An RV Camp Sprang Up Outside Google's HQ. Now Mountain View Wants To Ban It (bloomberg.com) 357
schwit1 shares an excerpt from a report via Bloomberg: In a quiet neighborhood near Google's headquarters last month, rusty, oleaginous sewage was seeping from a parked RV onto the otherwise pristine street. Sergeant Wahed Magee, of the Mountain View Police Department, was furious. Mountain View is a wealthy town that's home to Alphabet, the world's fourth-most valuable public corporation and Google's owner. Magee spends a lot of his time knocking on the doors of RVs parked on the city's streets, logging license plates and marking rigs that haven't moved for several days. This is the epicenter of a Silicon Valley tech boom that is minting millionaires but also fueling a homelessness crisis that the United Nations recently deemed a human rights violation. Thousands of people live in RVs across San Francisco and the broader Bay Area because they can't afford to rent or buy homes. In December, Mountain View police logged almost 300 RVs that appeared to be used as primary residences. Palo Alto, Berkeley and other Bay Area towns have similar numbers.
Some Silicon Valley towns have cracked down in recent months, creating an even more uncertain future for RV residents. At a March city council meeting, Mountain View voted to ban RVs from parking overnight on public streets. The ban hasn't taken effect yet, but soon, the town's van dwellers will need to go elsewhere. The city council also declared a shelter crisis and passed a new ordinance to ticket vehicles that "discharge domestic sewage on the public right of way." At the meeting, some people opposing the ban blamed Google for the housing crisis. When asked whether the RV situation will ultimately be resolved, Magee looked tired as he thought about the answer. After a 12-hour day, he had a long drive ahead to get home -- he can't afford to live in Mountain View. "The way things are going, I don't see how it's all gonna disappear," he said. "Where are we gonna put everyone?" The Bay Area wants to enjoy wealth concentration like Manhattan, but also the population spread of the suburbs. Something's gotta give.
Some Silicon Valley towns have cracked down in recent months, creating an even more uncertain future for RV residents. At a March city council meeting, Mountain View voted to ban RVs from parking overnight on public streets. The ban hasn't taken effect yet, but soon, the town's van dwellers will need to go elsewhere. The city council also declared a shelter crisis and passed a new ordinance to ticket vehicles that "discharge domestic sewage on the public right of way." At the meeting, some people opposing the ban blamed Google for the housing crisis. When asked whether the RV situation will ultimately be resolved, Magee looked tired as he thought about the answer. After a 12-hour day, he had a long drive ahead to get home -- he can't afford to live in Mountain View. "The way things are going, I don't see how it's all gonna disappear," he said. "Where are we gonna put everyone?" The Bay Area wants to enjoy wealth concentration like Manhattan, but also the population spread of the suburbs. Something's gotta give.
We've got the "best" system in the world! (Score:5, Insightful)
Thousands of people live in RVs across San Francisco and the broader Bay Area because they can't afford to rent or buy homes.
After a 12-hour day, he had a long drive ahead to get home -- he can't afford to live in Mountain View. "The way things are going, I don't see how it's all gonna disappear," he said. "Where are we gonna put everyone?"
We then "lecture" distant nations about capitalism, democracy and the "rule of law."
This system we have, generates misery for our most vulnerable, yet we're unwilling to discus its shortcomings...Sad!!
Google needs to step up and build housing (Score:5, Funny)
We need to learn from the best of the past. The management classes of old knew how to solve this very kind of problem:
1) Company provided housing
2) Company provided shopping
3) All paid for with company script that came directly out of the employee's paycheck, thereby eliminating employee anxiety about all matters economic.
They called them "company towns"... Worked great!!!
Re: Google needs to step up and build housing (Score:3)
I'm amazed that Google or some other big tech company isn't offering offshore housing about 10 miles of San Francisco with ferry service to the mainland. Considering the housing shortage there, they could make a small fortune renting out reasonably priced apartments out there.
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Or for even less money, they could build apartments in Modesto and fly their people in on a commuter jet. The problem is, if you're a rich tech worker, you can afford an apartment in Mountain View. The people who are most affected by the housing crunch are not tech workers.
Of course, the real answer is higher density and mass public transportation, but progressive thinking in the Bay Area stops short of your own backyard.
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>>Worked great!
Yep. Unless you were one of the serfs. But lol poor people who cares.
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1) Company provided housing
Google has actually tried this. The Mountain View City Council denied them the building permit.
Re:We've got the "best" system in the world! (Score:4, Insightful)
This system we have, generates misery for our most vulnerable, yet we're unwilling to discus its shortcomings...
They are statistically insignificant. There is nothing to discuss. That's how the market works. It's a collective, very communist on the bottom, and pure anarchy at the top. They can do what they please without consequence. The value is in the capital, not the people.
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Capital is just the integral of (productivity minus consumption). And productivity depends on the people. In other words, the rate at which you generate new capital depends on how productive your people are. And what capitalism has figured out is that individual productivity is maximized when you pay the people who generate that productivity an income as close as possible to their productivity. Ford accidentally stumbled upon this when he paid his workers dou
Re:We've got the "best" system in the world! (Score:4, Insightful)
Ironically this is happening in THE most preachy region of THE most preachy state that never stops telling others what to do, say and think.
Goose and gander, California. Goose and gander.
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Only brainwashed sour grapes cultists could call California a "failed state." You don't have average $500,000 homes in a "failed state." Failed states aren't the 5th largest economy in the world. California's GDP Growth rate was 6th in the US in 2017. You don't have a $20B budget surplus in a failed state.
It's a great place to live if you can afford it. If you can't, you move.
Your real complaint is the liberal politics. No one cares. Our success doesn't depend on satisfying your ideological beliefs about ho
Re:We've got the "best" system in the world! (Score:5, Insightful)
Cronyism is what creates these situations. The question you should be asking is why haven't these cities allowed the transition of older/vacant commercial and industrial lands into residential areas. In some cases it's to protect "higher valued" residential land that is nearby aka "letting companies build apartment buildings/condos would make it look down market." Mountain View like San Fran are infamously known for refusing zoning changes and permits to build. And it's not just the US where this happens either, but here in Canada, and in European countries too. In these cases, the cities and counties know that increased populations are coming and simply refuse to do anything to mitigate it.
Rubber stamping can be just as bad, the case here in Canada in Fort Mac, and in Ontario with the Burlington condo boondongles are good examples too.
Re:We've got the "best" system in the world! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yep. We have zoning regulations that prevent you from building a tiny home, regs that prevent you from living on a boat, regs that prevent you from building with more eco-friendly options, regs that force you to go into extreme debt just to put any roof over your head.
At some point, the governments became protectors of property values rather than directors of effective public admin. Turn the city into a gated community with no plan for housing the people who are going to produce your food.
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California and especially SF areas are a socialist paradise. If you're "homeless" you get an income, housing, free food, free needles and you can't get arrested for shooting up or pooping on the street. They are the ones that ruled stolen shopping carts filled with garbage are the homeless' private property and can't be touched, moved or removed.
They've been ruled by democrats for decades, high taxes and law enforcement isn't allowed to deal with the trash.
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That may be exaggerated, but yeah.
However, I'd like to suggest that this kind of us versus them stuff is part of the problem.
Your average Democrat voter doesn't want more homeless people pooping on their streets. Average Democrat voters vote against the bogeyman and against environmental doomsday stories. They get fed a never-ending supply of stories, and they hang out together and repeat these stories to each other. The us versus them stuff makes the bogeyman seem more real.
Rather than us versus them, u
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We then "lecture" distant nations about capitalism, democracy and the "rule of law."
This system we have, generates misery for our most vulnerable, yet we're unwilling to discus its shortcomings...Sad!!
It's not really "we". Bay Area elites don't have much in common with regular Americans.
People in some other parts of America can solve (or at least improve) problems like this. It starts with wanting to help people rather than wanting increase your status in the tribe by choosing sides against the bogeyman.
Not being able to live near work is NOT NEW (Score:4, Interesting)
Thousands of people live in RVs across San Francisco and the broader Bay Area because they can't afford to rent or buy homes.
After a 12-hour day, he had a long drive ahead to get home -- he can't afford to live in Mountain View. "The way things are going, I don't see how it's all gonna disappear," he said. "Where are we gonna put everyone?"
We then "lecture" distant nations about capitalism, democracy and the "rule of law." This system we have, generates misery for our most vulnerable, yet we're unwilling to discus its shortcomings...Sad!!
FFS -- not being able to live near work is not new, long commutes are not new. Workers of all flavors, high and low tech, had long commutes from the suburbs to the city centers in California. In the LA area these workers were key to the successful aerospace industry. California was able to build roads and highways, build universities, fund the University of California system to excellence, etc despite unaffordable urban housing and long commutes. Our problems lie elsewhere.
Today's problems have more to do with less willingness to commute than unaffordable urban housing. Previous generations were more willing to "take one for the team" and suffer with traffic so the family had better housing and neighborhoods, etc.
Want to fix the problem. Improve transportation from the suburbs to the urban work clusters. Our current mass transit efforts in California are a joke. Numerous friends have tried to use mass transit from the suburbs to LA and been frustrated by half assed incomplete solutions. One bought a junker car to drive the last 5 miles from the train station to work, leaving the junker in the station parking lot overnight. Our mass transit is not practical, not comprehensive enough. We connect two points that can only serve a small fraction of the workers, the politicians come in for the photo op, declare victory and leave. The goal was never to fix the actual problem, just get a photo next to a new light rail station. Only need the one photo.
I expect the same BS up north.
Re:Not being able to live near work is NOT NEW (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, you're wrong. Today's problems have to do with traffic being measurably worse than ever before. It used to be that you could move an hour away, and you'd be fine with your hour-long commute. Nowadays, if you live fifteen minutes' drive from work, it takes you an hour, because everybody is trying to do it at once.
The main problem is Prop 13. By making the property tax be based on an assessment taken when you bought your home:
All of these things increase traffic and also drive up the cost of housing.
Of course, that's not the only problem with California's roads, nor with zoning. It's just the single biggest mistake that caused the biggest negative impact on the Bay Area. In addition to overturning Prop 13, if we really want to improve traffic, we should:
And you're done. Within a year, the traffic problems will start to improve. Within ten years, they'll be so much better that nobody will be complaining about them.
It's the American way (Score:4, Insightful)
Google, Facebook, Uber, Amazon, Tesla Motors, etc., are benefiting enormously from shitty labour laws, low minimum wage, & endless tax loopholes so that a lucky few can become millionaires and billionaires while the rest effectively suffer poverty. Doesn't it make you proud to be an American? We should be celebrating these entrepreneurs & industrialists who are keeping America great(TM)!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States
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>"shitty labour laws, low minimum wage, & endless tax loopholes so that a lucky few can become millionaires and billionaires while the rest effectively suffer poverty."
Such nonsense. In the USA the "poverty" rate low and has not increased in the last 40+ years. Yet they live better than most of the rest of humanity. Plus they same money now gets them far more goods than in the past.
>"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States"
Wealth isn't a limited pie where one person
Re:It's the American way (Score:5, Insightful)
30 years ago, my dad could support our whole family on one income: house, car, truck, even a camper and a lot at a summer camp for it upstate.. Now, I make almost twice what he did in adjusted annual wage, but have to live with 4 other guys in dorm style living conditions and will never qualify for a house before I'm 40 due to having student loans.
End-stage capitalism is a nightmare.
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50 years ago, my dad could support our whole family on one income. Now, my wife and I make about four times as much as he did. We live in a home that we paid o
Re: It's the American way (Score:4, Insightful)
The reality of generational earnings potential would rather suggest that you were lucky. But if you'd rather attribute your relative success to the failings of others to feel good, then that's ok, too.
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True - but even 30 years ago that did not apply to everyone. Your situation today doesn't even apply to everyone - I support my family on one income: house, 2 cars, extracurricular activities (my wife is not a fan of camping, so we don't go that route).
I even had student loans, too - although I worked hard and had scholarships so my debt out of college was only 50% my starting salary.
Just like 30 years ago, much depends on your particular geographic location and your particular career, etc.
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Its really fascinating to read that stuff that so directly contradicts reality.
30 years ago, my dad could support our whole family on one income: house, car, truck, even a camper and a lot at a summer camp for it upstate.. Now, I make almost twice what he did in adjusted annual wage, but have to live with 4 other guys in dorm style living conditions and will never qualify for a house before I'm 40 due to having student loans.
OK, the only way I would believe this is if you also said that you have a gambling addiction, or some other type of addiction. Maybe you have a bunch of dogs, but live in a city.
If not, just fucking pay a consultant to teach you how to find a good rental. In a small town that costs under $50/m, and they'll meet with you every week to go over listings and talk about what happened when you applied different places.
There is clearly something about you that is different from most other people, and it is impacti
Re: It's the American way (Score:4, Insightful)
The vast majority of people working for those companies are not directly affected by such labor laws because the companies are already providing higher-than-minimum wage salaries, health insurance that exceeds federal requirements, and other such amenities. How are these companies benefiting from poor labor laws?
Throw some lobbying dollars at the councils (Score:2)
Everyone knows that the reason so many people are living in RVs and other not-so-permanent type housing the greater bay area is because building new permanent housing in the area is almost impossible (and even when you can, all kinds of factors mean the housing will cost a fortune anyway).
Maybe its time for the tech companies and tech workers and everyone else affected by the bay area housing shortage to throw a bunch of lobbying dollars (aka "political donations") at enough bay area councilors (either thos
So what do they do once they've "banned" them? (Score:2)
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No, you can't which is why the highways are littered with RVs. Same with Buses and tractor trailers.
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Can you even tow an RV?
Yes. You can tow just about anything [jingletruck.com]. Typically, cities will ticket illegally parked vehicles and, after the requisite time period has passed, have a towing contractor haul them away. These contractors go through the title process for abandoned vehicles and then resell them to the new homeless people moving into town. With an efficient enforcement process, it's possible to flip an RV a couple of times per year.
In Seattle, there is so much money in providing the homeless services, seizing their property and
"Make the world a better place" (Score:4, Insightful)
When these people say they want to "make the world a better place", you only need to look at stories like this to know how empty those words are. They mean a better place for themselves, not for people in their neighborhood, not for you.
California has the highest poverty rate [sandiegouniontribune.com] in the US. California government is controlled by Democrats, of course.
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That was a long time ago. How much progress since then? Any at all? When does blaming the distant past end so progress can start?
Come up with something besides pointing fingers.
Cannot Build Cities for Rich Only! (Score:2)
Not a new problem (Score:2)
Unaffordable housing in the Bay-area has been forcing people to drive crazy distances to get to their jobs. I knew of several engineers at NASA/Ames back in the '80s who were commuting daily to/from Sacramento due to the sky-high home and rental prices in the area. Nobody's been able to figure out how to solve the problem for at least 30 years---probably even longer.
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If you're a potential employee, adjust your salary demands based on the nearby housing prices. Don't be so stupid to accept a job without learning how much it costs to live there. In the end it is about how much you have left-over each month, not how much you earn.
If you're an employer, open an office in an area with cheap housing, and enjoy how much further you can extort your employees.
But apparently enough people fall for this, and see having multi-hour commutes as "part of the job". America, lives to
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I knew of several engineers at NASA/Ames back in the '80s who were commuting daily to/from Sacramento due to the sky-high home and rental prices in the area. Nobody's been able to figure out how to solve the problem for at least 30 years---probably even longer.
Oh, bull shit. They had other reasons, you're just leaving those out, or they didn't tell them to you.
Just how much more housing is needed? (Score:2)
200k? 300k new apartments?
I don't live there, but as people are commenting in from very far away, it seems that they'd need to build a lot of large high-rises with lots of apartments.
That would create all sorts of problems on its own.
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The number of houses is fine, the market will solve it. These are people that want to save up their $150k salaries for a multi-million dollar house and expect the government to give them free food and housing in the mean time.
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The market is not really able to solve this, as the resource (housing) is finite.
In an ideal world, people would look for employment elsewhere - but this is not how the human mind works.
Not these days anyway.
Some probably do, but not everybody.
And not all may want to save for a large house. Some probably just want to pay-down their student-loans (which in itself is a questionable concept anyway...).
Google should threaten to relocate (Score:2)
Regardless as to whether they were serious about it, they'd be able to put Mountain View on notice and gain a trump (haha) card.
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Google could buy some farm land in the middle of nowhere, and housing would spring up around it... Having an office in yet another big unaffordable city is not gonna help.
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Remote Work is the Answer (Score:4, Insightful)
It should be obvious to these tech companies, but the value of having masses of people on premise is questionable. It is an overwhelming continuing irony these companies, who enable remote work for everyone, are unable to grasp the lack of any need for these humanitarian disasters they are spawning by over-concentrating in obsolescent single physical hubs. This effect ends up magnified by geographic realities coupled with hiring policies that weed out different thinkers to result in teams of people who all think the same, are easier to manage because they all work the same, but end up not getting effective results. Everyone on the team makes the same mistakes because they all work the same place, were hired with the same filter, and all work together.
I keep waiting for companies to realize these boondoggles of building vanity land spaceships full of same-thinking employee concentrations are an anathema to growth and a wasteful and pointless cost sink. These monstrosities serve more to make corporate leaders feel self important while negatively driving the company into the ground. Hiring and concentrating same-thinking employees in one place is never a productive way to innovate. But these land yachts keep being built, and they keep destroying once great companies.
Re: Remote Work is the Answer (Score:2)
Some people don't want to work remote. How do you accommodate them except to pander with land spaceships?
If you can't afford to live there, don't (Score:2)
If you can't afford to work there, ask for a raise or quit and find another job. There is 0% unemployment in the tech field, many thousands of jobs across the country are waiting to be filled. Take your RV and for $200 in gas you can go places where your first paycheck will pay for 6 months rent.
Build UP goddammit or DOWN (Score:2)
For the amount of wealth concentrated in the SF/SV region and the high demand for people, its mind boggling how few high rise buildings there are. Between zoning and communities being glacial in allowing any change to these areas, the only legitimate option might actually be to build down and create "high rise" facilities that go several hundred feet underground. (As long as you don't build on a fault line, the construction is fine in earthquakes.)
What I don't get ... (Score:3)
... is why don't these obscenely rich companies just drop a hundred million or so and pull up a few microhome areas somewhere near by? It can't be *that* difficult. Yeah, SF has a housing crisis. Well, then, build some houses. Aren't lifestyle designs changing to make this possible without everyone needing to waste half an acre of land for their mansion? How hard can it be? ... I don't get it.
Re:Capitalism (Score:5, Interesting)
Most college grads are smart enough to not work for Google. Have you seen the crap they've been cranking out in the past few years?
This is what you get for being an Internet company that doesn't use the Internet to decentralize its workforce - a bunch of morons who can't calculate CPI releasing seventeen incompatible chat clients and keeping blacklists of their coworkers' political beliefs.
Here comes the competition from companies with employees of good mental health. The remainder can help China censor and build systems to target innocents in illegal foreign wars. Trailer life is too good for them.
Re:Capitalism (Score:4, Interesting)
Most college grads are smart enough to not work for Google. Have you seen the crap they've been cranking out in the past few years?
No, the smart ones work for Google when it starts up a new project. If they can put up with being one of 12 roommates in a Mountain View studio for the year until the project is killed, they can then take their Google experience to some Chandler, Arizona startup and live like kings.
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Well, if they worked a technical job for a year in Mountain View and lived in a studio with 12 roommates, they could live like a king for a few years in Backwater, AZ without even getting a new job.
Re: Capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't capitalism. Capitalism says the housing would be more valuable to put multiple units on each lot, but neighborhood "protecting" legislation is artificially limiting the supply of housing.
Re: Capitalism (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't capitalism. Capitalism says the housing would be more valuable to put multiple units on each lot, but neighborhood "protecting" legislation is artificially limiting the supply of housing.
Exactly. It's the real estate - industrial complex in California where real estate related businesses working hand in hand with local governments to keep housing prices as high as possible through CC&Rs and codes to restrict how many houses / minimum square footage / etc. an area can have. THAT is where the problem is, and it won't ever be fixed until this is broken up.
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... industrial complex in California where real estate related businesses working hand in hand with local governments to keep housing prices as high as possible through CC&Rs and codes to restrict how many houses / minimum square footage / etc. an area can have. THAT is where the problem is...
Exactly. THAT is capitalism.
Re: Capitalism (Score:2)
So presumably youâ(TM)re ecstatic that currently more and more power is being consolidated into the hands of a single person.
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1. People with money have power and things work out bad for the poor.
2. "That's bad, lets give power to government to protect us."
3. They give government more power over peoples' lives.
4. People with money buy influence, get the government to do their bidding.
5. Return to step 1 and keep repeating over and over rather than learning anything.
Re: Capitalism (Score:3)
Yeah, Google just ruined Mountain View. That's why no one wants to live there anymore.
Re: Capitalism (Score:2)
"Real" capitalism - whatever that mean - does not obviate the need for rule of law. There was a time when the prevailing theory of government in the U.S.A. is that its only purpose was to ensure the freedom of its citizens.
Standard Oil and the Rockefellers had their time in the sun, but they never came close to running the U.S. What we have forgotten is that the government - the ultimate arbiter of power - must be castrated so that business cannot use it as a weapon.
I'll take "protecting legislation" anyday. (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't capitalism. Capitalism says the housing would be more valuable to put multiple units on each lot, but neighborhood "protecting" legislation is artificially limiting the supply of housing.
I live in an area where restrictions are at a minimum. We're frequently listed as one of the ugliest places in the country. Traffic is a nightmare because building is crazy but infrastructure spending is at a minimum. See, the majority hears "higher taxes" and flips out and current politicians are thrown out of office - and I live in a Republican stronghold; meaning, they're eating their own.
It's crowded, dirty, and homelessness is still bad. Part of it is because there isn't enough land to build enough housing.
Things are completely out of control because regulations are so sparse. And people are getting pissed and demanding more regulations, btw.
Now drive an hour away to a place where there are VERY wealthy people and very strict codes. A McDonald's sign is no higher than 5 feet tall. ...it's just pretty!
There are white fences, the medians on the roads are beautifully landscaped, the roads are all well kept, people are required to keep their properties a certain way
I can't afford to live there.
When capitalism is NOT regulated, things spiral to the bottom. There's this worship of free market Capitalism as if it's the answer to all social ills and ANY regulation impedes it. Regulations are to mitigate the bad things it causes.
And we should also realize that economic systems are supposed to serve the people; not the other way around. Our American mythology and corporate propaganda has most of us believing that we should be slaves to the system because we have iPhones and refrigerators and working oneself to death and buying shit is the way to happiness.
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Re:I'll take "protecting legislation" anyday. (Score:5, Interesting)
and what about when things are overregulated and overtaxed to the point where people can no longer afford to live there?
Something the left 'forgets' is that high taxes also hurt the poor. Crazy regulations also prevent them from doing things like starting businesses.
Re: I'll take "protecting legislation" anyday. (Score:2)
And what do you suppose appeared in that nice community first: money or regulations?
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>"Wow, capitalism is turning out great for your guys hey? Get your exiting new job after college and live in a trailer. It's the American way!"
Capitalism works fine most of the time, and this isn't much of an exception. Housing supply is short because it is crowded, so prices go up automatically. This creates incentive for more/cheaper housing elsewhere and also incentive to move for other and better opportunities elsewhere in the state or country (and there are plenty). It means labor for businesses
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Businesses rarely spread, they insist on having their offices in the most expensive areas and don't consider the effect this has on the staff. All the time new businesses are moving into the most expensive areas rather than setting up shop in cheap locations.
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>"Businesses rarely spread, they insist on having their offices in the most expensive areas and don't consider the effect this has on the staff. All the time new businesses are moving into the most expensive areas rather than setting up shop in cheap locations."
I think that is because there is an assumption that the only way they can get a talented pool of people is to locate where one presumably already exists. But that also means more taxes, more regulations, more headaches. There are lots and lots of
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A lot of the problems stem from the massive changes that have happened in a very quick period of time. In 1900 there were only 1.6 billion people in the world. There are now 7.6 billion. So 4.75x the populace trying to live in the exact same amount of space.
It's not just the surge in people. The way the world operates is significantly different now then it was in 1900. We had the telephone in 1900 but we couldn't fax a document anywhere. Everything had to be taken by hand. It made sense all the businesses w
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Dude, like, you should totally look up "economic network effects" and stuff before you make ignorant comments like this.
You sound like, really ignorant and shit.
Re:Capitalism (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, government regulation is turning out great for your guys hey? Get your exiting new job after college and live in a trailer. It's the American way!
Fixed that for you.
If builders were allowed to build high-density housing, the problem would disappear quickly. But city councils won't allow zoning changes or give building permits. The councils consist of owners of quaint suburban homes that would be worth less than $200K in most of the country but sell for $2M in the bay area, and they don't want the housing demand to be filled because it will lower their property values.
Re:Capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, regulatory capture is turning out great for your guys hey? Get your exiting new job after college and live in a trailer. It's the American way!
Fixed that for you.
Fixed your fix for you..
If the regulatory process is working properly, it would encourage the construction of more and denser housing because that would be in the public interest. Unfortunately, the regulatory agency has been "captured" by private industry and NIMBY. From your comments I'm guessing you never served or even paid attention to a zoning commission. Most zoning boards are populated by people living in the community who have.a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and preserving neighborhood "character."
I remember at one zoning board meeting they were discussing the building of a 10,000 square-foot facility for daycare. You think that be noncontroversial. People have children, they need daycare so let's build the facility to service that need. But no, there were all these objections about building being too big for the neighborhood, too much traffic, too much noise. The company withdrew its application and people continue to complain about the lack of daycare facilities in the community. I believe they were completely unaware of the irony of the situation.
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Wow, regulatory capture is turning out great for your guys hey? Get your exiting new job after college and live in a trailer. It's the American way!
Fixed that for you.
Fixed your fix for you..
If the regulatory process is working properly, it would encourage the construction of more and denser housing because that would be in the public interest. Unfortunately, the regulatory agency has been "captured" by private industry and NIMBY. From your comments I'm guessing you never served or even paid attention to a zoning commission. Most zoning boards are populated by people living in the community who have.a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and preserving neighborhood "character."
I remember at one zoning board meeting they were discussing the building of a 10,000 square-foot facility for daycare. You think that be noncontroversial. People have children, they need daycare so let's build the facility to service that need. But no, there were all these objections about building being too big for the neighborhood, too much traffic, too much noise. The company withdrew its application and people continue to complain about the lack of daycare facilities in the community. I believe they were completely unaware of the irony of the situation.
That and the fact that councils sell a lot more land if they restrict population density and collect higher property taxes if they drive property values up.
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That and the fact that councils sell a lot more land if they restrict population density and collect higher property taxes if they drive property values up.
In most big cities NIMBYism causes more issues. Give you an example out of Toronto, dire need for more housing. Planned condo building would have ~40 odd floors, think it was 15 units per floor. What was the problem? City? Nope. Locals in the area? Nope, they were all for it. It was depreciated commercial property being removed and redeveloped. No, it was the NIMBY's on the hill, over yonder. The problem? Well, it would ruin the view from the backyards of their $20m mansions and that was unacceptable
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That and the fact that councils sell a lot more land if they restrict population density and collect higher property taxes if they drive property values up.
Golly, it seems like the amount of land that is privately held would be the same, and if there was rezoning for higher density, that would increase the number of sales.
Maybe there is some other variable that they're trying to maximize, since it isn't the amount of land sold?
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Hong Kong is an island. California isn't.
Re:Capitalism (Score:5, Informative)
This is not a capitalism problem. This is a NIMBY problem. California's zoning laws [bostonglobe.com] prohibit new affordable housing in the areas most desperate in need.
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Silicon Valley companies could locate more of their workforce in places with cheaper housing. There are many much nicer, much less expensive locations up and down the coast. They don't need government permission.
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Capitalism has nothing to do with this. In fact, capitalism could solve it. It's caused by absurdly restrictive zoning and regulation stopping capitalism from solving the problem.
No, its the socialist utopia (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, capitalism is turning out great for your guys hey?
Uh, the Bay Area is more the socialist utopia with heavy handed government oversight and control. Capitalists are not in charge of housing, mass transit, etc. You are confusing the scapegoats with those who created the mess.
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This has nothing to do with the economic system, this has to do with giving lots of Freedom to citizens, and so it them becomes predictably hard to prevent certain types of bad behavior that are at least partially caused by harmful choices.
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Re: Capitalism (Score:5, Informative)
And who wants to live an hour away from where they work?
That's a minimum of 10 hours a week simply WASTED, per person. This is no good for the workers, no good for the companies and no good for the environment. It's just monumentally stupid.
Re: Capitalism (Score:2)
So was the suburban explosion of the 50s, but that's the nation we live in. You are expected to live away from any reasonable civilization on a vast tract of otherwise worthless land, while civilization is expected to happen away from your children in areas with government services, poor (colored) people, and traffic. But it's all good, because we built a great Interstate system so everyone can move a hundred miles away from any semblance of civilized life and still engage in the capitalist regime well enou
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The problem is the city councils give permits for Offices as offices pay tax whereas they dont give permits for Housing as due to Prop 13 Housing does not pay tax in California...
You are explicitly saying that government authorities view the only purpose of anyone living their lives is to fill government coffers with tax revenue.
But you don't see that attitude as a problem.
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This might actually be a good idea if it were not housing units made out of shipping containers, but modular house units designed to fold up into the same space as shipping containers. They could then be factory built and shipped anywhere over existing freight modes.
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How on earth would that help? The problem isn't building houses, the problem is the lack of high density of housing and the lack of infrastructure to deal with high density housing.
Liberal and Conservative values - neither racist (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, not one of my liberal friends is racist. Where'd you get that idea? Cable news?
Funny, not one of my conservative friends is racist. Perhaps there is a lesson here about the demonization of opponents. A demonization manufactured by and spread by political operatives and useful idiots. FWIW I think many in the cable news are the former not the latter, willingly partisan.
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Funny, not one of my liberal friends is racist. Where'd you get that idea? Cable news?
Funny, not one of my conservative friends is racist. Perhaps there is a lesson here about the demonization of opponents.
So the bogeyman isn't real? He's not part of an army of bogeymen waiting for a signal to come and get us all?
That's going to make voting more complicated. We might actually have to start thinking about practical things and what works and what doesn't.
Re: Liberal values (Score:2, Insightful)
...conservatives want traditional white values.
So sayeth your memes but you're at least half wrong - a true [Jeffersonian] conservative believes the same thing as a [Lockian] "liberal" - that the government (aka tyrants) should "fuck off and leave the people alone."
Conservatives like some portions of modernity (Score:5, Insightful)
Conservative is a relative term to the status quo. What you are describing no longer applies to the word "conservative" because the status quo has changed. What you are describing is classically liberal, and - in modern times - libertarian.
The status quo conservatives want to return to does not include racism, nor does if lack vaccinations, nor does it lack space travel, etc. There are bits of modernity that conservatives approve of. You are confusing the manufactured impressions of political operatives of the left with reality.
Re: Liberal values (Score:5, Interesting)
progressives want to tear down the class system.
Do they really? The SF Bay Area is as progressive as you can get, and has some of the most restrictive zoning laws in the country, locking out the poor from economic opportunities, and pushing up the property values to further enrich the already well off.
Some economists believe that zoning and building restrictions, mostly supported by liberals, contribute more to inequality than regressive "tax reform" pushed by conservatives.
Zoning laws and the rise of economic inequality [theatlantic.com]
The link between land use restriction and growing inequality [urban.org]
Replacing their class system with my class system (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed - SF isn't a progressive city (Score:4, Interesting)
Are SF politics really all that progressive? I've sat in Board of Supervisors meetings and there is more class-based NIMBYism and appeals to particular groups rather than progressive policy making.
The main difference is that SF's power base versus your usual American city is that it isn't 95% rich white. It's more like 60% white and 40% various non-white factions fighting for their own self interests. All the factions hate the homeless and hate one another. It's tribalism and not anywhere near what a socialists or progressive might consider an ideal society.
I think you need to seek out better examples of progressive governments, starting with governments that have progressive policies. Not a mythological progressive city like SF where you basically prove it isn't progressive.
Re:Agreed - SF isn't a progressive city (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, the classic "It wasn't true communism", except for Progressives.
Hint : Progressivism as a movement is what this is. On the surface, virtue signaling. Dig a bit : it's all about narcissist trying to hold themselves above every one else.
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You probably don't understand what a Democrat is, what a Liberal is, or what a Progressive is, and you don't realize that most Democrats are not Progressives or Liberals.
You also have no evidence of the Bay Area being anything other than a Democratic stronghold. If there are more liberals there than average, they're still a small minority who never get their way. Fucking duh.
The largest area in the whole country where liberals or progressives have the votes to win elections are individual neighborhoods; whi
Re: Liberal values (Score:4, Informative)
Trickle-down economics doesn't really exist. It's what some people made up to call their opponents economic plan and was never accurate.
The last half-century doesn't include the end of the 19th century. 1800-1899 would be the 19th century, much like 0-99 is the first century.
Also, the biggest proven reducer of poverty over time in the world is free market economic systems. The others you mention don't reduce poverty, they just leach off a system which does. BTW, it was President Lyndon B. Johnson who declared a war on poverty. Not a single sentence in your post fails to contain something inaccurate or untrue, so I guess that's an accomplishment of trolling?
Fishing is :the 'merkin way (Score:3)
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Re: public transport ? (Score:2)
You want to fine employers for their employees' living arrangements? Beyond the fact that it's a constitutionally protected class, what are the logistics? Does your employer visit your home during the interview process to verify?
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You think it is dry because you don't understand the relationship between temperature and humidity.
But no, caves are cold and damp. You're going to be doing a lot of dehumidifying. More than if you lived on the surface. But a lot less cooling, so you'll save a lot of power.