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San Francisco's Housing Crisis Explained

An anonymous reader writes "We've heard a few brief accounts recently of the housing situation in San Francisco, and how it's leading to protests, gentrification, and bad blood between long-time residents and the newer tech crowd. It's a complicated issue, and none of the reports so far have really done it justice. Now, TechCrunch has posted a ludicrously long article explaining exactly what's going on, from regulations forbidding Google to move people into Mountain View instead, to the political battle to get more housing built, to the compromises that have already been made. It's a long read, but well-researched and interesting. It concludes: 'The crisis we're seeing is the result of decades of choices, and while the tech industry is a sexy, attention-grabbing target, it cannot shoulder blame for this alone. Unless a new direction emerges, this will keep getting worse until the next economic crash, and then it will re-surface again eight years later. Or it will keep spilling over into Oakland, which is a whole other Pandora's box of gentrification issues. The high housing costs aren't healthy for the city, nor are they healthy for the industry. Both thrive on a constant flow of ideas and people.'"

5 of 359 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The bay area used to have affordable housing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    "Gentrification" = property values skyrocket once you drive the blacks out. Crime goes away when they go away. FACT. The govt's own stats back this up.

    Turns out successful intelligent people don't want to live in shitty rundown high crime areas. Shocking. That's gentrification folks.

  2. San Francisco is just an extreme example... by Nova+Express · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    ...of California's high tax, high cost, high regulation, anti-growth, and radical environmental environment. It's a great place to live if you're rich, and virtually impossible to live if you're middle class or poor.

    Critics have been noting these problems for at least two decades, and California becoming a single-party Democratic state with outsized input from public employee unions has only accelerated the trend...

    --
    Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)

    http://www.lawrenceperson.com/

  3. Re:Simple problem, simple solution by roman_mir · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Up until the 1970s we could build like craz

    ... ask yourself a question, why is it that everything in USA was done "up until the 1970s" and then all of a sudden there was a gigantic decline (from building, to meaningful manufacturing jobs, to wage disparity, to ability to afford anything, etc.etc.etc.)?

    So what is it that happened in the 70s that changed the USA economy so much? 1971 - Nixon defaults on the gold US dollar. The reason? Inflation that was caused by the Fed, all the massive government that could never be paid for with any amount of taxes (never mind the insane tax rates before that time).

    It's the government, my dear, USA government has destroyed USA economy.

  4. Re:Simple problem, simple solution by noh8rz10 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    no, #google# was blocked from building a housing development. They wanted to build 1000 dorm rooms on the edge of campus. Anybody can still build in mountain view or wherever.

  5. Re:The bay area used to have affordable housing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Instead of performing useless ad hominems against me because I have no account, why don't you tell that to the widow and unborn child of Nathan Trapuzzano? I bet you don't even know who that is (was). While you're at it ask yourself why you won't see tons of major stories about this like you did about Treyvon Martin.

    Ever take a good look at what's happening in Baltimore? No? How about Newark, Camden, Gary, Milwaukee, Chicago, Birmingham, Memphis, or Charlotte, Atlanta, Rochester, Jackson MS, St Louis, Kansas City? All of them extremely dangerous violent places. All of them majority black. Blacks move in, whites move out, city turns to hellhole. You never see the reverse pattern. You never see whites move in, blacks move out, city turns to shit. Why it's as if there is a discernable pattern upheld by the data huh?

    Blacks have a culture that glorifies violence. FACT. I am sorry if facts offend you but that does not make me a racist. A racist would not be saddened by this. A racist would not expect them to do better. A racist wouldn't bother expecting better because a racist thinks they cannot possibly do better (this is so basic it is amazing it needs to be explained to you). In fact a REAL racist that wants to really keep blacks down wants them to KEEP DOING WHAT THEY ARE DOING NOW. Most of these black murderers are killing OTHER BLACKS. Most fatherless broken homes are BLACK MEN abandoning BLACK CHILDREN.

    But I am somehow racist if I suggest they drop the culture of violence and start keeping their own houses in order. Even though that would be the best thing that could happen FOR BLACKS WHO WOULD ENJOY THE BENEFITS. Yeah. Okay. No I think you are racist because you are so committed to never changing anything. You are the coward because TRUTH OFFENDS YOU.