[somerando]

I don't see what is so wrong with gentrification. As the economy expands and people become more prosperous, it restores blighted parts of the city to their full potential.

I also think that rent control is disrespectful to the rights of the property owner. Other than making sure that there is no discrimination, and that properties aren't fire traps, government should get out of the way.

[Hermitian909]

Opponents of gentrification, and supporters of rent control, are generally considering the well-being of current residents.

"blighted parts of the city" are often homes to people and the place where their communities are located. These people see themselves priced out of the place they've lived for years and are forced to start a new life elsewhere when the area they live in is gentrified. This is incredibly stressful and hugely disruptive to these people's lives and it's not unreasonable that they desire some protection for their way of life.

The recognition of this fact is also the source of rent control (whether rent control is the right mechanism to prevent these hardships is another conversation). Without societal protections landlords wield a huge amount of power over tenants, raising rent by exorbitant amounts is no different than eviction for most families. In a desire to protect their own communities and livelihoods many residents vote for such policies.

[whack]

> "Opponents of gentrification, and supporters of rent control, are generally considering the well-being of current residents."

And what about current residents who need to move? Suppose a disadvantaged woman decides to leave her abusive husband and is trying to find another place to move into. Is it fair that her well-being is completely neglected?

I'm all in favor of the intentions behind rent control, but the implementation is an atrocious way to achieving its goals. If the goal is to help the poor long-time residents of a city, then do that directly. Raise property taxes, impose a city-income-tax, and use the proceeds to offer assistance to means-tested long-time residents. This would be far better than what SF has currently.

[joe_the_user]

Suppose a disadvantaged woman decides to leave her abusive husband and is trying to find another place to move into.

Your hypothetical disadvantaged woman would have zero ability to pay $2000/month rent for a studio, however many of these might be available. She would likely find it hard to get an apartment in a rent-controlled situation - so the situation is effectively "hard versus impossible", a condition where "hard" is less harsh.

And I mean, I've lived off and on in the Bay Area under both these conditions over the last forty years and the impossible rents of course are the hardest for those of lesser means. Of frickin course.

[whack]

You've ignored my second paragraph which explains a far better way of helping those in need.

I'm all in favor of the intentions behind rent control, but the implementation is an atrocious way to achieving its goals. If the goal is to help the poor long-time residents of a city, then do that directly. Raise property taxes, impose a city-income-tax, and use the proceeds to offer assistance to means-tested long-time residents. This would be far better than what SF has currently.

[zethraeus]

Why are the studios $2000/month in this alternate universe where we don't have rent control?

[closeparen]

Because NIMBYism, height limits, and single family zoning over most of the landmass still exist, and have much stronger effects.

[joe_the_user]

They are in the present universe, where we don't have effective rent control.

And effective rent would require controlling evictions and controlling rents on vacant units (infringing further on sacred property rights, certainly).

Now, the most effective policy would involved rent control but with exemptions for new very high density units, incentivizing increases in the total housing stock for an urban area.

But we're here with weak rent control and tacit collusion of homeowners and builders, who talk about their property rights when convenient and use the state to keep their monopoly when convenient.

[beamatronic]

If one is disadvantaged, wouldn’t it be easier to move to a less competitive place, far from the dog-eat-dog daily life? Be part of a more “gentle” community for lack of a better word?

[dbasedweeb]

I think the question is who’s responsibility it is to protect the woman in your hypothetical. Is it the landlord? New tenants? Some people from Amazon looking to expand? The new cafe charging $5 for rainbow bagels? The state or federal government? The goals of most of those entities are agnostic about the woman, not against her or for her. Rent control basically says the landlord is responsible, your formulation says the government is responsible through increased taxation. I don’t know the answer, but I can understand that most people are too preoccupied with their own lives to prioritize the woman.

At the end of the day, someone or a lot of someone’s need to take or share responsibility for the circumstances of the less foruntate, because the alternative is terrible for everyone.

[crdoconnor]

>I'm all in favor of the intentions behind rent control, but the implementation is an atrocious way to achieving its goals. If the goal is to help the poor long-time residents of a city, then do that directly.

Rent control is a hack, but it's a hack that largely works. It's not nearly as atrocious as the reputation profit hungry landlords have tried to give it.

Why not treat it exactly like any other kind of hack? Take it out, sure, but not a second before the real fix is in place.

>Raise property taxes

Yes. A lot. And do it first.

[chollida1]

> Rent control is a hack, but it's a hack that largely works. It's not nearly as atrocious as the reputation profit hungry landlords have tried to give it

Well I'm not sure what economics degree you have, but a Nobel winning one, says that most economists are in agreement and they disagree with you

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent...

> The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and -- among economists, anyway -- one of the least controversial. In 1992 a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that ''a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.'

So I guess the balls in your court. What evidence would you put forward to prove most economists wrong about rent control?

[pmoriarty]

From [1]:

"One major problem with this argument is the lack of a definition with rent control. Yes, the statistic of 93 percent of economists rejecting rent control is all fine, but what specific rent control are we speaking about? Here is the question he either refuses to answer or does not know much about.

"In the Economics Anti-Textbook by Rod Hills and Tonny Myatt, they do talk about the neoclassical idea of rent control, but give an alternative view as well. They write:

  But knowing the extent to which the ceiling rent is binding over
  time is very tricky. It’s complicated by the fact that we cannot
  observe the equilibrium rent. A second complication is that the type
  of rent control prevalent nowadays is very different from the type
  assumed in textbooks -- a rigid rent freeze.

"What Berezow is saying is that "first-generation rent control" is rejected by many economists. For those unaware, it is, as stated above, "a rigid rent freeze." However, "second-generation" rent control is more flexible as it can allow "automatic rent increases geared to increasing costs, excludes luxury high-rent buildings and new buildings, restricts conversions, decontrols between tenants, and provides incentives for landlords to maintain or improve quality.""

[1] - https://shadowproof.com/2013/11/11/why-is-alex-berezow-allow...

[closeparen]

It’s entirely possible for someone to understand that, and to be willing to trade the quantity and quality of housing for stability in the lives of existing residents.

[stale2002]

The problem with rent control is that it causes developers to build less.

This is certainly a problem that will happen in a purely competitive market.

But the SF housing market is NOT a competitive market. The bottleneck for developers to build more houses is the government that prevents them from doing so.

So i'd recommend focusing on getting rid of the other barriers to more housing before focusing on rent control.

Or in other words, rent control is indeed a bottleneck. But the thing with bottle necks is that only the smallest bottleneck matters.

Getting rid of the less bad bottleneck of rent control will do absolutely nothing unless the OTHER bottlenecks are addressed first.

[crdoconnor]

>The problem with rent control is that it causes developers to build less.

Yet New York's highest level of house building occurred under a period of very strict rent controls (50s).

The level to which rent control restricts building wildly exaggerated.

[crdoconnor]

>Well I'm not sure what economics degree you have

Could your appeal to authority be a little more obvious please?

>a Nobel winning one, says that most economists are in agreement and they disagree with you

The economist profession is badly captured by moneyed interests. This is partly why they are terrible at building predictive models (think about it: which one of them wasn't blindsided by the financial crisis?).

Often the more prestigious seeming the economist, the more captured they are.

With Paul Krugman specifically this level of capture was made embarrassingly obvious when he wrote a screed saying "what's wrong with the TPP? More trade is always good!" and then got schooled by his own comments section about what was actually in that trade deal (that had nothing to do with "more trade") and what was wrong with it:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/12/krugman-running-bran...

He obviously wasn't too stupid to understand it, which is why after enough negative exposure he retracted.

I doubt you'll find any Nobel prize winning physicists having to retract a similar "mistake" although I can think of one climate scientist who might.

>So I guess the balls in your court. What evidence would you put forward to prove most economists wrong about rent control?

New York's highest level of house building occurred under strict rent controls.

[pcwalton]

> It's not nearly as atrocious as the reputation profit hungry landlords have tried to give it.

Please don't tar all landlords with the same brush. I might well be a landlord in the future if I ever move out of the Bay Area, because I really like SF and would like to keep owning my (small, modest) condo even if I have to take a job elsewhere in the future. Right now, because of Costa-Hawkins, rent control won't affect me even in that scenario. But, suppose CH were repealed and the Progs decided to throw owners of those "luxury condos" everyone hates under the bus to score political points by implementing vacancy control. In that case, I'd have no choice but to sell, because I literally couldn't pay the mortgage if I couldn't charge market rent. (Actually, even market rent, right now, would not be enough to pay the mortgage--I would have to start low and raise the rent over time, or else I'd have to sell.)

For some of us, it isn't about profit. I'm happy to give up profit for a good tenant. It's about not having the bank foreclose on our property--which, needless to say, would in eviction for our tenants.

[mc32]

For clarification, landlords have an advantage when there is a boom, but a disadvantage when in a bust.

[tmh79]

Gentrification is a really inartful term that has come to mean a lot of different things.

To some, gentrification is the process of a place becoming nicer, there are more options to eat out, the city services in an area increase etc

To others, gentrification is the process of a place changing in a way that makes them feel alien in their home. New and different people move in, their favorite businesses close down, the closest laundromat closes down so now the next closest one is an additonal 5 minute walk. The prices everywhere rise, what used to cost you 5 dollars now costs you 10, and its hard to live like that because you only make 30k/year, taking home maybe 1.8k/month. You apply to jobs at a few of these new places, and the first 5 places casually turned you down despite their "help wanted" sign and your job experience as a bar tender/server. The 6th place accepts you, but your job is pretty bad because all of the patrons of the bar treat you like "the help".

To others, gentrification means rents go up more than you can afford and you get evicted and need to move away from your family and friends and your support structure.

[nothrabannosir]

> rent control is disrespectful to the rights of the property owner.

Is there an inherent right of way for property owners over renters on the residential moral crossroads? If you’ve grown up in a neighbourhood, raised your own kids in that neighbourhood, spent time in and on the neighbourhood, don’t you deserve some respect? People without the fiscal wherewithal (nor social impetus) to buy, but who spent effort safe guarding their community, organising events for locals, tending to parks, churches; they created the neighbourhood. They added value to every single property. But God forbid they were not raised to “buy”: make way for the Propery Owner!

I find this incongruous with what I’ve seen around me time and time again. People who’ve suffered through the hardest times of an area get pushed out when it does better. They deserved it the most, but got hoodwinked for the newer, flashier wind.

Not unlike a spouse who stays with their partner through a tough disease, depression, or poverty, only to be dumped for a more beautiful and opportunistic competitor when the hardship has sailed.

I’m not a staunch anti gentrifier (hell, I gentrify!), but I find using the word “respect” a bridge too far.

[telchar]

On rent control and gentrification I don't have a strong opinion right now. But I'd argue that if one has the means to buy but chooses not to, I can't feel bad for them if they get pushed out by rising rents. Buying a house is a good way to establish roots in a community. For those who can't afford to buy I feel that the argument that gentrification is harmful has some merit though, of course if the renter has started in a bad neighborhood I wouldn't think it would typically be that expensive to buy.

To use your analogy, if you don't put a ring on it you might lose it [your partner]. At least if one is divorced there is likely some alimony.

I suspect much of the real problem with gentrification involves the legacy of redlining and other abuses of vulnerable populations, like predatory contract loans and subprime mortgages. If populations such as inner-city blacks weren't systematically prevented from purchasing property in past decades gentrification would probably be much less a hot-button issue.

[Kalium]

> If you’ve grown up in a neighbourhood, raised your own kids in that neighbourhood, spent time in and on the neighbourhood, don’t you deserve some respect?

Absolutely! You completely deserve respect! Of course, every human being deserves some effing respect.

What "respect" means in terms of public policy is sometimes a complex question. I think the person you're responding to is using it in a legalistic sense, where "disrespect" could probably be replaced with "abrogating" or "breaching". Your usage seems a tad bit different.

[bhickey]

> Is there an inherent right of way for property owners over renters on the residential moral crossroads?

No, but rent control is counterproductive and hurts many of the people it purports to help. What are its effects?

It encourages landlords to neglect properties. As one socialist economist quipped, "In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing." After World War II, Paris enacted rent control leading to the loss of tens of thousands of existing units. When rent control was banned in Cambridge, MA, the valuation of never-controlled properties rose more rapidly than previously rent controlled properties. This implies that the never-controlled properties were better maintained.

It accrues financial gains to people who tend to be older and more affluent. People with lucrative employment are more able to stay in place for longer. They can ride out the downturns.

It limits supply. This increases median rents for newly available units. It discourages the construction of new units.

It encourages over consumption. Empty nesters don't downsize. This makes it harder for young families to find housing. SF has the lowest portion of children of any major American city.

It privatizes a public problem.

As far as solving a housing crisis goes, rent control is about as helpful as arson.

[asteli]

The wealth-ification of a neighborhood isn't per se bad. It would be fantastic if people living in a neighborhood became wealthier through some set of circumstances (economic recovery etc).

What you typically see is long-time neighborhood residents being displaced by wealthier newcomers. In a poor neighborhood, this means that people who are already vulnerable, especially those that are renting also have to cope with a whole new set of problems -- landlords who desperately want to evict them, cost-of-living increases, increased pressure from law enforcement.

The Bay doesn't have resources for people who find themselves in this position. My old housemate in west Oakland, in her early 30s and well-educated, but with health issues, is being forced from the bay. She grew up in Berkeley and Oakland. This is her home. I'm sad.

[bcheung]

I think what you say is true for long term renters but the complete opposite for long term homeowners.

There's rent control, Proposition 13, and fixed rate mortgages. Those greatly help long time homeowner.

Homeowners lock in low interest rates and fixed monthly payments. If inflation hits you're still paying the same. Possibly 1/5th the amount that your neighbor might be paying if you've had your house for a while.

With Proposition 13 your property tax won't go up more than 2% despite double digital home price inflation year after year in the bay area.

The amount of equity generated each year is often more than peoples' entire salaries.

[ng12]

Ebb-and-flow, man. Especially in NYC and SF "poor neighborhoods" were once middle-class before a downturn.

[asteli]

True in a lot of urban centers during the 'white flight,' but as always, the story is sometimes more complicated.

West Oakland, for example, wasn't wealthy, but was nevertheless a thriving black neighborhood. People, money, music, culture from all over the country flowed in via the rail system and the Port of Oakland. It was vital in America's Jazz scene, dubbed "Harlem of the West."

The postwar period saw West Oakland fragmented and paved over by the Cypress freeway and the 980, construction of the behemoth USPS facility, construction of the BART straight through 7th street. Pretty clear cut case of environmental racism. American city officials in the 40s and 50s had no problem stating their motives out loud -- they saw construction of these projects in thriving black neighborhoods as a win-win: build up infrastructure and get rid of the "local niggertown.[1]"

We can't simply chalk these changes up to inevitable economic downturn. West Oakland is an extreme example, but these changes are guided by policy decisions as much as economic change.

https://books.google.com/books?id=xRntFdOk8ewC&lpg=PA28

[epicureanideal]

I think there's a difference though between "a small town that has very little in the way of services because the population won't support it or the people who live there don't earn enough to support nice amenities" becoming more prosperous, and a town where nice amenities are already possible, but building is prevented as people move in so prices get driven up without (as much as would be natural) corresponding increase in amenities.

That's not to say that nice amenities are what everyone wants. Some people want to keep the character of their small towns no matter what. But in the former case there's a loss of small-town-ness for amenities that theoretically benefit everyone, whereas in the latter case it's purely an extraction of money from the young to the old.

[ubernostrum]

The language you choose to use -- about "blighted" parts of a city and realizing their "full potential" -- is the language of eminent domain.

Which is curious given that you then turn around and talk about "rights of the property owner". Gentrification is largely about a wealthy group of people declaring that they will do more useful things with a neighborhood than the current residents would, so they should be allowed to move in and take over, whether through economic coercion (driving up prices and rents) or through legal coercion (having buildings condemned, properties seized to be "improved", etc.).

[SmirkingRevenge]

This topic often seems to lead to one of those left-right paradoxes. Like how the right hates government, but loves cops and military... while many of the left hold the inverse position.

Right-leaning people I know generally sympathize with those living in the rural blight, and their desires to stay in their hometowns and avoid displacement. Left-leaning people tend to say the rural folk need to suck it up and move to the city like everyone else, if they want better opportunities.

Then folk on either side tend to do an about-face when it comes to urban gentrification. Right-leaners tend to support gentrification and all it entails, and the left-leaners suddenly want rework local/national laws to allow the would-be displaced to remain in their homes.

[40acres]

In principal gentrification is fine, in practice its usually a mess. I'm from Brooklyn, which is definitely gentrified by any means. It's nice that property values are up, new businesses are booming, and crime is down -- but there is something to be said about the community which underwent decades of over-policing, redlining and discriminatory practices being booted out all because some property developers thought the neighborhood was "hot".

[_jal]

I lived in Brooklyn for the better part of a decade, and was a gentrifier. I watched two neighborhoods change, and it seems to me the hard thing to talk about is that everything that's lost is immaterial. Destroying a neighborhood of folks who know each other can show larges gains on the balance sheet, but the losses can't be quantified.

Maybe Facebook can find a way to monetize those social relations, so the could be recognized as having a value. (/s)

[tzm]

> restores blighted parts of the city to their full potential

I disagree. Gentrification has cultural impacts that can reshape society in positive and negative ways.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/magazine/when-gentrificat...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4618664/

[dbasedweeb]

Some people feel that the communities have a right to a place, others feel that whoever ends up owning the place has those rights. I don’t know what the answer is by the way, I’m just calling the perspectives as I see them. Obviously if you feel that residents “own” a neighborhood in some sense, then it’s wrong to price them out. If you feel that whoever puts the money down to own property owns it, then you won’t feel the same way.

[nine_k]

One of the problems with extreme gentrification (e.g. in SF or London) is that people of modest means who are required for functioning of the city, like janitors, or street vendors, or even teachers or train operators can't live close enough to their work places. (The solution is, of course, just paying them more.)

[chrischen]

Yea but I think people take issue with it improving the place rather than improving the lives of the people that were already there.

Rent control is a band-aid solution to displacement caused by NIMBYism and the surplus of jobs from the tech industry.

[Ar-Curunir]

Let's scale up your example: why should citizens of a country have any special rights over immigrants? One can argue that immigration "restores blighted parts" of the country "to its full potential".

I doubt you'd make that argument, though.

[xienze]

> One can argue that immigration "restores blighted parts" of the country "to its full potential".

Only if you’re talking about well-to-do immigrants, and most of the time that term is reserved for the “undocumented” variety of immigrant, not generally known for bringing a flood of money into an area like Valley techies do.

Your point is actually relevant though, unchecked immigration does indeed have an affect on housing prices, just not quite as dramatically as a horde of tech geeks does.

[nine_k]

Citizens of a country usually sort of own the country, if you read the local constitution.

They are more like homeowners, entitled to protect their land with deadly force.

Tenants are more like tourists: they are welcome as long as they keep paying.

[eli_gottlieb]

>Tenants are more like tourists: they are welcome as long as they keep paying.

Bull. Tenants are full-time residents who just don't have the money to buy.

[kasey_junk]

This is not a controversial opinion amongst lots of people by the way.

I’m not arguing for or against it, but it’s not an argument ad absurdem.

[bcheung]

Gentrification by definition is bimodal and polarizing to the opposite extremes. What you are describing is more the aggregate standard of living increasing. I think the 2 are correlated though.

The tell-tale sign of gentrification is increased homeless people and blights in areas that simultaneously have wealthier people becoming wealthier. While there are bigger extremes, the aggregate and average wealth also increases.

I also agree about government getting out of the way but I wouldn't say that there's nothing wrong with gentrification.

Personally, my theory is that anything that generally increases prosperity also generally increases gentrification.

It is easy to see why once we understand 2 observations:

1) Human abilities, willpower, motivation, etc, follow a Gaussian distribution (bell curve). Intelligence, health, motivation, charisma, etc.

2) Modern civilization has amplifiers that create leverage. These include technology, education, and access to capital.

Take a bell curve and multiply it with an amplifier. A motivated person has access to the Internet to learn whatever they want and financing to create an online business. Modern society provides the tools to greatly expand your life if you so choose. However, few do. Without those tools a gifted individual can not achieve that much more than their neighbors.

The difference between a caveman who is naturally gifted with health, intelligence, and is motivated; and caveman who is not so blessed is not that significant. Even if they wanted to, there isn't much they can do to dramatically improve their condition. They might be able to improve it a little bit but not that much compared to their peers.

If you take those same 2 people and place them in modern civilization, the gifted and motivated individual can accomplish far more, perhaps achieving 1000x more wealth than their peers.

The only way to get rid of gentrification is to get rid of any form of leverage or to collectively deploy force to redistribute wealth -- neither of which I think is a good idea. Doing so means getting rid of anything that increases aggregate standard of living. We would have to give up education, technology, access to capital, etc. Gentrification would be gone, but everyone would be equally poor.

With that being said, I see it as the natural consequence of progress and so I'm not concerned about it from that angle but I wouldn't say I don't see it as a problem.

Class warfare being one of the bigger symptoms of gentrification and it can have devastating effects when governments go through revolutions. Revolutions tend to result in massive destructions of wealth and human life.

So I definitely see gentrification as a bad thing with some nasty side effects, but I also see that prosperity is increasing.

[rosser]

Exactly how meaningfully are you at risk of being subject to gentrification, account that is four minutes older than its only comment?

I'm pretty sure you'd sing an entirely different tune if you were.

[cambalache]

Of course he would. Usually the same group who say poor people (read: non-white) need to move out if their neighborhood it is being gentrified are the one to complain about "those" Chinese increasing real state prices in many western cities.