[mc32]

Why would people want to live in relative expensive housing if there are no jobs in the city for them?

Converted apartments are not going to be "affordable" (by say the likes of students, and people just out of college not in finance or tech.

Once the white collar workers leave, there is less demand for service workers to live there. Sure maybe some salaried workers like in emergency services and policing might choose to live there. If I were a service worker, living in SF proper would not be the thing I'm looking to do.

[eszaq]

With more housing, the relative expense decreases, and some people will move in just because they like the bustle of living in a city. Those are also the kind of people who will patronize local establishments.

Years ago, the center of the action in "Silicon Valley" was actually in the geographical valley, in the south bay. The south bay is way different from SF - safe and sterile. Some people would move up to SF and commute all the way down to the south bay just because they wanted to live somewhere interesting. Those sort of people also tended to be the sort to start startups, and the center of the action gradually moved to SF.

I think SF can try following the same path a second time, focus on catering to the gritty hipster demographic and hope something valuable grows out of it. Added housing to push rents lower seems like a good start.

[inamberclad]

I think it's more that the barriers to entry for tech businesses have plummeted. In the olden days (80's, 90's, etc), you didn't have the internet as your force multiplier.

[mc32]

I can see professionals making this calculus, but not the service sector workers proponents often want to see move into cities.

[epicureanideal]

> and the center of the action gradually moved to SF

Is this true? Are there some numbers available for comparison?

[jltsiren]

Housing remains expensive only if too many people want to live there. If the demand goes down, housing costs must eventually go down as well.

Once the balance between supply and demand is similar, urban living should be cheaper than suburban living, because urban areas need less infrastructure for each resident.

[elcritch]

Good points, though bad housing policies like SF’s can artificially decrease supply.

For expensive housing you need both demand and lack of ability to create new housing.

[inamberclad]

We could reduce the cost with increased supply. Conversions are cheaper than new buildings by a large margin. Plenty of people would appreciate living in a metropolitan area for its own sake.

[mc32]

People appreciate places they can live that affords them earning a living (work). Yes, you may get an influx of people wanting to live in a city, but it's not going to solve the issue for people who can't afford an apartment in the city.

If the work itself is leaving, why would they want to live in a city, just to live in a city? To what end? I guess retirees with deep pockets, ok?

[stale2002]

> you may get an influx of people wanting to live in a city

Ok, thats still a benefit. Allowing more people to live in the city is still a good thing.

> To what end?

To allow more people who want to live here, to do so.

[adam_arthur]

The housing won't be as expensive if there is mass office to residential conversion, and a large percentage of jobs go remote

[mc32]

I agree it will come down from $4000. But if I were a service worker, I'd balk at $2500 (let's say it even went as low as that) if I could get it cheaper elsewhere. Hayward, Oakland would be cheaper.

Downtown SF and SJC were quite ugly during downturns before tech came to the rescue. Market street until recently was still suffering from blight brought on 40 years ago.

[epistasis]

I don't understand what your contention is here, but my best understanding is that you think that there's nobody who could afford these apartments with jobs in SF, and that they would sit empty. Is that correct?

If I got that correct, then I would first say that there are massive numbers of people who want to live in SF who have been kept out by the $4000 prices, and lowering it to $3500 or $3000 would bring in far more people.

Further, thinking only in terms of service workers and tech workers misses a lot of what goes on in the city, there's a ton of people in between.

But even if I'm wrong, then having a huge number of vacant apartments is really good news for all renters in the city. It puts pressure on all other landlords to power prices. It changes the market segmentation, and drives improvements in prices or apartment quality for all market segments adjacent to whatever price the conversions initially target. There is no downside to a bunch of vacant office space converting to vacant apartments.

One problem with mass conversions, and in general the way that SF has done planning—zero change allowed for decades then dumping a bunch of new stuff in a small area—is that it takes a long time for the new neighborhood to gain all the character of a neighborhood, for example the little shops, the community groups, etc.