10 Jun
2013
10 Jun
'13
4:32 p.m.
That $5,000/month 2-BR apartment translates to $60K/year for rent, which
means that the owner isn't even going to look at anyone with an income
below $180K, or a married couple with joint income of $180K and perfect
credit ratings.
Re. "many levels of rich": the average millionaire is closer to his/her
gardener in terms of net worth, than to the plutocrats (but most
millionaires have no clue about this). In any case, there are enough
people in the 1% to account for 95% of the spending in the economy
(keyword search "plutonomy" and look for the report that was leaked from
one of the major banks on that topic), so the bottom 99% is almost
irrelevant ("supply and demand" for human lives, again).
Re. "at whatever level a developer wants to provide more housing, I'll
say YES DO IT..." Be careful what you wish for...
Re. "tall buildings..." (preceding email): When the inevitable 7.0 on
either the Hayward or San Andreas occurs, even if the building remains
standing (this can't be taken for granted either, given the problems
with the imported steel in the Bay Bridge) power & water will be out for
weeks, possibly months in some areas. Elevators and air conditioning
won't be working in those buildings. So now you have highrises full of
people, some of whom are elderly, disabled, or have small kids, with no
food or water, and no sanitation. Asking neighbors to carry food up the
stairs might work, but lugging water up ten or twenty flights is a
non-starter (a 2-day supply for one person for drinking and cooking, is
about 25 lbs.).
Even earthquake-denialism doesn't help us, because adding high-rises
adds demand for water, sewer, and parking, all the time. Assuming that
most high-rise residents won't have cars doesn't help much, because some
will, and those will still add up to more cars than there is space to
park them. Water and sewer are the biggies, and any move toward
highrise development will require digging up streets and installing new
water & sewer mains, which translate to higher costs either in rent or
in taxes.
Albert Einstein was a pacifist, and Edward Teller was a hawk. Both
agreed that the exponential function is the most dangerous math on Earth.
-G.
=====
On 13-06-10-Mon 3:41 PM, Sonja Trauss wrote:
Yeah Jehan that's how I understand it.
Eddie's scenario though is that rich_guy CAN'T move into the nice new
apt, because before he gets there, some rich_guy_2 moves into the apt
from Mountain View, and /rich_guy_2 would not have moved into SF if
the new apartments hadn't been built/.
This is a scenario, so we should explore its antecedents and
consequences.
My first response is - so what if this happens. In this scenario rents
go neither up or down. I don't think it's realistic to expect that all
new building will be taken up like this, but, since I don't know the
future, it's worth imagining this extreme outcome and asking, is it
bad? if it is bad, is it so bad that we shouldn't take the risk of it
happening? I don't see it as bad. Like I said before, it will have no
net affect on rent, so we lose nothing, and there might be ancillary
benefits: my $13 jam business might improve, or my $75/ hour personal
yoga coach business. Maybe I'm a social worker, and this means there
will be more money in the city budget for my organization. whatever.
Next, more interestingly, let's consider what could possibly cause
rich_guy_2's behavior. Usually people move to be closer to work, to be
closer to some fun city center, to be closer to family, they make the
decision and then they look for housing. They do not hear of new
housing being built and say, on that fact alone, 'I will now move!'
If someone hears of new housing being built, and he then says, 'I will
now move,' it is because he is (1) very strict about only living in
brand new housing (not likely) or (2) RESPONDING TO AN INCREASE IN
SUPPLY AT HIS PRICE POINT.
Have you ever heard someone say "there are no available apartments in
SF"? Of course he doesn't mean there are no available apartments, of
course there are apartments: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/
there's a $5000 2 bedroom at the top of the list. What he means is
"there are no available apartments in SF at my price point." So, this
person, who wants to spend say, $3000 for a nice 2 bedroom lives
somewhere else, and waits for the supply of $3000 2 bedroom apartments
to increase. This is rich_guy_2. This person is currently priced out
of San Francisco. Hard to believe, but true, there are many levels of
rich. You can be house shopping and be priced out at almost any price
point. I'm sympathetic to people that are priced out. I don't want to
see anyone priced out. I'm not going to discriminate based on income
high or low. No one should be priced out. If you can pay $300/mo or
$3000 you should be able to find something you think is reasonable in
this town. The supply of housing in SF is too small at all but the
highest price point. At whatever level a developer wants to supply
more housing, I will say YES. DO IT.
MOREOVER. If it's expensive to build, developers will only be able to
afford to build high priced projects. One of the things that makes
building expensive is fighting with neighbors. So its ironic (and a
little sad) to see people who want lower priced housing doing things
that make building expensive. I think I said this in another email,
but if a smaller budget developer wants to build a cheaper project,
but sees that even the very rich developer can barely get his project
finished because he has to spend time and resources fighting with
neighbors, then the smaller developer will be like forget it, I can't
do this.
On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 1:46 PM, Jehan Tremback
<jehan.tremback(a)gmail.com <mailto:jehan.tremback@gmail.com>> wrote:
@Eddie- Sorry about the eye! That was the default Ubuntu avatar,
and it somehow got synced to my email when I ran Pidgin. So the
eye is actually open source! I'll get rid of it though if you want.
I'll go over this briefly, but there are better resources out there.
Let's say rich guy can afford $3000 dollars a month and wants to
live in SF. So landlord charges him $3000 for an apartment because
it isn't a closet. Since there is nowhere else to live in SF, rich
guy pays this. New luxury building opens across the street with
really nice new apartments for $3000 a month. Rich guy decides to
move, and landlord puts apartment back on the market for $3000.
But because all of the other rich guys are also living in the new
luxury building, landlord finds no tenants. Next month, landlord
is forced to lower rent to $2000 and 4 hackers move in. This is
how the market works.
-Jehan
On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 11:46 AM, Sonja Trauss
<sonja.trauss(a)gmail.com <mailto:sonja.trauss@gmail.com>> wrote:
Ok so your position is that the whole of the new housing will
be taken up by people who don't currently live in SF, want to,
but won't move into SF unless new housing is built.
Can you describe what it is about the new housing that will
make people who already have stable, adequate places to live
elsewhere move into it, when they've already decided theyre
not interested in living in any of the currently available sf
housing? Does this question make sense? What's special about
the new housing? What would make a person move to SF Only If
new housing is built? What is the scenario. I can think of
two. One silly and one not silly.
On Sunday, June 9, 2013, Eddie Che wrote:
Oy, greetings. First of all that Eye is really hateful,
let's tone
that down a little! I've been against the eye because it
is oppressive
so, chill. @Jehan.
Building will increase the population in San Francisco.
Not house the
houseless and not bring down rents. These are upscale
(condos?)
apartments, bringing the added keyword of gentrification.
I like the Spain example. Government here (County, City,
State, and
National) could give land that is being held by it, eg
around highway
off-ramps or hills or wherEVER to folks who are
disenchanted with...
corporate rule.
"liberating land from private control and corporate
interests and for
the common good of all people."
Can we hack that?
EMCHE, in a tree.
PS by the way, surprising about SF's vacant housing units @
https://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/pulse-of-the-bay/sf-leads-bay-area-vacant-…
On Sat, Jun 8, 2013 at 6:41 PM, GtwoG PublicOhOne
<g2g-public01(a)att.net> wrote:
Imagine a news headline saying "Good news for the
economy: food
prices are
up for the third month in a row!"
Food-owners would
celebrate, and
foodless-rights advocates would protest, but
nothing
would change unless the
entire system of food-speculation was curbed.
Or imagine this: Dateline: Marinaleda, Spain.
Municipal government
GIVES
dispossessed people the land and building
materials to
build their own
homes, and pays contractors to provide assistance
with
the high-skill parts
such as plumbing. This is REAL and it's
happening NOW.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22701384
"In the wake of Spain's property crash, hundreds of
thousands
of homes have
been repossessed. While one regional government
says it
will seize
repossessed properties from the banks, a little
town is
doing away with
mortgages altogether. ... In Marinaleda,
residents like
42-year-old
father-of-three, David Gonzalez Molina, are
building
their own homes.
"The town hall in this ... town an hour-and-a-bit east
of
Seville, has given
David 190 sq m (2,000 sq ft) of land. ... The
bricks
and mortar are also a
gift... from the regional government of
Andalusia. ...
Only once his home is
finished will he start paying 15 euros (£13)
[approx.
$26] a month, to the
regional government, to refund the cost of other
building materials. ...
"...[The town's] Mayor Juan Manuel Sanchez Gordillo is
known
for occupying
land belonging to the wealthy in Andalusia. ...
Last
summer, he and his
left-wing union comrades stole from supermarkets
and
handed out the food to
the poor. "I think it is possible that a
home should be
a right, and not a
business, in Europe", he argues. Mayor
Sanchez Gordillo
pours scorn on
"speculators"....
---
Think outside the box, and you might end up thinking
like Mayor
Sanchez
Gordillo.
What happens when home prices and rents keep increasing
while average
income
levels have barely budged since 1974?
What happens to the lives of people, when the health of
an economy in
large
part depends on relentless increase in the price
of a
vital necessity that
is also a fixed resource, such as the square
footage in
which to eat, sleep,
and wash?
Meanwhile developers are building "luxury" apartments,
but
the number of
"affordable" units isn't specified
and always turns out
to be less than
first claimed. How is it that anyone has a
"right" to
luxury, at the
expense of others' poverty and homelessness?
At root, this isn't a race issue of black and white,
though the
guardians of
privilege benefit mightily when it's framed
that way,
and people who have
common cause are divided against each other. At
root,
it's a class issue of
green and red.
Land speculation is a broken machine running an obsolete
operating
system,
that's begging to get "rooted."
-G
=====
On 13-06-08-Sat 3:06 PM, Sonja Trauss wrote:
I know, it's so outrageous. This line, "The notion of
smart
growth --- also
referred to as urban infill --- has been around
for
years, embraced by a
certain type of environmentalist, particularly
those
concerned with
protecting open space."
Yeah, the type of environmentalist that is an
environmentalist - what
is
this supposed to mean!
Also I guess (I hope) these progressives don't realize
that in
opposing
development in Bayview, they are contributing to
keeping
blacks overall
poorer than whites.
Putting renters aside for a minute, let's consider
similarly
situated black
and white homeowners, in similar income black and
white
neighborhoods. If
these neighborhoods are in a city that is growing
in
wealth and population
(like san francisco) both homeowners should be
able to
look forward to their
house values increasing, right? NO. House values
at
first only increase in
the white neighborhoods, because the new
residents,
moving to SF from all
--
Eddie Miller, BU '10
eddiemill(a)gmail.com | 440-935-5434 <tel:440-935-5434>
Facebook.com/eddiemill | Twitter.com/eddiemill
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