Their combined salary of $30,000 per year would now be about $71,000.
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
However, the article says "$900-$1000" was for "an apartment" without specifying the number of rooms. It seems reasonable that it might've been a 2 bedroom apartment.
The rent jumps and illegal/shady evictions starting maybe 2010-2012 effectively pushed out a fraction of those surviving on rent control plus many of the merely upper-middle-class out of the city, leaving the wealthy and big-5 programmers getting huge salaries for 80-hour-days during the whole of the best years of their lives.
The thing about the situation the city hasn't "upgraded" but rather has been left gray and boring (yet fearful and hyperkinetic). Pretty sad compared to the lively punks I saw squatting old industrial buildings in 1984. Even that was sad compared to the summer of love I assume but I wasn't around for anything but the end of that.
The next big rent spike came around '98 or so, as the dot com boom was in full swing. Rents didn't only shoot up, it got so that there was no housing left to be had. You could show up to an open rental with stellar credit and references, only to have someone else offer the landlord 25% above the asking rent, and pay the entire first year in advance.
The only thing SF has going for it is the people, but sooner or later the right social pressures could cause a mass exodus, and I wonder what those pressures look like.
And the answer is: It will continue as long as people are willing to pay the rent.
I understand from your post that you are fed up with the high rent and the low quality of living. But the most important part of what you said is the fact that you are still willing to pay, and you are still willing to stay, despite all of the disadvantages. In other words, you have decided (whether you like it or not) that in your case the advantages of living in SF outweigh all of the disadvantages.
And there are many others like you. You are all collectively voting for things to continue the way they are.
Making it stop would require you (or others like you) to decide the trade-off isn't worth it.
While I hear what you’re saying, I’m musing more specifically on what that function looks like. I understand “it will continue as long as it can” but looking for a less rhetorical answer.
The more people who get screwed by housing, the more political power we will gain, until something eventually gives out, and we start winning the political game.
https://www.sfgate.com/expensive-san-francisco/article/Bay-A...
"The Bay Area exodus is real and ongoing. The region leads the nation for outward migration, a new study has found."
the northernmost large snow-free area
Why would that be the case, rather than the social pressures (it sucks to try to live here) reaching a dynamic equilibrium with the economic forces (companies and people are more productive here and will compensate you well for the extra trouble)?
I can only think of two reasons for a sudden 'mass exodus':
1. People to 'suddenly realize' that they are getting a bad deal; but isn't it pretty much public knowledge that housing in the Bay Area sucks, and will continue to suck?
2. Outside factors suddenly slow down tech hiring (recession, tech crisis)
Unlike San Fransisco, no one wants to live here.
So the situation will continue as long as jobs remain in the bay area.
The best thing about the gentrication war is all the trustfund liberal arts crowds shaming tech workers for trying to make a living.
It's not like this is new, it's the natural order of capitalizing on development. If you want to hang with the arts kids, you'll be living in squalor. I mean hell, Vancouver used to be a giant powerhouse of culture generation, post-exodus the amount of cultural importance is rapidly decreasing spreading to other nearby locations.
I also think that rent control is disrespectful to the rights of the property owner. Other than making sure that there is no discrimination, and that properties aren't fire traps, government should get out of the way.
"blighted parts of the city" are often homes to people and the place where their communities are located. These people see themselves priced out of the place they've lived for years and are forced to start a new life elsewhere when the area they live in is gentrified. This is incredibly stressful and hugely disruptive to these people's lives and it's not unreasonable that they desire some protection for their way of life.
The recognition of this fact is also the source of rent control (whether rent control is the right mechanism to prevent these hardships is another conversation). Without societal protections landlords wield a huge amount of power over tenants, raising rent by exorbitant amounts is no different than eviction for most families. In a desire to protect their own communities and livelihoods many residents vote for such policies.
And what about current residents who need to move? Suppose a disadvantaged woman decides to leave her abusive husband and is trying to find another place to move into. Is it fair that her well-being is completely neglected?
I'm all in favor of the intentions behind rent control, but the implementation is an atrocious way to achieving its goals. If the goal is to help the poor long-time residents of a city, then do that directly. Raise property taxes, impose a city-income-tax, and use the proceeds to offer assistance to means-tested long-time residents. This would be far better than what SF has currently.
To some, gentrification is the process of a place becoming nicer, there are more options to eat out, the city services in an area increase etc
To others, gentrification is the process of a place changing in a way that makes them feel alien in their home. New and different people move in, their favorite businesses close down, the closest laundromat closes down so now the next closest one is an additonal 5 minute walk. The prices everywhere rise, what used to cost you 5 dollars now costs you 10, and its hard to live like that because you only make 30k/year, taking home maybe 1.8k/month. You apply to jobs at a few of these new places, and the first 5 places casually turned you down despite their "help wanted" sign and your job experience as a bar tender/server. The 6th place accepts you, but your job is pretty bad because all of the patrons of the bar treat you like "the help".
To others, gentrification means rents go up more than you can afford and you get evicted and need to move away from your family and friends and your support structure.
Is there an inherent right of way for property owners over renters on the residential moral crossroads? If you’ve grown up in a neighbourhood, raised your own kids in that neighbourhood, spent time in and on the neighbourhood, don’t you deserve some respect? People without the fiscal wherewithal (nor social impetus) to buy, but who spent effort safe guarding their community, organising events for locals, tending to parks, churches; they created the neighbourhood. They added value to every single property. But God forbid they were not raised to “buy”: make way for the Propery Owner!
I find this incongruous with what I’ve seen around me time and time again. People who’ve suffered through the hardest times of an area get pushed out when it does better. They deserved it the most, but got hoodwinked for the newer, flashier wind.
Not unlike a spouse who stays with their partner through a tough disease, depression, or poverty, only to be dumped for a more beautiful and opportunistic competitor when the hardship has sailed.
I’m not a staunch anti gentrifier (hell, I gentrify!), but I find using the word “respect” a bridge too far.
To use your analogy, if you don't put a ring on it you might lose it [your partner]. At least if one is divorced there is likely some alimony.
I suspect much of the real problem with gentrification involves the legacy of redlining and other abuses of vulnerable populations, like predatory contract loans and subprime mortgages. If populations such as inner-city blacks weren't systematically prevented from purchasing property in past decades gentrification would probably be much less a hot-button issue.
Absolutely! You completely deserve respect! Of course, every human being deserves some effing respect.
What "respect" means in terms of public policy is sometimes a complex question. I think the person you're responding to is using it in a legalistic sense, where "disrespect" could probably be replaced with "abrogating" or "breaching". Your usage seems a tad bit different.
No, but rent control is counterproductive and hurts many of the people it purports to help. What are its effects?
It encourages landlords to neglect properties. As one socialist economist quipped, "In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing." After World War II, Paris enacted rent control leading to the loss of tens of thousands of existing units. When rent control was banned in Cambridge, MA, the valuation of never-controlled properties rose more rapidly than previously rent controlled properties. This implies that the never-controlled properties were better maintained.
It accrues financial gains to people who tend to be older and more affluent. People with lucrative employment are more able to stay in place for longer. They can ride out the downturns.
It limits supply. This increases median rents for newly available units. It discourages the construction of new units.
It encourages over consumption. Empty nesters don't downsize. This makes it harder for young families to find housing. SF has the lowest portion of children of any major American city.
It privatizes a public problem.
As far as solving a housing crisis goes, rent control is about as helpful as arson.
What you typically see is long-time neighborhood residents being displaced by wealthier newcomers. In a poor neighborhood, this means that people who are already vulnerable, especially those that are renting also have to cope with a whole new set of problems -- landlords who desperately want to evict them, cost-of-living increases, increased pressure from law enforcement.
The Bay doesn't have resources for people who find themselves in this position. My old housemate in west Oakland, in her early 30s and well-educated, but with health issues, is being forced from the bay. She grew up in Berkeley and Oakland. This is her home. I'm sad.
There's rent control, Proposition 13, and fixed rate mortgages. Those greatly help long time homeowner.
Homeowners lock in low interest rates and fixed monthly payments. If inflation hits you're still paying the same. Possibly 1/5th the amount that your neighbor might be paying if you've had your house for a while.
With Proposition 13 your property tax won't go up more than 2% despite double digital home price inflation year after year in the bay area.
The amount of equity generated each year is often more than peoples' entire salaries.
That's not to say that nice amenities are what everyone wants. Some people want to keep the character of their small towns no matter what. But in the former case there's a loss of small-town-ness for amenities that theoretically benefit everyone, whereas in the latter case it's purely an extraction of money from the young to the old.
Which is curious given that you then turn around and talk about "rights of the property owner". Gentrification is largely about a wealthy group of people declaring that they will do more useful things with a neighborhood than the current residents would, so they should be allowed to move in and take over, whether through economic coercion (driving up prices and rents) or through legal coercion (having buildings condemned, properties seized to be "improved", etc.).
Right-leaning people I know generally sympathize with those living in the rural blight, and their desires to stay in their hometowns and avoid displacement. Left-leaning people tend to say the rural folk need to suck it up and move to the city like everyone else, if they want better opportunities.
Then folk on either side tend to do an about-face when it comes to urban gentrification. Right-leaners tend to support gentrification and all it entails, and the left-leaners suddenly want rework local/national laws to allow the would-be displaced to remain in their homes.
Maybe Facebook can find a way to monetize those social relations, so the could be recognized as having a value. (/s)
I disagree. Gentrification has cultural impacts that can reshape society in positive and negative ways.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/magazine/when-gentrificat...
Rent control is a band-aid solution to displacement caused by NIMBYism and the surplus of jobs from the tech industry.
I doubt you'd make that argument, though.
Only if you’re talking about well-to-do immigrants, and most of the time that term is reserved for the “undocumented” variety of immigrant, not generally known for bringing a flood of money into an area like Valley techies do.
Your point is actually relevant though, unchecked immigration does indeed have an affect on housing prices, just not quite as dramatically as a horde of tech geeks does.
They are more like homeowners, entitled to protect their land with deadly force.
Tenants are more like tourists: they are welcome as long as they keep paying.
I’m not arguing for or against it, but it’s not an argument ad absurdem.
The tell-tale sign of gentrification is increased homeless people and blights in areas that simultaneously have wealthier people becoming wealthier. While there are bigger extremes, the aggregate and average wealth also increases.
I also agree about government getting out of the way but I wouldn't say that there's nothing wrong with gentrification.
Personally, my theory is that anything that generally increases prosperity also generally increases gentrification.
It is easy to see why once we understand 2 observations:
1) Human abilities, willpower, motivation, etc, follow a Gaussian distribution (bell curve). Intelligence, health, motivation, charisma, etc.
2) Modern civilization has amplifiers that create leverage. These include technology, education, and access to capital.
Take a bell curve and multiply it with an amplifier. A motivated person has access to the Internet to learn whatever they want and financing to create an online business. Modern society provides the tools to greatly expand your life if you so choose. However, few do. Without those tools a gifted individual can not achieve that much more than their neighbors.
The difference between a caveman who is naturally gifted with health, intelligence, and is motivated; and caveman who is not so blessed is not that significant. Even if they wanted to, there isn't much they can do to dramatically improve their condition. They might be able to improve it a little bit but not that much compared to their peers.
If you take those same 2 people and place them in modern civilization, the gifted and motivated individual can accomplish far more, perhaps achieving 1000x more wealth than their peers.
The only way to get rid of gentrification is to get rid of any form of leverage or to collectively deploy force to redistribute wealth -- neither of which I think is a good idea. Doing so means getting rid of anything that increases aggregate standard of living. We would have to give up education, technology, access to capital, etc. Gentrification would be gone, but everyone would be equally poor.
With that being said, I see it as the natural consequence of progress and so I'm not concerned about it from that angle but I wouldn't say I don't see it as a problem.
Class warfare being one of the bigger symptoms of gentrification and it can have devastating effects when governments go through revolutions. Revolutions tend to result in massive destructions of wealth and human life.
So I definitely see gentrification as a bad thing with some nasty side effects, but I also see that prosperity is increasing.
I'm pretty sure you'd sing an entirely different tune if you were.
> Last week I saw a similar report of a man filling up syringes with blood and throwing them at people walking by
https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/8hj7j7/man_ju...
Gentrification and displacement are distinct from the exclusion of potential residents. To get someone's home transferred to you, you generally have to outspend them, so the gentrifier is essentially always richer than than the displaced person (though there could be corner cases with similar means but different willingness to spend on housing, etc).