[chvid]

I find it amazing that "locals" can get away with blaming "tech workers" for rising rents and homelessness. The rents and the house prices only rise because the wealth that the workers generate is blocked from being used to build new houses.

[mcv]

But why? Why isn't all that wealth being used to make the city more livable? More affordable for the poor? More diverse?

[CalRobert]

Because making it more affordable to the poor means increasing the housing supply, which means reducing the price of homes, which existing homeowners hate.

[mcv]

But it's the people who live there who are complaining. Besides I doubt that stepping over homeless people is good for the price of homes.

Increasing the housing supply, if there's room for that, seems like a no-brainer.

[cutler]

It's called capitalism. So long as property is a free market instead of a public asset this trend will continue. It's not just SF. We're seeing it all over the West.

[emblaegh]

Housing is not a free market because its supply is artificially restricted by zoning regulations meant to protect the value of current homeowners' properties.

[atoav]

If you wanna get a flat in Berlin it is not uncommon to find 100 other people when you look for a flat.

Technically this is supply and demand at play that pushes the prices into fantasy land. Which means after years you will have locals thrown out of their flats because the prices have risen so drastically that only few landlords will take their tenants side.

Markets don’t value social stabilty and don’t give a damn about who lived there for how many generations and what they did for that place.

Is the rage of the displaced morally justified? Can a system that produces such results be desireable for a society as a whole?

[ehmish]

A good way to avoid people being displaced is to build enough housing to meet the demand, however there's lots of (probably well intentioned) efforts which undermine this goal, most of the people voting for these things which undermine this goal are the people who originally live there themselves, so in my opinion the rage isn't justified

[panarky]

"meant to protect the value of current homeowners' properties"

It's probably not that direct. Sure, you could build up and achieve the population density of Hong Kong, but then SF would lose the "little big city" charm that makes it a great place to be.

And as we see in Hong Kong, simply adding housing units doesn't necessarily reduce the price of housing.

So I'd argue the primary purpose of the zoning regs is to retain what makes SF what it is, not just to maximize price per square foot.

[emblaegh]

> And as we see in Hong Kong, simply adding housing units doesn't necessarily reduce the price of housing.

Do you have more info on that? I'd be particularly curious if the per capta price of housing increased with population at the same rate as places like SF.

[CaptainZapp]

Housing is not a free market because its supply is artificially restricted by zoning regulations meant to protect the value of current homeowners' properties.

So, you're argueing that you'll be fine living near a major hog farm in the middle of a city or a couple of major brothels (which are legal in a lot of places around the world)?

[ehmish]

There's a big difference between a hog farm, which no-one's trying to build in cities, and where we aren't doing it for the welfare of others, and say what's more commonly struck down, which is affordable housing and homeless shelters which directly improve people's lives, even if it causes a bit of harm to the people who live in the place already

[emblaegh]

Nice strawman bud.

[CaptainZapp]

Where exactly is the strawman?

Parent made argument that zoning is the whole problem, is bad and entrenches home owners.

I provided two - albeit extreme - examples, why zoning is important.

Methinks that the consequences of the libertarian arguments of DAMN REGULATION! are quite often rather badly thought through. And that's what I wanted to point out.

Don't want to live near a tannery? Then you probably should be careful, when arguing for the abolishment of zoning and building regulations.

[gshdg]

Local renters != local property owners

[q3k]

Really? Only because of that? No other reason?

[chvid]

Yes. It is actually pretty simple. A place like SF has the choice between converting the wealth its citizens generate into more housing or higher house prices. It is a political choice.