tax on jobs"
There was an article not too long ago in the NYT about regulation hurting mom and pop operations in upstate New York. There was little or no sympathy shown for the small time entrepreneurs. Face it, except for convenience stores and recreational activities, small businesses are going the way of the department store.
"they can be greater still if the bright minds now trying to 'disrupt' a grilled cheese sandwich can focus on the biggest challenge of this generation. "
That's gourmet food that's affordable.
BTW, those high prices for real estate? That's the price you pay to be hermetically sealed away in Whiteopia.
7
The housing market is artificially high because investment groups and foreign investors are snapping up the available inventory. Home ownership in the country is actually falling, not rising.
To fix the problem, simply have a low tax-rate for primary home owners, a steep rate increase for second/third home ownership, an eye-ball popping rate for foreign investors, and prohibit investor groups for single/two family houses altogether.
Facebook and Amazon are not the problem. Curious why we are not talking about this.
72
Not one of your best, Tim. The subject matter is worthy, and Mayor Breed brings a new perspective and broader constituency background that will be valuable. But this column doesn't add much to the discourse, and the comments on our mutual hometown of Seattle indulge in tired rhetoric, batting about divisive cliches rather than offering incisive analysis.
Re "the globalization of the housing market is a problem more particular to British Columbia": Hardly. Perhaps if one strains to find relativity. The tremendous influx of new overseas wealth looking for an expatriate refuge in the real estate market, some of it of dubious sourcing, is an affliction on the whole West Coast as well as many other information-economy cities worldwide. It's been a more dramatic and longer phenomenon in Vancouver BC, yes, and in London and New York, but it's also hit hard in the San Francisco and Seattle metro areas while they're simultaneously enduring tech booms. It also has a secondary investor spillover effect, boosting prices elsewhere as investors spread their search seeking better deals.
And it's not just prices. A topic bearing examination is how much housing is underutilized (due to demographic changes as well as outside non-resident investment) and therefore effectively and inefficiently (and some would say unfairly) monopolized by the upper percents.
19
San Francisco is surrounded by water on 3 sides. What the Bay area needs to do is to build a high speed rail system much like the one in China between beijing and Shanghai. It is incredibly fast and smooth. Extend it East to more affordable housing in the Fairfield area. The commute would be under 45 minutes.
30
I lived in the bay area for 10 years. It's beautiful - scenic, great weather all year round, the wine country an hour away, Carmel/Pebble Beach - 2 hours, world class skiing 6 months a year, the north coast, south coast, great food, etc etc. It goes on an on. And I won't forget culture and intelligence for the well educated. There is a lot more in a three hour radius than anywhere else I know in the US. Yes - it's expensive. And so is every other exclusive area in the US that offers high paying jobs. From parts of Boston, Denver/Boulder, Washington, areas of Houston, not to even name NYC. And I don't think they have all that SF has to offer and they don't have the inherent limitations of a peninsula. Yes - it's expensive. If you can't afford it move or look elsewhere. I'd love to live to in Greenwich, Aspen, Jackson Hole - but I need to be realistic. The bay area just happens to have a larger unaffordable, geographical area. It's because it is that nice. They'll have to figure out what to do when teachers, waiters, et al can't afford it. But I bet they'll come up with a solution. And frankly - you can't take golden out of the golden state. They will have workers because they know that with every pro there may be some cons.
11
This article presents some excellent reasons for taking experience gained in SF and peddling it elsewhere, in some part of the country where what is earned goes farther.
In our 20s my wife and I took our Manhattan-gained experience and did just that. Others of our contemporaries did the same. Never looked back Never regretted it.
12
When I came to Seattle in the 90's, the city’s governing body was grappling with such pressing concerns as boycotting Burma and banning circus animals. Nothing has changed since then. In these past years Seattle has been going the way of SF, aiming to mirror SF’s vertiginous house prices and witnessing a stunning increase in homelessness. Add to this decaying infrastructure, out-of-control traffic, and inadequate transit and you have a study in what happens when an almost comically bad government meets explosive growth. Here there is no foresight or planning, there is just reaction – and that only after problems fester. Solutions almost always involve new taxes, though it’s never clear what became of the old taxes. The sad part is that we keep signing up for (and complaining about) this, while the city becomes less and less livable for everyone.
24
Any contract, even a social one, has 2 parties. In the social contract, one party will be the tax payer. What is the other partner giving? With a good contract, both parties are dissatisfied.
4
Mr. Egan makes a welcome and powerful point. No American city or region should be out of reach for any of its citizens to earn a living wage that allows them to live comfortably.
5
Of course it should. These areas are expensive for a reason, they are beautiful and have good weather. The good weather is another reason the homeless congregate there. There are areas of the country in need of workers and population. Think outside the box, move to a more affordable area.
17
I lived in the Bay Area and San Francisco for a time back from 1973 to 1981 - 82. I have some good friends that still live just outside the city today. What was true then is probably true today. It's much cheaper to live in some of the immediate suburbs, South San Francisco, San Bruno. Or over in the East Bay, parts of Oakland and south of there, down to Fremont, etc. Not as prestigious or glamorous, but much more reasonable. And there was good public transportation.
7
Seattle has only in the last few months started to see apartment rents stabilize; and even decline, along with new incentives from landlords, because all of a sudden, a bunch of new units have finally come on line; no thanks to the lengthy City approval and permitting processes, and neighborhood "activism" dedicated to zero growth.
There is only one solution to this problem, return to historic modes of integrating mixed use, retail and and multi-family units in poorly thought out, exclusionary modern single family zones.
Take a walk around your favorite historic neighborhood in any of the greatest cities in the world.
There are apartment buildings; not just millionaire's mansions.
11
This is a direct result of unlimited population growth in a finite area. Those two concepts are mutually incompatible. You cannot continue to have more and more people move to a limited, desirable, area and expect anything else to happen. Limited supply and unlimited demand works like this.
10
In 2000 I was commuting between miami and the Bay Area on a project for the firm I worked for back then. They offered me the position in our Bay Area office with a raise of 100k, doubling my salary.
My wife and I did the math and it didn’t add up then, and certainly wouldn’t add up now.
Fast forward to 2015 after I sold my business and was thinking of moving back to NY. We did a wish list of what we wanted and where we preferred to live before looking for an apt.
Once we realized anything we liked was north of 12k a month, we opted against NY
15
Manhattan had a terrific project, called Mitchell-Lama, which started in the 1950s but implemented in the 1960 to develop middle-income housing on the Upper West Side, which had been a downtrodden neighborhood. There were many buildings built not by the city but by developers. Some turned into co-ops. Some had scattered residents who were the beneficiaries of rent subsidies.Those who had moved in but later passed the upper income limit paid a “penalty”. I know a number of people who lived in several of those buildings—from the high 60s to beyond the 90s streets—actors, educators, and other professionals. Some moved in when in their 30s and have lived out their lives in the same building. This “project” “made” the Upper West Side.
10
Mitchell-Lama buildings were wonderful! I lived in one of them for years before I left NYC. Some New Yorkers are still shocked I "gave up" a Manhattan apartment (and a couple of NYC friends will never forgive me) but I opted to see the world rather than turn into a "slave of New York" and hang on desperately to a good deal.
10
As a San Francisco Bay Area resident for more than 10 years, I've given up on a local solution to this problem. The one thing that would alleviate costs - allowing construction of *a lot* more high density housing and low income housing, especially in job centers and near transit corridors, is simply too politically unpopular to make headway. Sure, San Francisco has room to grow in the sense that it's population density is much lower than that of New York or Paris, but it's politically impossible to make that growth happen. I've spent time advocating for both YIMBY ("Yes in my Backyard") and affordable housing groups, and the harsh reality is that entrenched older homeowners and NIMBYs almost beat them handily. They love their quiet neighborhoods of single family homes and fight tooth and nail against any and all change to keep them as-is. Plus, it's in their interest to keep housing supply limited, as it will only make their home values go up faster.
I now believe that the only solution to this problem is a set of incentives at the federal and state levels to move jobs out of cities like San Francisco to places that really need them. And these incentives will need to be powerful - San Francisco is already a *very* expensive place to do business, but companies keep starting there because of the local talent pool and concentration of investment capital. But moving, say, 50,000 jobs from the Bay Area to a city like Detroit could be of enormous benefit to both places.
43
I had hoped that Amazon/Jeff Bezos would see the wisdom in jumpstarting tech development in another regional economy with HQ2, but that seems unlikely now. Rumour has it that the DC metro area will be the big "winner."
3
Mr. Egan is obviously dismissing high density housing being introduced into neighborhoods of single family housing. For cities to work, we need high density living, mixed use development, high quality public transit, and a serious downgrading of the domination of public space by the automobile. In Europe, they know all this and many cities in Europe are walking the talk - Madrid, Oslo, Copenhagen, Paris are all re-tooling their cities for people not cars. In America, we lack the leadership and the political will to change the way we organize and design cities. If you read between the lines of this column, Mr. Egan does not believe in an urban vision that works; he is one more American that wants our cities to be variations of suburbs.
11
The homeless problem is also an issue in the humble state capitol of West Virginia. The average home price is about $150,000, meaning the average monthly payment is about $775.00. Average rent is higher, about $800.00. Fifteen dollars an hour is considered a good wage here, meaning a gross income of $2400.00 per month. Let's say the monthly net income is $2200.00. That leaves about $1400.00 per month for a car payment and car insurance (altogether probably close to $400 per month with a modest, but not a clunker, used car), all utilities, groceries, clothing, everything else life needs. No wonder homelessness is everywhere! It costs too much to be alive anymore if you want a decent place to live, a form of transportation (public transit is poor in many places), to pay water, gas, electric, and eat and wear clothes all at the same time.
51
The solution is and always was very simple -- require that commercial developers build as much housing as necessary for the commercial space they build.
If you want to build 1 million square feet of office space, then you have to build housing for 1,000 people. You can condo this housing or lease it for rent, but you must build it.
The housing doesn't have to be "affordable." If you just build enough housing, prices will be affordable.
19
Yes, we can fix these problems. But the one we need to fix first is the hopeless sense that we can't do anything. The resignation instilled by conservative politics over decades has to be rooted out and be replaced by what used to be the American can-do spirit. We need more cities, new cities, because what we've got were built for a world with 3 billion or fewer people. Today we have 7.5 billion and the US has grown from about 180 million 50 years ago to 330 million today. Yesterday's infrastructure isn't enough. So why not invest in infrastructure? Because conservatives fear they'll have to pay for it and because the building boom will benefit Democrats primarily.
11
The issue in SF or Seattle is definitely not "conservative politics." Conservatives haven't been seen in government in those cities for decades.
12
How about coming to grips with the reality that doubling the population on the same land mass in 60 years is insane, unsustainable, and instead we should work towards a future that acknowledges growth has limits?
21
A third generation Californian, two years ago I sold the house in Marin, bought six acres with a house and a barn and a rental unit in small town Vermont for one fourth the price, and moved our family to a new life. As a single parent, I had to make $150,000 to raise my family there and barely cover basic expenses (no savings, no vacations). The mortgage on my "starter house" was $5000 a month. And, our community, the precious beauty of the land, our beautiful and familiar life were all there too.
We traded traffic, redwoods, the beach, good ethnic food, and a town full of beautiful yoga bodies for dirt roads, maple trees, swimming holes, the almost absolute lack of good restaurants, and women my age who don't color their hair, do their nails or go to the gym for their exercise (oh the relief). Do I miss the land that is pretty much a part of my DNA, and the lifetime of friends and community that we left behind? Achingly so. Am I sorry? No. It was a solid, life-enhancing trade.
My girls have friends from families of diverse economic and educational backgrounds (they're all white, but it's something). At my younger daughter's recent 8th grade graduation there was zero cleavage, high heels or $$ professionally done hair and makeup. There's no mall for 100 miles. Kids here ski and ride bikes and jump on the trampoline. It's not shangri-la - there's lots of problems, like anywhere. But for us, it's an order of magnitude closer. We're not going back (not that I could afford to)
149
Exactly! Move!
3
Why are Times Pick articles comprised mostly of complainers, lamenters and those who believe the grass is greener where they are. People who claimed to have lived in San Francisco in some 30 years ago but now living in Mississippi pass judgement on today's San Francisco reality. Envious people in the midwest proclaiming their corners of the world are far superior to a San Franciscan existence while offering no proof are another staple of Times Picks. The overall tone of the article (written by someone who doesn't live in the west by the way) is negative with dubious claims and I wonder exactly what the NY Times is trying to communicate here.
13
Thank you for your words of sanity. I too wonder why the focus on all the problems of San Francisco, many of them from outsiders sounding oh so superior. I live here, have been in the Bay Area since time immemorial and of course have seen all the changes. But would I live anywhere else? No. Am I wealthy? No, only in attitude, friends and a beautiful environment. Did I ever pay $16 for a side order of sprouts? Of course not, that's like the shock articles about avocado toast and $15 coffee. There are lots of normal folks here, who work hard, cook their own meals, bring up their children, walk in our free playgrounds, aka Golden Gate Park, Crissy Field and the Presidio and do all the other things that ordinary people do. Lets talk about that rather than checking if the sky is falling in San Francisco ... it isn't
22
Uh, the author is from Seattle, as stated in the article. That's the west coast.
5
You have to consider why a person is homeless:
Loss of Job but willing and able to work full time.
Illness or Old age, not likely to be able to work full time.
Drug Addiction/Mental Illness - may never have worked
full time.
Those who are willing to work should be given help
in re-locating to a place where they can find work.
Those who can only work part-time should be given
public jobs and the chance to re-locate.
Those who are mentally ills should be relocated to
the country and be given the treatment they need and
non-vital jobs on small farms.
Those who are addicted should be sent to drug treatment
centers and forced to work for five years of absolute
sobriety and then released.
Homelessness can only be solved if everyone gets
involved, otherwise cities like SF or Seattle will be
overwhelmed no matter what they seek to do.
4
As a 30-year resident who cashed out and bailed on San Francisco, I don't understand why anyone who isn't super-rich or homeless would want to live there.
It's crowded, noisy and unfriendly. It's filthy. There's feces on the sidewalks. It smells like urine. Injection drug use is out in the open. Public transit is unreliable. If you can find a place to park your car (most spaces are occupied by able-bodied drivers who've scammed the disabled parking system), you'll probably need to have a window replaced when you return to it. Most of the younger residents say eventually they'll leave, so they treat it like an amusement park.
Good luck, Ms. Breed. You've signed on to lead an ungovernable city.
21
Welcome to the utopia of progressive Democrats. This is your future everywhere you let Democrats win every election. Here's an idea, how about let politicians work for your vote instead of voting them in like your local sports teams.
10
Wrong. The rightwingers have destroyed the economy and made daily life so unpleasant in many of the red states that anyone with a brain and ambition wants to come to California and other blue states. That is why real estate is cheap in Kansas and expensive in California.
27
San Francisco and NYC are both overpriced dumps! Who wants to pay and/or who can afford to pay over 1M for a one bedroom apt. that is minutes from the projects or ride a smelly and crowded train, eat cardboard hard and bland bagels and stay healthy on overpriced salad? NOT ME.
4
One thing for sure, in the future we are all going to need a lot more money.....
8
Over the past five decades San Francisco has deindustrialized eliminating many well paying jobs due to "environmental" concerns leaving only service jobs for those without degrees. The highrises built in the 1960s and 1970s for commuters coming in on BART (supposed to circle the bay but only three of six counties voted to increase sales tax to fund construction) are no longer filled with bankers and clerical workers. A former insurance campus and rail yard are now occupied by UCSF, which produces researchers who start up medical tech and pharma businesses or involve themselves at the ballot box. My neighbors used to be cops, teachers, office workers and small business owners are now mostly in medicine related to UCSF or some sort of government public-private partnerships.
The Bay Area, which used to be six counties 30 years ago now includes up to ten counties while commuters arrive from a dozen, even Uber and Lyft drivers. There are 27 separate transit agencies serving roughly half of these counties, most sprung up after Marin started Golden Gate Transit using Greyhound assets. New York was wise to incorporate the boroughs while SF lost San Mateo county a century ago. SF population is now 900,000, for decades it was around 500-750,000. Many fled after Loma Prieta.
Homelessness increased when AIDS hit coupled with the deinstitutionalization of mentally ill which came at the same time. Less than 10% of California counties have psych beds for 5150 holds. Narcotics rampant.
13
"Or that the asking price for a side order of brussels sprouts at many restaurants is $16."
Is it too simplistic simply not to order up the sprouts? Or, for that matter, a life in San Francisco? At least until people there resolve their transit/housing insanity?
Live somewhere simple. Live a simple life. It will all even out in the end, for everyone.
Remember: you may win the rat race, but you'll still be a rat.
10
Adam Smith said every improvement in the circumstances of society tends to the owners of land. That's who's reaping the real rewards of SF's super economy.
6
The tech companies are a big part of the problem. They run a fleet of private buses (paying next to nothing for their use of publicly-funded bus stops) that take their workers from their expensive apartments in SF to their jobs in Mountain View, Cupertino and Menlo Park. Without this service, perhaps all those workers would spread out to other cities like San Jose and the upward pressure on housing prices might relent.
13
the hip, young, highly paid, largely single tech workers of San Francisco do not want to live in vacuous suburbs; they want to live in a vibrant city with socal life and culture... and they can afford it.
yet most work in suburban cities and towns where tech companies can build campuses remiscent of colleges for a Peter Pan workforce that doesn't really want to leave the halcyon days of school behind for the square drudgey of an adult life - iow, a family life in which they are not the star.
meanwhile, a big part of the problem all up and down the left coast is that smaller towns and sprawling suburbs have no real place for younger adults, the single, the childless. it is real estate's response to what is a social issue.
this, coupled with our abandonment of the insane who often wind up on the streets of cities where it is less likely to freeze to death, is a toxic brew nobody seems willing to confront.
14
Thanks for the warning on the "string of gilded megalopolises running the length of the entire West Coast".
The good news is there are plenty of areas with access to fresh water that could accommodate lots of population growth. Maybe we need a new Homestead Act where US could buy up non-agricultural land while it is cheap and then build the best and most modern infrastructure like underground utilities, reserve areas for the "commons" sort of like NYC's Central Park, layout a walkable grid with safe crossable streets ( with underground transport tunnels to bring in food and transport people to intercity Maglev hubs, build some schools, playing fields, and well-equipped medical clinics, plant trees, build government center, then open the new city to a homesteading lottery.
Organic growth is not working and free market price rationing is not working. This is a tough problem. New towns, even though they are much cheaper to develop take several generations to develop a culture and sense of place. Because there is a need for family connections, I recommend that the new homesteading act give special treatment to families. The bigger the better.
Next big question: where will people work? I suggest two to four globally competitive robotic manufacturing enterprises. Food, clothing, shoes, television, computers, pharmaceuticals, banking, recreation/sports equipment and lots of mom and pop crafts and specialty shops, including home furnishings to create the "new town" style.
7
Practically every California community, not just San Francisco, has been tilting housing construction toward the very well-off at least since Proposition 13 passed in 1978. That lowered property taxes and starved local governments for revenue, so they tried to make up for this by charging developers fees. Nor surprisingly, if they were paying big fees developers preferred to build higher-end housing -- that is, unaffordable for most current residents, never mind people of modest means. This has gone on for 40 years as the state's population has grown. The current push is to only build housing for the very poor, and "market rate" otherwise, meaning for millionaires only, as any reasonable housing market was destroyed long ago. Or, a middle-class family can choose to live 3 hours drive from the nearest job surrounded by what recently was wilderness, but today is a wildfire zone waiting to erupt.
13
there is also the ratio betwen the basic land and infrastructure dvelopment costs and the type of housing you can profitably build there. you can't get ahead building cheap houses on expensive land anywhere.
The acuteness of homeless problems that are complicating the problems of living in San Francisco, Seattle and other West Coast cities have something to do with the overabundance of voices there on the problem. Seattle’s mayor, Jenny Durkan, has said “The lack of coordination among governments and other stakeholders has limited the effectiveness of” hundreds of millions of dollars governments, businesses, service providers, philanthropists, and advocates across the region have made over the past decade. That acuteness might be moderated by a better state response to the coordination efforts.
But while management of the problem might be improved moderating the challenges at the margin, the basic problems that have thousands of homeless people wandering the streets of major cities remain to exacerbate the situation and complicate solutions: lack of affordable housing stock, lack of education and training to qualify for living-wage jobs, insistence by employers on spotless records of job candidates, addiction, mental health, criminal justice systems that have profound effects on the employability of people over their entire lives, and racial, ethnic and even gender identity prejudice.
It’s worth noting as we look across America that the problems appear to be most acute in our West Coast cities, where populations are ideologically bluest. Ain’t THAT a kick in the head? Yet, admittedly, while the problems appear to be most acute in such places, it’s also there …
4
… that the most is being done to address the issues.
Not sure that Tim’s conviction that we need to define and implement a new “urbanization” is the primary challenge. That proffered solution seems to assume that there are large numbers of people who just aren’t and never can be prepared to adapt to new and different conditions of survival, that the task is to find a means of feeding and housing them rather than better preparing them to feed and house themselves, and that a culture of managing ever-increasing dependency must be our lot. THAT solution suggests an arc along which we manage the dependency as best we can by diverting social resources to supporting mere subsistence to the point where we no longer can, then watch as lives are marginalized while we’re helpless to dedicate MORE resources to saving them.
It seems to me that this is inevitably a losing proposition as conditions for survival become MORE complex and the marginal continue to drop off the grid in even larger numbers because services are present to catch them.
In the distant past, serious problems arising from increasing social complexity had their soulless, Darwinian solutions: people died, or simply tolerated living at bare-subsistence levels … on the streets. If we’re going to solve this problem in less soulless ways, then it will need to be with an entirely new SOCIAL model, not merely one managing urbanization.
3
Please, if you're going to cover this issue, cover the whole issue. This is NOT analogous to Manhattan. We aren't talking about a bunch of people too shortsighted to simply pack it in and move to a less fashionable borough. The housing crisis permeates the entire "San Francisco Bay Area" -- a collection of citie, urban sprawl, and suburbs that have all been hit every bit as hard during the tech boom and its ensuing real estate bubble. It's impossible to find reasonable rent within a 100 mile radius of San Francisco itself.
In the 1970s, they put in the rapid transit line specifically to help facilitate commuters trekking in from over an hour outside the city. Now rent out in those communities is similarly outrageous.
Without that context, it's impossible to grasp the scope of the problem. The tech companies and their impossible salaries are forcing everyone else out of the entire region. It's absolutely bizarre to witness, and it shows no sign of improving.
16
Don't come to Portland, it's too late. California Techies who commute occasionally by air have been driving up prices for decades. We need an immigration tax here in Oregon, just like some countries do.
Affordable housing - developing more apartments & ADU's simply centralizes home ownership to fewer people, pricing them out of future ownership due to escalation.
There's great places to live in flyover America too - but the FOMO generation, raised on $4 coffee and parental support till 30 can't deal with the uncoolness...
23
Watchdog groups report that there are over 30,000 unoccupied residential units in San Francisco, virtually all owned by speculators, many of them residing abroad and banking their money in American real estate. Bbecause they live far away, they don't want the hassles of tenant management, unit maintenance and so on. So the properties remain empty, dark, and curtained, even in high-priced neighborhoods. You can spot some of these piggy banks by their unkempt appearance -- unswept front stoops littered with paper, fallen leaves and uncollected newspapers, parched hedgerows and untended sidewalk median strips gone to weed. They don't give a damn about their neighbors or the city. It's just all about keeping their money safe.
Like Vancouver, officials in Paris have levied a heavy financial penalty on those who do the same in the French capital. San Francisco, however, is a city with leaders who've bent over to money for decades. Our late Mayor Ed Lee, for all his proclaimed good intentions, was largely ineffectual when it came to dealing with tech financial prowess; the big boys got when they wanted from the city. Whether Ms. Breed will -- or even can -- prove more effective is an open question. She was elected on her promise to deliver, and her honeymoon won't last long.
31
The cost of restaurant food (brussels sprouts) has skyrocketed because of the SF health care tax and minimum wage laws.
4
not rent? come on, how much older do you have to get?
4
My wife and I moved from New Jersey to San Mateo CA in 1987. In '89 we purchased a fixer upper for $290K. Over the next few years we replaced the roof, had new windows installed. replaced and extended the rear deck and when the rear fence collapsed when a tree fell on it during a wind storm, we replaced the fence. By the time we were done, we spent close to another $90K to make the house livable. FYI, we made approximately $130,00 per year between the two of us. We could just afford our house and cars and a contribution to my 401K. We had little or no play money. The only break we had was the low, by NY metro standards, real estate tax. At 1.1% of the purchase price it was slightly over $3000. Remember this was in '87. Everything else cost a small fortune. I'd also like to remind those people looking for homes today that the interest rates were much higher back them. If I remember correctly they were approximately 9% when we purchased our home.
2
Thank you for an excellent thoughtful article on a growing problem, added to others that increase our extreme wealth inequality and failure to manage our failing infrastructure, especially public transit.
We have the same problem in Boston, exacerbated by sea level rise. Why city authorities are willing to provide big giveaways to corporate giants who are going to make things worse is beyond me.
The new "freedom" is anything but. Vote cheating. Unaffordable housing. Overpriced health care. Lousy public transit. Perhaps these new wealthy beneficiaries of our unequal system should return to "noblesse oblige" and at the least providing housing, food, and care to their slaves, so they can rise at least to the status of "servants". I don't think this is OK.
They don't care. Do U?
14
High-rises. Next problem?
1
In SF? ha ha ha
We can't even get a Whole Foods in a vacant building near me. Oh no, it's a chain, too uncool. So it sits vacant for literally years. Lots of vacant stores and I suspect vacant apartments too. That building next to mine is very very quiet (kind of nice really) and I never see a soul in the back yard...
11
My comment referred to the State of California, not the city of San Francisco. Crazy zoning laws are the problem. A recent attempt to allow higher-density housing near subway stations in L.A. was shot down. Crazy. Here in San Diego there isn't even a newspaper machine within walking distance of where I live. La di da.
1
Affordable housing and homeless are often mentioned as two sides of the same coin, and that makes sense on a theoretical level. In reality though, the homeless people passed out on floors of BART stations or in every single nook and cranny of every public park in San Francisco are not people who would be living in a three bedroom ranch house if only things were more affordable. By in large they are drug addicts and/or people with severe mental illnesses. They are in the City because the police force is tolerant, because they need the foot traffic for panhandling purposes, and for other reasons having nothing to do with San Francisco's policies on housing. Yes, San Francisco and other West Coast cities can alleviate homelessness to some level by providing shelters and other programs, but there will always be a contingent that refuses this help. The fact is that statewide and nationally, we don't have much of a social safety net. People who get crosswise with drugs or mental illness and don't have family to support them can wind up on the street, flushed down the toilet of our capitalist society. It is in many ways a nationwide problem; it's just that the symptoms only appear in large cities.
Affordable housing is of course a major crisis. SF needs to become much more dense, as do all the surrounding cities in the Bay Area. But that is a separate issue from homelessness - it is not the cause of the homeless problem, and therefore cannot be the solution for it either.
80
Really well-said.
7
If it's so bad, why do people stay there? We live in a huge, beautiful diverse country, and people are free to move wherever they want. I can't imagine living there. Love to visit Big Sur and wine country though.
There are jobs everywhere. Pack up and move, people! Life is too short to be miserable.
6
"f it's so bad, why do people stay there?"
Perfect weather.
3
Perfect weather ??? Was it Mark Twain who said the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco? .. depends on your notion of perfect I suppose.
2
And some of use, just a few anyway, are from here. I love San Francisco.
1
My wife and I moved away from San Francisco six months; sold our apartment with its glorious view of the Golden Gate and Alcatraz for a house in Sonoma. For us - and we are the lucky ones - it was not an economic decision but strictly a quality of life decision. We moved to San Francisco 26 years ago - and loved the city we found; from our apartment we could walk just about anywhere in the city - and did. There were a few homeless people but they were not a big problem.
All of that has changed. The city is filthy, there are homeless everywhere - and they have become more unruly and more aggressive -, the stench of feces and urine is most everywhere, and walking in the city is at best unpleasant if not downright dangerous. And, the ONLY concern of the city's government are the approximately 8,000 homeless people on whom the city continues to pour money - $250 millions and counting. In average, there is a car break in every 5 minutes but policeman are nowhere to be found. And, all the "rich" young tecchies are oblivious to all of that - as long as the money will continue to flow and keep buying $5 lattes, $10 beers and $20 hamburgers!
This is not sustainable; and now the city will subsidize people that make over $100K to live there. This is insanity!!
78
Thank you again for reminding me why I choose to live in Iowa. I'll bookmark this for the next 100 degree day or when I'm shoveling myself out of a foot of snow in January.
14
Portland currently shares a similar fate albeit less intense. To my eye, a significant proportion of the homeless are quite young, in their 20s. Given this, any solution cannot just target affordable homes, it must target meaning and belonging. I see kids hanging out downtown with no purpose. I see kids that have given up. Our country is reeling-in the safety net for the poor as we ramp-up military spending and coddle big business. We are making the acquisition of meaningful work and a respectable place in society near impossible for anyone not born to high-achieving or high-stationed parents. We are ignoring a crisis in our land, a crisis of alienation and disenfranchisement not just in our poor, but everyone. Everyone is miserable! Traditionally, the way to get out of a social rut like this was via disaster and this is what worries me the most. I count war as disaster. The destruction of the environment certainly counts. Large scale famine or disease, also terrifying examples. I am putting my hope, I still have some, in women and children. Men have really buggered-it up. I am counting on women and young people voting out Trump and hatred. We need women to bring compassion, trust, and sanity back into our politics and our dialogue. We need women to identify value to society, whether it be as a mother of 5 keeping up a home, or a janitor keeping our grade school spiffy, we need to find a way to come together and find value in everyday life, without war!
26
Denver welcomed Californians moving here because of the cost of living there in the 80s and 90s. What Denver has today is insufficient and unaffordable housing along with unhealthy air most of the time as well as clogged thoroughfares even though millions (if not billions) have been spent on a metro train system. Those of you offering your lovely cities to CA immigrants might want to sit back and enjoy what you have while you have it.
10
Much of the previously affordable housing has been demolished to build Amazon's and other's South Lake Union campus. That area used to be full of affordable housing. Develops need to start paying for the people they displace in search of their profits.
4
Does not the Proposition 13 issue eventually die away? We simply now see a cresting wave of Boomers holding onto homes till death or disability. In 20 years, those people will be gone, huge swaths of residential property will get pay normal property taxes ( for CA) and incremental billions will pour into these cities and counties.
3
Inherited property is exempt from reassessment, so while that's true for homes that are sold, I know several people are paying their parents' Prop 13 tax rate.
8
I grew up 60 miles south of Seattle, and when I was offered a job in Seattle in 2015, after 26 years of living in San Francisco, I took it. There is a rental housing glut in Seattle right now -- for example, the new high-rises in South Lake Union are offering move-in specials to fill persistent vacancies. Yet my rent has gone up 25% in three years. Most of the rental housing in the city is owned by national residential companies that are traded on the stock exchange -- in other words, they answer to their shareholders, not their renters and not the communities they make money off of. Meanwhile, rent control is against the law in Washington state, as is income tax, which makes taxation here more regressive than just about every other state in the country. Seattle is the weirdest place -- it has a reputation for being progressive, yet its economic policies are the opposite; it is the fastest growing city in the US, yet it still feels suburban; housing development in the city is dense, yet because of zoning you have to drive to the grocery store. In other words: Seattle is a mess. I regret leaving San Francisco.
17
We have plenty of American cities between the coasts with underutilized infrastructure just ripe for a reasonable dose of upward mobility. The west coast is kind of underwater and needs a break.
Here in Portland rapid growth since the Recession ended - in population and especially high salaried tech jobs - has eroded the quality of life significantly. Public services like transit have not kept up, parks are facing cuts while more people use them, and the police force has shrunk.
That kind of growth stinks.
19
Prop 13 certainly hasn't helped to make housing any more affordable or stable in California. Most residents who have lived in the same home before the passage of said bill would be unable to afford something comparable in size, amenities and location. Upgrading would be out of the question unless one were a silicon valley executive.
California dreaming of swimming pools and movie stars will remain a dream for most Americans. For those Californians who are house rich but cash poor, an out of state move and early retirement might be in your future.
12
I bought my first home in 1973 in San Francisco for $25,000 paying the down payment with a cash advance from my credit card. That same house is worth over a million dollars today.
I bought my first four unit apartment on the beach in San Francisco in 1975 for $125,000.
Despite those terrific investments, I would rather live my life here in Europe with stable prices and excellent public transportation including high speed trains.
San Francisco is struggling with homelessness and drug addiction right in the middle of one of the most expensive cities in the country. My village in Provence has only 6000 residents in a crime free environment.
19
@Mr. Kittle: you had the good fortune to be able to buy real estate when it was cheap -- 45 years ago. Doesn't help people TODAY!!!
My great-uncle bought an entire strip shopping center in the 1930s, for $5000. But that was the Great Depression. $5K was an FORTUNE then.
You can't compare prices from 45 years ago! BTW: $25K was not cheap in 1973; it was a normal price. Average salaries then were maybe $10-$12K a year.
You are retired, and wealthy, so of course you can live anywhere you please. That advice doesn't help people who have jobs, families, obligations that keep them in the US (nor would France appreciate us invading them and stealing THEIR jobs!)
It is hardly fair to compare a huge metropolis like San Francisco, with millions of people -- to a TINY village in France.
I could show you all kinds of charming villages in the US, that are adorable and friendly and low cost -- compared to Midtown Manhattan. But it will would not be a fair comparison.
13
I "work" in Silicon Valley from my home in Center City Philadelphia. I fly out to headquarters once a year. It's a nice place to visit, but my income stretches so much further in Philly, and I love it here. It seems like the other tech companies could let their workers roam further afield, and the wealth could be spread throughout the country.
40
My company does the same. Every meeting is a videoconference. Totally workable, and good for all concerned, most especially the company.
9
It is true that it is a pan-urban phenomenon. A less remarked casualty is the death of the university town which used to have affordable studios and one and two bedroom flats, bookstores, cafes repertory cinema and inexpensive restaurants. Barnes and Noble and Borders took the first whack at the bookstores, then the internet took out Barnes and Noble and Borders. Repertory cinema had already collapsed with the invention of the VCR. Meantime universities pulled in high paying knowledge intensive industries and up go the rents. The university town is now dead, pretty much everywhere, and certainly in the big urban areas.
12
As a long-time (30+ years) Bay Area resident, it has been very challenging to adapt to the escalating cost of living during that time and especially since 2000. Combined with the exponential rise in homelessness, the insane congestion (both on roads and public transit), and displacement of less affluent residents, it's a wonder anyone stays here, let alone moves here. I moved to SF in 1986 with $900 in my pocket and nothing else. Now if you come here with less than $10K in your pocket and a secure job, you have a good chance of joining the homeless population if things don't work out quickly for you. It's been sad to see the effects of this on our famous bohemian subculture. I can see many people in the comments disparaging our region and wondering why anyone would want to put up with this. Here's why I've stayed: 1. The people - we have such an incredible diversity of people, even after all of the disruptive economics in the area. I want to be a member of that kind of community. 2. The landscape - I have traveled to 5 continents, all over the U.S. and have yet to explore an area as beautiful as my own veritable backyard. 3. The dynamism - change is inevitable and always has negative and positive impacts. Do we have some major problems that need to be addressed and resolved? Definitely. Am I hopeful that we can collectively do so? YES. The Bay Area is a resilient, innovative place filled with compassionate, intelligent residents.
16
The Bay Area is one of the most dynamic regional economies in the world, in part because of long term investments in education, protecting the environment and investing in infrastructure. Its one of the great centers of innovation because these features attract and develop talented people from all over the world. The wealth that is created as a result drives up prices for real estate.
The problem is that the local governments do not have a way of tapping into this massive increase in wealth to aid people who are not benefiting as much and are being priced out of the real estate market.
The other issue is that the geography of the area makes it very difficult to build lower cost housing at the edges of the region that are reasonably accessible to the urban center.
5
The sentiments expressed in this article and the accompanying comments are what I imagine sentient bacteria might say as they reach the walls of their Petri dish and realize there's nowhere else left to grow.
The insane housing market, the refugee crisis, wage stagnation, climate change—these are all symptoms of uncontrolled population growth on a finite planet whose limits we are coming to understand all too well. It will only get worse as the world adds more than a million new residents every week.
50
I moved to Las Vegas after close to 40 years in LA & Bay Area living. The traffic, crowds, expense was all just too much. Luckily for me I can work from anywhere and that helped tremendously. Now I like the dry heat, easy driving, no state income tax, access to all the fun in 15 minutes and a fantastic airport where I can find parking any time! I do love CA and can get to LA in 4 hours of driving or SF/Oakland within an hour of flying. Overall it was worth to leave and just come back to visit. Bay Area is amazing in the creative energy of the young masses there, but, some of that energy needs to be re-directed to solving the problems of the area.
12
The notion that single family neighborhoods need to be preserved at all costs, instead of morphing into higher-density apartment neighborhoods is simply unsustainable, particularly in cities like Seattle and San Francisco that are hemmed in by geography.
If you're not willing to stack people on top of each other, then all this talk about the city of the future is just blah blah. The arithmetic simply doesn't work.
25
"No matter what you hear anecdotally, people will continue to move to the West Coast."
Why?
7
America's West Coast cities are hedge cities for global elites, especially those from Asia, who seek stability and a place to stash their wealth. Wealthy Chinese nationals have been buying up real estate in Vancouver, BC, for quite some time now. When Canada imposed a substantial tax on foreign buyers of real estate, these global elites set their sights on San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle, which boast(ed) lower property values, excellent educational systems, and good weather. The presence of Chinese nationals in Seattle, coupled with the tech boom, has pushed real estate prices through the roof. The Chinese have found Seattle so "cheap" that they have been known to purchase half a dozen houses at a time, according to a Realtor I know. Many locals who own property have cashed out and moved elsewhere, tired of all the change in their midst and mourning their lost Seattle. The flip side is that many younger Seattlites who wish to stay where they grew up have been priced out of their own city. When I was in Seattle a few months ago, I was really struck by the changes. In some spots, wealthy foreigners in designer clothes nearly outnumber laid-back, casually dressed locals, who have long been the ecological stewards of Seattle.
21
The coming "Trump depression" will cure much of the housing crisis. We are going over the cliff, with a stock market crash, massive layoffs and a crisis to rival the 1930s. Trump has no clue about the inter-relatedness of housing, manufacturing, trade, war and natural disasters. He has his stubby fingers in all the pies, just a matter of which one hits the floor first.
35
Start spreading the news
The coasts are largely insane
People want to be a part of it
From NY to LA
Wealth's gobbled up Queens and Portland
And more's surely on the block
They say if you can make it home
These places will make you pay through the nose
Until we all figure out
The coasts are insane!
3
I have been hearing about how ridiculously expensive SF is for as long as I've been alive. There is nothing new here. Prices are what they are in SF because they have been priced in a Free Market. Indeed a global free market. You can watch the condo prices go up when the rioting starts in Asia. Education, the arts, sports, climate, culture, a tolerant society what more could anyone ask for.
6
I live in Oakland, having left San Francisco 6 years ago, not wanting to spend $3500+ on rent or otherwise live with 4 roomates.
San Francisco should take a page from Oakland, Oakland development is exploding. On a recent bike ride, I drove past a dozen new condo developments. There were cranes and construction workers everywhere. It's a wonderful, diverse place to live, but prices have been pushing out the working class. Oakland can't simply keep up with the SF overflow.
Unfortunately, two main things prevent SF from dealing with its housing crisis:
- The home-owner lobby. I'm hoping London Breed will fulfill her campaign promises and stand up to them.
- Red tape. There are so many permits and council meetings required for development. A few years back, a complex in the mission was halted because locals wanted there to be 100% low-income housing (vs 20% the developer was proposing).
This article describes the problems well -- but criticizes the (in my opinion, only) solution -- more housing. Yes, the new housing push in Seattle hasn't kept prices from rising --- but think of how much more they would have risen otherwise.
4
The "correction" will come from Mother Nature via the Ring Of Fire.
11
The often self-inflicted problems in these "progressive" cities show one of the most insidious effects of machine politics in one-party towns: there is no talk of the common good or consideration of who has the best expertise and knowledge for a position. Instead it's all about providing career capstones for activists, protecting party leaders, and maintaining fiefdoms and payouts. And we have nobody but ourselves to blame since so many of us don't cast our vote but vote our caste. Until we stop electing people just because they're a member of a certain community, follow a particular lifestyle, or are sufficiently orthodox on a single issue, City Halls will continue to be run solely for their own benefit.
15
It's the inequality, stupid. Too few people have too much wealth, period. Until that changes, nothing gets better.
57
Some of the Problems Impacting California Cities:
*Prop 13 locked-in a maximum property tax rate per year, as long as the property doesn't change hands. The impact after a few decades: long-term homeowners find themselves paying one-tenth the taxes as their new neighbor. So old-timers won't move.
*Rent Control. Same sort of situation. Those with locked-in low rents won't move, and instead will commute for hours each day. And investors won't build new rental properties since the ROI is not there.
*Your bums were shipped here. Half these bums aren't Californians; your cities bought them one-way bus tickets to California.
*The homeless have been coddled. The city bureaucrats in SD, LA, SF etc have allowed horrible behavior to thrive. Defecating in public? Tents on sidewalks Not punished.
I could go on. I am pleased to see that SF's new mayor seems to understand that the bums-situation is out of control.
15
As a retiree looking for a permanent place to finish out my journey, I'll be grateful to find a place I can afford that's within an hour-and-a-half or two hours of where I really want to be (first choice - Southern California). Any suggestions? I refuse to live in Waco, TX, no offense Chip & Joanna.
It is sad that not only are the great cities out of reach, but that entire surrounding regions are now, as well. I find myself daydreaming about some catastrophic event that would reduce the worldwide population by a billion or two so that things will be affordable again. Is that really the only way?
8
Homelessness is a national problem. The people who are homeless in San Francisco could live elsewhere. Creating housing for them in such an expensive city is much more expensive than it would be elsewhere.
The federal government should be their main source of help, and, with that, formulate those policies. Because San Francisco is so wealthy, it could subsidize their upkeep elsewhere.
Very few, if any, communities would be welcoming, but the federal government owns many properties that are underused or vacant, or could be, especially redundant and superannuated military bases.
A sizable % of the homeless have serious mental issues. Decades ago they were confined in mental institutions. I don't think we should return to those days, but much smaller dormitory type houses, perhaps devoted especially to those with similar problems and situations, might be an answer. I think women should probably be given the option of living in female only housing, and possibly even female only communities, too.
8
NIMBYism created this problem. The government should step in and subsidize the housing of massive apartment complexes, like those that exist in Asian cities, in order to bring the market rate for housing to a more acceptable level. Silicon Valley is the engine of the new American economy, we will want as many people as possible living there, and it is only ethical that we do not crush and spit out those who are already on the margins living there while we are in the process of doing so.
London Breed represents the worst of the phony, rich liberals: all about identity politics and fashionable progressivism, that is, until we start talking about income and social class.
5
I think a little socialism is called for here: public housing for the working people and a decent alternative to sidewalk camping for the deeply homeless. With land costs and the opportunity cost of affordable housing, the market cannot help.
This is the time for the cities - and this includes Portland, where I live - to pull up their socks and do what they can, must. Will it cost the taxpayers? You bet! Which taxpayers? That's a political decision. Will the neighborhoods have to help get this done? They will.
The payoff will be a better city for everyone, but it won't be cheap. The alternative is some kind of "Blade Runner" dystopia.
9
One way to take some fuel away from the fire of the expense and crowding in SFO: stop issuing H1-B visas there.
If tech is so dependent on these immigrants, push these people elsewhere and tech will follow. Thereby spreading the wealth around the country and giving those left in SFO a bit more space and a bit less competition for housing.
25
Seattle rents have come down since the city has upzoned and built more housing and apartment units, which Egan ignores. He also incorrectly stated that London Breed is the first African American mayor of San Francisco (Willie Brown was). The true unholy alliance in San Francisco is between anti-NIMBY progressives and wealthy home owners who for different reasons, campaign against upzoning and new housing. The former fear more market rate apartments will lead to more "techies" to move to SF, the latter fear more housing will lower their property values.
As someone who works in tech, the average tech worker is not that wealthy, especially in a city as expensive as SF. The derogatory "techie" term gets old; tech employs people from all backgrounds, people who want a good job and to be part of their communities like anyone else. Asking those who work in tech to leave is not a feasible solution; a much better one would be to build a city that can actually support middle to upper middle class jobs without crowding out teachers, civil servant employees, etc.
The Bay Area needs more housing of all kinds, including market rate, to lower rents and make San Francisco a city for everyone. It's unfortunate that the NYT continues to publish pieces that ignore the evidence in Seattle, New York City, Washington DC and elsewhere that demonstrate again and again that building more housing decreases prices.
8
The advent of short term rentals available online has shut down the entire year round housing market in any place desirable to visit. From Cape Cod and Key West to the San Juan Islands and San Diego, it's all listed on AirBnb and dozens of other similar online, vacation home rental sites.
No one making under 117,000 annually can afford to live in a lot of places, not just SF alone.
14
This is a poor campaign from just another old NIMBY. The solution to SF housing crisis is clear: build more housing. Half the city proper is zoned for single family houses. You can upzone a significant part of the city without "destroying character." Not meeting the demand for housing only serves the homeowner, at the expense of the working citizen.
5
Where would we build in San Francisco? There's only so much space and much of it is being rapidly filled by high-rises that are unoccupied. The same is true for Berkeley, where condos are popping up and only the people employed by the firms who offer unrealistic salaries compared to the norm in the San Francisco Bay Area can afford them. Affordable housing for families seems to be a distant dream, as are affordable apartments and homes for the homeless who come to the San Francisco Bay Area because, like so many others, just want to live here.
8
Too many people (TMP). As the world wide population rapidly expands and we continue to accept many millions more into our nation annually, we can only expect this to continue. A human life does not matter in this country anymore, not unlike a third world one. I never thought this would happen within my lifetime but here we are. We have become the world's richest third world nation.
18
I used to live in the Bay Area (Berkeley). I could gas on forever on this subject but will restrain myself by making one point: disaggregate the phenomenon of "homelessness" there. The homelessness caused by economic factors can be (partially) resolved by building more housing, rent control, affordable speed rail, and "creative" solutions (um, how about 3 monster-sized cruise ships docked at the old, unused SF wharves?). The homelessness that drives everyone crazy, however, is primarily caused by "cultural" factors and has plagued West Coast cities, especially SF, since the "1960s." It's primarily a problem of druggies, alchies, runaways, and crazies who can't or won't live in shelters or in places that aren't hip and drug infested. The problem persists because cities like SF, Berkeley, Oakland (and probably Seattle, LA, and Portland) won't do what the boring suburbs in their hinterland do: write and uphold vagrancy laws. California cities have a unique problem with vagrancy because they are a magnet for wanderers and have weather that permits people to survive outdoors even in winter. When a new sort of politician began to run these cities, they conflated the various strains of homelessness and presumed that anyone who complained about Deadheads sleeping on their front steps was morally unenlightened and probably "conservative." This particular strain of homelessness long predated the crazy times of the tech revolution and increasing income gap.
47
San Francisco is a filthy mess right now. Places that ought to be really nice are covered with litter and human waste. Rarely do I see someone cleaning the sidewalk in front of their place. I see the residents go about the city with glazed and disassociated looks in their eyes, like they are guest visitors with no civic responsibilities. I'd like to see each block held responsible for it's own cleanliness. As for the homeless, mostly those still left on the streets (many of the homeless who are more competent have been helped to housing) are severely mentally ill, left to beat the buildings with metal pipes or stand in traffic and scream their heads off, at will. If the new mayor can improve the situation there it would be a big relief to those of us who love the city.
9
Mr. Egan, your column lacks the specifics you ask for. People will solve this for themselves, as usual. They won't move to SF if they don't like it there, and people already there can move if they like. Same goes for Seattle. What else is new?
Think for yourself?
1
So how do the costal elites and the liberal Dems answer this? After all they are the party of inclusion, right? They condemn the 2%ers yet they feel perfectly fine eating a $16 side of brussels sprouts while the homeless sit on the other side of the glass looking in. It's time that the cultural elite start to walk their talk. Too many people want to be a Democrat in theory, but not in practice.
18
This is the result of winner-take-all politics. Read the book.
2
However for all of you 'out of towner's' ... you gotta see what what kind of home / Condo $1.2M buys.
Hint: not much [& probably needs work].
Suggestions for home shoppers: bring money [lots] & wear a coat [it is Summer time.]
2
Love your columns, Mr. Egan. But you wrote this:
"An unholy alliance of socialists and developers threatens to destroy the city’s single-family neighborhoods with a major upzoning — further disrupting trust between residents and politicians."
Former Seattlite here. You sound totally clueless as to what ails the housing situation in Seattle. The biggest problem is nimbyism. Those single family homes you wax on about - guess how many cars they all have? And the upzoing is annoying, yes, but what is the alternative? LA 2.0? Not, that's not it.
One problem is that Seattle turned it back on robust public transit in the 1990s. Now close neighborhoods are traffic choked; housing w/in a decent commute unaffordable; and the long-time townies angry the newcomers are ruining everything and are, therefore, intractable.
The homelessness is a huge problem. And btw, the Biz tax, Amazon would've paid a "paltry" $180M or something, would go a long way to alleviate things. 'Lest we forget, and you fail to mention: Washington state has NO state income tax. So excuse me if I have trouble feeling sorry for Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing and the like that have been feeding at the trough for decades.
Forward thinking; indeed.
12
Dear Mr. Egan, You had me up until you said of San Francisco, "But by midcentury, it was THE American city, birthplace of the United Nations." Are you...serious?
2
This article is packed with West-coast factoids that the writer, a West-coaster, does not deign to explain or back-up with citations. For instance, we, the readers of a East-coast paper, are supposed to know what he means when referring to Seattle's "ideologically driven City Council" (really? How so?) and the schemes they "dream up...to anger residents" (Intriguing! Like what, for instance?) while also letting "the homeless have the run of the place" (You don't say? Tell me more!). We all heard about Amazon got the homeless tax overturned, what else was there?
He then of course goes on to rail about how this all has something to do with the dastardly deeds of "socialists". Sigh. And what, things are not that bad in SF because back in the olden days homelessness was worse when half the city burnt down??? Oy!
This reads like a senior-citizen ranting in a small-town paper....or little better than something written in the Comments section :)
10
This article highlights just how much the "wealth gap" has been oversimplified in the press. According to the World Top Incomes Database, a household income of about $113,000 lands you at the top ten percent of US earners - that is, among the "new aristocracy" that The Atlantic magazine just criticized. But this article points out that in San Francisco, as in many of the other cities that workers need to live in to have access to a six-figure salary, the cost of living is so high that a $117,000 salary actually qualifies a family as low-income. Costs in the city and non-city economies are so out of whack that they are essentially parallel universes that should never be compared as apple to apple. But none of the current diatribes about class privilege seem to take this into account. And rather than appreciate how varied the forms of economic hardship in this country have become, a simplistic us-vs-them, "rich" vs poor mentality has developed around a set of numbers and phrases - the 9.9 percent, or the 20 percent, or the educated elite - that by themselves don't reveal very much about financial security.
3
London Breed is another SF Progressive, promising, as they all do, to solve the homeless problem. And, as with all of them, she won't. SF is paradise to the homeless, they come here from all over the US when they discover the rather amazing support system that exists here.
Breed apparently assumes that giving housing to people won't attract people.
7
The article seems very high on criticism and very short on positive ideas.
8
Indeed.
In fact, the one solution that we KNOW would work - building more housing - is dismissed as "An unholy alliance of socialists and developers".
Why? Because the wealthy people who already live in Seattle and SF single-family houses want to exclude anybody else from moving there, other than the ultra-wealthy who can also afford single family houses in a city.
The solution is simple. Build more housing. Lots more. If you don't support more housing (because you want to "maintain neighbor character" or whatever), then you NECESSARILY support ultra-high inequality.
3
So what are the 1% to do when all the maids, gardeners, garbage collectors, waiters/waitresses, fruit pickers, cashiers, janitors, dish washers, dog walkers, plumbers, mechanics, etc all move away?
10
The1% are probably financing research into robots to do that kind of work.
4
Single-family neighborhoods are sprawl which doesn't belong in cities. There's nothing "unholy" about upzoning it, unless you are a current owner happy about cashing in the bubble created by artificial restrictions on density.
7
So families that have lived here for many years or even generations should just have their homes condemned?
San Francisco simply can't afford to have more people crowding in, regardless of whether they build up or not.
15
In the 80s and early 90s, I lived in a beautiful but reasonably priced apartment ($900) in the heart of Union Square in San Francisco. One afternoon as I walked home from my office at the foot of Market Street, I counted no less than twenty panhandlers who approached me. On another afternoon, I watched in horror as a young woman pedestrian, just ten steps ahead of me, was plowed down on the sidewalk by a bike messenger with a Mohawk. At that point, I sensed that the City was becoming dangerous and unlivable. and I wisely moved back across the country. I have never looked back.
21
When I was a high tech engineer in Silicon Valley (Yea, Sunnyvale) in the ‘80’s the saying was that if you moved out you would never move back. I loved the environment and the diversity, but every year the housing prices jumped up and up and up. I thought that sooner or later the area would run out of rich people, but over almost 60 years it hasn’t. I had to move out when the semiconductor industry moved and I discovered my new paradise, Portland OR, which is now going up like the whole west coast. You may not be able to live where you think you want to, but I am sure there are lots of other paradises out there for people if they are just open minded and not forced to move like me. Look around, explore and be surprised!
PS - Concerning diversity - when I was working in SV I was usually one of the few white males in the work group and I loved my intelligent, interesting, and hard working coworkers. They made me better than I might have been. When I visit SV and I am in a public space surrounded by people of the world I feel happy and at home. Be not afraid, life is a smorgasbord!
2
The answer really is quite simple. Taxation. Tax the hugely high earners and very wealthy at meaningful rates. Redistribute and make life better for a much greater percentage of the population. It is not just a problem on the west coast of the United States but also the UK (on a smaller scale) and throughout the world. Remove tax loopholes and incentivise companies that pay their employees proper living wages. It's unconscionable that the Walton billionaires, for example, benefit from an organisation in which employees depend on medicaid and food stamps because they are not paid enough. At the present time unlikely of course. But societies go through cycles, we are due a huge correction and whatever might trigger it will take us by surprise.
37
You might want to familiarize yourself with taxation in California. It's the highest in the country other than New York State. The governor has said that the state could go bankrupt when the next recession hits, and that the state pension system will go into default.
4
The claim that property taxes remain unchanged is false. Property taxes in California can go up 2% per year, and in most years, they do so, so the claim that property taxes remain unchanged in incorrect. I have lived in the same place for 25 years, and my property taxes have more than doubled. The price of the house has fluctuated, and at this time it also has doubled, but given the ups and downs of the market, the house price and property tax are pretty much in line. With the Trump changes in federal taxes, the deduction of state and local taxes will not be allowed, so the property tax will be more heavily felt by many Californians. Finally, parcel taxes have been voted in many localities since 1978's prop 13, so these taxes also have increased property taxes.
7
It looks as though Ms. London Breed has her work cut out for her, as the gentrification of a great city, San Francisco, is causing unbound stress, and resentment, to it's 'natives', being ousted out by prohibitive expenses, making it near impossible to sustain a living there. Her intention to restore social justice by providing Housing to the homeless is a superb act of will, and demanding dedicated courage, hard work and perseverance. Without intending to muddy the waters by pessimism, may I dare say that from saying something, to doing it, there is a long stretch? Besides a true commitment of the powers to be, much luck will be needed to avoid complacency traps along the way.
1
I have lived now some 43 years in Seattle. When I first moved here from the San Francisco Bay area my friends would refer to Seattle as a quaint fishing village. The city sold its soul first to the internet boom and now to the Microsofties and Amabots. You don't dial back $20 hamburgers and one bedroom apartments averaging over $2,000 a month rent. Personally I like the discomfort that the many homeless encampments seem to cause the many affluent techies here. It acts as a reminder that the city is not their private Disneyland. It remains to be seen what they choose to do about it as their numbers grow as do those of the homeless. Will kindness replace anger and hostility.
38
If you like homeless encampments then it's obvious you don't live near one and you especially don't live in one. The problem is dire in Seattle, just as the problems caused by the homeless are. Do you also like the discomfort caused by needles and human feces found in city parks? Or having your kids use restrooms at certain library branches where special needle disposal containers adorn the walls? Any attempt to enforce the law on homeless people is met by the city council as "criminalizing poverty and homelessness." For every deserving homeless person who just needs a financial leg up to get them back into the mainstream, there are several who don't want to detox, get mental health treatment or, heaven forbid, a job.
20
When we married, left NYC and moved to Seattle in 1971, we paid $100/mo. rent (plus $10 for furniture), avg. electric bills of $7/mo (hydro power), were able to drive & park w/o traffic jams (no public transit except buses), and lived on bout $12,000/yr. My husband "matched" for his medical residency in Chicago, so we moved here in 1978--and promptly got sticker shock at how much more it cost to live here (and how insanely expensive it'd have been had he "matched" in NYC instead). Ten years later we returned to Seattle for vacation--the city was more sophisticated, hipper, with a tram line...and unbelievable traffic jams and high prices everywhere. Especially the E. Side of the lake, where the population had tripled and not one new road had been built.
We've always dreamed about being able to retire to the PNW, but it looks like we'll just have to get used to the flatlands, tropical summers & arctic winters here...and the diversity, affordability, efficient public transit and slowly unfurling beauty of Chicago. Only hope that traveling to the PNW & Bay Area will still be affordable, if only for a week at a time.
5
Chicago is a nice place to live. I'm afraid of gentrification, but hope to stay ahead of it, myself. It's a great place to retire to. There's a wide variety of people in my coop building, which has large rooms and one, two and three bedroom units. Necessary renovations will be causing increases in our assessments.
1
Mr. Egan, a very astute observation of life in the U S of A! In my corner of the world , Boston metro used to be home to lots of people that could afford it. No More. The wealthy have taken over. The gap between the lucky club members that were born on 3rd bas ( and were told they hit a triple) and the folks whose parents helped them get to the batter's box ( although surrounded by college debt) is expanding faster then we can erase the debts. If you career choice is service - police, fire, nursing, child and senior care you can not live in the communities you are asked to serve. It is difficult to commute to those towns, what with all the Mercedes, BMW's and Tesla blocking the way. it is sad, and all I can say is what happened? VOTE!!!
7
California and San Francisco in particular, have creating a system that will preclude for the next hundred years anyone "solving" the problem.
The restriction of building to meet demand via zoning has driven the price of everything way up. It is in fact a government subsidy for the those that own property.
The problem is that the financial system, mainly the secondary mortgage markets and all the equity groups, pensions, and the like cannot allow for a large scale increase in housing stock to get prices lower. If they did, their portfolio's value would tank and they will not stand for that. Most people are not saving a dime, even those well heeled kids in Silicon Valley. They just buy big expensive houses.
Given the financial straight jacket we have created, there is no way to build more housing to deal with the problem.
The only thing that could work, and it is not politically achievable, is to place a price control on all existing property on the West Coast. No appreciation beyond the CPI. Then up zone like crazy even if people don't like it. Over 20 or 30 years with general inflation the supply - price come into parity and the controls could be lifted as long as we keep demanding supply meet demand.
Our new Mayor and the people I have talked with at Sacramento are sticking their heads in the sand if they think that can do anything to solve the problem using anything that has been done in the past. They are lying to themselves and the rest of us.
3
I live in Seattle. It has become a meme to refer to our city council as socialists in alliance with developers. But here on the ground, the council looks more like a bunch of craven capitalists, who have enabled greedy developers to conduct a successful campaign to replace affordable rental and ownership units with luxury units targeted at the influx of Amazon tech workers with six figure salaries. Council has done nothing to constrain the runaway housing market, unlike their peers up I5 in Vancouver. They're are no atheists in the trenches, and no socialists when developers pull out their checkbooks.
27
60% of Seattle residents opposed that tax. It didn't just target Amazon, but some 500 other companies, most of which aren't sitting on an Amazonian pile of cash. As Mr. Egan points out, it wasn't an income tax, but rather a tax on jobs. It would have been passed on to employees, and not paid for out of company profits.
7
What's needed is the equivalent of the Kowloon Walled City. With something like that, the poor could be housed in very high density in a very small space . The poor would then have a place to exist and they would be available for employment in service to wealthier residents of the area. This solution would be relatively low cost and it would help to clear the streets of the of the unsightly, sometimes dangerous poor. Disease control would also be easier. These benefits would help to protect tourism and to ensure that the well-off would feel secure while enjoying the benefits of the city. I assume that there must be some brownfield areas around San Fran that are not suitable for other purposes that could be used as the site for such a project. This type of project - because of its likely excellent cost/benefit ratio would likely get strong backing from HUD in a Republican administration. What's not to like?
8
I hope this was intended as sarcasm, because if you did you hit it out of the park.
5
:-) Nailed the Republicans to it too with a credible reference to them.
1
Interesting essay, but what can most of us do as individuals.
Most aren't going to live in SF or Manhattan in the home or apartment we'd like.
You go where jobs are (that you qualify for) and live in a place that's affordable for you.
Mass transit definitely helps, and gov everywhere should pay for its expansion, as many have already noted.
But no matter what, most of us have a long list of grievances and endlessly wish we had that magic wand that would magically fix the endless list of problems, injustices and inequalities we all face to some degree, some of us of course have it much worse than others.
So Yes, vote for politicians that hopefully will try to incrementally improve things, little by little, for a majority.
In the meantime, you adjust to the world as it is, it doesn't adjust to you (unless it somehow happens over decades).
Each of us has to plan accordingly and largely get what we need through self effort, creativity and knowledge.
Good luck, we all need it. And if we wait for "society" or the government to provide it, we'll likely wait forever.
3
Greater Boston, please take note. We're already on the slippery slope toward irreversible housing dysfunction. The destination not only looks bad for us, but more so for all the creative talent that might otherwise contemplate moving here, with or without Amazon HQ2.
Hey, I'm all right; I've got my share of the rock. But I'm not all right if my hard working successors can't make their homes here.
6
Dear Timothy,
When developers and socialists are on the same page, perhaps you shouldn't so quickly dismiss what they are saying. Perhaps when there is a crisis of too much demand and not enough supply of housing, it is necessary to build more housing? Just a thought. I know it sounds a little crazy, but it actually does work. Take a look at Houston, where housing prices remain comfortably low. In San Francisco, building a lot more housing will require building upwards. Neighborhoods will change. But that is how it works -- if you DON'T build enough, neighborhoods change too, and in an even less appealing way, as everyone gets priced out of the existing housing stock except the rich who buy it up at exorbitant prices. That's also a form of change, and not a good one.
Ironically, sometimes it takes a socialist to understand capitalism -- supply and demand -- well enough to solve a clear problem of market failure. Time to build some housing!
- A Texan
7
JR, San Francisco square miles 47, Houston 627.
- A Pennsylvanian
12
And built in a swamp constantly threatened with flooding during any unusual rain event. Even has housing tracts built inside of flood control reservoirs. And virtually no zoning.
2
Houston has huge traffic problems and horrible weather. Housing prices are low because developers just keep building outward even on land at danger of flooding. No public transportation planning at all.
5
A key component of Seattle’s current crisis arose because of its peculiar historical aversion to public transport: it is virtually impossible to live in an affordable area and hope to keep a job in the city. Hours-long commutes, complete with bottle-necking bridges everywhere, severely degrade quality of life esp. for low income residents who don’t have the option to move closer. A light rail system is finally under construction, but it is too little, too late, and because of Seattle’s growth, carries a jaw-dropping price tag. We are, and will be paying for this oversight for a very long time.
13
The only real solution is for companies to move jobs to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Baltimore etc. Those places would blossom and the "elite cities" might become a little more manageable.
There is no way cities like NYC, LA and SF can possibly build enough housing to accommodate all the people who want to live there. As it is now, these are pretty Darwinian places to live, and no one really wins.
27
I'm 73, and a native of the Peninsula (San Carlos...my parents bought our house in the summer of 1941 for $8,000; they were moving south from the foggy Avenues). I would take the Southern Pacific [train] to meet my father in the City where he worked for PT&T. After window shopping, we would go to dinner at the Wharf.
Now that I've established my bona fides, let me say that this article breaks my heart. I feel like Edward G. Robinson in 'Soylent Green' moving along to his death while watching idyllic scenes of the days before.
56
I am 72 and a native of San Diego. I bought my house in 1980 and also find this article saddening. Neither my brother, many years younger than I, nor his children can afford to buy a home in San Diego County let alone the city of San Diego. E.G. Robinson's dystopia seems emblematic of coastal California's future. Perhaps also a bow to Blade Runner.
8
It would probably be a good idea for our own urban planners to study the works of the greatest urban planners in history, the ancient Romans.
With the exception of the City of Rome, all Roman cities were planned to accommodate not only the rich, but the middle class and low-income people who were also necessary to allow a city to function. Cities do not survive by being peopled by only the rich, and if all communities are gated communities, where will those who live there go for leisure or recreation?
This is a huge problem, complicated by the greed of landlords and NIMBYism, among other problems. It will take great cooperation to fix it, and in this day and age cooperation is not something Americans are good at.
4
Egan has already identified the root of the problem: "not everyone who wants to live there can." What we are dealing with is simple laws of supply and demand.
Certainly we can improve the situation - for example taxing pied au terres or adding a speculation tax for people who buy and quickly flip homes. But as Egan noted, supply simply can't keep up with demand even in places like Seattle that have experienced a construction boom.
At least here in NYC, I suspect that much of the problem is that we have neither full government control of the housing market nor full market control of the housing supply. Vast chunks of land are tied up in NYCHA projects and many other apartments are either rent controlled or rent stabilized. Yet a majority of apartments are subject to market rate and landlords and developers are consistently trying to get rent stabilized and controlled apartments back to market rates via a series of loopholes.
We must either fully embrace market principles or fully embrace state control of housing rates. Eliminating much of the city funded housing and city control of rental rates would lower taxes and flood the market rate supply driving down average rental rates for those paying market rates. This would be a boon to the middle class - the true economic engine of the city. Alternatively, full control of rental rates would bring prices down (albeit artificially) but would probably also cause construction to dry up and apartment quality to drop even further.
2
Nearly every new construction I have seen over the past few years is for upper income renters/buyers. Builders have long realized that the benefits in focusing on 'luxury' housing. Tax abatement, financing, and streamlined permits/licensing. It takes years for a few hundred affordable housing units to be completed, but the luxury housing goes up a flash.
People who want to live close to the jobs and action of the city will pay. That's why many people have roommates or live in partners. Those who can't afford to live closer even with shared expenses, have 1-2 hour commutes (with delays more than half the time) to work from the recesses of the outer boroughs. The bulk of the jobs in Manhattan do not pay enough for most workers to live in the city, and that includes the boroughs. It's $1000+ per month to rent a room in Bed Stuy Brooklyn. About $900 a month in the Bronx. Many apartment advertisements are seeking roommates. Singles in San Fran are paying about 2K per month to live in dorm style housing.
If this is the future of housing in major cities, we must completely change how we think of 'affordable housing,' which is really a matter of percentages because cost of living and salaries vary so greatly within and across regions.
2
I grew up in the South Bay and still live here. It literally costs anywhere from $2300-3500 to rent a 1 bedroom apartment - pricing out anyone who does not work in tech or who isn't willing to live with 6 people in a 2 bed apartment. Even for those of us in tech, with rent so high, there isn't that much $ left over to enjoy life.
The high cost of housing, along with punitive tax reforms from Trump to punish the east and west costs will push CA and other high cost states over the edge. People are leaving the state in droves and new families are uncomfortable to move here.
Many of us are waiting for a market correction.
12
If I hear one more person claim that "people are leaving [California] in droves," my head is going to explode. California adds to its population *every year.* In 2017, it added 309,000 people, and by the end of this year, the state's population will grow to more than 40 million. This is not a comment on Egan's piece or the current debate about housing, homelessness, affordability, etc., all of which I think is healthy and necessary. I'm just saying, enough with the "people are leaving in droves" crap. It simply ain't true and never has been.
5
This is why the Midwest is a much better place to live. Any of our cities, with the possible exception of Chicago, offers housing at prices accessible by people who earn a living here.
Those $300,000 salaries at Google (how long will they last?) don't buy a high standard of living.
We have slums and homeless, but middle class people don't have to live there. Outside the slums there isn't much violent crime. Public schools are reasonably good in the suburbs. Not paradise, but a lot better than the West or Northeast coasts.
9
Oh, but the lousy weather. Midwesterner here ... and winter fills me with dread.
1
Timothy Egan is a great journalist and has done invaluable work in chronicling and contextualising America's troubled relationship to its rich, but increasingly devastated natural environment.
But we all make mistakes here and there.
Actually, London Breed is the second African-American to hold the mayor's office in San Francisco; Willie Brown was the first, occupying City Hall from 1996-2004.
21
Finger pointing and ideological bickering will not address our deteriorating infrastructure. Our cities are too important to delay a change of course and government must lead the way. We need coordinated city planning and investment that includes new low- and middle-income housing, high-speed mass transit, schools, public areas, etc., etc.
The private sector does not have the power to do any of this, but will eventually suffer if we continue bandaging the problems with short-term policies. Hope is not a strategy, and we need local, state and national leadership cooperating to develop a long-term plan.
2
I usually love Timothy Egan’s work, but he gets off track here.
First, in arguing against increasing the supply of housing in Seattle, he writes that “The city has built more new units of housing in the last five years than in the prior half-century,” yet prices continue to climb. This is statistical sleight of hand. The vast majority of new housing units in Seattle have been rental units; very few new condos and single family homes have come on the market, so these two facts (lots of new units and wildly increasing prices) are describing two entirely different markets.
Second, Egan complains about a proposal that will, apocalyptically, “destroy the city’s single-family neighborhoods.” In fact, the proposal seeks simply to make backyard cottages easier to build, and would result in an increase of 1400 extra additional dwelling units in ten years. That’s in a city with 135,000 single family homes. Somehow, it’s hard to believe that one percent of houses with adorable tiny homes in their back yards will threaten the very fabric of civilization.
15
No, actually, if you read the HALA, the city wants to allow triplexes where there are now single family residential homes, they are allowing condos to be built on single family lots. And they are allowing McMansions to be built covering whole lots, leaving no trees, yards or green space. Take a look at Ballard, where the condo and hgih-rise apartment construction have totally scragged the neighborhood, destroyed neighborhoods and walkability, and cut off the view of the mountains and water. Ugly and inhumane. This is happening all over the city, except for the few places the ultrarich have their mansions.
2
The city backed off its original HALA plan to allow multiple units on a lot. The only current proposal has to do with ADUs (additional dwelling units). The reason you see those new giant houses is that the longstanding building codes allow for them, and the land has become so valuable that it makes economic sense to build as large a house as allowable by law. What’s happened in Ballard has nothing to do with single family zoning; again, longstanding codes allow for large, multi-unit buildings in commercial zones.
"She [Mayor Breed] may not be ready to utter a hard truth that some residents already have: that not everyone who wants to live there can."
-------
There's another hard truth that none of our politicians wants to utter (or accept), either: We can't have endless population growth in San Francisco and the larger Bay Area. Not every company who wants to start up or expand can be here, and cities shouldn't be giving them tax breaks in order to encourage them. San Francisco under the last mayor bent over backwards to encourage tech companies to move here. And now we're paying the price.
Unfortunately, it's ordinary citizens, many who have lived here their entire lives, who are the ones bearing the burden via water restrictions, horrendous traffic, air pollution, and more. The newcomers don't seem to notice. They think the present situation is just normal.
46
A "new urbanism" in the US or Canada (does Mr Egan realize that we've already had New Urbanism?) will do nothing to solve our cities' problems with affordability, unless there is a willingness to socialize housing on a dramatic scale.
As another commenter here put it, this is a massive economic problem and the specific symptom in question here --unaffordability--is the expression of a sick economic system that is too large for an individual city or region to take on on its own. After a few decades now of neoliberal policy, cities have been largely abandoned by upper levels of government, who have offloaded many of their prior responsibilities, leaving cities little choice but to raise revenue as they can--through real estate. How, then, can a city forego those revenues? Vancouver is a perfect example of this trap: it has to "solve" homelessness almost on its own. That's expensive. And how does it raise the money to build the housing that is needed? Taxes on developments.
And thus the cycle turns.
7
"Neoliberal"... LOL
This is the result of vulture capitalism, pure and simple. Sanctioning greed is what creates the "wealth gap".
3
Tax policy plays a major role in the problems of the Bay Area. Since Prop. 13, real estate taxes are almost fixed while you own a house, but jump to current rates when the house is sold. For a recently sold house, the property tax went from $8800/yr for the old residents to about $30,000/yr for the new residents. This tax system encourages people not to move which puts an enormous strain on the transportation system and keeps houses off the market.
The lack of a federal estate tax also magnifies the problem. Many houses were purchased 30 or 40 years ago and have appreciated by a large sum. I've spoken with several elderly folks who would like to sell their houses but don't because if they hold on until they die, their children will be able to sell the house without paying any tax since the basis resets on inheritance.
5
I've lived in San Francisco now for five years (for a non-tech job) & previously I lived in NYC for ten years. When I hear people say "how is it different than NY?" I could go on for days.
A few things to note:
1. In NYC you can live in another borough & find affordable housing. My brother & sister in law are on two city incomes and were able to afford a co-op in Queens. In San Francisco, you can maybe find a 2 bedroom fixer upper for about 1 million. A studio on my block just sold for $750K. That's insane.
2. There aren't other boroughs here in San Francisco. There are towns over bridges or south of the city where housing is also just as expensive.
3. NYC has an unparalleled transit system (hold your complaints). San Francisco has BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) - that is neither rapid or convenient. There are very limited routes which has most people resort to sitting in cars in an already congested city.
4. The homeless population in San Francisco is quite aggressive and will get in your face. In all the years in NYC I never felt unsafe. There are areas you avoid, but in San Francisco it is a crap-shoot from block to block. My car has been vandalized, bike has been stolen, & storage unit has been broken into. My building in Pacific Heights (rent-controlled) often will have needles and crack pipes outside.
That said I am trying to find where to next. It's a sad story as it was once one of my favorite cities & it has just gone to the dumps. I
49
Whatever you do, don't move to Seattle.
6
I love Seattle for a day or two, but I won't be moving there. Likely back to NY.
Almost 30,000 car break-ins occur annually in SF. It's particularly bad in public parking lots/garages in areas that tourists frequent, like Fisherman's Wharf and downtown. I never park my car in a public garage and leave my overnight bag or laptop in the locked trunk because of the potential for break-ins and theft.
1
I was born in the city. I bought my first home when I was 19 and going to UC. I worked full time as a union-wage grocery clerk, and SF was still essentially a blue collar town with canning factories, ship building, and the regular elites who viewed the rest of us as cattle. The home was $17,340, in a good neighborhood. No one could manage that now, especially because union wage jobs have been eliminated as part of the global economy and other capitalist-driven misinformation (can I just call it crap?). The only way young people get a home here now is when a parent or grandparent dies, and then only because of the legacy of Prop 13 that keeps property taxes almost unchanged.
A friend just rented a studio in a fancy desirable neighborhood, for $4100 a month. The homeless defecate on the sidewalk in front of the building, even as dog owners clean up their pet's mess, and if someone dares to voice opposition to this the Progressives shout them down as haters.
I have no real idea how this city became so divided and engaged in hyper class warfare. I do sort of. We let unbridled wealth corrupt us, and economic worries blotted out more humanitarian thoughts about helping those on the street (many of whom are addicted to drugs/alcohol or mentally ill - thanks Ronald Reagan).
The City will survive, but the people aren't doing so well at the moment.
81
Unless he bought his first house in San Francisco at the age of 19 as a college student and grocery store clerk in 1940 I find this post really hard to believe. Even union paid grocery store jobs wouldn't allow a new hire (19 yrs old) the salary to buy a house in S.F. in the last 50 years.
3
1973, local 648 journeyman wages were $9.00 an hour and overtime was plentiful. West Portal homes were available to workers. The same houses are usually about 1.5 now. You could afford the mortgage with 1 check a month, with overtime and the other check. also, in 1973 UC tuition was about 1k a year (it used to be free).
2
So exactly what was or is the purpose of this article. Any new ideas in here? Well no. Is it just another daily reminder of "we need to do something". I know let's tax the people who are making it and then filter the money down to those who are not making it. Still not enough, well let's tax them some more because that will surely help. Let's build little houses; let's rezone and eliminate the areas residents ability to control what and how much can be constructed and where that will surely help.
At the end of the day the only thing that matters is money. If you have it live in Medina, if not live in a box. This is surely going to continue until it all collapses.
3
If it doesn't make financial sense to live where you're at why live there? All these great firms in SF and NYC obviously pay management but how about the people actually doing the work. Engineering became so competitive in the eighties and nineties it virtual left the NYC. It headed south where and I followed it. Most of the time I was making more and saving more with a much cheaper cost of living. Those jobs are now going to h1-b's and leaving the country.
Can a city survive on trust fund babies? Continue building palaces for the wealthy and leave nothing for the rest? As you're celebrating your self worth, your financial, educational and moral
superiority, benefiting from a rigged economic system you might find out you priced yourself out of the economy looking for cheap labor elsewhere. Not tied to archaic notions like patriotism and nationhood you should do well.
10
The more ominous reality of California's housing is the increase in private investment firm ownership of what were once single family homes. The fall out of the 2009 Recession provided an investment opportunity for big institutional money. This isn't responsible for the high price of housing in coastal cities, but Central Valley cities, with more affordable markets, show surprisingly high percentages of investor rental ownership.
CalMatters.org covers the consolidation of real estate into portfolios. https://tinyurl.com/y8qpvphf
16
One more thought. I wonder if Jeff Bezos has any ideas about how Amazon could contribute to solutions to some of the problems that they visit on Seattle. Making corporations and financial institutions responsible for dealing with the problems of cities that house them makes sense. That runs against the current rule of maximizing shareholder interests, but why can't corporations like Amazon be good citizens too? Or is the race to the bottom the only way corporate leaders can "contribute" to society?
4
You can't force people or corporations to be "good citizens", nor is it the responsibility of businesses to do what elected government fails to do. Yes, well run businesses can be a positive influence in a community and many actually do voluntarily offer numerous programs and efforts along those lines - but that is not their primary function or responsibility.
Just because Seattle's city government has made a mess of dealing with problems like homelessness is no reason to try to shift the blame or burden on to the private sector.
4
Nonsense. Business should be responsible for the chaos they create and if they don't accept responsibility, they should be taxed for it.
That's what the EPA is to business that pollute... sort of a corporate conscience.
1
Salt Lake City is in the beginning of a "prosperity crisis" and we residents are still in the shocked stage, I believe. An effort to zone a more dense neighborhood on the west side of the city met with stiff option and the plan was abandoned. Those in control are my generation, the ones who still believe we all want a single family home with lovely lawn surrounding it. My son's generation wants none of that -- an apartment downtown is best. We did take a baby step toward urbanization when a zoning code was changed allowing homes in the suburbs to build a "mother-in-law apartment" on the property.
The rents on a one bedroom are now over $1000 a month, even though there are thousands of units being built. Supply still hasn't overtaken demand so rents go up.
Those who can't live on the west coast are discovering that Salt Lake City is a very attractive alternative. Tech companies are flowing in.
And the homeless are increasing, both in number and visibility. A solution, in part, is mandated high minimum wages. I also suggest a mandated maximum wage -- something like 250 times the lowest paid wage of it employees for corporate heads.
4
The "citizens revolt" against new taxes in Seattle wasn't led by individual citizens, or even small business owners. It was led by Amazon, with an assist from Microsoft. These corporations pay very little in taxes, providing their host cities with almost no support for the infrastructure on which they depend. And they indisputably impact the housing market, again without providing any support to keep the teachers, firefighters, sanitation workers and so on they need housed. It's not ideologically driven to propose these companies return a tiny portion of their profits to Seattle. Nor is it ideologically driven to suggest that a city comprised mostly of single family houses may need to invest in higher-density housing (and the infrastructure necessary to support it). When coupled with strong affordability requirements, such housing keeps cities functioning.
This column criticizes raising taxes, casts doubt on the feasibility of higher density urban centers, derides the Seattle city council for its concern for working class Seattle residents, and fails to suggest any solutions for "golden ghettos" outside of proposing that not all will be able to live in them. Yet it's impossible for these cities to exist without the middle and working class residents who teach your children, fix your cars, sell your groceries, and so on. Nor can these workers do these jobs and commute hours every day.
9
Good column. What's interesting is the lack of suggestions about what to do about the problems. Portland has some good ideas. Urban growth boundaries, encouraging density, investment in public transit. NYC controlled housing prices in the mid-20th century, and that worked until we turned the city over to real estate speculators. Rent-control makes sense along the West Coast. Taxing speculation would help. Another interesting aspect of this column is slam on socialists. Usually these comments don't sit well with me -- who created all our problems? Certainly not "socialists." At least in Seattle there is a left-ish City Council, so yes, a little bit of the blame for hare-brained schemes can go to them. But, the policies and values which creates West Coast urban problems come from other quarters. Look to Portland, Europe and Scandinavia, and the Roosevelt era for ideas on how to deal with them.
4
There are no easy solutions to high cost of living and homelessness or they would have been done already. Homeless people need a place to clean themselves and go to the bathroom. There must be a way to accomplish this first in the short term. Housing all the homeless is a long term unrealistic prospect. If a city houses all the homeless a new wave of unfortunate people will move to the city for free housing.
Homelessness is a national problem, many of San Diego's homeless are from other parts of the country. We need federal funding for homeless basic sanitation and hygiene needs.
11
Salt Lake City is experiencing a similar phenomenon. We're expected to double our population within the next few years. This is both internal growth and migration. We also have a giant medical industry. If you're familiar with "Match Day," you'll know what happens to the housing supply every year. Good luck. There simply isn't enough housing.
Unlike Seattle though, there is no unholy alliance between socialists and developers. There's developers and the people who can't afford to rent what they're building anyway. What we have is a hodgepodge of medium rise condo apartments going up. The units are never for sale either. Lease only. Whoever owns the building is interested in sustained income rather than money storage. The units do fill too.
The problem is the construction typically rents for around $1,800-$2400 a month as a baseline. That basically leaves anyone below the upper quartile in a tough place. The solution so far has been "mother-in-law" apartments, low-rise apartments, and converted single-families. Naturally, this practice disrupts the cohesiveness of regular single-family neighborhoods and we experience homelessness anyway.
The public officials responsible for the development have an overall plan to address the situation. The problem is development requires property; property owners aren't all willing to sell their property at the same time. This is probably going to take 30 years to fully resolve. Until then, the answer is essentially tough luck.
4
The simple fact of the matter is that San Francisco and all the other impacted cities are never going to be the places they once were. And, these cities will never be affordable to many people that used to be able to live there. There is not enough creativity in the world to make a place financially welcoming to all who want to come. The balancing act between Business, Citizens, Homeless citizens etc... is beyond point of balance. That is just the way it is. Everything that is done at this point are merely bandaids on an over taxed and aged infrastructure. This world is not up to the task of doing the things it would need to do to truly make it better.
6
Nothing to worry about. The meltdown is coming. You heard it here first.
7
Ah good old capitalism. Gotta luv it!
2
How is this different from New York? Sure, you don't live there, but the paper you write for is.
9
Amen!
1
The problem is "rent." And the solution, as Keynes said, is to euthanize the rentier. A Henry George land value tax would help. Public housing ala Red Vienna would also be a solution. But when God is The Market, you are damned.
6
Your choices:
1. Status quo. Multi-millionaires in a gated community surrounded by the homeless.
2. High density housing (high rises) and massive investment in high capacity public transit. San Francisco becomes Manhattan.
3. There is no option 3.
Building a little "affordable housing" is a drop in the ocean. Rent control pampers those already in place, while solving nothing for the young and new to town. Only massive private investment in high density housing and public investment in infrastructure can solve the problem. San Francisco (and Seattle, and Vancouver, and LA) will change, either becoming a gated community or becoming Manhattan.
16
It seems that much investment, all cash, is coming into play in many of the real estate transactions. And the places remain empty, since the buyer is usually from another country, and just looking for a place to park the excess money.
17
I'm amazed at how many readers think the problem is due to moral flaws or income inequality. The housing crisis is an economic problem: housing demand far exceeds supply, driving up prices.
Other cities have plenty of affordable housing for working class people because they have plenty of housing. It's that simple. San Francisco in most areas doesn't allow high-rise apartment buildings, so given the constraints of geography it can't have affordable housing.
8
"San Francisco in most areas doesn't allow high-rise apartment buildings, so given the constraints of geography it can't have affordable housing."
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We also don't need to become like Hong Kong. The streets are already jammed with vehicles and the sidewalks with pedestrians.
We simply can't afford to have more people here.
3
You create a liberal paradise and this is what you get. Here in the rural Midwest we may all be deplorable but living is cheap and easy.
12
But it is still the Midwest. Devoid of beaches, clean air and relevance.
15
@Scott F......So true. But there is always a trade off.
The next massive, catastrophic earthquake - and it is coming, sooner or later - will cause many residents and businesses to reassess their desire to be in San Francisco.
24
People always want to talk about public housing as a way to combat the homelessness of outrageously priced places like San Francisco, which has gotten so congested with both cars and homeless people that I don't willingly go there any more, even though it's close by. The fact is, the middle class is gone. Ordinary people can't live there. San Francisco is a nightmare for the middle class these days.
26
Crowded. Absurdly expensive. I think I'll pass.
3
Rising prosperity in America used to be considered a good thing. Now it's all about income inequality because not everyone can afford a luxury condo. Since when has there been income equality in this country -or anywhere? The best we can hope for is that more and more people will share in a measure of the prosperity. We can go all Marxist and denigrate the evil bourgeoisie but that's not going to help the homeless. Honestly, can Democrats ever come up with a positive message or a positive image of the United States? No wonder the Party is so unpopular and losing voters by the hundreds of thousands. It has become the party of cranky geezers and depressed millennials.
6
Why don't we Democrats have a more positive message about this country? Maybe it's because our schools are failing, infrastructure is rotting, income inequality is growing, healthcare bankrupts hardworking families, air, water, banking, and job protections are being gutted, guns are slaughtering innocents, and our democracy has been bought out by a handful of aging oligarchs through the agency of a complicit congress.
But hey, we make some great movies and um...let me try to think of something else.
4
This is the kind of stuff that could get Trump re-elected--the quick increase in socialists in the Democratic party. Apparently, Mayor Breed is not one of them, but so long as private property is not respected and too many have-nots want a redistribution of wealth, we have a big problem in America.
1
The NIMBYs are the problem. Most of San Francisco has absurdly limited building heights, and the South Bay is even worse. Consider that the median price of a house in Palo Alto is over $3 million.
The problem is that the neighborhood NIMBYs have too much power to block development, especially high-density development. Eliminate the limits on development, and the supply will grow to meet the demand. Then the housing prices will return to normal levels.
20
"An unholy alliance of socialists and developers threatens to destroy the city’s single-family neighborhoods with a major upzoning — further disrupting trust between residents and politicians." That's a terrific description. Sanctimony and profiteering are indeed conspiring to destroy single-family neighborhoods. I fully expect eminent domain to become an issue in the near future. If you own a house with a yard in California, be careful who you vote for.
2
"Sanctimony and profiteering". Sounds like a perfect disruption for the new world order.
The same types that march for "social justice" in Washington have created de facto gated communities that have segregated out "the wrong kind" by prices, and then declared that America's "future" lies in "tech" while denigrating those who worked in manufacturing. So, while making themselves feel good about their "social consciousness," the modern day Marie Antoinettes have their cake and eat it, too.
12
A wall -- a big, beautiful wall -- north and west of the Columbia River? A truly great and wonderful American solution to complex problems.
2
Let’s not forget African American Willie Brown who was mayor not too long ago and who still wields power as a shadow mayor. The city has many problems indeed but they all come down to a lack of consensus on what the solutions might be. Thus, $250M is squandered year in and year out just to keep the city’s head above the homeless tide. The latest wave of gold rushing arrivistes feels much differently than we long timers do about these issues, and consensus is nowhere in sight.
13
Not if but when the 9.0 earthquake hits this will all be moot.
In fact being homeless in a tent might be one of the safer places to be.
7
A question for everyone: is homelessness a choice or based on bad decisions?
It is a big country right?
2
It would appear that Mr. Egan is disturbed by the scourge of homelessness, not in a good way. The horror of having ones upper-middle class sensibilities and aesthetic being ruffled by the presence of the destitute as one walks to the corner cafe for ones (five?) dollar coffee. Trump has a solution that many in the rich cities would no doubt be secretly for: lock-em up. Taxes, taxes, taxes and not in the Norquist model. Throwing money at a problem does not always produce long-lasting results but the problem of homelessness has indeed gotten out of hand. Put up or shut up.
4
Nothing wrong with not wanting bum, junkies, and winos using public spaces as living rooms and toilets.
2
Timothy, Timothy,
C'mon, I'm a fan of yours, I read "The Worst Hard Times" twice. But to say that London Breed is " the first African-American chosen to lead the city" is negligent.
I'm sure you meant to insert "female" into the phrase but must of been in a hurry to meet a friend at Starbucks or Peets.
Willie Brown, a distinguished politician who was born down here in Mineola, TX was mayor from '96 till '04. A credit to his race and humanity, Willie was a black man when I met him on an elevator in "don't call it Frisco" some years back.
9
It is called capitalism. This is how it works.
1
Actually that is not true. The supply side is constrained by non-market forces. Such as building codes and nimby political activism. High density housing is an anachronism in cities and has been since the 1980's.
1
I moved to SF in the fall of 1977 after college because I wanted to try it. No job. No housing. Just me, my boyfriend, his aging Volvo and two cats.
Within a week, I had an apartment (on Dolores St. and 22nd) and a job. My rent was less than $200. and my hourly income was $5. and I lived quite well.
When I read this, I realize how very long ago this part of my life is and how happy I am that I got to live in SF.
60
At $5 an hour and a forty hour week it only took one weeks wage to pay your rent. And no car (gas, insurance etc ) needed. Those were the days!!!
8
And another case of how the Democratic party is so tone deaf as to have its public face come from a city where the people's worry is how to scrape by on $117K/yr.
10
Jim S.: Democrats ARE tone deaf and clueless, which is why they are out of power. If they spent a second considering the vast majority of this country -- the working class, middle class ordinary people -- not just the elite in the big blue coastal cities -- the Dems would not have lost the White House, the House, the Senate, 37 Governorships, 1001 other offices and oh yeah -- SCOTUS!!!
9
The Big One will level it all off, figuratively AND literally.
4
The old Southern Pacific rail yard property south of the city would be a good start for affordable housing. Right on the CalTrain line and very close to 101.
2
It would probably be an EPA nightmare from decades of oil and chemical spills, asbestos, etc. - could take decades and millions to bring it up to current standards.
2
What EPA standards? Are there any left?
1
Everyone knows what needs to be done about the homelessness, squalor, and civic breakdown in San Francisco. Crack down, humanely but hard. And if it doesn't work, it's not hard enough. If that doesn't sound right to you consult your assumptions about human nature.
8
Here is the problems humans
When other humans have to live on the street they lose their own most
Civilization which means us has thrown them to the side, the margins.
Their wellsprings are halted.
Are you awake enough in your own life to really see and start to make
Eye contact ?
3
“A New Yorker would say, so what, get used to paying through the nose”
A common misperception among New Yorkers is that their housing prices are the highest. SF home prices make NYC home prices seem downright reasonable:
According to the Zillow home price index:
SF - 1.35M: www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/
NY - 671K: www.zillow.com/new-york-ny/home-values/
7
New York City is a vast place, with 5 boroughs -- and not all of it is fashionable and hip -- so yes, if you live in the outer reaches, the still unfashionable parts -- you could still commute (a long way) but technically claim to live in the city.
You can't do that with San Francisco -- it's tiny -- low rise -- prone to earthquakes! -- and landlocked on a narrow peninsula.
8
Same pricing difference between NY tri-state area and Bay Area which comprises 9 counties. Bay Area home prices are FAR higher than NY tri-state area.
1
From what I read, Seattle was taxing businesses with 20 million or more in revenue. I don't know many small family-run business is bringing in 20 million dollars a year. Amazon and Bezos, one of if not the largest employer in Seattle, was the leader in the campaign against that tax. the entire purpose of the tax was to do something about the current homeless crisis. But Corporate America has decided that any and all taxes are evil and any dollar that isn't maximizing prophets is a waste. Problem is the beneficiaries of this predatory system live in gated communities or luxury highrises where they don't have to be bothered by the poverty and homelessness that results from greed plain and simple. On the other hand you have local and state governments giving generous benefits and tax breaks for major companies to bring jobs to their communities. But these jobs typically don't pay enough to cover the minimal cost of living. We have a lot of working homeless in NYC.
My husband and I are leaving NYC for this same reason. We are being robbed paying so much to live in a city with awful public transportation. I wouldn't even go into Manhattan for my birthday, because it's just too much of a hassle, too expensive, and basically an open-air homeless shelter.
11
The $20M is gross, not net. Head tax would've affected 585 companies, incl. grocery stores operating on slim margins due to Seattle's high b&o taxes and manu. companies. Two grocery stores, catering to low-income, recently closed near my house. Seattle is equiv. of Boston and has $2B more to operate on annually. The SCC and its lack of oversight let a bike lane project budgeted at $800K/mile to skyrocket to $12M/mile. Why would Seattleites want to give the SCC more money when they waste it? If they truly cared about the homeless, they wouldn't be building bike lanes, they'd simplify Seattle's building codes (the most complex in the country), and streamline permitting (can take 3-5 yrs for permits). Seattle and KC spent $200M ($1,666 per per/mo) last year on the homeless and the numbers continue to increase, incl. unsanctioned encampments where trafficking, sexual and drug-abuse run rampant.Amazon has contributed est. $36 billion to Seattle's economy from 2010-2016. Seattle currently has the lowest unemployment in the country. 60% of our homeless are sheltered. Out of the remaining 40% unsheltered, 80% have drug or mental health issues and/or are criminals. Lastly, enough signatures were gathered by volunteers to repeal the head tax. I personally gathered 600 in 8hrs and was unpaid. SCC wants low-barrier encampments and safe injection sites to solve homelessness. My neighborhood experienced 103% YoY crime increase, since the camp was opened per SPD's data-driven team.
8
"We are being robbed paying so much to live in a city with awful public transportation. I wouldn't even go into Manhattan for my birthday, because it's just too much of a hassle, too expensive, and basically an open-air homeless shelter." - And yet, New Yorkers re-elected the SAME administration! They love being screwed right and left.
2
Correcting myself, Seattle is the 4th strongest economy in the country. I misread an article on the unemployment rate (WA hit record low for itself).
You didn't mention Portland, but the same thing is happening there. Young socialists who want housing are in the same unholy alliance with developers to upzone single-family neighborhoods and create the type of density they themselves will not want in 20 years. I frankly don't see a way to creative-think our way out of these problems. What I do see is a process that will continue to separate haves and have-nots, with the haves moving farther out and mustering their political power to safeguard what they have, while the have-nots are left the now-undesirable suburban spaces.
29
If the haves move further out, why would the city/ current suburban spaces become undesirable? I would think the city areas would continue to change as they have in other cities, other countries, to have more restaurants, and other close by amenities. There might not be a Costco close by, but inner city Portland has much to offer and there is decent public transportation.
Not sure where this "unholy alliance of socialists and developers" notion come from. When housing prices rise it's a market indication that more people want to live there. Large swaths of San Francisco are block after block of ticky-tacky two story townhouses - the only real solution is upzoning. The trouble is all the surrounding cities have taken a similar stance against building housing for years but finally have seen the light - new housing in is coming online and prices have leveled off. There might even be a drop in housing prices once all the apartment towers being built across the bay in Oakland are completed.
It's baffling for anyone who's ever visited European or Asian cities why so many American urban areas are so against higher density. There are charming seventeenth century Italian fishing villages that are crammed with six story apartment buildings, and are wonderful places to live, but that kind of density is banned in most of the cities in California.
The homeless problem is a separate issue only marginally caused by the high prices. I lived in San Francisco for years but when I was ready to buy a house, I could only afford property across the bay in Berkeley. And Stockton is a few hours away and has plenty of cheap housing and empty buildings, but the homeless don't want to live there. It costs the same to be homeless in the most expensive city in the nation so their entitled attitude is "why not."
2
I don't know about San Francisco, but the Seattle aspect of this is overblown.
While housing in Seattle has become unaffordable unless you're a millionaire, a liveable home in the suburbs of Tacoma, 30 miles away, can be had for $250,000. Transit is catching up with demand. Point is, you can buy a home and have a 60-minute commute, doorstep to office door. Folks who live north of NYC and work in Manhattan have been doing that forever. Digital makes it all the easier.
If Amazon is to be taxed for the impact the company has on housing, then the money should go toward expediting improvements to the region's transit system. That, more than anything else, would help ease Seattle's housing crunch. Pouring money into programs for chronically homeless people certainly isn't going to help.
One more thing. Listening to Seattleites wring hands about this issue is rich. It's a much better problem to have than what Rust Belt cities are faced with.
76
A sixty-minute commute is a huge chunk of time if you're driving. Not so much if you're in comfortable train. Do you have those in Seattle?
The housing crisis in coastal US cities is mostly a public transport crisis. San Francisco's public options are completely insufficient, as a month-long stay conclusively proved to me.
12
Could we please retire the term "rust belt"? Outdated and insulting.
2
I spent some time in San Francisco a little more than ten years ago. The streets were truly scary with needles and signs of drug use. Ragged, ill people were in the blocks all around our trendy "boutique" hotel. We had to negotiate our way passed drug users on the steps to go into a US post office.
At the time, the city was handing out monthly cash payments to the homeless. What down and outer wouldn't be attracted to go there for the payment?
Does anyone have a calculator? If the city is spending 250 mil on the homeless, that represents $33,000. per person on the streets. A lot of that spending, however, is involuntary for police picking people up, ambulance and hospital services plus other emergency needs.
Studies have shown that it is far less expensive to house and provide other assistance to get people off the streets. What is lacking in San Francisco, and everywhere else, apparently, is a plan. How does a city divert a major part of that 33 thousand to resolving at least part of the problem before it is spent on bare assistance and emergency services?
People in San Francisco, as elsewhere, do not want to spend vast sums of money to make drug addicts, the unemployable and mentally ill comfortable in their midst. So, the money is spent not to resolve the problem but to try to keep it from getting worse.
This is a plague on SF and many US cities, but it won't be dealt with until the determination is made to get ahead of the problem, not just fix up the open wounds.
50
Homelessness will not be solved under our current models, despite the fortunes being spent on it. Part of the problem lies with the assumption that very single one of the homeless are cookie cutter victims. To be absolutely sure, many struggle with dreadful mental health issues and substance abuse; the latter is somewhat easier to address, but a challenge nevertheless. But there is also a component that many who want to help doggedly refuse to acknowledge - that there has always been a segment who are what used to just be called bums, those who are willing to settle for an unfettered life not dependent on the struggles of dealing with a boss, a mortgage, etc,; when you have places like Seattle and San Francisco essentially putting out the welcome mat you will attract ever more of that class of homeless who just want to take advantage of the generous give-aways. Seriously, why the paradox of rising spending with ever rising homeless populations? The seriously mentally ill aren't moving to SF because they heard of the "benefits".
Bottom line is tough calls have to be made, calls that will be very unpopular with some very vocal advocates, but society cannot prop up everyone, especially younger, healthy people who could and should get on with their lives rather than being idle. Then we can really try to help those who cannot actually help themselves.
31
Seattle and San Francisco share something in common in the sense that their geography is both a curse and a blessing.
Both cities have magnificent skylines built on hills and having water views of downtowns that are arguably the best in the country.
However, traffic is a nightmare and while SF leads Seattle in developing mass transit, both cities have to contend with a shortage of space for building new roads for inevitable traffic gridlock.
Egan is right that imagination seems to be lacking in top leadership in both cities. With more people, including homeless, moving to our nation’s urban areas, government must provide the leadership to solve big problems. It won’t be done by the likes of profit driven companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and Starbucks.
18
The cities with the highest income inequality in the country are almost invariably the most left-wing cities in the country. Places like San Francisco, New York, Boston, and DC have the very highest income inequalities. Places like Des Moines, Columbus, Jacksonville and Allentown have the lowest inequality.
Why? Because the people who like in San Francisco, New York, Boston, and DC are not interested in solving income inequality. They want it as high as possible, because they are all looking to make as much money as they can, and don't care about those with lesser means.
People in places like Des Moines, Columbus, Jacksonville and Allentown know how to reduce the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest, and they are doing it because they actually care to do so.
16
Source for these claims? There are plenty of selfish right wingers in these place (Trump from NYC being a prime example) and my many friends in Jacksonville are all liberals. As to Allentown, I was there last year and it is a pitiful place.
1
They are doing it because very few people in Jacksonville and Allentown are making a ton of money. No one ever set out to Allentown to make their fortune.
5
Vanessa, you wrote:
"People in places like Des Moines, Columbus, Jacksonville and Allentown know how to reduce the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest..."
Well, yes. Those towns make themselves unattractive to the cultured, the free-thinkers, the innovators. So these young people move to "left-wing" cities like NY, LA, SF and Seattle, and succeed. THAT'S why there's a wealth gap; the winners have abandoned the fly-over cities. And that's too bad...
5
What's happened in SF is the result of greed and a sense of entitlement among the rich (young and old there). It has, sadly, become unlivable for those of slender means. Smaller shop keepers cannot keep their stores open due to greedy rent hikes. There is no place left for the "small people," and the destitute keep growing (many being bussed in to California from other states). Smaller cities like Sacramento are booming, but making many of the same mistakes (new downtown housing has very very few under-market slots and rents are soaring there, too, with similar results on the streets. It hurts to see all this, when my great-grandparents helped build all this--as shipyard workers, plumbers, small grocery store owners. Yes, one answer (which I fully support) is the bullet train. The other is return to the notion of the common good, or the social compact, as this article suggests. Meanwhile, the social wreckage continues, and the treatment of the very poor by the rich as so much refuse, strewn on the streets. (By the way, London Breed is the second African-American mayor of SF, the first being Willie Brown. She's the first African-American woman to become mayor there).
53
All of the politicians, economists and various other experts tout growth as the remedy for all ills but finite resources can't accommodate infinite growth. Humanity is devouring the planet at an alarming and increasing rate. We can either learn to live like ants, control our growth or face a collapse of civilization that will make the Dark Ages look like a walk in the park.
5
Yes, the San Francisco of my birth is gone. It was a time when our fathers were hard working laborers, when we were safe to take a bus or street car all over the City, when people lived in modest homes (now unaffordable) rather than on the streets. No play dates for us. Instead the neighborhood kids would ride "no handsies" down those steep hills on our bikes. What a thrill!
The cancer of homelessness has metastasized beyond this City By the Bay to its nearby counties, even my own fire-devastated one in Sonoma County. We have a moral responsibility to help the homeless, and we have leaders like our young new SF mayor whose mission is to do just that. We are trying. But did I see a tear on that statue of St. Francis which stands before the North Beach church honoring his name?
11
Corporate tax breaks for companies allowing their employees to telecommute. Saves them money. Saves employees the cost of commuting. Then people can live where they want (which may be the Bay Area anyway, but that's their choice and not a requirement).
15
"But now the entire West Coast, from San Diego to Vancouver, British Columbia, is a string of gilded megalopolises."
One of only a few examples where Democrats can't pass themselves off as members of a political party just preening their angel wings. This example reflects nothing but greed to keep real estate prices high so owners can make as much money as possible. Any appeal to 'it is just supply and demand' means they are no better than the GOP that they liken to the nothing less than the Devil's servants.
These areas are the bright spots in the coastal Western states, as one can find extensive poverty, segregation and other illls elsewhere. Around 70,000 factories have closed in the US since China was admitted to the WTO, factories which not only provided decent jobs for those in the factories but many supporting jobs in many communities throughout the US. It represented a welcome, democratic distribution of wealth. Now with the concentration of many companies in urban areas we see basically wealth extraction, which contributes not only to increased inequality but also to the demise of many communities across the country.
Let's deal with the problems and quit pretending that we are better than others around us.
21
And for gods sake, stop saying those jobs were lost to "automation" and not to sending them overseas to China -- one of the left's biggest, most aggravating LIES.
9
The government seeks a third world America by gutting its public sector and deregulating protections to the public. It is venture capitalism through mergers, and persons like Kushner eating any kind of affordable housing.
21
"barbara", I believe you need to look carefully into Kushner and his family. According to reliable news reports, they are borderline slum lords, raking in lots of money by buying and renting out low end apartments and filing eviction claims constantly. They would argue, if they were to bother, that they provide low and moderate income housing. Trump made lots of money from glided towers, the Kushner millions rests on a foundation of sub-par rentals.
7
Middle class people want a very specific housing typology amenable to raising children: low-rise, ground-oriented space of at least 1400 square feet with private play space for children. This is a deal breaker to all housing options. Any solution that doesn't build more of this, or assign it outright within acceptable commuting distance, will be unacceptable. We could be looking at widespread market controls to compel current generations to sell at lower bidders who need the housing for social equity, with no compensation. The market may need to end.
9
There are many in the young adult generation who both cannot afford a house or do not even want one. Many prefer apartment living and all its conveniences which are many. There's no good reason economically or environmentally to build more single family housing. Some people understand this. Older Americans looking to downsize are actually pushing up rents in places like New York because they're competing with the younger tenants. We should build more designated senior apartments as well as more affordable apartments by income. Governments like that of NYC make some effort but not nearly enough. Hopefully San Francisco can provide us a better model under Ms. Breed's leadership.
1
Readers of the comments might have noticed my obsession with Seattle. For more than a decade, we have been visiting, a week at a time, at least twice per year. The last few visits, I've certainly noticed the explosion in homeless people. And the traffic is horrendous, NO way I would attempt to drive, now. We take the light rail and then walk, everywhere. But then we are on a flexible schedule, and don't have to be on time for Work, or appointments. If this growth and double digit price increases continues, my dream of a small downtown Condo may be kaput. Yes, I'm part of the problem, wanting to retire and then live in Seattle. But have you BEEN to Kansas ??? Try it, you'll hate it. Seriously.
296
Real estate in Tacoma to the south is booming and mass transit, continually being improved, will get you to Seattle for the sports, arts, restaurants you want. (I-5 traffic north is only for the very patient.)
Tacoma has a beautiful accessible walkable waterfront and it is closer to Mt. Rainier than is Seattle. Also closer to Portland Oregon for a weekend trip. Most of the new construction is apartments. Buy now! We watch real estate prices rise in amazement. According to Redfin, our modest suburban split entry on a 1/4 acre lot is going up in value over $2,200 every month but still much more affordable than Seattle prices.
5
Thank you. We've been to Tacoma, it's nice. Love the Glass Museum.
4
You're right about Wichita. And you're right about Seattle.
Consider Olympia. Consider Eugene. Consider Tacoma, Consider, well, a whole bunch of other places in the Pacific Northwest that don't cost nearly as much as Seattle and don't have nearly the headaches. They are all much better than anything in Kansas.
"We take the light rail, then walk everywhere." Yes, exactly. That rail system didn't exist not so long ago, and it's getting better. For all the whining and problems, the region hasn't done too badly when it comes to transit, considering the enormous amount of growth. And the transit system keeps getting better.
I wouldn't retire in Seattle if you paid me. The city always has been too full of itself, always been too expensive, always been, well, somewhat phony. These other cities I listed, different matter, and it's not too hard to find an affordable place within an hour of Seattle so you can have a yard and a garden and enjoy the weather and eat at decent restaurants and not have to put up with the homeless people and the cost and the we're-better-than-anyone-else attitude that's so prevalent in Seattle. It might be a nice place for a vacation, but try living there day to day. There are better options.
8
Globalization of the housing market is NOT a problem particular to British Columbia. It is a problem in many desirable places, but some of the other countries have more competent governments than ours and actually bother to protect their middle-class citizens. For example, Spain taxes foreign non-resident buyers of real estate extra, as well -- impressive to this American.
The problem of global wealthy buyers crowding out local residents (by inflating prices) exists in Paris, in Tel-Aviv, and many other places.
125
Here in lovely Boulder, CO we face many of the same problems and the solutions have not been forthcoming. Now that Google has arrived it will be worse. The incoming commuters clog the roads and public transportation struggles for acceptance. A poll done several years ago suggests that most want others to take a bus so there is more room on the road for them. Until we have a major shift in conscientiousness we will never solve this problem anywhere. But, I keep hoping as my home value rises to ridiculous levels and my property taxes follow.
29
Poor thing. You wealth skyrocketing. And you have to pay more in taxes. Your community has a new incredible employer. Can things ever get worse?
3
Ditto Boston.
2
Another sign of the staggering income and wealth inequality in the country. It also a sign of the urbanization of the country. I agree with Krugman on this subject. Most of these issues are caused by restrictive zoning and Nimbyism.
57
Exactly!
1
It's not hard to imagine at all, Tim, in the presence of rent control. Rent control in SF means over half of residents pay below market rates for housing. These folks never move, constricting supply and sending rents and prices for available units through the roof. I know an internist making $400k/year living in a shoebox sized apt here, right off Golden Gate Park. His subsidized rent is just too good to give up.
65
In NY there's restrictions on income in rent controlled apts.
As is a Prop 13 house that one has owned for 30 years.
So many people aging out of their properties are faced with killer capital gains taxes and the prospect of where to go. The inventory of houses is low because that generation is not moving.
2
Interestingly, the two places in the country with the highest rents, SF and Manhattan, have rent control. This can't possibly be a coincidence.
That an internist making $400k a year has a subsidized apartment is heinous.
9
Infrastructure is the answer. Unfortunately, this is something Democrats can't seem to accomplish, and Republicans won't do.
34
Yes. Our country hasn’t built any new highways in 70 years. Oh wait, how did we get surburbs?
The Highway Act of 1956.
It is past time for cities to build public housing that is available to all. Leaving it all to the free market just results in these ridiculous bubbles.
Housing is a public good. Cities should start taking control of their futures and build housing to lease and use the reasonable revenues to build more housing. Perhaps this is how we might get to those fantastic cities of the future we see in movies.
Certainly we're not going to get there with the current system!
43
The key point is that these buildings would be open to *all*, not just be a low-income ghetto.
And of course a guaranteed basic income would ensure that poverty (and thus petty crime) would be mitigated.
It is past time to start trying some big new ideas.
35
Yes. Build public housing like Cabrini Green and the Robert Taylor homes in Chicago. It will be great. Oh wait, those were built 50 years ago and had to be bulldozed because it was a disaster.
19
Unfortunately a that’s already been tried in San Francisco: There were Public Housing “ Towers “ built on Laguna near Geary in the fifties or early sixties, in very short order, b6 the seventies, they became gang infested ghettos with furniture thrown out of windows and the continual presence of police. I have witnessed the decline of San Francisco first hand, it was when manufacturing that offered good employment to those without a college degree left for Asia, real estate speculation was encouraged and yes immigration( both foreign and domestic)played a big part, those with money forcing out those without, that things really started going bad. The solution is of course to curb both immigration and speculation, and raise taxes on the wealthiest and corporations, none of which will happen in our winner take all society, so get used to the “ inclusive” America you were so keen on. Perhaps we should have been required to visit, Mexico City, Beijing and Mumbai before we hung out our shingle “ for sale”, at least we could have know what was in store for us: compared to slums and living conditions in these megapolicis we’ve got a long ways to go, down that is, then maybe the pro globalization, pro immigration set will be satisfied. Personally I prefer to remember San Francisco in the fifties and sixties. It really was a lovely town, I haven’t been back for a decade nor have my friends who decamped for more livable places, very sad, such a gorgeous place once upon a time.
14
Manhattan is an island. To develop, New York City had no choice but to build up -- reaching for the skies. San Francisco is, in essence, also an island, a peninsula with expansion to the south cut off by neighboring jurisdictions. San Francisco is also plagued with old-time residents and moneyed property owners who fight any attempt to develop upward because of their supposed rights to a beautiful view. There is a prime waterfront area that is paved over as parking because any attempt to develop it is quashed by the people living in the hills above won't stand for their view of the Bay to be obstructed.
Manhattan is flat. Fan Francisco is hillier than Western PA where I am originally from. Every view is beautiful. But so are the cityscapes of Manhattan, Chicago, etc.
Until we build up, we eill have housing issues.
77
Take into account, however, that Manhattan is an extremely seismically stable site, where tall buildings rest comfortably on sturdy stone - San Francisco, parts of which are glorified landfill, is one of the most Unstable sites. Building more tall buildings, while technically feasible to some extent - though as recent failures and problems of these "modern" buildings illustrate - may be a fool's errand.
57
Building up. It is going on big time here in Dallas. Where once 14 homes lined the streets of a city block, now a 200 unit high rise sits. Problem being, the streets and parks and public facilities were designed for 14 homes, not 200.
Traffic congestion, sidewalks where lawns and trees once grew, no dog walks, all add to the problem of building up.
These are the signs of progress(?).
6
Manhattan also has schist, a lot of it -- this bedrock makes building to the skies relatively safe and sustainable (over time, that is, not environmentally). Considering the seismic issues of the West Coast, I can understand their hesitation to build up.
25
Do the tech companies have to locate in the Bay Area? Wouldn't it make sense for everyone if Facebook relocated to Modesto or Davis or Reno where there is relatively cheap land for their employees? Not only that, but the companies would not have to pay their employees so much as the cost of living in the hick towns is much less. Seems like a board of directors would see this.
46
would YOU live in Modesto, Davis or Reno??
Sorry. but everyone wants to live in or near tech mecca.
It is not unlike the film industry in LA. You have to show face in the room where it is happening.
3
Young talented people don't want to live in Modesto, Davis (except for college), or Reno. Those aiming for success want to live in San Francisco and they will, no matter what. I am looking out at the Golden Gate Bridge right now from my City home and there is nothing else like it. It is becoming more and more challenging for young people to live here but that can also be a good thing.
4
Move to Detroit! Not an option for everyone, granted, but if you've never visited, book a trip -- you'll likely discover a city more livable, friendly, affordable and cultured than you've heard about. While this addresses Mr. Egan's well-stated concerns only in an indirect manner, we should remember that sometimes we have options for living that involve neither the East nor West Coasts. With that in mind, don't forget our Third Coast!
96
Sure, move to Detroit (I'm originally from southeastern MI), where you can buy a cheap house in a neighborhood with no police or garbage service! Yippee! No thank you!
4
The weather is a deal breaker. I grew up in Ann Arbor and shudder at the thought of those long, dark winters. And hot and humid summers.
1
We can't build enough homes in the city to house all the people who work there. Nor would we want to, the cities are already too crowded. There is plenty of open land all around America including the San Francisco Bay Area. The problem is the commute, an extra three to four hours everyday in the car is not what most people would choose. America needs to invest in high speed, reliable, clean, safe public transportation.
675
And free high-speed reliable internet so that maybe a lot of people wouldn't have to physically commute in the first place.
1
The strange thing is that many people today work before computer screens that connect them with customers, fellow workers and suppliers. Why all this commuting into crowded, overly expensive office real estate in core cities, when the same thing can be accomplished at more widely distributed work stations, closer to affordable housing, elsewhere? Some day management thinking may catch up with the new reality.
2
One of the main problems of cities like San Francisco that the growth of high-density public transport has not kept up with the growth of the cities themselves. In Europe I regularly travel through cities which have grown very fast in the last two decades, but which have also kept up with the continuous expansion and improvement of an efficient network of high density public transport system.
I have friends who are senior executives in London, who choose to live 20 miles out of the city in quieter suburbs where they can afford better houses for their families to live in, because they commute every day by train. All over Europe, millions of commuters use regional trains, trams and metros every day to commute from more affordable, quieter suburbs as far as 50-60 miles from the city.
I live myself in a quiet town 25 miles out of Zürich, where for the price of a 2-bedroom apartment I can enjoy a large beautiful house with clean air and a view on the mountains, and yet I can get into the center of the city by way of a relaxed 30 minutes train commute. I don't need to spend absurd sums for a place in the city, when I can live comfortably a few train stops away.
Americans have a lot to learn about European public transport. When done properly, it's not the "socialist nightmare" that "rugged individualists" would want you to believe. Modern trains can be relaxing, safe, clean and pleasant places in which to spend some time for the daily commute.
908
Here, I agree with the author and part ways with fellow conservatives: consider the situation in the metro DC area, where housing prices are outrageously high because everybody has to live within range of the joke called the "Metro," which goes a whole 10 miles or so out of the city (if it goes at all) and especially the Legislature in Virginia seems incapable of funding expanded construction (the silver line remains a theoretical project) because conservative spongers in Richmond are happy to tax federal workers in northern VA but not to provide any infrastructure services (or demand they be "paid" for by "users," e.g., the $35 flex toll on I-66 the other day).
101
Silver Line is currently in Phase 2 construction out to Dulles Airport, but I agree with you otherwise. There is no "regional" transportation to help those that move farther west/south/north to find affordable living while maintaining their jobs closer in.
Though I absolutely agree in principle, you must realize that here in the US the system for bringing such projects to fruition is so inherently fraught with corruption as to make them untenable. No public works project gets built without scandal, cost overruns that triple or quadruple the burden on taxpayers, defective components, rigged bids, cronyism, nepotism, etc. The "public/private" concept sounds great but in reality it just further facilitates the fleecing of the so-called beneficiaries. If you doubt that, go back and look at W's war in Iraq, or Andy Cuomo's Buffalo initiatives. I'd love to see an accounting of the new Tappan Zee bridge project as well. Part of our problem compared to Europe is the sheer scale, the huge numbers of us. The staggering sums of money involved, and the ease of their diversion, are enough to tempt mother Teresa and Jesus himself. Compounding the problem is American striving, we are raised to aspire to be better than everyone else, and if possible crush them on our way up. Now, with the über infant daddy warbucks as our so-called president, everything is viewed with an eye for maximized profit and minimized social benefit. The notion of "take what you need and leave the rest" has boarded it's gilded railcar and left the station, on it's way to a government funded vacation aboard the S.S. Avarice, flying the Panamanian flag of convenience, crewed by a cohort of failed contestants from Miss Universe pageants of yore.
3
Bullet train to Fresno can’t happen soon enough.
81
Right. Then the Silicon Valley techies can gentrify Fresno.
3
Let's dream that Fresno can flip from red to purple/ blue. Then Devin Nunes would be out on his ear.
1
Hey, here's an idea: corporate moves to Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and other parts of the country where space is available, housing affordable and traffic comparatively light.
234
Assumes that people would be incented to move there because they like shoveling snow.
26
It is also a matter of having the appropriate work force. Which depends of education. California, NY, Washington, have awesome educational systems, especially at the highest levels, that other states are hard pressed to reach. Think Kansas that believes decimating their schools is a way to attract businesses, which may be true, but not so much with families.
Also there seems to be a critical mass that needs to be reached, where larger cities deliver more efficiencies.
82
In Cleveland we can hire somebody to shovel or plow our snow (yes, we can afford to have houses large enough where plowing is the preferred option), and still have change left over from our $117K.
Mr. Egan, you are one of the most eloquent columnist at the Times. But I think you being overly optimistic.
San Francisco, like Seattle (neither of which are as big as NY which can absorb concentrations of wealth and power among its population differently), is not simply undergoing an urban crisis. These demographic changes in these cities are part of global concentration of technological talent and social capital that are literally the physical manifestations of the market monopoly these companies hold.
It is a mistake to think urban planning can solve this. This is a humanitarian and economic crisis escalating and that is marginalizing far more people than just those who can't by a $1.5 million apt. It is marginalizing anyone who is not powerful within those market sectors around the country (i.e. Trump voters and future voters of the Socialist Democratic party)
In the meantime, yes, by all means build new houses for people who can't afford them. But if no serious policy interventions are made, we are headed for a major national political crisis. It is already happening in the US and in Europe. I think it is naive to assume otherwise.
160
Perhaps we should treat the Bay Area like an elite university and force people to apply to get in? Then we can ensure none of those poor people problems creep in. Keep the best places on earth for the best people.
Or perhaps they should start with the most logical solution of all—a massive wealth tax which is used not just to build great institutions and housing projects but for redistributed income and as a wealth accumulation suppressor. It is the only way and California is the place for it to start.
188
Punish success and reward failure - shorthand for "from each according to means, to each according to needs". Lovely.
3
Amusing that someone from NYC should write this.
2
That was a Matt Damon movie titled "Elysium".
2
"We need a new urbanism..." Certainly. And we need a renewed commitment to finding community-based solutions. Currently, oligarchs are in ascendancy, and are determining our futures. If we allow them to go on doing that, we'll get what we deserve: third world status for the vast majority of us. The growth of cities continues. North America has three megacities (NY, LA, Mexico City), while China has 15 and India has six. Since the adoption of agriculture ~12K years ago, populations have grown and so have cities. Some cities are wilting under the pressures, including water shortage. Time to include reclamation of rural areas as part of our solution to living space. Add light rail, and we leave behind the influence of the oil, auto, and rubber lobbies.
131
The article whines and meanders without going to the heart of the issue: something must change. An fficient, inclusive city is an approach that could work, but low-key exclusion is the reason behind some of the homelessness. "unholy alliance of developers and socialists" means that a group of people considering how to bring more affordable housing that's sorely needed, is a solution that the author dismisses. Highly paid software engineers do not provide their own health and transportation services, they need nannies, restaurant workers, nurses, police officers and teachers who can actually afford to reside in the same cities. Inclusive, affordable housing is not a "socialist" outcome, it is a necessity for a healthy, efficient and well-functioning city.
229
One thing for sure, the "market" will not solve this. The market gave us high priced real estate. We need good public housing that includes middle class residents. And near transit.
344
The market would build high rises. Local government has chosen to prohibit that. Government cannot possibly build enough public housing, and doesn't need to. The market will build all of the housing needed if allowed to do so. Public money should be spent on infrastructure to support that housing, particularly transit infrastructure.
3
The market operates predictably within the set of rules it is given. Those rules are set by government. It’s not a dog’s fault if you pull its tail and are bitten.
1
I suggest home builders open their minds. Small houses - 400-700 sq. ft. - will work for many people. If the land is too expensive to make affordable housing attractive to builders, then the gov't. could step in and subsidize. Heresy to some, I know, but we need it.
3
I applaud the new major and the city's citizens for getting active about solving this problem. It will take a regional effort. I visited recently and noticed many, many unoccupied homes or parts of homes. The city is fabulous, the area sublime, the homeless population so very sad.
9
Every incoming mayor has said the same thing: “I’ll clean up the streets so the tourists don’t feel threatened.” Puhleeze!!
2
All the people who want to live in San Francisco cannot afford to be there. What is needed is high density, economically diverse housing along transit corridors outside the city. This will enable relatively low wage workers to afford a place to live and still have access to their jobs in the city.
158
@mrc06405:
"What is needed is high density, economically diverse housing along transit corridors outside the city"
What transit corridors are you referring to? Roads and highways are just not going to cut it. Nobody is going to spend 2+ hours (at minimum!) trying to commute each way in a slog of car traffic.
Now, if you meant perhaps 'high speed rail transit corridors' then thats a different movie altogether - one that has not yet been written and thanks to Koch brother initiatives, will most likely not see the light of day for decades to come.
7
How about moving some of the jobs to Rockford Illinois? Rockford was the birthplace and long time home office of Sundstrand Aviation, a Fortune 400 tech company. Rockford has good transportation and is easy driving to MKE airport outside Milwaukee as well as O'Hare, and also has an airport with jet landing facilities. It is hilly and has beautiful parks. It is not part of the tornado belt nor an earthquake prone area.
Rockford has beautiful homes that are really inexpensive.
http://www.city-data.com/city/Rockford-Illinois.html
Estimated median house or condo value in 2016: $89,200 (it was $79,400 in 2000)
Rockford: $89,200
IL: $186,500
Mean prices in 2016: All housing units: $126,869; Detached houses: $128,262; Townhouses or other attached units: $136,279; In 2-unit structures: $113,977; In 3-to-4-unit structures: $96,297; In 5-or-more-unit structures: $111,947; Mobile homes: $20,185
Median gross rent in 2016: $712.
110
Mostly because we'd have to live there. I sleep with a window open most nights in the Bay Area. The average temperature is around 70 degrees. A REALLY cold night is 32 degrees, and a really hot day is 100 degrees. I lived in the midwest. 105 degrees day after day in the summer, and sub zero day after day in the winter. O, doesn't Illinois have the worst financial rating of all states? That may be another factor.
1
According to Google, the leading employers in Rockford are the public school system, two different hospital systems, and United Parcel Service.
That's one reason why recent college graduates aren't moving to Rockford in droves. Limited opportunities for work. And high tech companies don't relocate thousands of miles away from their prime recruiting grounds (e.g., UC Berkeley, Stanford, etc.).
Companies also have to factor in the weather costs of workplaces subject to severe winters.
12
Neighboring Freeport is also a good place. Maybe a relocation to the Midwest for tech businesses and corporations is not such a bad idea. But it would change the Midwest drastically with the culture of foodies, etc. and the Midwest will have to adjust to the influx of service industries that the young and restless spend money on. Our midwestern neighbors are hurting to replace the many businesses that went overseas.
Look at how the internet is changing the retail business and you will see the future of “commuting”. One needent live in San Francisco (or anywhere else, for that matter) to “work” there.
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People live in San Francisco because they want to live in San Francisco.
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The best thing we could do to "normalize" housing prices is nationwide high-speed internet access, like many developed countries have done. That and a little more tolerance for telecommuting would allow workers to live outside of the congested zones and bring housing and money to places that have been dying.
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As a Californian living in comfortable exile 500 feet from a beautiful beach, I would love, love, love to return to beautiful Northern CA but alas I have no desire to live in some abandoned mining town east of the Sierras. The global "haves" have made it impossible. The rich of the world have devoured my State. Mary Pickford's LA mansion is now owned by a South Korean, Silicon Valley is a United Nations of exotic fruits and vegetables and restaurants for the brain trusts of the world, The Golden Gate Bridge toll is now upwards of $10. Don't even whisper Marin County or it will cost you $$$$. My sister cannot sell her 4- bedroom home in the redwoods because the tax shelter from forty some years ago would disappear and she'd be unable to afford taxes on a tiny old 1bedroom condo. My childhood spec-built ranch house five-miles up a box canyon is now worth untold millions. Goodbye to all that.
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I grew up in Mill Valley, Marin County, in the 50's and 60's, when there were still dairy farms and cattle ranches in Southern Marin. Fishing in the Bay, hanging out at the beach, hiking on Mt Tam and Point Reyes: it was a nice place to grow up.
I got out for good in the 90's. Don't miss it, wouldn't want to live there now.
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Prunella: GG Bridge toll is $8, FasTrack, $7. But we'll be at ten dollars soon enough.
"The global "haves" have made it impossible. The rich of the world have devoured my State." - Isn't Globalism wonderful?
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It’s the toxicity of the wealth gap. Not seen here in Scandinavia. In the past, correction of large wealth gaps followed the Civil War and the 1929 Stock market crash. Get ready for a big corrective event.
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Yes, income inequality.
Pay attention to Bernie Sanders.
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When I lived in San Francisco during the 1980s it was teeming with the homeless and had a high rat of violent crime. Drivers on some bus routes were paid "combat pay" because of the crime. Now it is far worse and people pay through the nose to put up with it. The invasion of the techies has pushed housing and other prices through the roof. The large apartment I rented when I lived there cost me $600 a month, and it now rents for $4,700. The city depends on tourism for much of its money, but why would anyone want to go there anymore?
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My story is identical to yours. In 1986 I moved into a great one bedroom apartment on Dolores Street, just off the corner of 24th and my rent was a manageable $700 a month. I recently saw a listing for the apartment just above mine and it is going for $4,200 a month.
I also echo what you said about the homeless, but back in the 80's they weren't quite as noticeable and were found in certain areas such as the Tenderloin and The Mission. Now there are camps setup all over the place. I visit the city twice a year on business and can't believe just how much it has devolved. Physically it still looks the same, but walking through certain parts are downright scary, one of those areas being UN Plaza and City Hall. City Hall of all places.
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Bingo. I paid $375 for a small studio in the eighties ( and $98 for a studio in Pacific Heights in the mid seventies). Today either place costs thousands of bucks. I moved to Oakland and bought a house.
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Excellent point. Why would anyone want to visit one of the most beautiful cities in the world?
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Who says everyone has to live in the city? Not everyone lives in Manhattan.
What San Francisco needs is better TRANSPORTATION. It's impossible to drive in and out of the city, and the train system is anemic, slow and undependable. If San Francisco had New York's train system (yes, even your lousy system), or, good lord, London's, and people could get from Marin to the City to the Valley in a dependable, efficient manner, the housing crisis would solve itself.
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We are literally shaking our heads here in Michigan every time a story like this appears in the New York Times. At 4.8%, OUR unemployment rate is almost the same as California. Yet our median home price is just $142,800, compared to about $440,000 in California and $820,000 in the SF Bay Area. You could literally buy six (6) single-family homes in a nice neighborhood of a nice Michigan city for the price of one Bay Area home. Six!
Now before you go yelling: "Flint water! Detroit crime!" please keep in mind that metro Detroit and the Flint / Saginaw areas are far from typical. (We are, after all, the largest state in East of the Mississippi in total area.) More typical are cities like Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor. Grand Rapids was recently named one of the best cities in America for starting a new business.
So, you might ask, why aren't people moving here? We have plenty of jobs, the highest per capita number of engineers in the nation, 11,000 lakes, sandy beaches, great universities and so forth. (Yeah, winters can be tough, but not nearly as bad as Minnesota.)
Does bad press about Detroit and Flint account for this? Perhaps. But the rebirth of Detroit is moving along quite nicely today. (There's even a boom in real estate in Motown.) Flint's public water supply is back. The rest of the state is doing quite well, thank you very much.
If $117,000 a year is "down and out" in SF, it would be a fine princely sum here in Michigan. Live better, folks. Come our way.
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As a native Michigander living in the Bay area, I appreciate the astonishing cost difference, but love the climate, politics and people. (If I were in Michigan I'd enjoy at least the first and third, and work on the second.) My advice: invest in Michigan real estate, as you're right... it's quite an attractive destination, all things considered.
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So, you might ask, why aren't people moving here?
The weather sucks and the place is run by Republicans.
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Not to mention that you, along with much of the Eastern seaboard, have plenty of water, rarely have earthquakes or massive forest fires, etc, etc. I love the West Coast but it is severely overpopulated, particularly given the climate-change-related challenges it faces. Go east, young men and women.
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The reality here is...
a) almost identical to Manhattan and surrounding areas, and...
b) bad enough without making up stuff like: "...the asking price for a side order of brussels sprouts at many restaurants is $16." I eat at a lot of restaurants in SF, including some pricey ones, and I've never seen a side order of vegetables for $16. Maybe you found that somewhere, but you won't find it at "many restaurants."
SF has problems, some similar to NYC and a few a result of politics and the climate. They are serious, and we struggle to deal with them. Just like you: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/nyregion/gap-between-manhattans-rich-...
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