Gentrification's Price: S.F. Moves: Yuppies In, the Poor Out (1985)(articles.latimes.com) |
Gentrification's Price: S.F. Moves: Yuppies In, the Poor Out (1985)(articles.latimes.com) |
Their combined salary of $30,000 per year would now be about $71,000.
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
However, the article says "$900-$1000" was for "an apartment" without specifying the number of rooms. It seems reasonable that it might've been a 2 bedroom apartment.
The rent jumps and illegal/shady evictions starting maybe 2010-2012 effectively pushed out a fraction of those surviving on rent control plus many of the merely upper-middle-class out of the city, leaving the wealthy and big-5 programmers getting huge salaries for 80-hour-days during the whole of the best years of their lives.
The thing about the situation the city hasn't "upgraded" but rather has been left gray and boring (yet fearful and hyperkinetic). Pretty sad compared to the lively punks I saw squatting old industrial buildings in 1984. Even that was sad compared to the summer of love I assume but I wasn't around for anything but the end of that.
The next big rent spike came around '98 or so, as the dot com boom was in full swing. Rents didn't only shoot up, it got so that there was no housing left to be had. You could show up to an open rental with stellar credit and references, only to have someone else offer the landlord 25% above the asking rent, and pay the entire first year in advance.
The only thing SF has going for it is the people, but sooner or later the right social pressures could cause a mass exodus, and I wonder what those pressures look like.
And the answer is: It will continue as long as people are willing to pay the rent.
I understand from your post that you are fed up with the high rent and the low quality of living. But the most important part of what you said is the fact that you are still willing to pay, and you are still willing to stay, despite all of the disadvantages. In other words, you have decided (whether you like it or not) that in your case the advantages of living in SF outweigh all of the disadvantages.
And there are many others like you. You are all collectively voting for things to continue the way they are.
Making it stop would require you (or others like you) to decide the trade-off isn't worth it.
While I hear what you’re saying, I’m musing more specifically on what that function looks like. I understand “it will continue as long as it can” but looking for a less rhetorical answer.
The more people who get screwed by housing, the more political power we will gain, until something eventually gives out, and we start winning the political game.
https://www.sfgate.com/expensive-san-francisco/article/Bay-A...
"The Bay Area exodus is real and ongoing. The region leads the nation for outward migration, a new study has found."
the northernmost large snow-free area
Why would that be the case, rather than the social pressures (it sucks to try to live here) reaching a dynamic equilibrium with the economic forces (companies and people are more productive here and will compensate you well for the extra trouble)?
I can only think of two reasons for a sudden 'mass exodus':
1. People to 'suddenly realize' that they are getting a bad deal; but isn't it pretty much public knowledge that housing in the Bay Area sucks, and will continue to suck?
2. Outside factors suddenly slow down tech hiring (recession, tech crisis)
Unlike San Fransisco, no one wants to live here.
So the situation will continue as long as jobs remain in the bay area.
The best thing about the gentrication war is all the trustfund liberal arts crowds shaming tech workers for trying to make a living.
It's not like this is new, it's the natural order of capitalizing on development. If you want to hang with the arts kids, you'll be living in squalor. I mean hell, Vancouver used to be a giant powerhouse of culture generation, post-exodus the amount of cultural importance is rapidly decreasing spreading to other nearby locations.
I also think that rent control is disrespectful to the rights of the property owner. Other than making sure that there is no discrimination, and that properties aren't fire traps, government should get out of the way.
> Last week I saw a similar report of a man filling up syringes with blood and throwing them at people walking by
https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/8hj7j7/man_ju...
Gentrification and displacement are distinct from the exclusion of potential residents. To get someone's home transferred to you, you generally have to outspend them, so the gentrifier is essentially always richer than than the displaced person (though there could be corner cases with similar means but different willingness to spend on housing, etc).
"blighted parts of the city" are often homes to people and the place where their communities are located. These people see themselves priced out of the place they've lived for years and are forced to start a new life elsewhere when the area they live in is gentrified. This is incredibly stressful and hugely disruptive to these people's lives and it's not unreasonable that they desire some protection for their way of life.
The recognition of this fact is also the source of rent control (whether rent control is the right mechanism to prevent these hardships is another conversation). Without societal protections landlords wield a huge amount of power over tenants, raising rent by exorbitant amounts is no different than eviction for most families. In a desire to protect their own communities and livelihoods many residents vote for such policies.
And what about current residents who need to move? Suppose a disadvantaged woman decides to leave her abusive husband and is trying to find another place to move into. Is it fair that her well-being is completely neglected?
I'm all in favor of the intentions behind rent control, but the implementation is an atrocious way to achieving its goals. If the goal is to help the poor long-time residents of a city, then do that directly. Raise property taxes, impose a city-income-tax, and use the proceeds to offer assistance to means-tested long-time residents. This would be far better than what SF has currently.
To some, gentrification is the process of a place becoming nicer, there are more options to eat out, the city services in an area increase etc
To others, gentrification is the process of a place changing in a way that makes them feel alien in their home. New and different people move in, their favorite businesses close down, the closest laundromat closes down so now the next closest one is an additonal 5 minute walk. The prices everywhere rise, what used to cost you 5 dollars now costs you 10, and its hard to live like that because you only make 30k/year, taking home maybe 1.8k/month. You apply to jobs at a few of these new places, and the first 5 places casually turned you down despite their "help wanted" sign and your job experience as a bar tender/server. The 6th place accepts you, but your job is pretty bad because all of the patrons of the bar treat you like "the help".
To others, gentrification means rents go up more than you can afford and you get evicted and need to move away from your family and friends and your support structure.
Is there an inherent right of way for property owners over renters on the residential moral crossroads? If you’ve grown up in a neighbourhood, raised your own kids in that neighbourhood, spent time in and on the neighbourhood, don’t you deserve some respect? People without the fiscal wherewithal (nor social impetus) to buy, but who spent effort safe guarding their community, organising events for locals, tending to parks, churches; they created the neighbourhood. They added value to every single property. But God forbid they were not raised to “buy”: make way for the Propery Owner!
I find this incongruous with what I’ve seen around me time and time again. People who’ve suffered through the hardest times of an area get pushed out when it does better. They deserved it the most, but got hoodwinked for the newer, flashier wind.
Not unlike a spouse who stays with their partner through a tough disease, depression, or poverty, only to be dumped for a more beautiful and opportunistic competitor when the hardship has sailed.
I’m not a staunch anti gentrifier (hell, I gentrify!), but I find using the word “respect” a bridge too far.
To use your analogy, if you don't put a ring on it you might lose it [your partner]. At least if one is divorced there is likely some alimony.
I suspect much of the real problem with gentrification involves the legacy of redlining and other abuses of vulnerable populations, like predatory contract loans and subprime mortgages. If populations such as inner-city blacks weren't systematically prevented from purchasing property in past decades gentrification would probably be much less a hot-button issue.
Absolutely! You completely deserve respect! Of course, every human being deserves some effing respect.
What "respect" means in terms of public policy is sometimes a complex question. I think the person you're responding to is using it in a legalistic sense, where "disrespect" could probably be replaced with "abrogating" or "breaching". Your usage seems a tad bit different.
No, but rent control is counterproductive and hurts many of the people it purports to help. What are its effects?
It encourages landlords to neglect properties. As one socialist economist quipped, "In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing." After World War II, Paris enacted rent control leading to the loss of tens of thousands of existing units. When rent control was banned in Cambridge, MA, the valuation of never-controlled properties rose more rapidly than previously rent controlled properties. This implies that the never-controlled properties were better maintained.
It accrues financial gains to people who tend to be older and more affluent. People with lucrative employment are more able to stay in place for longer. They can ride out the downturns.
It limits supply. This increases median rents for newly available units. It discourages the construction of new units.
It encourages over consumption. Empty nesters don't downsize. This makes it harder for young families to find housing. SF has the lowest portion of children of any major American city.
It privatizes a public problem.
As far as solving a housing crisis goes, rent control is about as helpful as arson.
What you typically see is long-time neighborhood residents being displaced by wealthier newcomers. In a poor neighborhood, this means that people who are already vulnerable, especially those that are renting also have to cope with a whole new set of problems -- landlords who desperately want to evict them, cost-of-living increases, increased pressure from law enforcement.
The Bay doesn't have resources for people who find themselves in this position. My old housemate in west Oakland, in her early 30s and well-educated, but with health issues, is being forced from the bay. She grew up in Berkeley and Oakland. This is her home. I'm sad.
There's rent control, Proposition 13, and fixed rate mortgages. Those greatly help long time homeowner.
Homeowners lock in low interest rates and fixed monthly payments. If inflation hits you're still paying the same. Possibly 1/5th the amount that your neighbor might be paying if you've had your house for a while.
With Proposition 13 your property tax won't go up more than 2% despite double digital home price inflation year after year in the bay area.
The amount of equity generated each year is often more than peoples' entire salaries.
That's not to say that nice amenities are what everyone wants. Some people want to keep the character of their small towns no matter what. But in the former case there's a loss of small-town-ness for amenities that theoretically benefit everyone, whereas in the latter case it's purely an extraction of money from the young to the old.
Which is curious given that you then turn around and talk about "rights of the property owner". Gentrification is largely about a wealthy group of people declaring that they will do more useful things with a neighborhood than the current residents would, so they should be allowed to move in and take over, whether through economic coercion (driving up prices and rents) or through legal coercion (having buildings condemned, properties seized to be "improved", etc.).
Right-leaning people I know generally sympathize with those living in the rural blight, and their desires to stay in their hometowns and avoid displacement. Left-leaning people tend to say the rural folk need to suck it up and move to the city like everyone else, if they want better opportunities.
Then folk on either side tend to do an about-face when it comes to urban gentrification. Right-leaners tend to support gentrification and all it entails, and the left-leaners suddenly want rework local/national laws to allow the would-be displaced to remain in their homes.
Maybe Facebook can find a way to monetize those social relations, so the could be recognized as having a value. (/s)
I disagree. Gentrification has cultural impacts that can reshape society in positive and negative ways.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/magazine/when-gentrificat...
Rent control is a band-aid solution to displacement caused by NIMBYism and the surplus of jobs from the tech industry.
I doubt you'd make that argument, though.
Only if you’re talking about well-to-do immigrants, and most of the time that term is reserved for the “undocumented” variety of immigrant, not generally known for bringing a flood of money into an area like Valley techies do.
Your point is actually relevant though, unchecked immigration does indeed have an affect on housing prices, just not quite as dramatically as a horde of tech geeks does.
They are more like homeowners, entitled to protect their land with deadly force.
Tenants are more like tourists: they are welcome as long as they keep paying.
I’m not arguing for or against it, but it’s not an argument ad absurdem.
The tell-tale sign of gentrification is increased homeless people and blights in areas that simultaneously have wealthier people becoming wealthier. While there are bigger extremes, the aggregate and average wealth also increases.
I also agree about government getting out of the way but I wouldn't say that there's nothing wrong with gentrification.
Personally, my theory is that anything that generally increases prosperity also generally increases gentrification.
It is easy to see why once we understand 2 observations:
1) Human abilities, willpower, motivation, etc, follow a Gaussian distribution (bell curve). Intelligence, health, motivation, charisma, etc.
2) Modern civilization has amplifiers that create leverage. These include technology, education, and access to capital.
Take a bell curve and multiply it with an amplifier. A motivated person has access to the Internet to learn whatever they want and financing to create an online business. Modern society provides the tools to greatly expand your life if you so choose. However, few do. Without those tools a gifted individual can not achieve that much more than their neighbors.
The difference between a caveman who is naturally gifted with health, intelligence, and is motivated; and caveman who is not so blessed is not that significant. Even if they wanted to, there isn't much they can do to dramatically improve their condition. They might be able to improve it a little bit but not that much compared to their peers.
If you take those same 2 people and place them in modern civilization, the gifted and motivated individual can accomplish far more, perhaps achieving 1000x more wealth than their peers.
The only way to get rid of gentrification is to get rid of any form of leverage or to collectively deploy force to redistribute wealth -- neither of which I think is a good idea. Doing so means getting rid of anything that increases aggregate standard of living. We would have to give up education, technology, access to capital, etc. Gentrification would be gone, but everyone would be equally poor.
With that being said, I see it as the natural consequence of progress and so I'm not concerned about it from that angle but I wouldn't say I don't see it as a problem.
Class warfare being one of the bigger symptoms of gentrification and it can have devastating effects when governments go through revolutions. Revolutions tend to result in massive destructions of wealth and human life.
So I definitely see gentrification as a bad thing with some nasty side effects, but I also see that prosperity is increasing.
I'm pretty sure you'd sing an entirely different tune if you were.
West Oakland, for example, wasn't wealthy, but was nevertheless a thriving black neighborhood. People, money, music, culture from all over the country flowed in via the rail system and the Port of Oakland. It was vital in America's Jazz scene, dubbed "Harlem of the West."
The postwar period saw West Oakland fragmented and paved over by the Cypress freeway and the 980, construction of the behemoth USPS facility, construction of the BART straight through 7th street. Pretty clear cut case of environmental racism. American city officials in the 40s and 50s had no problem stating their motives out loud -- they saw construction of these projects in thriving black neighborhoods as a win-win: build up infrastructure and get rid of the "local niggertown.[1]"
We can't simply chalk these changes up to inevitable economic downturn. West Oakland is an extreme example, but these changes are guided by policy decisions as much as economic change.
Bull. Tenants are full-time residents who just don't have the money to buy.
Your hypothetical disadvantaged woman would have zero ability to pay $2000/month rent for a studio, however many of these might be available. She would likely find it hard to get an apartment in a rent-controlled situation - so the situation is effectively "hard versus impossible", a condition where "hard" is less harsh.
And I mean, I've lived off and on in the Bay Area under both these conditions over the last forty years and the impossible rents of course are the hardest for those of lesser means. Of frickin course.
I'm all in favor of the intentions behind rent control, but the implementation is an atrocious way to achieving its goals. If the goal is to help the poor long-time residents of a city, then do that directly. Raise property taxes, impose a city-income-tax, and use the proceeds to offer assistance to means-tested long-time residents. This would be far better than what SF has currently.
And effective rent would require controlling evictions and controlling rents on vacant units (infringing further on sacred property rights, certainly).
Now, the most effective policy would involved rent control but with exemptions for new very high density units, incentivizing increases in the total housing stock for an urban area.
But we're here with weak rent control and tacit collusion of homeowners and builders, who talk about their property rights when convenient and use the state to keep their monopoly when convenient.
At the end of the day, someone or a lot of someone’s need to take or share responsibility for the circumstances of the less foruntate, because the alternative is terrible for everyone.
Rent control is a hack, but it's a hack that largely works. It's not nearly as atrocious as the reputation profit hungry landlords have tried to give it.
Why not treat it exactly like any other kind of hack? Take it out, sure, but not a second before the real fix is in place.
>Raise property taxes
Yes. A lot. And do it first.
Well I'm not sure what economics degree you have, but a Nobel winning one, says that most economists are in agreement and they disagree with you
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent...
> The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and -- among economists, anyway -- one of the least controversial. In 1992 a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that ''a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.'
So I guess the balls in your court. What evidence would you put forward to prove most economists wrong about rent control?
"One major problem with this argument is the lack of a definition with rent control. Yes, the statistic of 93 percent of economists rejecting rent control is all fine, but what specific rent control are we speaking about? Here is the question he either refuses to answer or does not know much about.
"In the Economics Anti-Textbook by Rod Hills and Tonny Myatt, they do talk about the neoclassical idea of rent control, but give an alternative view as well. They write:
But knowing the extent to which the ceiling rent is binding over
time is very tricky. It’s complicated by the fact that we cannot
observe the equilibrium rent. A second complication is that the type
of rent control prevalent nowadays is very different from the type
assumed in textbooks -- a rigid rent freeze.
[1] - https://shadowproof.com/2013/11/11/why-is-alex-berezow-allow...
This is certainly a problem that will happen in a purely competitive market.
But the SF housing market is NOT a competitive market. The bottleneck for developers to build more houses is the government that prevents them from doing so.
So i'd recommend focusing on getting rid of the other barriers to more housing before focusing on rent control.
Or in other words, rent control is indeed a bottleneck. But the thing with bottle necks is that only the smallest bottleneck matters.
Getting rid of the less bad bottleneck of rent control will do absolutely nothing unless the OTHER bottlenecks are addressed first.
Could your appeal to authority be a little more obvious please?
>a Nobel winning one, says that most economists are in agreement and they disagree with you
The economist profession is badly captured by moneyed interests. This is partly why they are terrible at building predictive models (think about it: which one of them wasn't blindsided by the financial crisis?).
Often the more prestigious seeming the economist, the more captured they are.
With Paul Krugman specifically this level of capture was made embarrassingly obvious when he wrote a screed saying "what's wrong with the TPP? More trade is always good!" and then got schooled by his own comments section about what was actually in that trade deal (that had nothing to do with "more trade") and what was wrong with it:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/12/krugman-running-bran...
He obviously wasn't too stupid to understand it, which is why after enough negative exposure he retracted.
I doubt you'll find any Nobel prize winning physicists having to retract a similar "mistake" although I can think of one climate scientist who might.
>So I guess the balls in your court. What evidence would you put forward to prove most economists wrong about rent control?
New York's highest level of house building occurred under strict rent controls.
Please don't tar all landlords with the same brush. I might well be a landlord in the future if I ever move out of the Bay Area, because I really like SF and would like to keep owning my (small, modest) condo even if I have to take a job elsewhere in the future. Right now, because of Costa-Hawkins, rent control won't affect me even in that scenario. But, suppose CH were repealed and the Progs decided to throw owners of those "luxury condos" everyone hates under the bus to score political points by implementing vacancy control. In that case, I'd have no choice but to sell, because I literally couldn't pay the mortgage if I couldn't charge market rent. (Actually, even market rent, right now, would not be enough to pay the mortgage--I would have to start low and raise the rent over time, or else I'd have to sell.)
For some of us, it isn't about profit. I'm happy to give up profit for a good tenant. It's about not having the bank foreclose on our property--which, needless to say, would in eviction for our tenants.
Yet New York's highest level of house building occurred under a period of very strict rent controls (50s).
The level to which rent control restricts building wildly exaggerated.