The case for making New York and San Francisco much, much bigger

[chris08876]

^^^^

That's why places like SF need to increase housing density and get rid of the zoning cap for certain neighborhoods close to the CBD. There can be a balance of preservation and development. Developers in the end want to make a profit, and allowing them to build many more units would be ideal. Also eliminating prop-m would be nice.

We can get good, quality developments with many more units and an affordable component if SF gives developers the breathing room that they need to subsidise the affordable component.

[mhays]

An enormous amount of additional supply could be added with minimal land. Two square miles of underused areas/sites around town (4% of the city) could accommodate another 100,000 people, accommodating much of the demand. If they're not rent controlled, then market rates would come down substantially. And nobody is talking about soulless commie blocks.

[chris08876]

Isn't the goal in the end to create walkable, and dense cities? Bad zoning and density caps only fuel the urban sprawl and growth of the suburbs. People are priced out, and it's kinda selfish to turn a city into a country club where new generations are priced out. That doesn't help SF, only hinders it and instead, those people will flock to other cities.

With the right policies, you won't see commie blocks. And when you create a climate where the $/sq foot is extraordinary, businesses will flock elsewhere. Increase supply to keep it stable or even reduce it.

[James Bond Agent 007]

To a large extent I don't mind the NY's and SF's of the world becoming insanely expensive. At some point they'll get so expensive it'll start scaring away people thinking of moving there and companies thinking of expanding there, so they'll go elsewhere (which is likely already happening in the case of those two cities). Which is good. It helps to more evenly distribute the wealth. I'm not sure why we would want the nation's wealth and prosperity even more concentrated in the currently "hot" cities. NIMBY's in cities like those might actually be serving a socially useful purpose, even though we like to malign them.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by chris08876

Isn't the goal in the end to create walkable, and dense cities?

No. The goal of zoning, speaking generally, is for locals to control their built environment. Local zoning almost never centers around creating walkable, dense cities (especially the latter).

Even in NYC, zoning is more of an anti-density tool, crafted to limit perceived "overdevelopment" and "out of context" growth.

[urbanadvocate]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

To a large extent I don't mind the NY's and SF's of the world becoming insanely expensive. At some point they'll get so expensive it'll start scaring away people thinking of moving there and companies thinking of expanding there, so they'll go elsewhere (which is likely already happening in the case of those two cities). Which is good. It helps to more evenly distribute the wealth. I'm not sure why we would want the nation's wealth and prosperity even more concentrated in the currently "hot" cities. NIMBY's in cities like those might actually be serving a socially useful purpose, even though we like to malign them.

An interesting example of this has been the relationship of Sac and SF. Sac used to be the place where families with children used to eventually move to from SF due to the quieter and less expensive life--with bigger homes. But within the last few years there is an influx of new business startups in Sac from young couples leaving SF who don't have children but view Sac as new fertile ground for their businesses as they've seen the quality of life become disjointed with the cost of living in SF.

[a very long weekend]

^ not just sacramento. los angeles has benefited enormously from our high cost of living as LA people and companies decide just to stay put and fly into the bay area when they need to, instead of located their engineering divisions here or whatever.

cities like phoenix and salt lake are becoming popular places for major companies here to send their low tier stuff support jobs, and finding that they can get college-educated people in those 14-15/hour drone jobs that they can't even fill here in SF.

it's terrible for us in the bay area (unless you happen to own property) and america, as we can't take full advantage of the nation's most productive region and we lose potential gdp, but other places will benefit from spillover to the extent that companies can grow offsite.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by a very long weekend

cities like phoenix and salt lake are becoming popular places for major companies here to send their low tier stuff support jobs, and finding that they can get college-educated people in those 14-15/hour drone jobs that they can't even fill here in SF.

While it may be good for our economy, it still sucks for Arizona from an urban development standpoint because those low-level support jobs are usually in sprawling suburban office parks. Chandler immediately comes to mind.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by a very long weekend

it's terrible for us in the bay area (unless you happen to own property)

Most Bay Area residents are homeowners. So while your statement may be correct, it also necessarily means that high prices are wonderful for most people in the Bay Area.

[mhays]

But most potential incoming residents aren't homeowners. It's becoming more of a generational thing. Incoming residents are the lifeblood of many industries so it's a sizable issue.

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Most Bay Area residents are homeowners. So while your statement may be correct, it also necessarily means that high prices are wonderful for most people in the Bay Area.

Only if you assume that most people in the Bay Area are homeowners AND have the vast majority of their wealth tied up in their home (I have no doubt that the majority of homeowners is like this, just question if 50%+ of the population is a homeowner AND has most of their wealth tied up in their home). Anyone who has a decent amount of wealth in other areas, like say, a 401k invested in index funds, is potentially worse off if the tax on general economic growth is high enough.

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

To a large extent I don't mind the NY's and SF's of the world becoming insanely expensive. At some point they'll get so expensive it'll start scaring away people thinking of moving there and companies thinking of expanding there, so they'll go elsewhere (which is likely already happening in the case of those two cities). Which is good. It helps to more evenly distribute the wealth. I'm not sure why we would want the nation's wealth and prosperity even more concentrated in the currently "hot" cities. NIMBY's in cities like those might actually be serving a socially useful purpose, even though we like to malign them.

This is only a good thing if you think that geographic distribution of wealth is a goal itself. If we could grow NY to 30 million and SF to 15 million, I would expect that wealth concentration per capita would likely go down just as much as the inefficient method of redistributing to other areas that happens now.

[Ant131531]

Personally, I think SF is just too small when it comes to land area to ever become this massive mega city.

[Gordo]

When I say SF, I'm really referring to the Bay Area as a whole.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by lio45

Yep, and that's because San Francisco is a beautiful and charming city -- which it would cease to be if it became filled with soul-less commie blocks so that everyone and their mother could move there cheaply.

That's the point.

You could make San Fran Paris Density without hurting its charm and triple it population.

[a very long weekend]

^ so true. we really bungled a vast, formerly light industrial swathe of the city that we stubbornly zoned for low rise with wide streets back in the 1990s and haven't really changed all that much (with some noteable exceptions), for a lot of reasons, all dumb.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by emathias

You could make San Fran Paris Density without hurting its charm and triple it population.

I really don't see how this would be possible.

Where in SF could you do this? There are no empty areas. There's one subway line. The only underutilized areas are South of Market, and they're already being developed like crazy.

[Ant131531]

Paris is charming because of it's Haussmann architecture and winding medieval streets. SF's newly built apartments would be plain, boxy, and the opposite of charming. SF is charming now because of it's large selection of victorian houses and architecture along with it's human scaled neighborhoods that make you feel cozy. Replacing it with bland 6 story apartments wouldn't do much for the city and would be nowhere near the charm of Paris, Barcelona, or Roma.

[Gordo]

Almost the entire Richmond District is bland 3-4 story boxes with no charm ("Richmond Specials"), yet it's also a pretty great neighborhood to live in simple because it's got pedestrian-oriented bones, unlike almost every other place on the west coast. Replacing those with bland 6-8 story buildings would definitely not hurt charm, but would double the population or more, if we got rid of rear setbacks, etc. One of the biggest problems with Geary is that the street is not scaled correctly with the buildings (far too wide).

Couple that with building a subway along Geary and allowances for redeveloping the rest of Geary between Van Ness and the Richmond (all uncharming areas destroyed by 60s-80s redevelopment anyway) and that's easily another 100,000 people without touching a bit of charm. And that's just one example. Most of SF is not particularly charming - no one's talking about bulldozing Victorians.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Gordo

Almost the entire Richmond District is bland 3-4 story boxes with no charm ("Richmond Specials"), yet it's also a pretty great neighborhood to live in simple because it's got pedestrian-oriented bones, unlike almost every other place on the west coast. Replacing those with bland 6-8 story buildings would definitely not hurt charm, but would double the population or more, if we got rid of rear setbacks, etc. One of the biggest problems with Geary is that the street is not scaled correctly with the buildings (far too wide).

I'm obviously not a local, but I suspect this would be politically impossible. Doubling population, destroying water/hill view corridors, angering homeowners, building out-of-context, straining infrastructure in areas far from the core and existing transit?

And ignoring the megabillions BART extensions all over SF to handle doubled population, and putting aside fact that most SF nabes are much more charming than Richmond, I still don't see how this gets SF anywhere near Paris-levels of density. Richmond currently has 20,000 per sq. mile. Double this and still nowhere near Paris' 55,000 per sq. mile.

I don't think SF has tremendous room to grow. South of Market appears to have tons of construction, and there are corridors like Van Ness that are getting increased density (and are appropriate for more growth), and maybe some targeted upzonings would work around transit/commercial nodes, but I can't see realistic conditions for giant towers in currently suburban-esque neigborhoods.