Yes you make a good point (disguised as a question.) I can understand people not wanting Berkeley to look like Fremont. Were the anti-development people to choose their battles logically, I think we would see well-designed mid-rise apartment buildings on those vacant lots that dot north Oakland.
Here’s a test case. There’s a vacant, former gas station on Broadway near college avenue. It’s been that way for nearly 40 years. It sits next door to two abandoned buildings. The whole swath of land would be perfect for high-density residential development, close to transportation and shopping. But it’s perilously close to wealthy, entitled residents in Rockridge and Temescal. I suspect it will remain undeveloped, not because there are no developers willing to work with worthy architects (Kurt Petersen’s office is 2 blocks away.)
I’m guessing it’d be similar to what I’ve seen here on the poor end of Illinois: it’s 40-year-old tanks, which means they’ve leaked. Once someone wants to buy it and develop it, it’ll end up being a Superfund site. I saw one piece of property in recent years that was purchased with the notion of putting a business there, and millions of dollars later…it’s an empty lot.
It’s wrong in many details, but the discrepencies are interesting to think about; and it makes some points that are at least arguable (I interpret it: “'Twas ever thus, people always whine about change”).
Then, if you’re looking for some “punching up”, there’s this from the SF Weekly, Sep. 24 2013 (which I found via jwz): “SF Techie Explains Why the World Should Revolve Around Bay Area Techies”:
Funny thing, when I mention that I freelance to people in the SF tech sector, they immediately assume that I’m trolling freelancing sites looking for software development work. They have this idea in their heads that freelancing is some magical land where there are trees full of money, and you can just go to a website and get gigs. The harsh reality is that most of the traffic on those freelancing sites are buyers offering the lowest rates possible, and offshore companies willing to provide that labor at rates I could never even consider, even if I lived in, say Idaho. No matter how low a rate people are willing to offer, they’re going to find someone willing to work at that rate. Will it be the same quality code? Recent peer-reviewed research has shown that it will almost certainly not be the same quality, not even close, and will end up costing them more. For example, that Ruby API might only take me an hour, but people might balk at my hourly rate. They’ll go hire an offshore company with a lower hourly rate that will end up taking dozens of hours because they don’t know the most efficient way to do it. Lucky for me, my clients are people that I used to work with in other roles earlier in my career, and I get paid a decent wage that allows me to scrape by in SF, although if I got evicted I would have to move away. Recently the owner of my building started doing a lot of long overdue renovations, and all of the residents are extremely concerned that this is the beginning of the end for us.
As for the $50. It depends on what kind of life you want to live when you’re here. I haven’t been out to eat at a restaurant, even fast food, for seven years (don’t go out at all actually), never go to films, never shop at convenience stores, buy groceries on sale, only drink water, and, in short, try to save every penny I can.
Yeah, sorry about assuming that freelancing == driving trollies those horrible websites. I should know better. I’ve been driving trollies those mainly because I’m trying to build up a rep outside my old job. The thing about it was that I usually stayed busy enough that I wasn’t having time to talk to people, which means nobody knows who I am. My hope is to get enough of a portfolio built up that I can shop it around locally.
I guess if there’s one thing that’s good about it, it’s that I can sometimes get what, to me, is a decent rate, because I was already working for peanuts, and I live in an area that for now has a much lower cost of living than SF. However, even downstate Illinois, poor as it is now, is starting to deal with this. Retirees from Chicago for various reasons aren’t wanting to leave the state, and the cheapest real estate is right here…and of course you can raise prices quite a bit down here before they notice that the price advantage disappeared. Meanwhile our cost of living is rising, and nobody can afford to buy the mini McMansions they’re building to accommodate the retirees.
As long as the building is rent controlled, the landlord can do all the renovations they want, but they have to offer you any empty unit they have if you have to move and offer you the apt to move back in after they are done at the rent you were paying. There are far more landlords waiting for their tenants to die or lose their job and have to move than there are doing Ellis Act evictions (which of course requires the owner to actually move into the apt and live there for a few years).
While Ellis Act evictions may be up, tenants’ rights are extremely strong in San Francisco compared to the rest of the US. There is an army of tenant lawyers who will scare any landlord straight for a modest fee (which is usually enough).
Of course rent control, the lack of new building starts for the last decade and exceptionally high demand are the main factors for such high rent for what little vacant space exists.
We need to make things affrordable again!
Not just rents!
I mean it used to be that I could buy a loaded Corvette for $25,000. NOT NO MORE! It’s more like $60,000 these days!
If you aholes would stop payign so much for 'vettes then us working stiffs still afford them!
Huh? Whassat? Supply and demand? Market price? Did you say something?
Gosh, I didn’t take what you said that way at all, sorry if I wasn’t clear. I was really just trying to communicate the feedback I get from others in the SF tech community.
I’ve read some books that say it’s possible to slowly build up your reputation on those sites in order to get a respectable rate (like Executive in Sweatpants by Matt Keener), and that may be true in some genres, but I don’t know if that is either true or the best way in the case of software development. If you’re a software developer, they’re are probably many ways to get better results faster than cranking away on the typical freelance site, but that’s just my opinion and gut feeling. For example, if I had to build a WordPress (just as an example) portfolio quickly, I would go around locally first, like offer a trade with your local barber to build a website in exchange for the rights to use the site for marketing, a testimonial from them for your own website, and free haircuts for a year. Or offer to do a site for a local mom and pop shop. In my experience, clients on the freelancing sites are much more likely to want to see a portfolio than my local corner store where they know me and I offer to give them a hell of a deal that’ll work to our mutual advantage. You might even get paid more. Just as an example. Good luck in whatever it is you’re doing though!
You know, I used to believe that to, until a friend of mine was faced with eviction a year ago. She went to all of the agencies I recommended and was essentially turned away by all of them because they were already so overwhelmed with other people. They all told her that they couldn’t even being to help her until the notice of eviction was in her hands and she had only a few days to respond in court.
if the place you are referring to is at broadway and 51st (not sure), there is a high-density development planned there. ironically (or maybe not so ironically) the owner of the apartment across the street seems to be opposing this more than the neighbors who live in nearby houses around the corner.
it will probably go thru once they reduce the height of the building…
I agree with the gist of your response. I live over near 24th & Valencia. This part I’ve quoted above is perhaps the most destructive aspect of the entire situation, as it is a modification of the American Dream into something completely opposite: short-term thinking, denialist culture which – as they age – will, for some, transform into a financial survival mindset. Most will simply adopt the denial that they see around them until they are fired. I think that, of all of the problems, this is the one that we need to deal with the most. We need to develop a cultural aversion to people who simply refuse to consider the ends of their own lives. If somebody can’t write a satire piece based upon that, then you’re not a writer.
I also really feel you on the arrogant aspect of the culture. The Slashdot culture is the culture of the mob. Having the mob evaluate ideas leads to predictable places when the mob consists of a bunch of specialists. The specialist culture sees a fragment of the world – a slice – and the world nevertheless thinks these specialists have a monopoly on wisdom and the “big questions” which people think about. The truth – and I highly recommend that people read Jeff Schmidt’s Disciplined Minds – is that the specialist is trained to not question assumptions. That’s the very reason why we can generate so many technologies with questionable ethical implications, without any social upheaval to come with it: Because we design our schools such that the ones who stop to think and question that which they are learning basically fall behind, while the more “gung-ho” types tend to just blast right through. This is the entire basis of the modern American physics graduate school. Sadly, the institutions which used to value creativity and sticking it to the man – such as MIT – increasingly side with industry’s need to generate students who do not see the world in terms of choices based upon values. This is the perfect bunch to task with creating our machine learning future!
I have a completely different take on the causes of the rent rise in SF, and it doesn’t involve scapegoating “baby boomers” or “tech workers”, or anyone else, I hope. Here’s what I think is happening. People want to live in SF because: 1. It has a stunningly beautiful location, 2.It has an intact urban fabric, and, 3. There’s a tech boom underway.
SF was one of the few American cities that survived red-lining, Federal subsidy of suburban freeways, and redevelopment. Several key political movements at first broke the momentum of freeway construction and redevelopment, and then stopped them altogether. In addition, absentee landlords were prevented from destroying neighborhoods via strict zoning, and highrise development downtown was regulated.
Compare this to some other American cities: St. Louis and SF had roughly the same population in 1945, but now St. Louis’ population has more than halved. That’s an astonishing abandonment of infrastructure and capital. Nearly every American central city has suffered this fate: “redevelopment” notwithstanding, 9 of 10 tax dollars left urban cores in the post WWII era, populations plummeted, cities were segregated, white suburban infrastructure was subsidized. The presence a single colored family on a block was enough to prevent home loans by Federally subsidized lenders. The result was a staggering disinvestment. It’s amazing that SF survived at all. I know I’m cramming a lot into a single paragraph, but I just wanted to point out how myopically ahistorical any perspective is that selectively blames any one group for the escalation of rents in SF.
The great irony of the current anti-gentrification sentiment is that its first real result has been SF Mayor Ed Lee’s advocacy of the “fast-tracking” of building permits. Hmm, who do you think gains the most from this? Imagine what could happen if the power of eminent domain could be brought back to level entire “blighted” neighborhoods so that they might be “redeveloped”. Several thousand units of housing were demolished to build the Moscone Center and environs. The Western Addition’s thriving African-American community is mostly gone. Both neighborhoods were victims of “redevelopment”, which used powers of eminent domain to displace renters and small property owners. Finally, the Mission District was spared the redevelopment bulldozer when tenants and small property owners joined in a movement to stop it: the Mission Coalition. This was one of the first places in the U.S. where “redevelopment” was stopped. Likewise, the freeway revolt saved SF neighborhoods from being devastated. The result is a desirable place to live.
St. Louis. I live about 100 miles from there. Compared to the rest of that region, there’s almost nobody there. The city itself is broke. But the region has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years. If you want great examples of both “white flight” and “urban sprawl”, it’s there.
SF is one of the few cities I’d chose to live in ahead of Seattle, but I can’t see anyone ever paying me enough. Hell, Seattle is horrifically expensive as it is. I guess only Austin and Boulder stand out as other cities I’d like to live in.
Of course, it’s more likely I’ll end up in Buttfuck, SC, or Hicksville, AL, because the nature of my industry is to gravitate to horrible cheap places.
Another well-placed and -timed 6.9 quake, perhaps triggering a fire–maybe throw in an outbreak of some plague–ought to take care of all these “problems”.
Unfortunately the situation is usually much more complex than that. For example, if you compare SF with Grand Rapids, MI, while rents are 227.83% higher in SF, groceries are only 5.07% more expensive in SF. I didn’t compare with Detroit because that brings up a whole mess of other issues.
I haven’t been out to eat at a restaurant, even fast food, for seven years (don’t go out at all actually), never go to films, never shop at convenience stores, buy groceries on sale, only drink water, and, in short, try to save every penny I can.