[HN Gopher] S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest...
___________________________________________________________________
S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since
2010
Author : memish
Score : 219 points
Date : 2022-05-27 17:07 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sfchronicle.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sfchronicle.com)
| RosanaAnaDana wrote:
| Could this be a potential source of a housing bubble collapse?
| dopeboy wrote:
| Negative - this is a geography that will remain unaffected by
| housing downturns. Too much money on the sidelines for it to
| collapse.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Given that work from office is the primary reason SF became so
| expensive in the first place, yes.
|
| How can SF home prices be justified vs SD or LA in a remote
| work world?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| ghaff wrote:
| >How can SF home prices be justified vs SD or LA in a remote
| work world?
|
| I don't live in SF or even in a city but, in the abstract,
| I'd pick SF from that triplet. LA is complete sprawl and a
| little bit of SoCal beaches goes a long way for me. And San
| Diego is nice enough but sort of soulless. I like the SF
| climate even when summer is the coldest winter you ever spent
| --and there are great recreational options and scenery.
| librish wrote:
| SF is probably hit the hardest by WFH. If you lived and worked in
| the city you probably had a pretty good commute, so you're not
| getting the biggest benefit. And while I know it's a less common
| preference on HN, a lot of people enjoy going in to a lively
| office and occasionally grabbing drinks with your coworkers after
| work. It's a great way to make new friends. But with WFH there's
| a prisoners dilemma where no-one goes in because no-one goes in.
| Hard to justify living in one of the most expensive cities in the
| world at that point.
|
| As a side note, I've been reading a lot of comments like the one
| below describing SF as a "nightmarish hellscape" and I just want
| to caution people to not read into things too much. I've spent a
| lot of time in both SF and Seattle, and while there's specific
| streets you want to avoid, and you can (rarely) run into weird or
| disturbed people in other areas (like most major cities) overall
| they're lovely places if you can afford them.
| acchow wrote:
| On the other hand, SF has a significant tech population that
| has been living in the city but taking shuttle buses for an
| hour to their offices down south. I imagine flexible WFH for
| 2-3 days/wk will enable a larger number of people in the future
| to live in SF
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I'm in this boat and this is true. A hybrid wfh and partial
| in the office option really opens up options living in this
| area, it makes it much more doable.
| acchow wrote:
| I think flexible WFH will also be a boost to Apple, which
| traditionally was unable to hire some people who loved city
| life and refused to commute.
| dahdum wrote:
| It's pretty easy for the highly paid and wealthy to insulate
| themselves from the problems of any city and live in a bubble
| of comfort. SF is becoming more challenging to do so in, but
| far from impossible.
|
| It's the lower and middle classes that suffer most from SF's
| problems, they can't afford the rose colored glasses. Until the
| wealthy are truly inconvenienced they'll continue with the
| feel-good ineffective measures.
|
| That's not specific to SF of course, it's just becoming more
| prevalent. I definitely enjoy spending time there, but I'm
| lucky enough to afford to.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It's the people paying $3000 for a bunk bed who bailed on the
| city.
| blululu wrote:
| Probably not. Rents dropped (supply meets demands - even in
| San Francisco). Most people I know who were unhappy with
| their apartment moved across town and got better deals
| (myself included). If you left you probably left because you
| had no strong connection with the city and you wanted to
| leave. Anyone in tech who wanted to stay could fill the
| vacancies.
| abofh wrote:
| Did rents really shift that much outside of the widest
| margins? I feel like 3k for a nice one bedroom has held
| more or less constant for the last few years (even pre-
| pandemic), a little up, a little down, but largely been
| around there. You could definitely pay more, and you could
| find cheaper, but for a ~1000 sqft single, the needle
| really hasn't trended far.
| sushid wrote:
| C'mon. Rent was/is expensive but never $3000 for a bunk bed.
| If you were really splitting a room I'm pretty sure you could
| have had one for <$800 pre pandemic (assuming you're
| splitting 1 bedroom in a 3 bedroom setup).
| [deleted]
| ghaff wrote:
| I think it's also the case that people whose main experience
| with SF is going to conferences at the Moscone get exposed to
| more than their fair share of the city's underbelly. When I was
| last in SF last December, I was actually led to expect things
| would be a lot worse than they were. To be honest, it seemed
| "normal" which is sort of a low bar in certain areas but, as
| you say, that's true of Seattle too.
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| > like most major cities
|
| I have lived in or visited Boston, Chicago, North Carolina's
| RTP, and the Bay. Only in SF are there homeless camps with
| blatant drug abuse and public defecation being tolerated by
| authorities. Only in SF can you run into, with 100%
| probability, a mentally deranged person on your daily commute.
| When "specific streets" cover half the city (Financial
| district, Tenderloin, SoMA, Mission...) they aren't so specific
| anymore.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The other cities listed are very cold at times and/or very
| humid/hot at times. It is much easier and pleasant to camp
| outside in western cities.
| lmeyerov wrote:
| I've lived in the same spot in the mission for 10+ years (and
| been around longer), and other folks in the building for 20+:
| the mission hasn't regressed to the gang wars era (we have
| stories there...), but between the break-ins, homeless tents,
| poop & drugs, crazy people shouting at 4am, and occasional
| shootings, the neighborhood has slid back 10-15 years. Luckily
| I've only witnessed 1 murder, so the crime is merely 'costly
| and disruptive' vs 'life threatening', but that doesn't mean
| it's acceptable.
|
| I lived in Seattle as well & visit frequently -- around when
| capital+pill hill gentrified again around MS downtown employees
| (games studios?): the current Amazon-era of the city is closer
| to SF 5-10 years ago vs today's slide back. It's not all good,
| to be clear: I'm guessing buying a place just got steadily
| harder as well, and families pushed further out.
| MikeTheRocker wrote:
| Curious why you continue to live there if you feel it's
| gotten so much more dangerous? Perhaps rent control? There
| are so many nice and safer parts of SF.
| rustybelt wrote:
| I spent a decade in St. Louis, MO, famously rated "Most
| Dangerous City in America" multiple years running and
| witnessed 0 murders. How many murders would you need to
| witness before you start to worry about your own safety?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I think it's worth noting that while it was definitely
| statistically less safe in the gang wars era, it was also
| less obvious. You didn't have to step over someone shooting
| up on the sidewalk (or the turd they left behind). You
| wouldn't see a broad daylight theft. If it wasn't your car
| stereo that was stolen the problems felt a lot farther away.
| fosk wrote:
| > Luckily I've only witnessed 1 murder
|
| Stockholm syndrome is real here.
| etempleton wrote:
| I have visited almost every major US cities including a lot of
| experience living in and near some of the "worst crime" cities.
| Cities where there really are streets you do not dare go. In
| San Francisco I never felt unsafe anywhere, even in the "worst"
| parts of town. That said, the concentration of homeless people
| when I last visited was unlike anything I had ever seen in a US
| city.
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| I'm a city native living in SF, but grew up all over the
| SFBAY including much, _much_ rougher neighborhoods than
| anything I 've experienced in SF.
|
| Several of my family members and myself have been
| assaulted/robbed in broad daylight, had cars stolen, and some
| _have been shot by stray bullets_ due to a local gang fight.
| When I was in grade school someone brought a gun to class and
| showed it off by pointing it at me (!!) -- all outside of SF.
|
| SF feels incredibly safe compared to my lived experience in
| the rest of the Bay. I'm not saying there aren't any issues
| here, but SF is nowhere near as bad as some of the roughest
| parts of the Bay. Not by a longshot.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Generally, I feel like the Mercury News homicide map is a
| good representation of the roughness of the area, and it
| doesn't look like SF is as different from those areas as
| you propose. From the looks of it, it's one step up from
| dead last, Oakland.
|
| https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/01/04/bay-area-
| homicides-20...
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| This map is proving my point. Even if SF is one step up
| from dead last, if we look at a complete year (2021)
| there's a HUGE difference between SF and Oakland. By
| comparison SF looks relatively safe, and having lived in
| both cities I can attest to that.
|
| The rough parts of SF are a cakewalk compared to
| Oakland's. Not only that, but at least in SF the roughest
| parts tend to be pretty concentrated to a small area.
|
| I didn't want to point out Oakland by name because I
| still think it's a pretty awesome city and visit it
| often. Seeing SF being singled out by the (social)media
| as a hellscape makes it pretty clear they're really
| unfamiliar with much of the SFBAY.
|
| The truth is that most culturally significant cities have
| both good and bad parts to them.
| dahdum wrote:
| > SF is nowhere near as bad as some of the roughest parts
| of the Bay. Not by a longshot.
|
| You're absolutely right, but compared to other global
| cities SF often looks comically bad, and certainly has the
| appearance of decline. No fundamental reason it can't rise
| again though.
| Proven wrote:
| diogenescynic wrote:
| San Francisco has become a really hostile place to live even if
| you make $300,000+. My wife and I lived in Glen Park and it was
| still a shit hole. We had a meth head constantly breaking in and
| living in the parking garage of our building. Cops and landlord
| didn't care. I regularly saw people shooting heroin and smoking
| meth/crack on BART during rush hour. I was sick of seeing needles
| on the street and smelling urine. As soon as the pandemic
| happened we got the heck out of the Bay Area and relocated
| somewhere cheaper and nicer. I am sure there are many others
| doing the same thing. I cannot imagine trying to raise a kid in
| SF.
| [deleted]
| ransom1538 wrote:
| I with you here. Our neighbor had her apartment violently
| ransacked while she was at work. This is bad. What makes it
| evil, they waited for her to return - sitting in the apartment
| waiting for her to walk in. After the detective interview I
| had, i realized, I don't want to raise family here anymore. The
| detective agreed.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| zumu wrote:
| The city center can be gnarly for sure, but everywhere else is
| quite nice. Not sure how you could describe any neighborhood on
| the West side of the city as a "hellscape" for example.
| pdx6 wrote:
| I agree, the western side is hardly a hellscape. I guess
| don't let the tourists know!
|
| San Francisco is really 2 different cities rather than 11
| counties. West side (where I live) has some minor problems
| but otherwise offers the best mix of culture, places to eat,
| parks, and transit. Downtown is rife with problems and if
| someday it does get cleaned up, it will wonderful since the
| right density and transit is there.
| robotburrito wrote:
| This is very hyperbolic. This place is legit one of the most
| beautiful cities in the entire world.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| 20-30 years ago San Francisco was considered... a nightmarish
| hellscape. Until the first dotcom boom the city was in decline,
| or at least that's how the story goes.
|
| My understanding is that at that time it also had a booming art
| scene and was going through an awesome counter culture phase
| that birthed Burning Man.
|
| Maybe that's what's ahead now that everyone is leaving? Videos
| showing the drug problem are terrifying though...
| sammalloy wrote:
| > 20-30 years ago San Francisco was considered... a
| nightmarish hellscape.
|
| Not true in the slightest. There was little crime, you could
| walk everywhere safely, day or night, and the food was still
| incredible, and cheap.
|
| Major parts of the city were on a roadmap towards
| revitalization before dotcom was ever a thing. Yerba Buena
| Gardens was competed in 1993, for example. No disruption
| required.
|
| > Until the first dotcom boom the city was in decline, or at
| least that's how the story goes.
|
| It's the exact opposite. The city was undergoing major
| revitalization before the dotcom era. The first dotcom boom
| brought major gentrification, and with it, people who didn't
| care for the values and culture of the city.
| wankerrific wrote:
| I agree about the major first dotcom bringing people who
| didn't care for the values and culture of the city but
| disagree about the roughness. The mission and the part of
| soma near the old trans bay terminal were pretty rough.
| People got mugged in broad daylight kinda rough
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I first visited SF at the start of the .com boom in 1996 when
| I had friends living there. Rent controlled apartment, 3
| bedroom for something like $1100 USD. Beautiful city, a bit
| grungy, with just a lot of neat stuff going on. Went to a few
| cool underground parties, ate well, saw a lot of good art,
| went to some good bookstores and other shops, and met some
| really neat people. I wanted to move there.
|
| Within a few years almost all my friends who weren't tech
| industry people -- or married to one -- couldn't afford to
| live there anymore and almost all left.
|
| The next time I got into to SF was about 20 years later and,
| yeah. Wow. Not the same city. So completely different. Many
| of the physical trappings were the same, but the atmosphere
| was entirely different.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| So my point being that supposedly around 1990 SF was in an
| awful decline etc. I wish I was alive in late 1990's SF
| gedy wrote:
| SF had less street crime and open drug use 20-30 ago.
| Definitely was more visitable for tourists at least.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| I wonder how many of the homeless residents tech people
| complain about were part of that art scene and counterculture
| but got gentrified out of their homes with nowhere else to
| go.
| labcomputer wrote:
| Well, considering that every homeless census of SF shows[1]
| that the vast majority aren't long-term residents of San
| Francisco and that SF has some of the most renter-friendly
| laws in the country, I'm going to say "not many".
|
| [1] If you understand how statistic work, and how to read
| critically. The censuses seem to be written by someone who
| thinks "How to Lie With Statistics" was an instruction
| manual, not a warning.
|
| Edit:
|
| Here's the latest pre-pandemic census:
| https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDRep...
|
| On page 18, we learn that fully 30% of SF's homeless became
| homeless _before_ moving to SF.
|
| Of the remaining 70%, only 55% (so 38% of all homeless in
| SF) are long-time (>10 years) residents of SF. 27% of SF's
| homeless lived in SF between 1 and 10 years.
|
| On page 19, we learn that only 30% of SF's homeless had a
| home they owned or rented immediately prior to becoming
| homeless. The rest were couch surfing, institutionalized,
| in SROs or subsidized housing.
|
| We probably shouldn't assume zero correlation (but we don't
| have a better prior, because the crosstabs are not
| available, so...). But if we do, this suggests only around
| 11% of SF's homeless population were long-term renters who
| were kicked out.
|
| On page 22, we learn that only 13% of SF's homeless cited
| "eviction" as the primary reason for currently experiencing
| homelessness. In contrast, "lost job" is the the most
| common reason, at 26%. Substance abuse is #2 at 18%.
|
| On page 21, we learn that 65% of homeless people in SF have
| been homeless for more than a year.
|
| That's an interesting statistic because that's the same
| percent homeless who became homeless while in SF and whose
| total residency in SF was more than a year. Again, the
| crosstabs are not made available to us, but it is
| suggestive that many of the people from page 18 who
| reported being long-term SF residents were not long-term SF
| residents _at the time they experienced housing loss_.
|
| Not to sound conspiratorial, but my points above could be
| easily refuted with crosstabs from the census. The silence
| is deafening.
| ghaff wrote:
| 20-30 years ago, a lot of large US cities were net losing
| population (and employers). At one point, after Teradyne
| moved out, I don't think there was a single significant tech
| company in Boston though I think the bio build-out in Kendall
| Square had started.
| themitigating wrote:
| What evidence do you have that the city was better 20 to 30
| years ago?
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| There is no lack of evidence. There are thousands of video
| records taken in San Fran 25-30 years ago. You won't see a
| city filled with vagrants and human feces. You won't see
| trash filled-streets or sidewalks lined with makeshift
| shelters. It certainly wasn't perfect (no city is) but it
| wasn't the open sewer it is today.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0t9ogfCI3E
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| SF is the closest thing to a dystopia for me. Unabashed wealth
| juxtaposed with poverty, insane cost of living, shit and used
| needles everywhere, the nation's mental health failure on full
| display, etc. Nothing has made me as depressed as living in SF.
| gsibble wrote:
| Leave. It's so much better elsewhere. I'm so happy in Boston.
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| Oh leave I did! I left after 11 months or so. Went out to
| Portland but it's not much better there nowadays. Still a
| fun city, at least. Might try Chicago now. I hadn't
| realized how relatively cheap some of the areas are. Boston
| might be fun, too!
| ghaff wrote:
| Boston/Cambridge proper is pretty pricey. Although if you
| don't need/want to live in the city, you can get to
| pretty reasonable housing fairly quickly. I live a bit
| further out still.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Seattle has much of the same, don't come here! We lost
| 2%, we could stand to use a few more percents and I would
| be pretty happy with the traffic reduction. I'm staying
| put for sure, but I can see why this place isn't for
| everyone.
|
| You might want to try Salt Lake City: has a nice vibe,
| the Mormon influence myth is overblown, and you have
| mountains, forest, and scrub nearby just like in
| Portland.
| gsibble wrote:
| Be careful. I have a lot of friends leaving Chicago due
| to outrageous crime rates.
| thenayr wrote:
| jyounker wrote:
| I'd say it's the opposite. The city has a few bad spots, but
| overall it's quite nice. The big problem is the lack of
| housing, which is arguably driven by the way that Prop 13 warps
| economic incentives.
| macksd wrote:
| Walking through even the financial district these days, it's
| not at all unusual for people to be stepping over unconscious
| bodies on the sidewalk, and to see homeless people walking
| around with syringes tucked behind their ear. In fact when I
| was in a higher-end office building a few weeks ago no one
| was wearing a mask indoors, and they put masks on to go
| outside, presumably because of the smells and things you're
| exposed to there. It's like COVID isn't even the dirtiest
| thing they're afraid of anymore.
| zumu wrote:
| The large and very visible homeless and vagrant population is
| the biggest issue. There may be a relationship to the housing
| shortage, but I have a hard timing believing if rents were
| 50% cheaper, these people wouldn't still be on the streets.
| [deleted]
| carapace wrote:
| I've been here almost half a century now. The city has turned
| to shit.
|
| Prop 13 is part of the problem, but there are lots of
| confounding factors. FWIW, the lack of housing is largely
| artificial: there are lots of empty units, they are just
| priced out of reach of the folks who really need them. I live
| in Park Merced, on my block there are at least a dozen empty
| homes, yet a few blocks away there are families living in
| RV's parked around Lake Merced. The corporation that owns PM
| won't lower the rents. I don't know why, but I suspect that
| doing so would mess with things like the appraisal value of
| the property?
|
| Last month a group of squatters moved into the townhouse
| across the street from my house. We thought new tenants had
| moved in, but a couple of days later the staff were there
| throwing them out. (The squatters had changed the lock on the
| front door!) A staff member told me that this same group has
| been breaking into units all over the property. The police
| were called, but they never showed up.
|
| Last week a van parked in the garage here was broken into and
| items were stolen. We've been here a quarter of a century and
| that has never happened before. There are video cameras in
| the garage, but again, the police did nothing.
|
| That's before you get to the tent camps, the rampant and open
| drug abuse (literally folks shooting up on the sidewalk), the
| raw lawless anarchy that the Tenderloin has become, etc.
|
| Unless you have a shit-ton of money and can afford to live in
| one of the nice enclaves SF is a shitty town. It breaks my
| heart to admit it, I grew up here and I (used to) really love
| it here, but the city that SF has become is sad and
| dangerous.
| xedrac wrote:
| I've been to SF proper only twice (but many times to San
| Jose). In my opinion, the only things going for it are the
| weather, coastal locality, sycamores, and interesting
| terrain. Otherwise it just felt really trashy to me. I
| wouldn't move there even if I was offered an extra
| $100k/yr.
| vondur wrote:
| I wonder how much residential property is still under Prop
| 13? My guess is that it's declined quite a bit in the last 20
| years or so.
| amscanne wrote:
| It still applies to all residential property. On sale, the
| tax rate is set to 1% of the sale price, and increases are
| limited to 2% per year. This creates the incentive to not
| sell, even if you have way too much house (e.g. empty
| nesters) because you may significantly _increase_ your tax
| burden by downsizing.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| You're probably thinking of rent control? Prop 13 applies
| to every property including commercial. You can also
| transfer reduced tax to your heirs or to another property
| of yours
| gsibble wrote:
| Completely agree. Lots of people are blind to it for some
| reason. It's worse than some 3rd world countries. Absolute
| shithole. Glad I left in 2018.
| Jackpillar wrote:
| alaricus wrote:
| Non-American here: I lived in the Bay Area for a few years and
| hated it. There are no cities, just one big blob of suburbia.
| mlinksva wrote:
| It's a little better than that: the NE quadrant of SF is a
| city. It's also worse: the big blob has many holes.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I agree, but... I mean, it's the same awful suburban sprawl
| as most North American cities just with better weather (and
| higher property values.)
|
| To me it seems like a place whose best years have passed many
| years ago now. I suspect we'll look back at 2019-2020 as
| being "peak Silicon Valley" and the time after as the years
| in which it began to lose its status as the centre of gravity
| for our industry.
| alaricus wrote:
| > it's the same awful suburban sprawl as most North
| American cities
|
| That's why I don't live there anymore. The Earth is bigger
| than North America.
| floren wrote:
| Even worse, the blob of suburbia is spread out in a ring
| around a giant body of water, and it's almost certain that
| the place you want to go is on the other side. So now it's 1+
| hours on trains (assuming they even run near your
| destination) or dealing with the eternal traffic jams at the
| chokepoints across the bay.
| 8note wrote:
| Are there no water taxis?
|
| In Vancouver you just hop on a small boat and get a quick
| trip across, I think with your bus pass
| floren wrote:
| There are water taxis, but I think they only go along the
| SF waterline, between say Fisherman's Wharf and the
| baseball stadium.
|
| There are ferries, but they only go from a very few
| points in SF to a very few points in Alameda, Oakland,
| and the north bay.
|
| Seems like most of the time, the places you're trying to
| get to aren't close to the water anyway.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I think remote work is often understated in reasons people move
| away. When you go into the office every day, it's pretty obvious
| that you have to live in whatever city you live in. But with
| remote work, the question becomes "if I don't have to live here,
| do I want to keep living here". For many (including myself), the
| answer was a definitive NO.
|
| Sure many headlines and news segments make it seem that it's the
| crime, the high rent, and all these super visible indicators and
| while I'm sure that factored into the decisions of some, for many
| it was that they just wanted a change and got the golden
| opportunity to do so.
|
| EDIT: It's not even that one may even "want a change", it's when
| you're presented with the opportunity to make a change, the gears
| in your head start turning as to what options you have at your
| disposal. I would imagine many people that moved had previously
| no intention to but just got the opportunity and decided to take
| it while it lasted.
| anm89 wrote:
| I agree but I think this also understates the importance of
| just how messed up SF has become. I don't want to come into
| contact with human feces as part of my daily commute. I'm going
| to leave no matter what once that is the case. Especially when
| the equity in my two bedroom apartement is enough to buy the
| nicest house ever built in some other smaller city.
| ihumanable wrote:
| I see this argument constantly, that the streets run brown
| with human feces. I worked in SOMA for a decade, I would
| commute every day on BART and would walk from Montgomery
| Street Station or Embarcadero or Civic Center or 16th Street
| to wherever my office was at the time (different companies,
| different offices).
|
| SOMA was always pretty clean, Civic Center a bit more hit or
| miss, 16th Street was generally a bit dirtier and rougher.
|
| The number of times I encountered human feces though was very
| low, like not even a monthly occurrence. Now I'm sure there's
| parts of San Francisco that are worse than others, and the
| walk from 16th Street BART to Potrero Hill would take me past
| plenty of homeless people camped out on the sidewalks, but I
| rarely if ever encountered human feces.
|
| But every. single. time. San Francisco comes up, it's the
| same tired line, "Oh I couldn't deal with the absolute deluge
| of human feces" which like cool, neither could I and it was
| fine because what the heck is everyone talking about. I'm not
| going to claim that every sidewalk and roadway is completely
| free of poo, but as someone that managed a team of people and
| would frequently go for walking meetings all around San
| Francisco, it was never my experience.
| Mumps wrote:
| If people keep leaving, will that equity materialise as you
| hope?
| anm89 wrote:
| Right, which is why you get out while things are still
| liquid
| javajosh wrote:
| jeromegv wrote:
| What is the conservative solution to this issue?
| mediaman wrote:
| If we're talking about 'reasonable' conservatives, the
| typical answer is that booking people who commit a crime,
| and then using the threat of prison time to force them
| into rehab will ultimately be much better for them and
| the community than immediately releasing them under the
| guise that poverty causes addiction and crime and that
| therefore they are essentially blameless.
|
| Some former addicts attest that, when they were addicted,
| it was only the threat of prison time that could force
| them into rehab, because at the time they were not fully
| in control of their own decision making. They say the
| 'stick' helps motivate them to choose rehab instead, and
| it ultimately helped them out of a bad situation.
|
| Sam Quinones' book, The Least of Us, documents some of
| this and is well-researched.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| The solution is to not tolerate drug use, petty crime,
| vagrancy etc etc
|
| Homeless people aren't stupid. They find a way to get to
| where it is most comfortable to be homeless. In SF you
| can do drugs all day and night and get free needles and
| poop on the streets and no one will bother you. In other
| places you will not be able to do this.
|
| Why are people surprised that places that go to great
| expense to subsidize homelessness have a lot of homeless
| people?
| goodpoint wrote:
| > Homeless people aren't stupid. They find a way to get
| to where it is most comfortable to be homeless
|
| By this logic if you make it even less "comfortable"
| everywhere they'll disappear into thin air? Go to mars?
| abofh wrote:
| Being the shitter.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Shitting in front of liberals' homes to convert them into
| conservatives.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| or at least shitting in their backyards to convert them
| into NIMBYs
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Who said homelessnesses and mental illness have
| solutions?
| neartheplain wrote:
| Centrist candidate for Governor of California Michael
| Shellenberger, who has interviewed many addicts on the
| streets of SF and has a credible plan to address
| homelessness and open drug abuse:
|
| https://www.shellenbergerforgovernor.com/issues/homelessn
| ess...
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Blaming liberals.
| havblue wrote:
| The conservative solution is to move to a place where
| they arrest the poopers.
| javajosh wrote:
| Enforcing the law.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| I think your argument ignores that fact that in other cities,
| you _drive by_ the social problems, whereas in SF you walk
| through them.
|
| Nobody complains about the homeless people who live _under
| the Las Vegas Strip_ because they are unseen, but per capita,
| some studies imply Las Vegas has a much worse problem than
| SF.
| anm89 wrote:
| Just pointing this out. This post was quickly up +4 and then
| instantly went down to -1. Someone seems to be brigading
| here.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| Consider the possibility that you're being downvoted for
| breaking the Hacker News guidelines:
|
| "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It
| never does any good, and it makes boring reading."
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| themitigating wrote:
| He doesn't live in San Francisco but is claiming that if he
| commuted to work he would always see human feces on the
| ground. He provides no evidence, not even a personal
| experience
| alar44 wrote:
| What do you want? Pictures? This is commonly known to be
| an issue there. If I was there right now, I'd say give me
| 5 minutes and I'll post a picture. Was in SF last week.
| If you do a lot of walking there, you WILL see not only a
| shit, but someone actively shitting.
|
| Edit: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=b
| 6fab72091...
| themitigating wrote:
| That's not an indication of frequency which is what
| matters.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious, where do you live and do you 'do a
| lot of walking' there too?
| mikebenfield wrote:
| Granted I've only spent about 6 months of my life living
| in SF, but I did a decent amount of walking around and
| never saw human feces.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I didn't mention this in my comment as it was more about the
| broad trends in every city rather than SF/NYC specifically.
|
| Typically for a group that got tired of a city and moved out,
| there would be a new group that is ready to fill their place.
| Thing is no one wants to move to SF given the situation
| (crime, COL, homeless, etc). Now for all the folks that will
| say "it's not that bad" I say that it doesn't really matter.
| If you're moving to a city, your opinion and view of the city
| is largely dictated by what you see/hear from friends,
| relatives, on the news, etc. Even if SF wasn't "that bad", it
| still doesn't matter, because the perception is more
| important for gaining residents than the actual situation
| IMO.
| DragonStrength wrote:
| Exactly. And the problem is even if I want to stay, once my
| entire social group has left during the pandemic since none
| of us were old enough to have mortgages or kids, well, this
| all kind of sucks right now. All the people I work with
| have kids and mortgages and have enjoyed flitting up to
| Tahoe for the past two years, but I'm not from the state
| but was required to work within it for the past year
| anyway. Well, my life here is pretty shitty right now, and
| as soon as I could really start doing things, it was time
| to start a hybrid model designed with people with kids and
| mortgages in mind. Traditionally, these folks have a lot of
| leverage over their younger counterparts, which we're
| finding is not holding.
|
| The issue is that Gen X is small, so they don't have a lot
| of leverage if the only other two generations in the market
| just leave town. Unless it's their opinion that
| Californians are just better, but of course, now we're back
| to the shrinking schools problem. It's difficult for me to
| imagine how California rebounds without losing a lot more
| ground first. Probably the best thing that could happen for
| people from the part of the country I grew up in, if we're
| actually concerned with equity though.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Also, when you pick a place to move to in this huge
| country, "it's not that bad" isn't going to be chosen, even
| if true.
| juve1996 wrote:
| I think you're right about perception to people considering
| going there. But I really think it just comes down to cost.
| Cities have gotten exorbitantly expensive.
|
| It doesn't make financial sense to stay in SF if you're
| salary stays the same in Texas and your company is remote.
| Unless there is some specific reason to live there - you
| like the vibe, or it's where you were born, or some other
| reason (weather).
|
| I think it's good that we have this shakeup. Change is a
| good thing, and I think a lot of cities need some change.
| vikingerik wrote:
| > "if I don't have to live here, do I want to keep living here"
|
| I answered the exact same no to that question, moving out of
| NYC when my job went permanently remote since the pandemic. I
| moved to semi-rural Virginia where my family is, and bought a
| house with far more space and a pool than I could have dreamed
| of within commuting distance of NYC.
| themitigating wrote:
| For some house size is less important than have more to do
| outside the home if city entertainment is to your liking
| peckrob wrote:
| I don't know why it _isn 't_ being mentioned.
|
| I am not in the Bay Area myself, but about half of my friends
| there have relocated in the last couple years. A bunch to
| Washington or Oregon, some to Texas, one to Nashville, and a
| few others to places mostly in the northeast. All of them cited
| cost of living as the _primary_ reason ... but all also
| mentioned full time remote work is what finally made it
| _possible_ to move.
|
| When you aren't chained to a physical location by your job,
| lots of things become possible.
| gwbushey wrote:
| nradov wrote:
| I live in the south Bay Area. The local public school
| district has been steadily losing enrollment due to the high
| cost of living. The district administrator I talked with said
| that based on student records transfer requests, some
| families have moved further east and south into the sprawling
| exurbs, and many others moved to Texas.
| DragonStrength wrote:
| I entered 2020 thinking I'd settle in the Bay Area, but
| stats like these accelerating over the past couple year
| make me feel fortunate I sat it out.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I actually know several people who used this as an
| opportunity to move _into_ the Bay Area. The sudden drop in
| rents made it more attractive and they jumped.
|
| They both work in industries where face to face communication
| is a competitive advantage. It's easy to forget that not
| every job is naturally compatible with remote work like it is
| for those of us who type on computers all day.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I'm in this boat. We moved apartments in SF during the
| pandemic and we now live in an amazing neighborhood,
| amazing building, for 40% less then we were paying for a
| below average apartment before.
|
| It's not one or the other (moving in or out), it's about
| getting what you (the individual) wants, and being smart
| about timing and using world events to your advantage, not
| disadvantage.
|
| Some people wanted to move away from SF, some wanted to
| move in. It was an opportunity for either.
| sheepybloke wrote:
| Where have you been seeing the rent drop in SF? I'm in
| the south bay and have been interested in moving to SF
| now that I'm going remote, since I want a bit more active
| nightlife. Now that I'm remote, I don't have to stay in
| south bay.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I haven't seen these supposed rent drops in SF or the Bay
| Area either. My lease in the peninsula is up next month
| and the rent is increasing about 8%, and that's aligned
| with the prices I'm seeing elsewhere for comparable
| apartments.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Things are rising a bit now but if you jumped into a new
| place in like 2021, the discounts were pretty absurd.
| teebs wrote:
| Rents are definitely down - or at least they were 1.5
| years ago when I last moved. Before the pandemic, 1
| bedrooms were usually at least $3500 and often $4000+.
| When I looked last January, there were decent places
| between $2500 and $3000. I emailed some landlords saying
| "is there any chance you could go lower" and they offered
| me free rent for 1-3 months. I ended up with a pretty
| good deal on a large one bedroom in the Mission.
|
| Rents have gone up since then from my understanding, but
| they're still below what they were several years ago.
| https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-francisco-ca
| acchow wrote:
| Largely SOMA and parts of the Mission and the Van Ness
| corridor. It's mainly areas which generally feel less
| like a neighborhood and more like a bustling city -
| mainly areas where renters are more OK with living in
| than homeowners would be willing to purchase in. A great
| example is the new Chorus building which opened in 2021
| on Van Ness and Mission. It remained mostly empty
| throughout 2021 despite offering 10 weeks "free rent"
| with a 1 year lease. Stunningly gorgeous building,
| incredible amenities, but a subpar location - a condo
| here would be sold at a heavy discount because of the
| location, thus this is a luxury rental apartment instead.
| Across the street is the new Fifteen Fifty building, also
| with heavy "free 2 months rent" discount for a 1 year
| lease.
|
| But even in the most desirable neighborhoods, rents are
| still down about 10-15% compared to pre-COVID
| dominotw wrote:
| > sudden drop in rents
|
| Curious, Why aren't properly prices droping to reflect the
| loss in population.
| picture_view wrote:
| It's possible most of the 6.3% did not own property and
| we're not in the market to buy property, so there was no
| change in that market.
| lazide wrote:
| Speculators betting it will come roaring back afterwards,
| money still getting cheaper, folks with families that
| can't move, inability to 'just move' if you own, all
| probably contributing.
|
| Housing prices have been out of whack with fundamentals
| (cash flow) since at least '12-'13.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| Here's another more bleak option. Just like in 2008 when
| corporations bought up huge swaths of the housing market
| for cash while no one could get a loan. (which is part of
| the current issue with not enough homes to buy)
|
| They aren't betting the market will come roaring back,
| they are betting that they can corner the market and
| housing will be a subscription just like everything else
| they sell.
|
| Rent seekers aren't going anywhere, and the cost is
| really immaterial to them for the most part. They don't
| need cashflow, they need a monopoly.
| marvin wrote:
| This is a spooky narrative, but the rent seekers can't be
| the majority. My understanding is that many Californian
| real estate markets are kept artificially tight due to
| various forms of NIMBYism.
|
| If renters become the majority, it's suddenly no longer
| viable to limit new housing through regulation. Markets
| are nowhere near the fundamental limits of homes per
| square meter of the state that's good to live in.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| I don't think they are a majority and I think the main
| problem is lack of housing being built. But I do think
| that what housing is out there on the market faces stiff
| competition from companies not people. I'd assume there
| are a few people buying houses with cash but my guess is
| a lot of those stories you hear about people bidding 100k
| over ask and losing to a cash offer are mostly not
| people.
|
| Theres a good number of companies that are open about
| increasing their housing portfolios. Even construction
| companies that built thousands of starter homes per year
| converting to rentals only.
|
| These are long term changes, and not a quick cash grab at
| the bottom of the market.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| As usual, the "speculators" and "out of towners" and
| others are convenient scapegoats, lest we have to face
| the underlying supply and demand and barriers to
| development.
|
| You want to have a monopoly on housing in a major city?
| I'd be hard pressed to point out an industry where that
| would be _harder_. You have literally millions of
| competitors.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| San Francisco is already the second most densely
| populated city in the USA (the first being NYC). SF is
| actually already slightly more densely populated than
| Tokyo, which many like to tout as a mecha for de-
| regulated zoning.
| lazide wrote:
| That assumes they'll get takers on the areas though.
|
| With remote work becoming more of the norm, what if the
| labor market doesn't move back?
|
| They'll have a monopoly that few ever pay rent on, and
| they'll go broke (while the houses rot).
| jethro_tell wrote:
| Sure, It's not a sure thing forever and not all areas are
| going to be winners, but if you have a big enough budget,
| you can just buy houses everywhere for a long time and
| probably make decent rent for a while. Heh, if not, or
| when it ends, they can just dump it and or the company
| and walk away. It's not like they are doing it with their
| own money.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| We are still in the early stages of the bubble deflating.
| teebs wrote:
| Many of my friends who are tech workers who've worked at
| unicorns and tech giants for 5-10 years bought their
| first homes in SF during the pandemic. I would guess part
| of the drop in rents is a shift in demand from former
| renters to new homeowners. Also, there was a general
| increase in prices across all asset classes during the
| pandemic that continued to drive prices up. Finally,
| property prices have actually gone up less in SF than
| they have in the US as a whole, likely because of the
| general effect of people moving away - compare the change
| from January 2020 to today in this chart
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS vs this chart
| https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/
| RC_ITR wrote:
| If everyone who left was living in a 2 bedroom with a
| roommate and now that space is a one bedroom with a home
| office, then why would rents fall?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Presumably the willingness to pay a given amount from
| just one person's income is lower than that of two
| people's income. Add in additional temporary uncertainty
| in big parts of the tech market and I can see a lot of
| currently occupied units having a tenant not willing to
| renew as-was.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The loss of population is directly caused by property
| prices, so if they were reduced, the loss would reduce or
| reverse and we simply would't be talking about population
| loss anymore (seriously).
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| This is so sad to me. The fracturing of the community because
| of capitalism. All these people that are moving away from
| their friends they are shortsighted. When they really need
| people no one's going to be around them. Sad.
| ghaff wrote:
| Even if you like San Francisco on balance, it's hard not to
| ask yourself if you like it _so much_ that you 're OK with
| paying for some of the most expensive housing in the country
| when you don't have a reason you _have_ to be there.
| 0000011111 wrote:
| It sounds like you are saying that if you move from SF to
| another city cost of living expenses will drop
| dramatically.
| alanh wrote:
| Yes, this is famously true, with SF's cost of living
| (especially but not only housing) being some of the very
| highest in the nation. Getting out of California helps
| even more.
| ghaff wrote:
| Well they _can_. If I move to another popular place like
| Manhattan they probably won 't go down much. But it's
| reasonable to ask, if you don't have a work-related
| reason to live in a place, whether it's good value based
| on your priorities. The answer may be "Yes!" for SF for
| some people. But it may also be "No."
| themitigating wrote:
| For cities in general there's much more to do compared to
| low density areas. Restaurants, entertainment, other
| people. All of this within a decent traveling distance.
| DragonStrength wrote:
| Sure, but most who leave SF will choose a smaller metro
| area, not a rural area. What I have found in my time in
| the Bay Area is a general ignorance of how many smaller
| metro areas have developed more vibrant urban centers
| over the past 10 years. The people from these cities who
| went home for the first time in a decade are finding
| surprisingly livable metros waiting for them, closer to
| aging family.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| I've definitely thought about finally leaving the Bay
| Area, previously I'd written off a lot of places because
| I want to be close to the coast and I love the relatively
| mild weather. More recently I ended up talking with a
| park ranger about life out here (he's from Truckee). He
| was real attracted to the Oregon coast but aghast at the
| white supremacy issues that are still ripe up there.
| There's always a catch.
|
| Now? Politics and infrastructure put me off of huge
| chunks of the country (especially Texas and Florida). I
| don't really care if Austin is a vibrant metro area when
| the state government is trying to ensure women have
| subhuman status at most even if they've got to gut our
| judicial system to do it. Small town Texas? Absolutely
| fucking not, doubly so if I actually wanted to raise a
| family. Then again the Bay Area _is_ my home.
| ghaff wrote:
| A lot of smaller cities have developed gentrified cores.
| Mind you, these cores can be pretty small. You may have a
| relative handful of restaurants and bars you like and
| they may lack some of the cultural amenities of a larger
| city. But I know a couple who just sold their presumably
| very appreciated house in a major metro and moved
| somewhere smaller.
| ihumanable wrote:
| I think one thing that keeps me in the Bay Area is
| economic opportunity, although it remains to be seen how
| larger macro-economic forces will effect this.
|
| For the last decade though, if you write code in the Bay
| Area, there is just this massive backstop of companies
| looking to hire. I've lived here since 2011 and worked
| for all of 3 startups that entire time, so this isn't so
| much about job hopping. Instead, because of all the
| competition for talent in the area you get to enjoy a
| degree of job security, high pay, and benefits that are
| pretty nice. It is also a major relief to know that if
| your company does have to let you go for whatever reason
| or you just get sick of the work you are doing and want
| to quit, there are a ton of other places hiring.
|
| With remote work I imagine being physically close to the
| Bay Area is less of a requirement, but it seems like
| there is some amount of drive to get people back into
| offices, so we will see how long that remains viable.
|
| This is really the main reason I stay in the Bay Area, I
| moved out to the Greater East Bay a few years back and
| was able to find a nice house in a nice enough area for a
| reasonable price.
|
| Having easy access to so many employers provides a peace
| of mind and an implicit pile of leverage that's pretty
| great.
| ghaff wrote:
| Sure. Cities lend themselves to different sorts of
| activities and have different pros and cons than do rural
| areas. Personally I get all the city stuff I want in
| short visits. I can see a play in a large city that is an
| hour drive away without living there.
| themitigating wrote:
| That's fine but the parent implied it was objectively
| worse than living elsewhere
| ghaff wrote:
| I think the parent was me :-) I actually like SF but some
| of the most expensive housing in the country is a high
| bar if you don't either have enough money that it's a
| non-issue or have to live there for employment or other
| reasons. There are many cities with solid city activities
| that aren't SF.
| legerdemain wrote:
| Like it or not, SF has the most vibrant tech community than
| anywhere else.
|
| I live an hour away, and I make the painful, tedious drive
| up in rush-hour traffic at least once a week to meet up
| with some group or another in person. The alternative is
| the dreary, sleep-inducing vendor teleconferences that
| double as "meetups" on the Peninsula.
|
| I'm strongly considering ditching the Peninsula and moving
| to SF for better networking and more diverse hangouts and
| career opportunities.
| xvedejas wrote:
| This is not a strategy for everyone, but I definitely pay
| less in SF than I would in most cities because I know
| people willing to live with me long-term (and split rent)
| here. Generally it's easier in SF to find a roommate who is
| high-earning and willing to split an apartment or house
| compared to other cities, where similar people would just
| pay a little more to get their own place.
| elif wrote:
| in our city, my partner and I bought a house entirely for
| 5.5 years of what we were paying in rent. Now just 2 of
| our rent payments cover annual tax and insurance.
|
| any locally optimized strategy within the overall context
| of renting is still a failing proposition imo.
| mjmahone17 wrote:
| You (and those like you) have informally recreated
| boarding houses. It's a shame that Single Room Occupancy
| is basically illegal to build in any major US city: most
| cities require building "single family units" that must
| have their own bathroom(s), kitchen and bedroom(s).
|
| It would be nice if people who are OK sharing common
| spaces were able to have housing built specifically with
| them in mind.
| wctawcta wrote:
| Splitting rent among roommates is not specific to San
| Francisco, it's common to cities with expensive housing.
| LA, Miami, NYC, San Diego, etc. all have high proportions
| of adults living with roommates
| (https://porch.com/advice/cities-whose-residents-likely-
| live-...).
|
| Having roommates certainly helps save money, but it
| remains true that you and your roommates are paying for
| some of the most expensive housing in the country.
| gamechangr wrote:
| I second this
|
| My friends seem to be moving to Washington, Florida, and
| other parts of California (away from main cities)
| gwbushey wrote:
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I see far more California vehicle tags in Central Florida
| than I would've expected.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is probably more a function of population. I
| regularly see Florida plates in Washington.
| davio wrote:
| I live in Missouri and people who have lived on my street
| for decades have Florida plates. They must have property
| there and claim it as residency for tax purposes
| legerdemain wrote:
| A ton of license plates with oranges on them here in the
| Bay Area, too.
| jdhn wrote:
| When you look in the cars, are they older people? Where I
| live (western Florida), it's generally older people and
| not the demographic that you'd expect to find on this
| site.
| tshaddox wrote:
| The even more obvious thing is the lockdowns. Regardless of
| whether you think the lockdowns were appropriate or not, it's
| pretty clear that many of the advantages of living in a dense
| cultural center like SF go away when you're mostly confined to
| your home and can't participate in night life, the art/music
| scene, restaurants, etc. Heck you barely even benefit from the
| weather any more.
| ilamont wrote:
| There's another data point that supports this view of remote
| work: retirement
|
| Many people, when given the chance to not work _at all_ , leave
| their residence or make a decision to split their time between
| their old home and a new home in a location with a better
| lifestyle, friends, family, whatever.
| ghaff wrote:
| There's also a natural tendency for many people, as they get
| older, to tend to gravitate away from downtowns as they care
| less about the bar scene, say, and more about space for
| hobbies, family, etc. So you're always going to have some
| natural outflow for older demographics and it's probable it's
| not being counterbalanced by new grads moving in.
|
| But I agree with your basic point. If you no longer have to
| live in an area for work, you definitely start thinking about
| where you _want_ to live.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| If SF was attractive, then people would want to remotely work
| from SF. But it isn't. So, they're leaving. On the other hand
| San Diego seems to be blowing up.
| rad88 wrote:
| If fallacies worked then everyone would use them, but they
| don't, so nobody uses them!
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| SF is expensive. If SF was cheaper, it would be more
| attractive, more people would arrive, and rents would be
| pushed up again by the increased competition. This is just
| supply and demand at work.
| andbberger wrote:
| SF is attractive it's just stupidly expensive
| whakim wrote:
| I don't think this is _necessarily_ true. Consider that the
| reason many people were in SF in the first place was because
| their job required them to be there and they didn 't have a
| choice; now that they have a choice, perhaps many of them
| find SF attractive and stay, while a minority don't and
| leave.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| Around 2010 and before SF was very attractive. The southbay
| were where most jobs were located but everyone wanted to
| live in the city. That's what caused a huge amount of
| companies and startups to move to SF.
|
| The influx of techies, however, changed the city. And SF
| soon became what it is today.
| onetokeoverthe wrote:
| The ahistorical techies destroyed sf by 2000.
|
| Sf became techietown in 2000.
|
| Instead of primarily being an alt culture capital.
|
| It became "a place to work".
| deltaonefour wrote:
| No. It started in 2000 and proceeded into 2010 where
| around 2010 and before it became noticeable. By the mid
| 2010s it reached it's peak.
|
| Prior to 2010 and a little after it was more than a place
| to work. It was a place where all techies wanted to live;
| but not because of work. Because they loved the city.
| That's why those shuttles from SF to mountain view google
| exist. Too many googlers wanted to live in SF and work in
| MTV.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > Consider that the reason many people were in SF in the
| first place was because their job required them to be there
| and they didn't have a choice
|
| I'm not sure how big of a factor that is/was though. I know
| plenty of people in their 20s who worked in the peninsula
| or east bay but deliberately took on the high costs (and
| long commutes!) of living in SF for the usual reasons
| related to SF being a cultural center.
|
| I think it would be fairer to apply your claim to the
| reason many people live _in the entire Bay Area_ , but not
| specifically in SF.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| I mean, to be fair, we're talking about 6 out of 100
| people moving this year. I can defiantly see 6 out of 100
| people being there just because that's where they get
| paid or their job moved them.
|
| It's even more likely that part of that 6 percent had
| family obligations, and some just realized they wouldn't
| buy a house even if they loved the city, and some just
| hated it.
| lemonlime wrote:
| If SF was unattractive, it wouldn't cost $2,500-$3,000 to
| live in mediocre housing with 6 housemates.
|
| Even people that don't have high paying tech jobs are lining
| up to pay these kinds of insane prices. They don't want to
| pay the prices, but it's worth it to live in an area like SF.
|
| One of the only places on the planet in human history that
| people put this much energy and money into just living
| somewhere.
| raverbashing wrote:
| I guess living in SF is like buying a boat. You're happy
| when moving there but much happier when moving out
| twiceaday wrote:
| "Nobody drives in LA. There's too much traffic!"
| mikebenfield wrote:
| Obviously there is some level of demand to live in SF, and
| that's part of the explanation for the high cost of living.
|
| But the factor really driving up rent and real estate
| prices is the massive resistance in SF and the Bay Area in
| general to building new housing.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| It's being driven up everywhere. SF just started higher.
| arcticbull wrote:
| In part yes, but also, SF was especially resistant to
| building new houses. So much so it even has a Wikipedia
| article on its obstinance. [1]
|
| > For example, from 2012 to 2016, the San Francisco
| metropolitan area added 373,000 new jobs, but permitted
| only 58,000 new housing units.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_housing_s
| hortage
| scelerat wrote:
| It's funny, I moved to SF and landed a tech job, in that order.
| I moved to the Bay Area for certain things above a job. I know
| there are others like me, perhaps not a majority of the HN
| crowd, but I quite like it here and it would take a lot for me
| to change my mind about the place.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| Lots of reasons why people hate SF. The homeless problems,
| the petty crime. The smell, the dirtiness, the shitty
| weather, the actual danger of stepping on human feces, the
| drug use.
|
| To each their own, but I think it's important for people to
| get out of their headspace and see things from a more general
| perspective as well. There are very good reasons why people
| don't like SF and unless people who love the city acknowledge
| those things, change is likely impossible.
| [deleted]
| tayo42 wrote:
| Except the weather lol I lived in Bernal for years and
| never experienced any of that...
| deltaonefour wrote:
| This is what I mean by people not getting out their
| headspace. I literally find it impossible not to
| experience every single thing I mentioned above on a
| daily basis just by walking through the city.
| nineplay wrote:
| There are good reasons why people don't like SF but why
| should people who do like SF care or try to convince them
| otherwise? I don't like Dallas but I don't think people who
| do like Dallas need to get out of their headspace and
| change things for my benefit.
|
| Obviously SF has problems and no one loves SF who doesn't
| want to improve the homeless issue. It doesn't make them
| wrong to love the city.
| themitigating wrote:
| Do you know the excitement that surrounds stories like
| this on foxnews? They want liberal Democrat cities to
| fail so they can blame leadership as an example
| [deleted]
| cbozeman wrote:
| That's because leadership _is_ failing.
|
| The correct response of leaders is to ignore wealthy
| citizens attempting to prop up their multi-million dollar
| 3bed4bath properties and let them know, "We're going to
| zone more areas for residential development, sorry. 2500
| square foot homes shouldn't be $3 million in any area in
| America."
|
| And all these rich liberals - and they _are_ liberals -
| use the same bullshit line over and over, "I'm all _FOR_
| affordable housing... I 'm just afraid it'll change the
| _character_ of our neighborhood. "
|
| Bull. Shit. You. Lying. Fuck.
|
| You thought you'd be able to set up your grandchildren
| for life because you chose what was a relatively sleepy,
| and honestly kinda shitty, city back in the 1970s. Fuck
| you and fuck off.
|
| What they're _really_ afraid of is that some politician
| who really _does_ give a shit about the city will come
| along and upend their apple cart and their 50 year old
| brownstone will only be worth $1 million instead of $7
| million when they die.
| nineplay wrote:
| > let them know, "We're going to zone more areas for
| residential development,
|
| Why? This may seem deliberately naive but in the context
| of the current discussion, why should more areas be zoned
| for residential if people are leaving the Bay Area? If
| there are residents who hate the Bay Area, can't afford
| it, and are no longer stuck there now that they can WFH
| then it sounds like they are cheerfully leaving. The
| wealthy citizens keep their houses and neighborhoods and
| perhaps the rest of us get a break from the ceaseless
| complaining.
|
| It's an easier solution than massive rezoning proposals.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| Anger aside (directed more at liberals or NIMBYs?),
| California and San Francisco is limiting its potential.
|
| Wealth of the area is being strangled by a magnitude.
|
| As an individual owner, however, it's irrational to not
| fight.
|
| So how would you incentivize growth? It can be done, but
| I do think the lawmakers will have to be creative about
| it.
| nineplay wrote:
| > Wealth of the area is being strangled by a magnitude
|
| How so?
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| > To each their own, but I think it's important for people
| to get out of their headspace and see things from a more
| general perspective as well.
|
| What makes you think those of us who enjoy living in the
| area haven't made the conscious choice? There are good
| reasons I chose to live in the urban parts of the SFBA,
| just like I presume there are good reasons several of my
| friends are happily running a household in Seattle, Austin,
| Chicago, Brooklyn, Columbus, or pretty much any other part
| of the US.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| Many haven't... I've literally met people who claim they
| haven't seen any human feces in San Francisco or drug
| users and homeless people everywhere.
|
| Then there's people like you who prefer the fair and
| balanced look. Like San Francisco is a city that has some
| problems just like any other city.
|
| Are there really, truly any factually bad places to live
| in the world? Or is everything just a matter of opinion?
| Nothing is bad or good it's what each individual makes of
| it.
|
| When is it that enough people believe in something that
| it's no longer an opinion but a fact? Some people may
| enjoy being punched in the face but enough people hate
| being punched in the face that this situation is
| considered to be factually just a shitty situation to be
| in, completely independent of opinion.
|
| I'm saying enough people are talking shit about SF that
| SF is pretty much in the zone of being factually
| categorized as a shitty place to live. If it's not there
| yet, it's close enough where people need to acknowledge
| some big problems here that no other 1st world city has.
| mdasen wrote:
| I think the point is that many people feel forced to live in
| SF because of their job. At the same time, there are so many
| people that love SF that are forced out due to economics.
|
| It would be better if people were able to choose where they
| want to live rather than being pushed into certain living
| situations that aren't what they'd choose. There are plenty
| of techies that feel pushed to living in SF for their job.
| There are plenty of LGBT people that feel pushed out (or kept
| out) of SF due to economics even though they want to be
| there. It's not that any group is right or wrong. I just
| think that people get resentful when they're kept away from
| the things they want in life. Place is one of the biggest
| parts of our lives. "I want to live in X, but I can't really
| because..." is just a recipe for unhappiness.
| smsm42 wrote:
| Many SF tech companies would love to not allow remote work
| again, but I think they can't really pull that off anymore. The
| argument "the company can't function that way" has been
| demolished during COVID days, so it'd be very hard for
| companies to go back. And the more companies allow it, the less
| leverage the ones that don't have.
|
| That said, a lot of people that worked in SF didn't live in SF
| even back then. They may live in Oakland, Redwood City,
| Mountain View, all the way from Walnut Creek to Los Gatos or
| Milpitas. Now they can just avoid the multi-hour commute - and
| I think that's a win.
| 99_00 wrote:
| Your reasoning contradicts its self.
|
| I agree that remote work allows more workers to live where they
| want.
|
| You claim that workers left SF not because of any attribute of
| the city, but because they wanted a change.
|
| You imply that SF is desirable place to live, however it's
| population declined only because of a desire for change.
|
| However, there are more remote workers outside of SF than in
| it. If SF was in-fact desirable, and remote workers simply want
| 'change', then SF's population would increase. Because a
| greater number of remote workers would move to desirable SF for
| their change, than would leave it.
|
| Reality is this: Remote work allows workers choose desirable
| places to live regardless of office location.
|
| Without the advantage of office location, SF stops being
| desirable. It stops being desirable because the benefits it
| supplies (culture, etc) are less than the costs it demands
| (crime, rent, etc).
|
| One might argue that MANY cities are going to experience
| similar declines and that SF isn't unique. So this can't be
| seen as people voting with their feet against SF.
|
| That's fine. Then people are voting with their feet against
| MANY cities and cities are simply not desirable.
| [deleted]
| 8note wrote:
| The price of rent shows its desirability. Lots and lots of
| people want to live there, but that doesn't mean they can, or
| that it's the best fit for their other requirements.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Ridiculous rent for houses/apartments in a very bad shape, rising
| crime and eroding faith in the justice system (you could argue
| that the data doesn't support this, but the reality is that the
| data doesn't support this because a lot of crimes these days go
| unreported), school district going to shit, bad city governance
| (which trickles into bad transportation, more homelessness, filth
| in the streets, businesses closing or not enough new ones
| opening, ever increasing taxes etc.) and overall high taxes which
| you question when you don't get proportional services.
| [deleted]
| gsibble wrote:
| Pretty much all the reasons I left in 2018 after 10 years.
| Expensive, filthy, and dangerous. I live in Boston now and my
| quality of life has soared. Make just as much too.
| jmyeet wrote:
| SF is expensive and horrible. The only reason people in tech live
| there is because of employers in the area and it beats living
| elsewhere in the Bay Area which is expensive and dull.
|
| There's really no other reason people would put up with an hour
| (or more) commute each way every day.
| [deleted]
| seaourfreed wrote:
| People vote if SF has a good or bad government, by voting with
| their feet. Cities across the nation can have people leave due to
| remote work. This isn't remote work.
|
| This is a vote on if SF's government is great or bad.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| Rents are up 15% YoY, which is probably a leading sign that
| demand is back. I know some folks might blame higher rents on
| greedy landlords... But it's quite clear that at work this
| year's class of new grad hires is moving to the Bay Area.
|
| What I think we saw is people left SF because there's no point
| in doing remote work from a cramped, expensive apartment. So
| yes, it was a vote on governance. But for all SF's problems
| it's more nuanced than "people are fleeing a sh*t-hole city."
|
| (And even funnier, I live in Oakland. There was a noticeable
| surge in people parking bikes with Caltrain tags in the bike
| room. I'm back to being the only bike with a Caltrain tag now.)
| webwielder2 wrote:
| Serious question: what's another place in the US with mild year-
| round weather, walkable neighborhoods (haven't driven a car in 12
| years), and easy access to an international airport? That's what
| SF offers me. The "SF is an unlivable hellhole" drumbeat is so
| loud that I almost feel compelled to move (my own experience be
| damned), but I'm not sure where to.
| dopeboy wrote:
| As someone who lives there and is taking a very hard look at
| other towns, the answer is none. Some small parts of LA come
| close.
| [deleted]
| twayt wrote:
| > what's another place in the US with mild year-round weather,
| walkable neighborhoods (haven't driven a car in 12 years), and
| easy access to an international airport?
|
| If you consider SF (the city) weather mild, there are a ton of
| cities in the US that match what you're looking for. They just
| don't have the tech orientation and cachet that you associate
| with living in SF.
| presentation wrote:
| Too bad the USA has practically no livable cities.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Don't feel compelled to move. If you don't know why _you_ want
| out of SF, _don 't leave_.
|
| Everybody who is saying how horrible it is aren't going to live
| your life for you. Don't try to live theirs.
| vincentmarle wrote:
| Have you ever been to Santa Monica or San Diego?
| nineplay wrote:
| Do you also want a city that borders the ocean and is also a 5
| hour drive to one of the most beautiful national parks in the
| country? I think you might be out of luck.
| rr808 wrote:
| Agreed, California is pretty special. I think its easy to get
| hung up on "mild year-round weather", it actually gets boring
| and I prefer 4 proper seasons. I enjoy some snow and some hot
| summers which means most of the country is available.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I went to SF over last weekend and thought of stopping by
| Walgreens (Pharmacy) to pick up eye drops. I had to call the
| associate to unlock the cabinet doors to pick them up. Took 5-10
| mins to just get hold of someone with a key ring the size of a
| coconut. Every cabinet was locked from toothpaste to tampons.
| This is at the Walgreens near Union Square which is still better
| than other areas.
|
| People are leaving because of the decline. I wish San Franciscans
| would stop defending themselves and admit that things are
| _actually_ worse and whatever politics they 're advocating hasn't
| worked. This extends more generally to California (and other west
| coast states).
|
| I voted for Shellenberger for Governor of CA. Felt right.
| wahern wrote:
| > I wish San Franciscans would stop defending themselves and
| admit that things are actually worse and whatever politics
| they're advocating hasn't worked. This extends more generally
| to California (and other west coast states).
|
| > I voted for Shellenberger for Governor of CA. Felt right.
|
| FWIW, people like Newsom openly admit the scale of the problems
| and the roadblocks which radicalized "progressivism" present to
| California. Newsom has even openly admitted that some of his
| own policies as mayor of San Francisco were somewhat foolhardy
| and naive in retrospect, including his housing and drug
| policies. (And he did so not as a sound bite to impress voters,
| but buried in speeches and interviews and backed up by
| substantive reasons for why they were so.) Mayor Breed has also
| expressed mea culpas of her own. And both have expressed
| extreme frustration with many of the (invariably) Democrats
| they must work with.
|
| Breed's become so frustrated recently she event started
| swearing--"less tolerant of all the bullshit that has destroyed
| our city"--and almost seemed to lose her composure in an
| interview when asked how she felt about Boudin's
| policies.[1][2]
|
| My voting strategy is two-fold: 1) Any politician that can
| admit they were wrong about substantive policy issues deserves
| my vote, period, especially when such admissions come with
| potential cost, are unforced, and relate to relatively recent
| policies. 2) As politics is the art of the possible, I
| appreciate that I need to vote for someone who knows how to
| play the game. Newsom and Breed are both savvy players, and
| they're career players. That turns alot of people off. But
| that's politics. Being a savvy player is a sine quo non of a
| good politician. (And by savvy I don't mean being good at
| soundbites or playing to voter sentiment, but know how to wheel
| and deal and pull triggers in smoke-filled rooms--palace
| intrigue type stuff.)
|
| When a candidate demonstrates political savvy while also
| credibly expressing some honesty and sensibility, then the
| choice quickly becomes easy. Both Newsom and Breed have done
| that, IMO. It's difficult for me to expect more out of them at
| this point. One of my benchmarks for a virtuous politician is
| Senator Russ Feingold. But Senator Feingold lost Wisconsin in
| 2010. He couldn't match his virtuousness with his savviness.
| Both Wisconsin and the U.S. as a whole probably would have
| better off with a little less virtue and a little more savvy
| from Feingold.
|
| Ideas are cheap. We don't need people like Shellenberger in
| office. They'll be ineffective. We need people who are capable
| of hearing what people like Shellenberger are proposing, and
| then to the degree its possible (and often it won't be possible
| _at_ _all_ ) translate that not just into effective policy or
| literal legislation, but a sufficient number of actual
| legislative votes.
|
| Regarding Newsom's privately sensibilities on energy policy,
| he's personally far more conservative than you'd think. Circa
| 2005 Newsom mothballed a donated gas power plant in San
| Francisco, but that wasn't his first choice. He was coerced
| into it--coerced by a lawyer friend of mine advocating for the
| surrounding community and who defly threatend (in person, from
| across the table) Newsom with a scorched-earth public relations
| campaign which Newsom knew he couldn't win. Newsom,
| understanding that politics is the art of the possible,
| relented. It was battle he could never have won if forced out
| into the open. By relenting he built capital--environmental
| policy credibility--that could come in handy one day. Like, for
| example, today:
| https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-04-29/califor...
|
| [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/mayor-breed-
| orders...
|
| [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/opinion/sway-kara-
| swisher...
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Many people do not know but Newsom's ex-wife used to be
| Kimberly Guilfoyle:
| https://www.kqed.org/arts/13885405/kimberly-guilfoyle-
| used-t...
|
| Now, I don't vote based on character to a certain extent, but
| Newsom has _both_ : Terrible policies and a terrible
| character.
| wahern wrote:
| I would find it difficult to have any respect for Newsom if
| all I knew about him was his social and business life. But
| the older I get the more I realize that character traits
| are distributed much more randomly than I ever believed.
| People want to believe, for example, that intelligence and
| compassion tend to come packaged together. But then you
| realize that there are quite alot of very malicious yet
| intelligent people out there. The universe doesn't have a
| sense of justice, at least not to the degree we expect, and
| definitely not the degree we desire.
|
| Last week I heard on the radio[1] a poem that resonated
| very strongly me with: A man said to the
| universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied
| the universe, "The fact has not created in me A
| sense of obligation."
|
| It's a poem by Stephen Crane, recited by Paul Auster during
| an interview. Auster describes Crane as (IIRC) a proto-
| existentialist, which explains why the poem resonated so
| strongly with me.
|
| [1] The (Mostly Forgotten) Writer Who Changed Literature
| Forever, Again and Again, On the Media, May 20, 2022,
| https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/mostly-
| for...
| [deleted]
| floren wrote:
| > I voted for Shellenberger for Governor of CA. Felt right.
|
| Same, but note that this was only the primary... it's entirely
| possible we'll end up with Newsom and some other random
| Democrat on the actual ballot.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Unfortunately, yes. People have stopped voting based on
| rationale and policy, but instead based on team colors.
|
| For those who don't know Shellenberger, he is your classic
| liberal running as an independent. Pro nuclear alone gets a
| vote from me. But there are so many things he talks about
| that are just common sense in majority of large cities around
| the world.
|
| If you're fed up with CA, please look him up.
| rc_mob wrote:
| The only voting choices you have in America are Republican
| and not Republican. The non Republican party is a
| disorganized mess. Its the world we live in.
| plasticchris wrote:
| Not so in Cali - there it is (almost always) a choice
| between democrat and democrat due to the way primaries
| are structured.
| floren wrote:
| But surely if we just vote in the same people for another
| 30 years or so, they'll get around to solving these
| problems!
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| eins1234 wrote:
| As someone who still enjoys SF and wants to keep living here, I
| read this as great news since I expected rents to decrease by a
| similar amount.
|
| But I just checked my apartment's website and it seems like if
| anything the rents have slightly increased compared to the price
| I renewed at last year!? Obviously this is a sample size of 1 and
| doesn't reflect the overall market.
|
| Curious if anyone else has real data on rent price trends. Is it
| just my apartment or is this a case of the market staying
| irrational for longer than I'd have hoped?
|
| EDIT: data was provided in another thread:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31533492
| truthwhisperer wrote:
| some-guy wrote:
| I'm in Oakland and I'm not in SF all the time, but it does feel
| like Market St. / the Financial District is the most affected
| post-pandemic, but the rest of the city feels like it's as
| popular as ever. Lots of SF residents I know in tech are
| working from home but are still living and enjoying the city.
| draw_down wrote:
| aantix wrote:
| Especially with the advent of Starlink, you can literally work
| anywhere and still have reliable enough Internet to make a six
| figure income.
| alaricus wrote:
| thenayr wrote:
| hyperpl wrote:
| Anyone know stats on NYC? I'm having trouble understanding the
| current true state wrt to apartment rental pricing: many people
| left during Covid but I'm not quite sure if many of those in fact
| returned.
|
| Furthermore, it would seem as though rental inventory is quite
| low or at least demand is through the roof (typically one needs
| to be ready to sign on the spot) with little to no room to shop-
| around. Prices are also quite high, I understand we have been in
| a recent high inflation regime but I just can't help but think
| the apartment rental market isn't as transparent as it was say,
| 3+ years ago.
| wombat-man wrote:
| I think a lot of people got covid deals, and at over 12 month
| leases. For example, getting a 12 month lease plus some number
| of free months. Some of these people are still in their
| apartments. Meanwhile, a lot of people are trying to move to
| the city and there's just less space overall because of those
| deals.
|
| My guess is that as those leases come to an end and some of
| those people move, the rent situation may get less crazy. But
| who knows.
| pcurve wrote:
| price is above pre pandemic
| ipnon wrote:
| There are many incentives in NYC that prevent rents from
| dropping. What we saw during the pandemic was static rent
| prices with increased benefits that lowered the actual price,
| for example last month is free so in effect rent has been
| lowered by 1/12 while still being listed as 12/12. Landlords do
| this for a variety of completely [redacted] reasons, including
| price controls, taxes, vacancy regulations, credit for
| "improvements", advertising histories. Rents do not fall in
| NYC, they merely stop rising for a time.
| eezurr wrote:
| The main reason they do it, IIRC, is because the banks
| handing out the landlords loans require some minimum rent
| prices on the leases in the loan contracts. The way they get
| around this is by offering a month or three of free rent.
| That way the leases signed by the tenants still me the
| contractual obligations of the bank.
|
| In the end the tenant still gets screwed when the lease comes
| up to be renewed, unless they are willing to move out over
| negotiating another free month in the next cycle.
| dijonman2 wrote:
| gsibble wrote:
| Agreed. I left in 2018 and am much happier now to not have to
| play the game "Is that water or urine?" when I see a puddle on
| the street.
|
| Trick question.....it's always urine.
| [deleted]
| birken wrote:
| One thing to note is that the 2021 population is an _estimate_ ,
| and if you are a Census buff as I am, and compare the Census'
| 2019 estimates to the 2020 actual populations (as calculated from
| the census), there are often very large differences.
|
| The article also says that CA's estimate of the population
| decline is much smaller, and arguably CA itself would have more
| accurate data for this particular metric (residency and voter
| rolls).
|
| So while I'm sure the gist of the argument is true, there is
| probably a larger margin of error on the calculation than you'd
| think at first glance. I'm not quite going to say the article is
| sensationalist, but if you look at the totality of the data
| (house prices, rental prices, CA's population estimates, etc),
| I'm not sure the "SF is in freefall" narrative holds up.
| ttymck wrote:
| I appreciate the point you are making, so I ask this genuinely:
| how confident are we in the census count? How confident are we
| usually, and how did that change given the hurdles the pandemic
| introduced?
| jeffbee wrote:
| Both the decennial census and the census ACS are estimates.
| All population counts are estimates.
| geoalchimista wrote:
| All statistical inferences are estimates, and carry
| standard errors with them. What is your point?
| drewda wrote:
| See https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-
| releases/2022/pes-2020...
| karmasimida wrote:
| Interestingly the inflation in SF, and Bay in general is less
| than national average, and much less than hot areas like Miami.
|
| I guess soon it will balance off
| somethoughts wrote:
| I think in the two scenarios you can focus on either the
| positives or the negatives.
|
| When population goes up: positive - the area is vibrant
| economically; negative - rent is spiraling upwards out of control
|
| When population goes down: positive - rent is finally affordable;
| negative - the area is falling apart existentially
|
| I think the media in general has found the negative spin sells
| better.
| akavi wrote:
| > When population goes up: positive - the area is vibrant
| economically; negative - rent is spiraling upwards out of
| control
|
| What's endlessly infuriating is population going up in a city
| _should_ be an almost unmitigated positive. It 's just our
| unwillingness to allow building new housing turning it into a
| zero sum game that makes it a mixed bag.
| visarga wrote:
| But does the transportation capacity also scale linearly with
| size?
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| I think we have plenty of working proof that mass
| transportation systems work at scale (NYC, Seoul, Tokyo,
| Berlin...)
| ellard wrote:
| The argument I usually see is that there would be less need
| for transportation as the removal of explicit zoning would
| be part of the effort for increasing density and that would
| put people closer to the goods and services that they
| want/need.
|
| (I don't have an opinion on this; the closest I ever got to
| city planning was playing Sim City)
| 88913527 wrote:
| A nuanced view of any sort of economic change will include
| analysis would objectively consider all the pro's-and-con's,
| and the media knows that con's sell better because of
| heightened emotional response.
| [deleted]
| mr90210 wrote:
| As a non-US citizen, sometimes I ask myself how did California
| end up like the country where I am from, which is located in
| the so called third world.
| [deleted]
| deltaonefour wrote:
| This is an exaggeration. I grew up in the southbay and you
| basically never see the shit you see in SF in the southbay.
| SJ has a bigger population then SF.
| Jackpillar wrote:
| compiler-guy wrote:
| The short version is that it isn't. You just hear about the
| worst parts. There are still plenty of fully functional
| cities and towns and the crime rate is still quite low by
| historical standards.
|
| Definitely has its problems, but the availability heuristic
| makes things seem worse than they are.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Yeah, this is definitely a real problem.
|
| I live in semi-rural America, and I have literally never in
| my life even seen a gun fire before. I used to live in DC,
| for six years, and I was never robbed, accosted, or even
| made to feel unsafe, and I had on multiple occasions walked
| miles home from a bar after closing. It was a downright
| pleasant way to get home if I didn't need to be up the next
| morning.
|
| America the country is basically nothing like America shown
| on TV. It's just too big and complex to explain in a
| soundbyte.
| nineplay wrote:
| I love SF and I'm happy the population is going down. These
| articles are posted once a week and trumpeted as some sort of
| victory and I can't imagine who they think is shedding tears
| over this.
|
| Sometime people wave their hands towards sad homeowners who are
| ( maybe ) seeing their home prices go down but I own a pricy
| home in a pricy neighborhood and as far as I'm concerned it's
| funny money. Whatever profit I'd make from selling my home only
| matters if I move to a place where home prices haven't gone up
| at the same rate. There's no lower COL city that I'm interested
| in living in so it's all the same to me.
| olivermarks wrote:
| People who own properties in SF are in a v different
| situation to those who are renting, couch surfing, flying in
| and out to HQ etc etc.
|
| I love SF too. We moved north over the bridge 8 years ago
| (working from home) but are in the city all the time. It was
| spectacularly deteriorating pre pandemic (when we left the
| Castro area the local library had just employed an armed
| guard to keep the transients out for example) and is now
| arguably in crisis due to the collapse of foot traffic
| retail, rampant crime and due to the city being a welcoming
| destination for transients who often have serious mental
| illness (SMI) and substance abuse issues. The city - and
| California generally - does not have the resources to triage
| their needs but it does have a huge 'non profit' homeless
| industry and more worryingly some areas are crowded with
| cartel drug sellers.
|
| Driving European visitor friends around a few weeks ago was
| the first time I'd really been to all the neighborhoods in a
| leisurely way since the pandemic abated. The wealthier areas
| (Noe Valley etc) are relatively unchanged apart from a lot of
| empty storefronts, but a lot of the city looks very beaten up
| despite the gorgeous vistas, light and climate (perfect
| weather during out tour).
|
| We are at a typical west coast boom/bust cross roads for
| California cities...
| nineplay wrote:
| SF has its problems to be sure. California has its problems
| too though whether or not those problems are better or
| worse than problems in any other place is unclear - the
| media treats SF and California as though they are one and
| the same.
|
| ( I'm old enough to remember when the media treated LA and
| California as one and the same and the SFers would snottily
| gripe that they're not 'that' California )
|
| Still I don't know of any SF problems that will be made
| worse by the population going down. Seems to me that the
| couch surfers, renters, etc. benefit from the lower
| population.
| outside1234 wrote:
| It will be interesting to see how much of this is Bay Area
| spread.
|
| We've had a huge number of people move to Santa Cruz, for
| example, so I've wondered how much of this might be the Bay Area
| getting broader instead of smaller.
| mwattsun wrote:
| The increase in rental prices in Santa Cruz reflect that. It's
| good for my family since we've been there 90 years but I'm
| currently in San Jose because I can get a nicer place for the
| same amount. It's not bad because I throw my electric bike on
| the bus that runs over the hill every hour when I want to go
| visit.
| peanut_worm wrote:
| San Francisco is the dirtiest city I have ever seen. It doesn't
| seem like a great place to spend 1 million dollars on a house
| unless you work there.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| twiceaday wrote:
| 1 million dollars might get you a two-bedroom condo. Median
| house price is 1.6 million
|
| https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/
| atq2119 wrote:
| Have you ever traveled outside the US?
| mancerayder wrote:
| I thought NYC was the dirtiest place I've ever seen, sounds
| like there's competition!
| asdff wrote:
| Neither are as dirty as New Orleans. There's trash, there's
| excrement, then there is rotting catfish and shellfish on top
| of the trash and excrement and it just sits stewing in
| stagnant, humid, swampy and hot air.
| the_only_law wrote:
| I was actually going to go there last year for a show,
| until nature decided to try and destroy it again (though I
| hear the hurricane wasn't too bad)
| selimthegrim wrote:
| The few weeks afterwards when the trash wasn't getting
| picked up made me hightail it to Mobile for the duration.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I live in the Lower Ninth Ward and based on what I saw of
| SF last fall I'd still give that award to SF (unless
| comparing the few weeks after Ida)
| JaceLightning wrote:
| Keep going. Needs to drop another 50% or so.
| [deleted]
| gamblor956 wrote:
| In the first year of COVID. I can't comment about how SF is
| faring these days, but LA also cleared out that first year.
|
| But this year, people came roaring back. The average rent
| increase in my neighborhood was _over 20%._ The competition for
| rental units in some buildings is intense enough that potential
| tenants either sign a rental agreement on the spot or lose the
| unit to someone else willing to sign, and at least one of the
| apartment buildings on my block has a waitlist.
|
| (Also interesting to note that the city of LA was not one of the
| top cities in terms of population loss per the Census, but
| several _suburban_ cities in LA County, like Torrance, were on
| the list.)
| vikingerik wrote:
| > The average rent increase in my neighborhood was over 20%.
|
| Is that compared to the pre-pandemic value, or to an
| artificially low value during a pandemic year?
|
| Also consider inflation: if everything is up 8% in a year, the
| real increase is only 12% in real terms.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| > people came roaring back. The average rent increase in my
| neighborhood was over 20%
|
| Just throwing a thought out there, but your anecdote might say
| a bit more about inflation than about a returning population.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| No, these buildings are completely full. The average vacancy
| for the apartment buildings in my neighborhood is less than
| 1%. Also, you're ignoring the bit about the waitlists...
|
| See also LAT article on this phenomenon, but across the metro
| area as a whole. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-
| 05-17/california...
| j_walter wrote:
| I haven't seen any data to support "roaring back". 6-ish months
| ago they were still saying SF rents were down 20% from March
| 2020. Any idea how many rentals aren't rentals anymore because
| of the moratorium impact? I know up here in Portland there was
| a huge net reduction of rentals and prices spiked pretty hard.
|
| For example: https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-
| trends/us/ca/sa...
| https://therealdeal.com/sanfrancisco/2022/05/02/san-francisc...
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Like I said, I can't comment on how SF is doing because I
| don't live there. But I do live in LA, and the apartments in
| my neighborhood have never been this full before.
|
| For point of comparison: at two of the apartment buildings on
| my block, a 1 BR 540 sq ft studio will rent for about $2800.
| This is _up_ 16% from pre-COVID rates of approximately $2400
| for those same units ($2200 during COVID, which is where the
| >20% increase comes from).
|
| EDIT: At one of those buildings, a 1BR is listed for $3600,
| which is what a 2BR used to rent for at that same building
| pre-COVID. I can't say what the 2BR rates are right now
| because there aren't any listed.
| j_walter wrote:
| Rents are up across the country and you are right it's 20%
| in LA according to rent.com. However equating rental prices
| going up 12% in the past 12 months with "people coming
| roaring back" isn't really correct. I mean inflation is up
| >7% in the last 12 months. I wouldn't say NYC has had a
| huge roaring back of people...but rent is up 39% in the
| last year...triple what SF saw.
|
| You can have rental prices increase and that doesn't
| necessarily mean an increase in demand...there are many
| external factors (supply shrinking, adjustments to account
| for lost rent in the pandemic, inflation, etc).
| gamblor956 wrote:
| You're just ignoring contrary data to fit your viewpoint.
|
| As I've pointed out many times, the apartment buildings
| in my neighborhood _have waitlists_ for potential
| renters, and that 's despite 20% YoY rent increases (or
| 16% rent increases, comparing pre- and post-COVID).
| Average vacancy is less than 1%, and that is true of all
| of the desirable neighborhoods in LA (of which there are
| too many to mention). _Your own citation supports the
| rent increase._
|
| These rent increases are not due to supply shrinking
| (there are thousands more rental units on the market now
| than before COVID), adjustments for lost rent in the
| pandemic (that's not how rental pricing works, landlords
| always charge market rate), and inflation (rent in these
| neighborhoods increased more than twice as much as
| inflation).
|
| At this point, having been confronted by data showing
| that your understanding is wrong, you need to point to
| actual concrete evidence that your understanding is
| reasonable and not just vague insinuations.
| raylad wrote:
| Here's rent data for SF:
|
| https://www.rent.com/california/san-francisco-
| apartments/ren... Avg. Rent Annual
| Change Studio $2,911 +17% 1 Bed $3,520 +12%
| 2 Beds $4,593 +6% 3 Beds $5,701 +8%
| j_walter wrote:
| So if the average is say 12% increase (which is what
| rent.com says right now)...that still means SF is lower
| than before COVID started. Not to mention that the most
| cities are seeing off the charts numbers compared to SF
| right now.
|
| https://www.rent.com/research/average-rent-price-report/
|
| 36% increase in Portland, 112% increase in Austin, 36% in
| Miami.
|
| But please, feel free to down vote me for using data.
| [deleted]
| m0llusk wrote:
| This is mostly an artifact. SF proper is a very small area in a
| metro area having around 8.5 million people. If you look
| carefully at a similar size urban core in other metro areas then
| you will see similar results.
| cheeseblubber wrote:
| If you compare rent trends of SF vs NYC or LA
|
| https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-francisco-ca
|
| https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/new-york-ny
|
| https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/los-angeles-ca
|
| You'll notice a huge difference between in SF and the other
| cities. Rent prices still hasn't gone back to pre pandemic level.
| bushbaba wrote:
| *But SF Bay surrounding communities have seen rent back up to
| pre-pandemic levels. So this trend seems SF city proper
| specific.
|
| https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/palo-alto-ca
|
| https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/los-altos-ca
|
| https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/sunnyvale-ca
|
| https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-jose-ca
|
| https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/santa-clara-ca
|
| https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/walnut-creek-ca
|
| https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/fremont-ca
|
| https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/dublin-ca
|
| https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/south-san-francisco-ca
|
| https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-carlos-ca
| eins1234 wrote:
| Well, thank you for confirming my suspicions. I wish I saw this
| before posting https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31533926
| yodsanklai wrote:
| The prices in NYC are just insane!
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Apparently 3 beds are cheaper than 1 in new york. 3,695 vs
| 3,600.
| sethhochberg wrote:
| Much like many cities - NYC included - are seeing people
| leave because they are no longer tied to wherever they had
| been with remote work, we're also seeing many people moving
| here specifically because they can work remotely from NYC.
|
| Available rental inventory is almost nonexistent right now,
| vacancy rates are at the floor. Much of our new development
| is exactly the kind of new amenity building that folks in the
| high-earning tech remote worker crowd often seek, but its
| still not managing to keep pace with demand. There's a
| shortage of inventory for virtually everyone except the
| billionaire class (not that they occupy much of the market in
| absolute terms).
|
| I've been in NYC about a decade an even in pre-pandemic years
| that most folks agree were much more stereotypically booming
| and I can't ever remember a housing market that was so
| frothy.
| asdff wrote:
| Other cities seem like they have more diversified local
| economies than SF. Probably there are more people with the
| flexibility to work from home working in the bay area than in
| these other places.
| cheriot wrote:
| Yes, SF has problems that are not related to the macro
| environment.
|
| nitpick: Rent prices in many neighborhoods are back up. It's
| specific areas in and near downtown that draw down the average.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| With even hybrid work models your living a better life living up
| in Sac and driving down once a week.
|
| This is a good thing. People should vote with their feet.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Problem is when hybrid becomes 2, and then 3 days. That
| commutes starts becoming a nightmare.
| xvedejas wrote:
| The capitol corridor train is pleasant enough, even if not
| the most convenient of bay area transit options.
| thebean11 wrote:
| Isn't that like 2 hours each way..? That's like a quarter
| of your day, no thanks.
| xvedejas wrote:
| Yes, 2 hours from Sac. Quite rough to do every day, but
| I'd think pleasant to do twice a week; there's WiFi and a
| cafe on board, for what it's worth. That said, if you
| just want cheaper housing, Fairfield is only an hour away
| in the same direction, so there are plenty of
| intermediate options.
| ghaff wrote:
| I had a 90 minute+ door to door commute (which I could do
| mostly by train) for about 18 months. I only had to do it
| about half the time and it was manageable but probably
| not sustainable long-term, especially for stretches when
| I was regularly going in more frequently. Once a week
| would be pretty doable; I go in for the day periodically
| but nothing like once a week.
| twblalock wrote:
| You can live cheaper in a lot of cities closer to San Francisco
| than Sac which still offer reasonable commutes. Most of the
| east bay, south bay, peninsula, etc.
| 650REDHAIR wrote:
| You couldn't pay me enough to live and work in Sacramento let
| alone live there and commute to the city.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Price people out of living somewhere and the market will
| eventually react.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The most regrettable thing is that it's those who bear the most
| responsibility for the city being less desirable (in a multitude
| of unrelated but compounding ways) are the ones with the most
| ability to just move elsewhere. I wish these people had to sleep
| in the bed they made.
| khazhoux wrote:
| Your comment could be read as a slam on rich techies, or the
| homeless, or even a specific race or ethnicity. Amazingly
| ambiguous! :-)
| anonygler wrote:
| The idea that people who simply decide to live somewhere are
| guilty of some moral failing is preposterous. Hold your elected
| leaders accountable for not doing their job.
| rattray wrote:
| According to the article, Manhattan lost 6.6% (that is, even
| more) in the same timeframe.
|
| Manhattan is a much closer comparable to SF than all of NYC, the
| lines just happen to be drawn differently.
| trimbo wrote:
| So many houses in my SF neighborhood are currently empty. They're
| single family homes so I'm not sure of the impact on the overall
| population, but it's been weird around here.
|
| - For sale and empty.
|
| - Full renovations. Guessing more than half are flipping them,
| given the speed which construction started after sale.
|
| - Investors buying homes and keeping them empty.
| wombat-man wrote:
| Some people renovate before moving in. Might as well customize
| it before the big move if you can afford it.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| What is happening is a weird confluence of events that no-one
| actually cares to analyze because SF is the world's most
| politically charged city to speak about, so people just state
| their biases vs. actually thinking.
|
| The trends as I see them are:
|
| 1) An increasing number of increasingly wealthy people with
| connections to SF that choose to domicile elsewhere while
| keeping a home in the city that is used a few months a year (to
| your point of empty homes being kept empty).
|
| 2) The temporary shut-off of a _massive_ pipeline of recent
| college grads who fill the offices of not only start-ups, but
| also accounting firms, consulting firms, banks, etc.
|
| 3) A reduction in appetite for '3 guys in a 2 bedroom where
| someone sleeps in the dining room' and an increase in appetite
| for '1 guy in a 2 bedroom/home office set up,' which supports
| price growth but not population growth.
|
| 4) The fact that for the past century, SF has been a city that
| grows beyond its means and then crashes, only to pick back up
| again on the next cycle (SF only surpassed its peak 1950
| population in 1990)
|
| There are certainly more that I miss, but from a street-level
| perspective, SF isn't in noticeably worse shape than it was in
| 2000. Question is "Is post-pandemic lifestyle change similar to
| the car (which caused that 40 year lull) or is it more
| temporary?"
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Is there a lot of empty housing then?
| sethbannon wrote:
| Those that have "made it" are moving out of SF and the young and
| hungry are moving in. SF has seen a wave of Gen Z inbound
| recently. I'll take that trade anytime.
|
| "the number of rental applications by people who fall into Gen Z
| (defined as those born between 1997 and 2012) have increased by
| 21% in the past year. Meanwhile, as we just discussed, rental
| applications from every single other generation have been
| lessening. Millennials, for instance, saw an 8% decrease in
| rental activity...
|
| Between 2020 and 2021, people who fall into Generation Z were
| filling out 21% more leases nationwide, as compared with the year
| before. When that search is narrowed to San Francisco, Rentcafe
| says those 20-somethings had a 101% increase in rental
| applications. They now make up more than a fifth of all people
| looking to lease in SF."
|
| https://sfist.com/2022/03/22/san-francisco-is-getting-younge...
| [deleted]
| antiverse wrote:
| Majestic take.
|
| More than likely, the ones that "made it" are staying where
| they are, having bought whatever property they've been able to
| and are now renting it out to the Gen Z'ers to pay it off. The
| older generation, wisely, realizes there's no future there and
| have ended their rental terms to go elsewhere where they can
| actually afford to buy something, not having gained any real
| estate ownership of their own.
|
| Calling Gen Z'es "hungry" in this instance is, God bless their
| hearts, insulting to common sense and rationality of things at
| play here.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| I think there's a middle ground. I'm sure gen Z is hungry.
| Good chunks of every generation are, on the other hand,
| counting rental applications is a little odd.
|
| There's a good chunk of millennials that are settled. They
| aren't moving in or out. an 8% drop for a generation that is
| about to turn 40 during a 2.5% interest rates seems a lot
| like a few people collected the cash to buy the homes and
| aren't renting any longer. But we'll never know because this
| is a single stat in a whole sea of stats regarding housing by
| generation.
|
| *edit, I mean, we could know, we could go out there and find
| meaningful data to get a full picture of what's going on but
| I don't really care that much. Just saying that looking at
| one stat and crafting a wonderful narrative is pointless.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > The older generation, wisely, realizes there's no future
| there and have ended their rental terms to go elsewhere where
| they can actually afford to buy something, not having gained
| any real estate ownership of their own.
|
| Wise > No Future > Makes biggest investment there anyway.
|
| Does not compute.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| > the number of rental applications by people who fall into Gen
| Z (defined as those born between 1997 and 2012) have increased
| by 21% in the past year.
|
| Is this surprising or useful? Most folks get their first
| apartment around age 21. Right now, that means there's roughly
| four years of Gen Z renting apartments. If the oldest members
| of Gen Z are 25, an increase of 21% is... pretty much exactly
| how many people you'd expect to be getting old enough to lease
| their first apartment in one year.
|
| > Between 2020 and 2021, people who fall into Generation Z were
| filling out 21% more leases nationwide, as compared with the
| year before.
|
| And this is _less_ than you 'd expect. If the oldest Gen Z is
| 25, two years ago they'd be 23. One new year of college grads
| _should yield_ a 30-50% bump. But the pandemic happened.
|
| > When that search is narrowed to San Francisco, Rentcafe says
| those 20-somethings had a 101% increase in rental applications.
|
| Again, not super useful. Most 20-somethings leasing apartments
| during those years are definitionally millennials (and probably
| still are!). The pandemic changed who was looking for housing
| and who they lived with, and the change as it affects SF in
| 2020 is probably not a usual trend.
|
| > They now make up more than a fifth of all people looking to
| lease in SF
|
| If we assume teenagers aren't leasing apartments, this is again
| no surprise. If every decade of people (20-somethings,
| 30-somethings...) made up an equal share, this is very
| reasonable up to the average life expectancy. People lease less
| as they get older, which skews the numbers towards younger
| generations. I'm sure you could look up the numbers and find
| out the exact distribution, but 20%+ of renters being in their
| 20s seems...ordinary. Maybe even a bit low.
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