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Comment by gnosis | Hacker News Reader

From what I understand, efforts in other cities to build upwards to house poor people have been a failure.

That strategy results in large populations where poverty is highly concentrated. This leads to those areas becoming breeding grounds for crime and hopelessness. Over and over again in the US, large scale projects have exhibited this pattern of failure.

That's not to say that building affordable housing shouldn't be a priority. Indeed it should. But it might make more sense to build lots of small scale housing, with a focus on building viable community spaces rather than large scale ghettoes.

Also, rent control should be more widespread, instead of relentlessly fought against. This way, the housing that's created will have a chance to remain affordable, instead of constantly being at risk of gentrification.

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> From what I understand, efforts in other cities to build upwards to house poor people have been a failure.

You could always build upward to house the rich people instead. I'm sure a lot of the incoming startup-types are young and would be happy to live in a high-rise (The correlation between youth and high-rise-living coming, in my experience, from the fact that people with kids often want more space. But that's not a hard-and-fast rule, obviously.).

> But it might make more sense to build lots of small scale housing, with a focus on building viable community spaces rather large scale ghettoes.

I'm not sure if SF has the land space to build lots of small-scale housing. I totally agree about building nice community spaces, though, and I think high-rise building is compatible with that (e.g., Manhattan's pocket parks).

"You could always build upward to house the rich people instead. I'm sure a lot of the incoming startup-types are young and would be happy to live in a high-rise"

You have to remember that San Francisco is a prime earthquake zone. I'm not sure how many rich people would want to live in what is essentially a death trap if a major earthquake (which is supposedly long overdue) were to strike California.

Also, gentrification tends to happen when wealthier people decide to move in to "hip", "happening" areas with "character". In other words, areas that the poor artists and the blue-collar melting pot have managed to just lift out of being a hellhole, through their hard effort. That's when the yuppie and hipster colonization begins. Witness the fate of the Greenwich Village and Williamsburg in NYC, and what's described in the original article in respect to SF.

So, I'm not sure how attractive high rises built for the rich would be to the rich themselves, as they'd be cultureless islands. No, they much prefer to take over brownstones and victorians that poor artists have fixed up, in an area full of "character".

> You have to remember that San Francisco is a prime earthquake zone. I'm not sure how many rich people would want to live in what is essentially a death trap if a major earthquake (which is supposedly long overdue) were to strike California.

Have you seen what Tokyo looks like?

http://i.imgur.com/a4GQL.jpg

Don't give me that bullshit.

Actually, that photo is a little misleading. Sure, there are some tall buildings in Tokyo, but for a city that size the number of skyscraper class buildings is actually quite low. Tokyo is more an endless sprawl of lowrises and single family dwellings.

It doesn't matter if the percentage of skyscrapers is low, the point is that a large number of them has been built in absolute terms while strictly complying with earthquake regulations. That is, it is entirely possible to safely build skyscrapers in an earthquake zone.

There are a variety of other reasons for Tokyo's urban sprawl, not least the presence of what is the world's most comprehensive public transportation system.

I completely agree with you. My point was more along the lines of: don't look at Tokyo as an example of building upwards in an earthquake-prone zone to combat housing shortages. Tokyo has sprawled, and built said public transportation network to deal with it.

In earthquakes Taller buildings are safer than smaller buildings http://articles.latimes.com/2007/mar/25/opinion/op-little25

Also, go to the the hip neighborhoods in NYC (LES Williamsburg), notice the tall buildings being built. Units in these buildings are being bought for large amounts of money.

I think

> So, I'm not sure how attractive high rises built for the rich would be to the rich themselves

There are four units for sale at the (42-story) Infinity now, and the cheapest one has an asking price over $1.2 million. In my book, that's for rich people. If you consider a $1.2 million condo a middle-class dwelling, you may have lived in San Francisco for too long.

Tell that to downtown Vancouver, BC:

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=vancouver%2Cbc

Isn't building earthquake safe highrises pretty much a solved problem? When I think "ring of fire", I don't think "flats".

rut roh, all those new highrises in downtown LA....

The op said nothing of poor people.

There are plenty of cities in the world that have built up without becoming ghettos. Singapore, Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York to name a few. High rise housing != ghetto

The gentrification that's happening in SF and that's described in the original article is happening because the rich are pushing out the original residents -- who were indeed poor.

From the article:

  Again and again, you hear of teachers, nurses, firefighters, police
  officers, artists, hotel and restaurant workers, and others with no
  stake in the new digital gold rush being squeezed out of the city.

  ...

  Bernal Heights in those years was a glorious urban mix of deeply
  rooted blue-collar families, underground artists, radical activists,
  and lesbian settlers

In general, the people described above would be considered poor.

As for high rise apartments not necessarily being ghettoes. That's obviously true. High priced apartment complexes and skyscrapers housing businesses are what constitute much of the "building up" in the cities you mention. It's only when building up is combined with low-cost housing that problems begin. But building up isn't the problem per se, but rather it's the high concentration of poverty that such projects encourage.

It seems like your missing the point. The reason there is no affordable housing is because the city doesn't allow building up so SF is stuck with only existing housing. As it gets more desirable those prices will continue to rise. There's only really a few possible paths forward

1) leave it as is. Prices continue to climb

2) allow building up. Prices come down as supply meets demand

3) some how make sf less desirable lowering demand

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