| > The cost of upgrading infrastructure in a busy city is enormously expensive. San Francisco is on a peninsula with no room at all to expand outward. The only solution is to build up and that’s a real problem in an area prone to earthquakes. People always ignore this fact. Infrastructure isn’t free. When all is said and done the Central Subway extension will likely have cost over $2bn for 1.7 miles of subway. [1] The new transit center cost $2.2bn [2]. Rebuilding 1/2 of the bay bridge cost $6.5bn. [3] Consider that money for all of this is artificially restricted by Prop 13, and by California being a net-giver state, paying about $40bn per year more to the fed than we receive back, effectively being a piggy bank for poorer states. > Plus there are a lot of people that like the character of their neighbourhood and don’t want to live in an apartment building. Many commenters with a lot of hatred for San Francisco’s unique brand of dirext democracy are sadly OK with overruling the expressed will of the people not to turn our home into New York just so some tech billionaires can sell more banner ads. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Subway 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transbay_Transit_Center 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_span_replacement_of_th... |
> Many commenters with a lot of hatred for San Francisco’s unique brand of dirext democracy are sadly OK with overruling the expressed will of the people not to turn our home into New York just so some tech billionaires can sell more banner ads.
Who's our? Generally voters tend to be older, wealthier and landowners. The large pile of younger, less wealthy, more transient renters isn't represented well. I don't think the outcome means the system works.