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Comment by ryguytilidie | Hacker News Reader

Yeah this argument just kills me. I used to live in a $2k apartment across the street from Google SF. My rent got raised to $4300 because they knew Google employees would pay it. Did I go throw rocks at Google buses? No. Did I move to a place I could afford? Yes. The idea that me, as a startup employee making a decent wage can't afford to live there, yet thousands of people who are things like "artists and poets" are upset they can't afford it is absolute madness. The reason housing is expensive is because lots of people desire it, the idea that we should make sure to reserve places for people who can't afford to live there makes no sense at all.

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While technically you're correct, it doesn't mean you're right. It's not so easy to uproot a family from their home and start new somewhere else. It's been stated several times in each of these discussions that many of those who can't afford the housing increase are the ones who've spent generations in the area. Pushing out area natives and alienating the poor for not 'living where they can afford' is no way to build a community.

I consider this to be little more than a testament to owning rather than renting. If people have spent generations in the area but are renting, then they were always living on borrowed time anyway. If you've lived there for years and own your flat, it makes zero difference what the housing market looks like today.

That's not really true. Property taxes are usually assessed based on the value of the property and that rises with the housing market. People are sometimes priced out of areas even when they own their home.

> when real property is purchased, the county assessor assigns it an assessed value that is equal to its purchase price, or “acquisition value.” Each year thereafter, the property’s assessed value increases by 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. This process continues until the property is sold, at which point the county assessor again assigns it an assessed value equal to its most recent purchase price. [1]

If you have owned your home for awhile, your property taxes are not changing that much. Your assessed value starts with the purchase price and increases, at most, 2% each year. This house[2] listed on Zillow is a great example. It sold in 1973 for $32K. For the passed 40 years they've been paying property taxes based on the $32K plus ~2% increase each year (I'm not sure how far back that 2% max increase goes). In 2013, the assessed value was still down at $72K... meaning $997 in property taxes. That same year the house was sold for $875K. Now the assessed value resets to market value and the new property taxes will be like $11k rather than the previous year's $1K. So even though the housing prices skyrocketed around them, the previous owner of the house wasn't really effected by that increase.

[1] http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2012/tax/property-tax-primer-1... [2] http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3245-Anza-St-San-Francisco...

If you decide to rent in one of, if not the highest demand city in the United States, live on a thin margin and start a family, its hard to have sympathy when you're forced to move them to, gasp, San Ramon. It's certainly no way to build a community, but I don't think demonizing people who work 60 hours a week and make 140k is the way to do it either.

Except somehow, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Portland, and Philadelphia all manage to do it despite none of those cities having rent control.

http://www.nmhc.org/Article.cfm?ItemNumber=53961

None of those cities are anywhere close to as expensive as SF/NYC. And part of reason Chicago has "affordable" housing is because vast swaths of the south and west side are dangerous, gang-infested, and neglected by city services.

> None of those cities are anywhere close to as expensive as SF/NYC

I suppose you believe that NYC and SF have rent control because housing is so expensive there.

Have you considered the possibility that you have it backwards?

Obviously having rent-controlled apartments will increase the price of non-controlled units somewhat.

But I certainly don't think that rent-control is the primary driver of high housing costs in SF/NY.

"the idea that we should make sure to reserve places for people who can't afford to live there makes no sense at all."

Tell NYC that.

I'm all for living where you can afford.

But not everybody on Google is a high payed SW engineer. And there's not only top engineers/managers/designers living in a city.

And for $4300 I can live in a very nice place even in other high valued cities.

Your office janitors, cafeteria workers, street cleaners, waste disposal workers, coffeeshop baristas, taxicab drivers, bus drivers, teachers, day care workers, post office workers, food servers, chefs, etc. can't afford to live there. The reason you want to live there is because they made it desirable for you.

And where do you suggest that all the other residents of San Francisco move? The street?

Well... the street is a pretty drastic first move. My first suggestion would be "some place you can afford." I've known several people that left the Valley (actually, California entirely) because they were finding it hard to afford stuff.

You're making it sound like they are entitled to stay there. Just move to somewhere within your price range.

Things change. Get over it.

I moved to Richmond. An engineer I'm friends with just moved to Pleasanton. Why should this well paid people be forced to move out of SF while we're creating low cost housing for artists? How does this make any sense?

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