[d1zzy]

> But at the same time, these cities, like Palo Alto, are building office space left and right and welcoming businesses into town.

Because said cities cannot get enough tax money from property tax (blame Prop 13) so they need to get it from businesses. But then those businesses attract people in the area and then those people need a place to live in but they can't get a place because nobody has the incentive to sell when your tax rate is locked in (well, growing up to 2% per year), on the contrary, you don't want to sell and then buy somewhere else and have to pay more taxes than you were paying at the old place, even if the new place is much smaller.

One of the countless negative consequences of Prop 13.

[onethought]

As someone not familiar with Californian/SF local legal matters. What do they need the tax $ for if there aren't many residence?

[dave5104]

I'll go with Palo Alto, since that's what I'm most familiar with. It's still a city with >65,000 residents. You need tax revenue to support a city that large, along with all the services and maintenance that comes from supporting a 3-4x larger daytime (pre-COVID) population of people coming in to the city to work.

Prop 13 limits the % you can raise property tax each year, unless they sell the property (at which point the property tax resets to the sale value). That leads to a lot of people not moving and holding onto their old, low tax property.

[Decade]

It’s not just a California issue. Pretty much all of post-war (World War II) American development is functionally insolvent. Actually, not having enough residents per square mile is a leading driver of the need for more tax $.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3090385

[ndiscussion]

Most likely they chronically overspend, just like any other organization with chronic budget issues. The people there seem to think that everything comes for free, and as long as the city can secure additional debt, they're right.

But it's not sustainable, and imo, downright evil.

[treeman79]

Spending. Endless spending.

There is no amount of money that is enough.

Not spending fast enough? Maybe a high speed train would solve things!

Grew up there. Been traveling country since. Shocking how well states do with a lot less money.