Tomorrow’s question and accusation from Supervisor Wiener that Mayor Lee is scheduled to answer with a scripted response:
Only a few days after the opening of the wonderful new children’s playground at Dolores Park, neighbors awoke one morning to find that it had been covered in graffiti. Since then, etchings, damaged features, and other acts of vandalism have been perpetrated against this beautiful community asset.
Similarly, at Duboce Park, only days after its ribbon cutting, it too was covered in graffiti. You and I were both at these opening celebrations as they served as testaments to what can happen when neighbors, businesses, and the City family come together to make our city friendlier and more inviting to children. Sadly, the City has been unable to ensure adequate protection of these valuable assets.
It is baffling to me that in many cases, the Police Department and our District Attorney know who the perpetrators are, but yet are reluctant to press charges. This is unacceptable to me…
The Department of Public Works spends more than $20M annually on graffiti abatement along our streets, and the Recreation and Parks Department spends millions more. These wasted tax dollars could be used to repave our streets, hire recreation managers, and keep our landscaping beautiful and healthy. Yet, year after year, we divert these funds to repair the work inflicted by vandals. We need to send a strong message that this type of antisocial behavior will not be tolerated in San Francisco.
Mr. Mayor, will you help me ensure that the Police Department arrests these perpetrators and that the District Attorney files charges against them? Will you also help ensure that we have adequate law enforcement – SFPD and Park Patrol – along our streets and in our parks?
∙ San Francisco Board of Supervisors Agenda: June 19, 2012 [sfbos.org]
It is unacceptable to me too, but it’s unfortunately not surprising. And they wonder why families choose to move to the burbs….sad actually.
We live in a local culture of live and let live to a point where it’s a look-away, anything-goes environment. I’ve never seen anything like it — and we were all much more vocal, insistent, and eyes on the street in the old country. Whatever, not invading space, and the lack of distinction between civil and uncivil is blurred here where it’s ‘no worries’, ‘it is what is it’, and ‘it’s all good.
Pssst. It isn’t.
Good for Supervisor Wiener — it’s completely ridiculous that so many people work on these civic improvement projects — and so much $$$ is spent — while our police and DA do zero to punish vandals.
It hardly requires Sherlock Holmes to get these graffiti vandals. The owners of several buildings near my home repaint almost twice a month to cover the graffiti, and it’s usually back within 72 hours. How hard is it for some cops to surveil such a location for 3-4 days and nab the perps. You only need to arrest these twerps a few times before they get the message that the hassle it’s causing their life is going to become much greater than the joy they derive from tagging. As always, it takes very little effort to discourage these twerps, but our police can’t seem to be bothered.
The graffiti problem has been exploding all over our City for the last decade.
I’m very happy Supervisor Wiener is finally attempting to force accountability to the Mayor and District Attorney.
No worries, eventually these guys will slip up and get caught. I mean seriously, it is what it is, why sweat the small stuff when this city has much bigger issues to deal with then a few swings and a monkey bar or two. Luckily I am moving to the burbs to avoid this mess so it’s all good.
$20 million annually on graffiti abatement? For about half that you could hire 120 people at $85k salary each to patrol the parks at night.
problem with that proposal, monkey bizz, is they would work “overtime” and cost $27 million a year collectively. And after 25 years they retire and collect 65k annually each in pensions. Then that $20 million disappears into pensions and now you still have the graffiti but nothing for clean-up.
Locking up the perps is the obvious move. But paying to clean up unfortunately makes more fiscal sense than hiring guards to prevent it.
Garnish the wages of the vandals (or their families) to recoup every cent for this destruction.
Suddenly a lot of families will care deeply. Make it painful.
And yes, I was out painting the crazy graffiti on my building off of Duboce Park recently — the same tag design in the park itself.
Sup Wiener is treading a delicate line with his constituency. He represents Noe Valley families, who use the new playground at Dolores Park, but also the Castro, who prefer to sunbathe on the slope above the playground and don’t appreciate increased police presence in the park.
James, I doubt there’s much of NV coming up the hump. There are enough families between Valencia and Castro St as well as 17th and 21st, though.
Also, I assume vandalism happens mostly at night. Therefore no kids nor sunbathers to speak of…
I’ve talked with police and assistand DAs about this. They don’t bother to press charges because juries won’t convict. Too many jury members believe in laissez-faire and that the vandals are victims of their circumstances. Sucks but that’s just the facts, at least until SF becomes more gentrified.
at least until SF becomes more gentrified.
Or someone actually suffers from these acts.
For instance SF has let the crazy homeless roam the city at night. One of them has been caught lighting a fire, and could very well be the infamous Castro arsonist from last year.
Is the city going to wait that people actually die before the they decide to do anything?
anon, if salary is the issue, put the money out to hire contract labor. I think that would eliminate the pension cost to the city (ie, not employing city workers for the patrols)
Also, can vandals be charged with a felony if the cost of damage is over a certain amount? Like $500 or $1,000? That $20 million the city spends would be fixing a lot of felonies if so. It seems a lot of graffiti vandalism is treated more as a prank than a real crime.
^When the city puts it out to bid, the “requirements” on the firms who bid will be such that the only people who can bid will be those who greased the palms of every city official in town and the low bid will be $1000 per night.
Cheaper to just clean it up once per quarter.
Keep voting for the same politicians, though. They’ll have fake meetings like this to convince you they are on your side.
anon and lol, it seems to me that the DA shouldn’t have to bring cases like this to trial to garner a deterrent effect. Arrest suspects aggressively and get them to plea bargain just like most other crimes and have the offenders clean up the graffiti as a diversion program.
That way you don’t incur the cost of incarceration or lots of trials or outsourcing abatement to rent-seeking contract cleaning firms and as a side effect you get the graffiti cleaned up.
But to do any or all of that, you have to be willing to arrest and press charges.
I recall watching millions spent on the Embarcadero roadway and the new Main Library only to see them vandalized by skateboarders almost as soon as they opened. I tried calling the police a few times as I watched it happening and got the message they could care less.
Middle class values of building nice things and keeping them nice just don’t carry any weight in this town. It’s tax and spend millions, then turn it over to the vandals and destroyers for their personal pleasure. That’s just the way San Francisco is.
Oh, and those doing the damage are probably not even in the country legally but we are giving them “sanctuary” so they can wreck what we build.
This isn’t just parks. Anyone walk Geary between Polk and Taylor lately? My gawd. There’s hardly a square inch of space left to write on some things. Someone has a severe case of the doodles, and I don’t mean the usual TL sidewalk variety.
Graffiti and vandalisim is a huge problem in this city. The costs can be devestating to landlords, and create such blight and disruption. I hate to say it, but I’m all for going Saudi Arabia and cutting the hands off of these vandals.
I live in the Castro and to be honest, I’ve had a pretty decent response from the city regarding graffiti.
Ive filed 4 reports with 311 for graffiti on private property, and the orders were given and the owners have cleaned it up. I have filed 2 reports for tagging on public property and the city cleaned them off within a week.
I saw someone tagging the construction site across the street from me and called 311. They said it was a police matter and they connected my to the police. They came within minutes and arrested the guy. They also contacted the owner of the property and ordered them to paint over the graffiti the next day.
Your milage will vary.
Perhaps this is far too 1880’s and seriously un-PC, but a bounty on taggers would be effective if their pelts were displayed publicly…
…an I am only kidding of course.
@wc1 — I agree. 311 is great. There are a couple free iPhone apps that feed to the city. My response times have been pretty great. I think it’s just a matter of spreading awareness.
Great read on NYC’s “Zero Tolerance” policy turned things around for them:
http://www.alphabetcityblog.com/2008/12/1970s-nyc-subway-graffiti.html
Ah yes, the “Usage Taliban” is out in force! I’m guessing they aren’t going to want anything to be done if their kid “etches” a playground item with a rock. Oh wait, are rocks outlawed in DoPa yet?
The Department of Public Works spends more than $20M annually on graffiti abatement along our streets, and the Recreation and Parks Department spends millions more. These wasted tax dollars could be used to repave our streets, hire recreation managers, and keep our landscaping beautiful and healthy.
While I’m probably already in the minority here, does anybody think that’s what the money is really going to go to?
I bet if the DA pressed charges on people vandalizing playgrounds they would get a conviction. I don’t know what the current DAs office is like but Kamal Harris was worse than useless. I will try contacting the DA about this current problem.
I know lots of NV kids who use the playground at Dolores. Every time we go (and we go pretty often) we see lots of people we know. There isn’t really anything great for kids near the Dolores side of NV (Inner Noe?).
We have blogs like Mission Mission, Bernal Blog and Burrito Justice among others, who constantly promote and glorify graffiti as wonderful street art.
They support illegal activities like graffiti on public walls and places and say it’s part of the “urban culture” and it’s actually art.
Get real. Let’s get back to a civil society where we respect our public spaces.
Taggers are a useless parasite on society and should be arrested and flogged publicly
@ PG — Sure 311 works, but that’s after the fact, and that’s what costs $20 million. The problem is that the DA (at least Kamala Harris) would never prosecute these crimes… I even had the police tell me as much when they caught some taggers I reported and they said it would be a waste of everyone’s time to press charges because the DA (then KH) would not press charges.
futurist – Those taggers weren’t seeking glory from Mission Mission or Burrito Justice. Wrong influence to blame here.
@lol, you are right, most tagging is at night, but most SFPD patrols occur during the day. That’s where the problem lies.
Yep that is what my ex-District 6 Supervisor called it, “quality of life crime”…if you don’t like it move to Walnut Creek…that is what my “progressive” friends tell me. Guess until the voters who have had their car windows repeatedly smashed, who have their streets repeated tagged, who have had their bikes ripped off, who have “pooh and pee” in their neighborhoods daily…the votes get fed up enough they will vote the progressives who have the “quality of life crime” world view out of office, things will not change.
I’ve been out of town for a few months and just came back on the weekend. One of the first things I noticed was that there were a lot more small tags on a LOT of posts, trashcans, etc.
If only this miscreants would sign their work, then we’d know who they are…
I was riding on a MUNI bus not long ago. A kid pulled a spray paint can out of his back pack and started spraying graffitti INSIDE THE BUS as we were riding down Market Street. No one said anything, including the bus driver. I looked at the kid and said, “That’s not art. it’s vandalism. And you are poisoning all of us with the fumes from that paint.” He scowled at me and cursed at me and kept right on spraying. He was a perfectly fit young person who clearly could be doing something more productive with his time. San Francisco has an extreme tolerance for unsocial and destructive behavior that makes the City very unpleasant for civil people. The only reason I live in the City is because I have a good job in the City and I don’t want to commute an hour each way. I can’t wait until my husband and I can retire and move out.
I think I read somewhere that San Mateo County has a hard and fast rule if they catch you tagging it’s an automatic 6 months in jail? Which possibly helps explain a little bit why their buildings and posts seem a lot tidier than ours do.
A Jackson, in that situation, I wouldn’t have said anything to the perp either, I would have just pulled out my phone and called the police, giving a detailed description of the kid who was doing the painting and the date/time and location of the bus.
then the kid would have at least stopped spraying and gotten off the bus to avoid arrest.
Obviously, I wasn’t there and don’t know what the kid looked like. Someone less than 18 years old simply can’t legally have a spray paint can in a public place in California, so when he pulled out the can on the bus, that would have been the time to start dialing 9-1-1. But for some folks, reporting a crime in progress (or even after the fact) isn’t something they want to do for fear of (possibly violent) reprisal.
@ MOD: you complete read what I said the wrong way. Of course they weren’t seeking glory. Who said they were?
The blog authors and editors were GLORIFYING the graffiti. They often have articles with pictures to showcase the “urban art”.
Pure bs.
Futurist, I know you are being sarcastic…But which of these areas has more problems: Hillsbourough, Belvedere, Portola Valley, or San Francisco? And how do each of these towns rate according to your post?
To a large extent people in SF don’t care because they don’t have a stake. They ultimately pay below market rates for housing and then inevitably move to a different city once they get married and have kids. People who have made a big investment in SF and are here for the long run have a different view of the world and are not very tolerant of thse problems.
futurist – I assumed that you were referencing the tagging of the newly opened Dolores Park playground (the subject of this article). Instead it seems as if you are just complaining about blogs unrelated to this tagging.
Hopefully you can see how someone might assume the connection between the tagging of Dolores and your complaints about the blogs.
Not being sarcastic at all. Have no idea what you mean.
And no, I was not referring to the tagging of the Dolores Park playground; nothing mentioned about that in my comment.
Hey urban living at it’s best. We’re in the city. Here’s a solution, If we know it’s going to be covered in graffiti, then let’s order the monkey bars pre-tagged with grafitti, problem solved. Call it the “city edition” color scheme
Would comeone please check with Gascon’s office about course of action they are trying with graffiti? When Gascon was Chief of Police, he was asking property owners to take photos of the graffiti before removing it. The police where trying to build cases against the “artist” showing a whole lot of tags to get the attention of the judges. I hope he is still pursuing this course of action because it makes more sense to me.
Get the SF 311 iphone / android app, then send in graffiti reports with a picture of the graffiti. I’ve been doing it for a few months. It’s quite easy, you don’t have to try and remember where it was, and the graffiti gets cleaned up pretty quickly.
When enough people do this the city will have all the evidence they need when they actually catch somebody in the act.
It doesn’t prevent it, so I’m all for enforcement as well, but when graffiti gets cleaned up quickly it deters the vandals from redoing it, as the whole point is for it to be seen.
@lyqwyd : I doubt that the taggers will be deterred by regular cleanup. The only thing that deters vandals is jail time and/or restitution.
Forget the jail time: make the vandals pay for the City’s cleanup costs and the business’s cleanup costs, and they’ll stop. Throw them in jail and/or make them work the litter detail (picking up crap along the roadside) and they’ll forego the can of paint forever.
@Murphy, I said in my comment that it wont prevent it, and that I’m for enforcement (and therefore punishment).
It will deter them, but it won’t stop them, and they will most likely do it in less prominent places.
I love the idea of making them clean up the mess they’ve made, but the point of my post is that there are easy ways to combat this that all of us can take.
If residents of SF aren’t interested enough to spend five minutes downloading and installing an app that can get the graffiti cleaned up (and provide evidence for serial vandals), then don’t expect the cops to do anything about it either.
Until the vandals start tagging Pacific Heights where the judges live, nothing will change.
Oh, wait, maybe there is hope
http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2012/04/12/the_horror_san_franciscos_2nd_most_expensive_house_for_sale_becomes_victim_of_graffiti.php
“To a large extent people in SF don’t care because they don’t have a stake. They ultimately pay below market rates for housing and then inevitably move to a different city once they get married and have kids. People who have made a big investment in SF and are here for the long run have a different view of the world and are not very tolerant of thse problems”
Such a tired argument on this site. I pay a ridiculous amount of money to rent in the City … it’s large enough to cover my landlord’s entire mortgage, HOA, property taxes and still generate a profit for them. I have looked up tax records and they are paying property tax on 1995 valuation of $150k (similar properties in the neigborhood now valued at $700k).
If you own, you made a “big investment” in yourself and a future windfall. Prop 13 ensures you are not investing in SF. I am the only one on the block that calls cops to report homeless people fighting in the street, defecating on the sidewalk or sleeping on the front stoop. The local owners are aging Baby Boomers stuck in a “leave them alone so they don’t damage my property” mindset. The rest live out of town and rent their places …
Now tell me, who is really the problem? The renters that actually live here or the absentee owners?
“Now tell me, who is really the problem? The renters that actually live here or the absentee owners?”
I’m not sure who’s the problem but am sure that those who can legally vote in SF are in a better position to affect change.
“Now tell me, who is really the problem? The renters that actually live here or the absentee owners?”
Excellent point. My landlord lives in Corte Madera and has visited this property once in the 2 years I have lived here.
Renters in this city have more of a stake and care more for the place than absentee landlords and property owners that use their SF condo as a 2nd or 3rd home.
@sf
D7 gets tagged all the time. Have prematched paint buckets of post-box blue, brown, street-lamp gray, etc, and spare rollers ready to go. Fix the problem ASAP, and you know what? The taggers tend to go away…maybe they get annoyed that someone quickly and reliably covers their “handiwork.”
Just curious, has anyone ever seen tagging in the northern part of the Marina? (I have not)
@Joshua
You said D7 gets tagged all the time. Then you said by covering up right away, the taggers go away. Which is it?
Believe it or not, there’s more than one tagger in SF.
For someone who uses a white paint marker on the USPS box, simply roll some blue over the graffiti. It takes two minutes.
For someone who uses black marker on the lamp-post, roll some gray. Two minutes.
Repeat as needed. Eventually, the taggers realize it’s not worth their effort. They move on. New “generations” try the same thing, get the same result, and move on. The circle of life.
You can text Muni the bus number to report graffiti in progress, that way you don’t have to risk being overheard on the phone. Each Muni bus has the text info displayed in a prominent place and the automated speaker system mentions it every few minutes.
Did you try that A Jackson?
There is lots of graffiti in San Mateo county too. Someone recently tagged sound walls all along 101. It was painted over about a week after I reported it. Every time I have reported graffiti it gets cleaned up promptly. If you can’t bother to call 311 and report it, I don’t see how you can really complain that much. The City can’t keep on eye on every piece of property all the time, nor would I want them to.
I am more bummed about the theft and destruction of play equipment than the graffiti. Why did they even do this? Scrap metal? If so, the rest of the playground equipment is at risk too.
Stop complaining……you have voted for lawlessness for decades. Look in the mirror, it’s you…you are the ones who have given rise to this kind of disrespect of the environment by condoning the actions of these vandals. You call it art and then say it’s the cities fault for not doing more to abate the damage.
Stop blaming the “city” and using them as the scapegoat. It’s you who are culpable for the damage inflicted on our public spaces and private property.
If you demanded stronger laws and demanded higher fines and criminal prosecution of the vandals it would stop. But no, you are too liberal…live and let live….”it’s Art and free expression” ……You elect leaders of your own choosing and then give them marching orders to tie the hands of law enforcement.
You get what you vote for…….lawlessness…..sad but true.
People here love to convince themselves that everyone would live here if they could afford to. I was just reading the comments on an article about San Francisco in city-journal.org and was astonished at the amount of people who wrote to say how they moved from San Francisco because of problems such as vandalism, crime, homeless, etc.
Don’t fool yourselves. San Francisco has the unique ability to be impressed with itself, but visitors come here with open eyes and are not always happy with what they see, and many times are coming from places that are doing things better. If the current Social Media bubble pops, who will be still willing to move here?
“I am more bummed about the theft and destruction of play equipment than the graffiti. ” New York City learned LONG AGO that the graffiti is a sign of losing control of a city and found that by stopping and removing graffiti, they were able to regain control of the city and make it a safe place for families.
If the current Social Media bubble pops, who will be still willing to move here?
All of the people who would like to live here now, but are priced out (including me).
If the current Social Media bubble pops, who will be still willing to move here?
lol
You do realize that SF is one of the most expensive places to live in the country? If the bubble pops, that might mean that prices go down, but would probably we’re a LOOOOOONG ways away from being in a case where we’d need to worry about losing population.
lol lol lol
“You do realize that SF is one of the most expensive places to live in the country”
^^^Isn’t that the point really? I submit the prices for housing in San Francsco are not high because everyone wants to live here, but because of an artificial housing shortage created by NIMBY restrictions on housing construction. (read all of Mathew Yglesias’s articles about this).
With the crime, homeless and vandals and rather cold weather, it is the current JOBS that draw people here, not because it is “special”.
Here is some good articles to consider:
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_4_san-francisco-homeless.html
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/03/27/the_apartment_boom_in_san_francisco.html
And I cannot believe I am linking to a CATO site, but this is about why prices in S.F., Washington and NYC are so high:
http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=9136
I’ve lived here 35 years and SF has always been expensive relative to the rest of the country, even at times when the job market here was worse than the average of the country. I absolutely agree that the cost of housing is exacerbated by NIMBY crap, but it would take an absolute cratering of the jobs market in all of Northern California (talking unemployment higher than what Spain is seeing now) to actually see a loss of population for SF.
Yep, I will vouch for SF being expensive. I’ve met several New Yorkers lately who have said SF is even more expensive than NY. I said NO WAY. They insisted WAY.
“Our thriving cities fall short of their potential because we constantly rein them in because we worry that urban growth will be unpleasant. The residents of America’s productive cities fear change in their neighborhoods and fight growth. In doing so they make their cities more expensive and less accessible to people with middle incomes. These middle income workers move elsewhere, reducing their own earning power and the economy’s potential in the process”.
^^^Ryan Avent
http://www.treehugger.com/culture/ryan-avents-the-gated-city-are-nimbys-killing-the-economy-book-review.html
Many people for YEARS on this site use San Francisco’s high housing cost as some type of proof for the city being “better” or desirable than other cities such as Toronto, Chicago, etc.
So the queastion is, should San Francisco’s expensve housing be celebrated and encouraged? I would gather from some of the posts that would be the case?
As I mentioned above, expensive rentals and housing should NOT be used as a reason for why San Francisco might be desirable, “special” or a huge magnet because of its beauty. San Francisco is expensive in housing mainly because of governmental policies and desires of citizens that go back decades.
(So after two posts saying San Franciscio is expensive, the responses are “San Francisco is expensive”. Sounds to me this is exactly what most residents want)
Housing being expensive because of various restrictions is not some kind of SF-only thing. Try building something in Menlo Park or Orange County or Long Island or suburban DC – it’s just as hard or harder. Because we’re not “special” in terms of land regulations, we can use price to relatively gauge demand.
Trust me, I’d much rather see 8 story buildings carpeting the whole city and lower prices, but that’s not what we were talking about at the beginning. You made the claim that if the social bubble were to pop that somehow no one would want to live here, which is absolutely preposterous based on any data available, including but not limited to prices.
@anon,” “The gated cty” is a book about hundreds of Amercan towns, not just San Francisco, for as I wrote previously, the same restrictions exist in NYC, Washington, Boston, etc.
I will say it again, my comments are directed towards those who feel that S.F. high housing costs are proof that it must be better here. I do not agree. Moscow and Tokyo are more expensive and I would not live there and I do not feel they are “better” cities.
I feel that high housing costs are desired by MANY residents as a NIMBY form of keeping growth and population down, especially from those with rent controlled apartments who locked in and refuse to budge. I am for a free market for housing and am VERY pro growth.
^I agree with all of that. I simply disagree with your notion that SF would empty out if the current social bubble were to pop, which is what you implied before.
Never said “empty out”, just meant that I am not sure it would still be possibly America’s most expensive city. I moved here in the late 80s and I know for a fact at that time San Francisco was MUCH cheaper than Los Angeles which was going through a huge real estate bubble at the time. I moved from a dumpy condo in a dumpy neighborhood in Los Angeles, to a very nice condo with parking on Jackson Street in Pacific Heights for 60% of sales price of my L.A. condo.
I don’t feel San Francisco will ever be less expensive than Los Angeles again in my lifetime, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for my firm (architecture) to attract new talent at any price because of the cost of housing here in the city. Talking to people in their 20s, many just don’t think the adventure of living in San Francisco is worth it at current prices, and I feel this is why the long term future of the city should be of concern.
^I can agree with all of that.
“If the bubble pops, that might mean that prices go down, but would probably we’re a LOOOOOONG ways away from being in a case where we’d need to worry about losing population.”
“^I agree with all of that. I simply disagree with your notion that SF would empty out if the current social bubble were to pop, which is what you implied before.”
SF won’t become a ghost town, but if you both think that SF wouldn’t give back the population gains from the bubble, then you must be too young to remember SF tech bubble 1.0 (aka dotcom boom).
^We’ve built an additional 35,000 units of housing since then. The population buildup at that time was mostly folks doubling and tripling up. This time it’s mostly rich singles moving into $4000 a month apartments on their own.
And…there really hasn’t been much of a population explosion this time (which makes it obvious that folks are doubling/tripling up or sleeping in garages).
^Oops, I meant folks are NOT doubling/tripling up this time, etc.
^You make no sense. Not sure what additional units of housing has to do with losing population. And the population buildup at the time was due to plentiful and ephemeral dotcom jobs, and not to folks doubling or tripling up. The folks doubling or tripling up was a consequence of the plentiful jobs.
^The concept is very simple. Social bubble creates many jobs quickly, people move to town to fill them. Social bubble pops, people lose jobs and leave town quickly.
^The escalation in rents caused by social bubble accelerates the pace at which people leave town when bubble pops because it is impossible to hang around paying the escalated rents without a job.
^My point is that the social bubble HASN’T added a ton of jobs quickly. It’s been building since 2004. Because of how slow the build has been, population increase has mostly come from new units being built, not from people scrambling over one another to live in SF no matter how crappy the living situation may be (as was the case in the late 90’s).
Anotherantiplanner – I don’t understand your arguments at all. First you say that some folks think “S.F. high housing costs are proof that it must be better here.” I don’t see that – what I see primarily are arguments that high prices INDICATE desirability – if this was Newark, NJ people wouldn’t be willing to pay Whether it’s “better here” is a subjective measure that varies from person to person. Even if you don’t think Tokyo is better than SF, some people do.
I agree high prices are function of our slow-growth policies, but NOT exclusively. SF is a small city with little land left for new development. It has many desirable features and sits smack in an area of high wages and relatively high job growth. Constrained supply combined with high demand (and high income demand) leads to – VOILA – high prices. Despite being “pro growth” you are not going to see the Sunset rebuilt with skyscrapers. I don’t know how we could build enough to significantly lower housing prices across the city. As the recent boom-bust shows, it’s a self-limiting system – investment in new housing falls as prices for new housing fall.
Also, I think you totally miss the boat that “high housing costs are desired by MANY residents as a NIMBY form of keeping growth and population down.” Maybe SOME people, but Many, really? Most people I know (granted, in the 50-150K income range) put up with high costs in order to live in a city they enjoy. And they live in significantly smaller or less desirable homes because it’s nearly impossible to trade “up” without moving to Livermore or Antioch.
It could be my age (50 years old), and my neighborhood (a northern residential street in the Marina District), but many people I come into contact with who are long term residents of the city (0ver 25 years) feel strongly about limiting growth without any concern for how it changes the lives of younger professionals or the long term future. It is a typical attitude of many San Franciscans.
As for income, I am in the 250K to 400K income range, and most of my associates seem more concerned with parking and traffic than they do with housing growth, which is terribly sad.
I mentioned that some people do feel high housing costs are a sign of how desirable San Francisco is because they have posted this on Socketsite before, but I agree, the majority have not expressed this on Socketsite.
Yes San Francisco is small, but as I have tried to explain before, a very large part of the Bay Area population has been polled before about having no deisre to live or even shop in San Francisco. I think we should not try to convince ourselves that the rest of the world is as in love with city as many of us are. My point still remains, housing costs in San Francisco are driven more by govermental policy than Twitter or the weather, as was best put in THE GATED CITY which should be required reading
“Our thriving cities fall short of their potential because we constantly rein them in because we worry that urban growth will be unpleasant. The residents of America’s productive cities fear change in their neighborhoods and fight growth. In doing so they make their cities more expensive and less accessible to people with middle incomes. These middle income workers move elsewhere, reducing their own earning power and the economy’s potential in the process”.
^^^Ryan Avent
As you mentioned before though, “The Gated City” and the references within really are referring to problems affecting the entire Bay Area though (and many other cities and regions), not something even remotely special about SF. In fact, SF has been one of the better cities in the Bay Area recently, as far as allowing/building housing.
@anon. Agreed, housing growth has been better in S.F., especially during the last decade in the southern parts of the city. There are other cities in the Bay Area with far worse NIMBY restrictions, and I am currently working on a project in Carmel which has taken over 16 months to get through community planning and building departments.
anotherantiplanner, I partially agree with kddid; I’m not sure I understand why you keep posting quotes from Ryan Avent’s e-book or the overall point you think you’re buttressing by doing so, but the high price of housing in S.F. is certainly an indicator that lots of people want to live here, even if it isn’t dispositive.
I should say that I haven’t read Avent’s e-book and I’m not going to go out and buy a kindle just to read it, but I did read the except published in The New York Times last year.
And it seems to me the people on the other side of the argument that Avent is advancing — incumbent owners who support or put in place regulations that deter greater density or file lawsuits to stop or delay new buildings that will bring more density to a neighborhood — agree that lots of people want to live here, because that’s why they are willing to spend lots of time, energy and money pulling up the ladder after they’ve climbed it, so as to deter new residents or at least to accelerate gentrification and pricing working class and middle income current residents out of The City.
To your credit, you allowed for this when you wrote: “…high housing costs are desired by MANY residents as a NIMBY form of keeping growth and population down…” But the policies that Avent decries aren’t the result of big bad ‘ol government which the free market is struggling against. They’re the result of the free market, which privileges the concerns of people with lots of money, and gives short shrift to people with lesser means who can’t as easily spend their income on lobbyists or lawsuits.
This is one reason why I think the socketsite editor’s implicit claim that what S. F. needs to do to provide affordable housing is to allow more housing to be built (thus obviating the need for things like the Mayor’s office of housing BMR program and the like) isn’t going to work in the real world, as appealing as it sounds to market fundamentalists.
In the real world, incumbent owners will fight increased density tooth and nail unless and until the transit infrastructure is in place to support that increased density without clogging the streets with more cars, or (if said incumbent owners use transit) clogging existing streetcars, buses and trains with more people supported by the existing capacity and running schedule.
And then you have to ask where do you get the money to fund the transit infrastructure improvements? Well, one major way is to levy fees on new developments. Here’s the socketsite editor, in a post discussing Tower Two of ORH:
Emphasis mine. If the new developments aren’t entitled/approved/started (Tower Two was delayed since 2005), then The City never gets the fees. But developers complain about having to pay the fees and that it disincentivises new and possibly affordable development. Chicken. Egg. You know the rest.
Well phrased Brahma though it need not be a chicken and egg problem.
“…incumbent owners will fight increased density tooth and nail unless and until the transit infrastructure is in place to support that increased density…”
They will fight though we all should dispense with the notion that development can’t occur until transit has been improved. So long as reasonable solutions are within reach, just add jobs/beds. If transport becomes congested then deploy a relief plan from off the shelf.
If they come, we will build it.
Above, I wrote:
Get with the times, Brahma.
There’s likely a free Kindle App for the platform you use. And in a certain amount of time, you’ll be able to read Avent’s e-book by getting it from the public library, if you’re too cheap to buy it.