david robertsDec 20, 2022

This is a very common but also ridiculous & demagogic take.

RT @[email protected]

The Techies came to San Francisco, made their money, drove up real estate prices and left. They strip-mined the culture, leaving behind a shell of what was once the most vibrant city on the West Coast. It became all about money. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/17/business/economy/california-san-francisco-empty-downtown.html?fbclid=IwAR0bLcpb_qph-ZK6-XRb7lOrT5XPjPkZH4Zjwol8Zi7evW29exHrDkNgbHs

šŸ¦šŸ”—: https://twitter.com/HankPlante/status/1604183071061786624

What Comes Next for San Franciscoā€™s Emptied Downtown

Tech workers are still at home. The $17 salad place is expanding into the suburbs. So what is left in San Francisco?

The New York Times
Show threaddavid robertsDec 20, 2022
Growing is *good* for a city -- precisely what a city should aim for. Cities that aren't growing are dying. The only way to fuck up growth is to allow entitled incumbents to block all attempts to build homes for newcomers. All other dysfunctions grow out of that.
Show threadLindsay Brown
@drvolts The neoliberal 'solution' to building, ie the YIMBY take, is not consistent with green goals and sustainability. Please don't fall into this trap. The market *cannot* fix housing or cities.
Dec 20, 2022 at 11:04pmWeb
Show threadRandallDec 20, 2022

@lidsville @drvolts
People have to live somewhere
Either more density, leveraging economies of scale
Or build out, contributing to more sprawl

Is it more sustainable to bulldoze undeveloped land?

Show threadNathan LewisDec 21, 2022
@Randall @lidsville @drvolts
Problem is the real estate industry doesn't care. If it were mandated that new housing had to be made sustainably and with ownership by the people (either collective or individual ownership) then we could go a long way toward solving our problems, but a huge siphoning of wealth from the poor and middle class to the 1% doesn't help either.
Show threadClay RosenthalDec 20, 2022
@lidsville @drvolts I think ideally weā€™d have dense public housing be built, but building dense at all is better than building nothing or SFH. I feel in todays political climate just changing zoning is a good first step; then push for public funds instead of private
Show threadadriftDec 20, 2022
@clayrosenthal @lidsville @drvolts how do you propose to prevent ā€œdense public housingā€ from becoming cabrini green?
Show threadClay RosenthalDec 20, 2022
@drvolts @adriftinaotearoa @lidsville invest in other programs in and around the housing to keep the community lively and safe. Iā€™ve not read too much about Cabrini Green, but Iā€™m sure thereā€™s lessons they learned only in retrospect. The biggest predictor of crime is inequality, if we can give people good QoL they would be less likely to turn to illicit activities
Show threadr00tdeniedDec 20, 2022
@lidsville @drvolts The YIMBY solution is up zoning and increasing density along with promoting improvements like mass transit which absolutely is green and sustainable. What you propose creates further housing shortages, rent increases and car centric infrastructure that increases pollution.