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Comment by throwdour | Hacker News Reader

I think many people prefer petty crime to tech elites. With the upward pressure on rents over the last 10 years, even having your bike stolen every few weeks is cheaper than getting evicted and/or having to find a market rate dwelling.

Of course, it's better to have neither exploding costs nor petty crime, but at the end of the day, dealing with petty crime is more affordable.

EDIT: Getting downvoted to oblivion but I'm not wrong.

https://sf.curbed.com/2019/12/12/21001080/san-francisco-sf-r...

"In 2010, a two-bedroom SF apartment on Craigslist averaged $2,893 (per historic data compiled in 2016 by Eric Fischer), or $3,396 after inflation. At the end of 2019, similar units on the same site sit at a median of $4,300, up 26.6 percent."

It would have taken a lot of petty crime to amount to that $12K per year in inflation-adjusted (i.e. real) increase.

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You're not wrong that many people do seem to prefer the petty crime to tech.

But you seem to be condoning that preference, and that preference is ridiculous. An economic boom should not be a bad thing. And tech is not raising rents, it is raising housing demand which could easily be met with a corresponding rise in supply that would limit the price increases, but new housing has been being actively blocked for decades.

You also leave out an important factor, most of the city that is supporting the policies that enable petty crime here have no skin in the game. They live in nice neighborhoods where they've owned their houses for decades making them massively wealthy and don't have to interact with the undesirables. It's easy to look the other way and ignore the downtown problems of homelessness and street crime, and to be so woke that you don't want any crime prosecuted, when it doesn't affect you.

"An economic boom should not be a bad thing"

You're right, but the reality is it has been a bad thing for many people. As long as they're being outmaneuvered by homeowners and landlords, having the boom simply end would work just as well as winning the housing supply fight. Few people are going to miss tech elites if they leave.

Rents in San Francisco rose faster in the 20 years before 1995 than they did in the 20 years after.

Guy drives past in a lambo vs. screaming person pooping on sidewalk after shooting up. It’s a tough call!

Maybe it is a tough call, because the guy shitting on the sidewalk isn't living in your previous apartment at twice the price.

Rich people don't want to live in your 100 year old apartment with 50 year old finishes. Unfortunately, in San Francisco, they don't have any other choice.

That, I agree with. San Francisco should have built more housing to accommodate the growth. Though if people are leaving already, I can also see why developers might have been reluctant to bet too big on new construction.

Developers were more than willing to bet on new construction, but it's mostly outlawed in the city.

San Francisco's housing stock also suffers because they have made renovation of rental properties illegal.

(Technically, they've only enforced price controls which make made profitable renovation illegal, but it has the same effect.)

> I can also see why developers might have been reluctant to bet too big on new construction

Why would that be?

Because if "tech elites" actually are leaving, then the increase in demand will have been proven to be transient

Surely many developers would have made the bet anyway, at least in 2010-2019, but going forward it'll be worth considering whether building housing for people who are likely to leave en masse is worth the risk.

Rents are still among the highest in the country. There is plenty of demand.

"transient" for 30 years? It takes much less to gather investments, build houses and sell them.

People are building houses in countries where they sell at 20x lower prices.

Unless construction workers in SV are paid 1 million $ / year, the reason for not building is not that it's not (hugely) profitable.

Despite the idiotic downvotes you are absolutely right.

A minority of people can afford living in an expensive and safe area.

The majority is forced to choose less expensive, even if less safe, areas.

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