Comment by ProfessorLayton
2 hours ago
Almost everything you said is a typical NIMBY talking point:
> Dozens of “luxury” units built cheaply, selling for 4,000$ for a 1 bedroom
A nebulous definition of "luxury", and totally ignores the fact that people with money can get what they want anyway, pushing those with less out. So yes, more "luxury" builds help.
> They get subsidized by the local government for including maybe 5 units that are “low income” and probably still cost 2k
Many purportedly want more low income housing, often at absurd rates like "100% affordable" knowing that projects like that will never pencil out. It's a way of saying "No" without actually saying it.
> I want lots of high quality, dignified housing for myself and my community, not wealth extraction pods.
Okay, so build some? If you can't build what you want then why stop others from building what they can with the budget they have?
>As it stands now the land is being squatted by mega corporations seeking to extract as much profit from the community as possible.
It's literally illegal in most places to build more densely due to height, parking requirements, discretionary reviews, etc. impacting everyone interested in building more units (Like for a multigenerational household as seen in elsewhere in the world). This is not just impacting corporations seeking to extract profit.
It's all talking points on both sides. "Build more housing" being the one true solution has become a religious tenant in a lot of wonkish circles. I see it repeated uncritically every single time this topic comes up on HN and similar spaces.
The reality is that demand is always going to far outstrip supply in certain areas. You can only cram so many houses into a place like San Franciso, even if you raze the city to the ground and replace it with some yimby paradise that houses 25% more people. The extra supply might lower costs to some degree in the short term but the induced demand will ensure they stay above what someone on an average salary can afford. Everyone seems to understand this when the topic is freeway expansion, but not with housing.
The actual solution for housing costs is a lot more complicated and multi-pronged, but that doesn't fit neatly on a bumper sticker. There actually is a ton of affordable housing in the US, but it's mostly in areas that people in influential industries like tech and media tend to sneer at, so it gets dismissed; and suggesting someone move there is practically treated as a human rights abuse.
Dramatically increasing housing density does have adverse affects for existing residents. It's fine to say the tradeoffs are worth it, I'm not saying it's never the answer, but even acknowledging that it's a tradeoff usually gets met with dismissive insults from the yimby crowd.
Isn't SF infamously a SFH zone that makes no sense? If you razed the whole city and rebuilt it like Manhattan, you wouldn't have 25% more inhabitants, you'd have 25000% more. And if you improve public transit (I heard BART is some that's pretty good by American standards but not by European standards?) you can drastically widen the area that feels like the core city (just take a look at Berlin which I'm familiar with) giving maybe another 1000% multiplicative increase.
Every time I'm in Berlin I love the public transit system there. I think that's because they have a relatively dense network of lines through the city center, and the trains run every 4-5 minutes which means you don't have to check the timetable before going to the station, you can just show up. I haven't visited London or NYC though. I know some cities with more modern train signaling have trains every 1-2 minutes so there is basically always a train at every metro station.