[SllX]

A collective delusion that we can have our cake and eat it too.

In my early 20s I enjoyed challenging my friends on what they would do to make the city more affordable. Got a lot of proposals that essentially boiled down to “control who can live here, kick out everyone that doesn’t fit and cap the city’s population”. Don’t ask me how, I never got a straight answer whenever I pointed out the problems. People can express what they want, they can’t usually tell you how they would obtain it.

[bob33212]

Complainer: 'Homelessness is a mental health problem, they shouldn't be arrested for sleeping and shitting on the sidewalk.'

Me: 'Please go ahead and convince that homeless person to go to a Doctor's office, after you set up the appointment, and then follow up to make sure they take their medicine every day.'

Complainer: 'Well, that is the job of a social worker, not me'

Me: 'Are you going to go hire the social worker and let them know that they need to do this?'

Complainer: 'That is the government's job, not mine'

Answer: 'So you are going to vote for someone who says they will fix this, and that is about all you are going to do?'

Complainer: 'I'm very busy'

[devenblake]

> Homelessness is a mental health problem, they shouldn't be arrested for sleeping and shitting on the sidewalk.

Yes.

> Well, that is the job of a social worker, not me

Yes.

> That is the government's job, not mine

Yes.

>> So you are going to vote for someone who says they will fix this, and that is about all you are going to do?

Yes I will. I pay my taxes, it's not my fault the government wastes my money on the military and law enforcement. When there are candidates that pledge to fix this I donate to them and vote for them.

[sidlls]

You're attempting to mock someone for not personally taking on a problem of society. That's uncharitable to say the least.

[prepend]

I read it as mocking continuing to elect public officials who are not acting accountably to solve the problem.

SanFrancisco spends lots on homeless programs [0], more than almost every city, but they are ineffective. So government is failing at this problem.

[0] https://sf.curbed.com/2019/12/19/21027974/san-francisco-home...

[sidlls]

No argument from me re: government failing. There are so many failures regarding housing and other issues up and down the bay area. It has got to the point where I question whether the rich culture that does exist is worth the quality of life trade.

[whimsicalism]

? This seems to be shoehorning some disagreement you had about homelessness into an unrelated discussion.

[TheCoelacanth]

You don't see the connection from homelessness to housing affordability and the connection from housing affordability to the illegality of building affordable housing?

[imtringued]

>In my early 20s I enjoyed challenging my friends on what they would do to make the city more affordable. Got a lot of proposals that essentially boiled down to “control who can live here, kick out everyone that doesn’t fit and cap the city’s population”.

At some point you have to ask yourself what problem is supposed to be solved if people come up with ideas like that. I mean, the reason why affordable housing is a problem is precisely because lack of it kicks out people, controls who can live there and caps the city's population.

So basically you have a person that wants the symptoms of unaffordable housing but also the virtue signalling that they "solved" the problem. Considering the entire state of California is following the path of San Francisco this is not an answer.

The reason why people come up with nonsensical things like "induced demand" is because the entire housing market of California is under a prisoners dilemma. Staying silent is building housing. Betraying the other is not building and coming up with random ideas to sweep the problem under the rug. Everyone is betraying each other so any specific city who ends up building will face the brunt of the population growth. Every city has to build for this to work and that means statewide reforms in California.

[SllX]

> At some point you have to ask yourself what problem is supposed to be solved if people come up with ideas like that.

You’re giving my friends too much credit. They just don’t like outsiders.

Most people, surprisingly, don’t take an engineering mindset to solving everything, nor do they want to, and even get offended if you do it too much. This past time of mine among many other things taught me that lesson the hard way.

[ricardobayes]

Another collective delusion is the overpopulation we are experiencing. And it's accelerating. 8 billion people now. Global population was 1.6 bil 100 years ago. Let that sink in. It is a massive problem because due to advertising and media every one of this 8 billion wants to live like a first world middle class person. It is not sustainable.

[prepend]

Check out how population growth rates level off as people get to “first world middle class person.”

[SllX]

5 days ago, not sure how I missed this one before.

So a few points on this:

1. Depends how you define overpopulation. Can we still feed all of us? Yes. Do we? No, because while we can easily grow enough food, 50% more than our current population at least, people still starve, just not due to lack of food in the world. I think when we get to the point that we’re seeing a mass die-off of humans because of resource exhaustion, you can start calling us overpopulated. This is not to discount the possibility that we may become overpopulated, but I don’t think we know where that threshold actually is yet.

2. That said, population does tend to level off once the people of a country are well off enough, and so some countries are facing population contractions. Even within countries which are technically growing, subsets of their populations have leveled off and part of the difference is being made up in immigration. We may never actually reach overpopulation if that trend continues.

3. This is the part I hate when discussing population concerns. Let’s throw away my arguments above that we are probably not overpopulated, and suppose you are right. Then what? Genocide? Eugenics? Voluntary societal suicide either directly or by mass scale vasectomy? Just do nothing until something gives?

Acceptance of the idea that there are too many people leads you down to a much more uncomfortable conversation.

Also: all of this is off-topic. San Francisco could support plenty more people. Both California and the United States grow enough food to be net exporters, and California specializes in cash crops. Doing so would require upzoning. Upzoning would lead to neighborhood change, and that’s really the thing San Franciscans are fighting against. Every single time the Earth’s population vs carrying capacity is brought up in the context of San Francisco’s seeming inability to build more homes, it is a distraction.

We could, but we make it as difficult and expensive as we can to keep people out because San Franciscans taken as a whole don’t like outsiders and don’t like change. We’re not the only populace or locality that doesn’t like these things, but we are some of the whiniest and most hypocritical.

[lightgreen]

> I never got a straight answer whenever I pointed out the problems

What are the problems?

[closeparen]

The main problem with "control who can live here" is that you would generally like children born in the place to be on the shortlist, but this would be unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. Cities and states can't privilege natives over migrants.

Rent control and the heritability of Prop 13 are the best California can do to prioritize incumbents. They do work somewhat, but the next generation of natives is still as screwed as prospective migrants re: forming their own households in the place, at least while their parents are still alive.

[nitrogen]

Cities and states can't privilege natives over migrants.

This is causing huge problems in Utah right now. Great if you have a house (or condo/etc) you don't want, bad if you have a house you like because you might get taxed out of it, terrible if you want a house. Every house and condo has dozens of unconditional cash offers on day one.

[throwaway0a5e]

Every state that winds up being the target of affluent people fleeing a major urban area winds up with this problem.

It's really a shame that any evenly applied attempt to privilege existing residents (not necessarily property owners) runs into legal issue.

[codekansas]

Good, as it should be. The idea that you should get priority to live somewhere just because you were born there runs totally counter to America's founding principles. Building more housing to house more people and create more opportunity is the only morally conscionable way forward

[nightowl_games]

Can you elaborate on "America's founding principles"? I'm not following your link here.

[closeparen]

Every family on a quarter acre was not a sustainable plan anyway, I'm not sure how much of a "shame" it really is that the economics are crying out for more compact, walkable communities.

[lightgreen]

> this would be unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause

There's a lot of places where very few people can afford to live. Like Manhattan for example.

> Cities and states can't privilege natives over migrants.

If native own property they can continue living there as long as they wish.

[closeparen]

San Francisco would like housing to remain scarce but be allocated to its favorite people, who are quite distinct from those with the highest ability to pay. This part is best achieved by an immigration policy. But that’s not allowed, so they’re stuck with imperfect substitutes. We can protect our favorite people from displacement, but it’s harder to make homes that change hands flow to them vs. tech workers.

[Dracophoenix]

I'm sorry I don't follow this point. Who exactly are these "favorite people" exactly, and how does California expect these "favorite people" to, overlaps notwithstanding, compete with those with the highest ability to pay all while being able to keep the state budget in tact?

[kodah]

What are "favorite people"? I can't find any way to see this phrase in a positive light.

[closeparen]

The influx of relatively privileged, relatively boring tech workers is seen as destroying the city's unique value as a haven for counterculture, artists, activists, LGBTQ, etc. A common complaint is that "mainstream" people want to move here because those things make the city special, but in doing so they cause a regression to the mean.

[jen20]

> If native own property they can continue living there as long as they wish.

Provided they can afford to pay the ever-rising property taxes. Your take may apply in some places, but it is certainly not universal.

[olliej]

Who gets to decide who is kicked out? at some point there will be a bunch of people born in the city who want to buy a house but can't but of the cap. You have to consider (and policies like this don't) what happens even if no one moves into the city. In that scenario the population will still rise, until it hits the cap, at which point people have to leave.

At that point where do they go? Presumably other cities will be allowed such caps so they can't move to those either.

Then there are historical population control tools like redlining, and racist applications of eminent domain used to remove "undesirable" (a euphemism for black) neighborhoods.

By placing a cap on population you ensure that the victims of that discrimination never have the opportunity to return to the places they used to live - and as an added bonus you get to claim that your policy isn't racist because it has no stated racial bias.

Say your rental lease is up, and the only place you can find to rent is Colma. Now you've left SF are you ever allowed to return. What if someone else moved into SF while you were away thus taking your position under the cap? Honestly if anything this possibly right here could easily cause rental and housing prices to go up even more.

Then there's SF's claim to be an open and welcoming multicultural city - you can't claim that well disallowing new residents, and so new cultures, from entering.

The only real way to reduce hoisin cost is to build more housing. Where and what type you build are the only actual questions that you need to answer.

[scotty79]

> what happens even if no one moves into the city. In that scenario the population will still rise, until it hits the cap, at which point people have to leave.

Don't we have birthrate below replacement levels?

[lightgreen]

> racist applications of eminent domain used to remove "undesirable" (a euphemism for black) neighborhoods

I'm sure white trash neighbourhoods were not welcome there as well.

Anyway, I'm not ready to continue conversation where everything is considered racist, sorry.

[klyrs]

https://www.sfchronicle.com/living/article/Anti-Asian-and-an...

Only, there are still racially restrictive covenants on many properties to this day. Yes, in San Francisco. Thankfully, they're unenforceable, but the evidence is writ large on the legal system. And no, they didn't forbid white people from living anywhere -- if you've got reams of evidence to contradict that, show it.

Deeper dive into the history:

https://haasinstitute.berkeley.edu/system/tdf/haasinstitute_...

Frisco isn't special here, for example, Seattle's timeline (including these covenants still being on the books) is pretty much the same

https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants.htm

[olliej]

The Bay Area (the area this article is about) was heavily redlined, and almost all (maybe actually all?) uses of eminent domain for 580 and the MacArthur maze in the Bay Area were in predominantly black neighborhoods.

[Sebb767]

Not the OP, but the ones that come immediately to mind is that a) capping the population will reduce the market and therefore increase prices and b) if you start limiting the people, the ones remaining will most likely be the rich [0] one way or another, making the market even more competitive.

[0] Unless the place is not actually worth striving to live in, but in that case you probably don't have a rent price problem.

[lightgreen]

> reduce the market and therefore increase prices

Why is that a problem?

> if you start limiting the people, the ones remaining will most likely be the rich

Why is that a problem?

[dghlsakjg]

> Why is that a problem?

Shelter is one of the few goods which a society necessarily needs. The alternatives (being homeless) are unacceptable. People give up food, electricity and healthcare before they give up shelter.

It's fine at a micro scale (oceanfront is expensive, but a few blocks away is affordable), but causes incredible problems at a macro scale as the bay area demonstrates (people not able to live within 50+ miles of their support networks). It is VERY hard to uproot an entire life and move to an area where cost of living is lower, especially when you are poor. People in poverty form informal local support networks (neighbors watching kids, friends that can loan you $5 to top up your phone), making it that much harder to move to a lower cost area.

[TulliusCicero]

> Why is that a problem?

This is like asking why high prices for food or health care are problems.

It's a necessity of life, man. Do we really need to explain why basic necessities being very expensive is bad?

[Sebb767]

> Why is that a problem?

The grand-grandparent stated:

> I enjoyed challenging my friends on what they would do to make the city more affordable.

So, when the solution results in increased pricing, his challenge was inherently failed.

[milkytron]

> to make the city more affordable

It doesn't achieve the goal, in fact further distances it.

[SllX]

What’s the problem with:

1. Picking who is worthy of living in San Francisco as determined by the City and County of San Francisco

2. Removing current residents that don’t fit the criteria

And 3. Controlling who may then migrate in?

You tell me, Ford. You tell me. I have faith that you can do it. I’ll give you exactly one hint: San Francisco is not a country.

[lightgreen]

> 1. Picking who is worthy of living in San Francisco as determined by the City and County of San Francisco

No it is decided by the free market.

> 2. Removing current residents that don’t fit the criteria

Only those who rent. People who own property can continue to live there as long as they wish.

[SllX]

I think you’re misunderstanding my original post, and thus presenting an argument you want to make in an incomplete and easily misunderstood manner.

I apologize for the sarcasm in light of this. Cheers!

[kar5pt]

How are you going to keep people out of the city without raising prices? Also how is that fair to people who didn't have the privilege of being born in a nice city?

[scotty79]

The problem of that solution is that the person proposing such solution lands on the list of people to kick out.

Then suddenly it's not a good solution for him anymore.

[nunez]

i.e. basically an affluent suburb