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San Francisco's Self-Defeating Housing Activists (theatlantic.com)
30 points by selleck 3829 days ago
2 comments

Ok article, but I'm not sure it adds much beyond the earlier tech crunch article from 2014 it references.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/

The tech crunch article provides a much fuller and more nuanced overview of the problem. I strongly recommend it.

>San Francisco as a whole has in grappling with the most significant reason for its affordability crisis: the widespread opposition of its left-leaning residents to lots more new building.

"Left leaning"?

Since virtually none of the developments that are being blocked are actually affordable it's hard to feel sympathy for the developers looking to turn a profit whose interests are being represented by this article.

>But many of the San Francisco activists most passionate about improving affordability in theory are pursuing that goal in economically dubious ways that are, as often as not, counterproductive.

One thing is for certain, picking a side in the fight between condo developers looking to turn a quick buck and NIMBY San Francisco homeowners trying to stop them isn't going to help anybody apart from them.

Two things will help solve this problem: raising property taxes and using the proceeds to build public housing.