yep, hahaha and imagine just transportation. You would have to pay like 100k for parking then. You are absolutely right, that argument is mindbogglingly stupid.
@@garlandstrife no way, for true single family house you need a LOT more than that. Apartments in 100+ floor buildings go for over 5-6 Million. To own the entire land it would be atleast 50 Mil.
Goes to show how density is one of many steps you need to take to make housing affordable. Density does help a lot with the cost of housing, but you need to also consider what type of housing you build. You should prioritize non market housing and public housing (that is as quality as private housing and that takes investment. NYCHA is not what I want, I want Vienna’s model) a bit more than private housing. In an ideal world for me, most housing would be public and like 80% of people would live in either non market housing or public housing (invested in properly) and rents would be very affordable. Private housing would be for profit, but private housing would only make 20% of all available homes and they would largely cater to wealthier people. Point is, the bigger issue other than density is the fact that there is a profit motive in housing and that housing is a commodity and not a right in the US.
People be like "but i dont wanna skyscrapers!" No fam. It's not even skyscrapers. We're literally asking for buildings that's not even 10 stories high. We only want housing to be reached by the average workers, we only want to be able to go do groceries without needing a car. We just want to be able to bike through the streets without bothering drivers. We just want to be able to go to work at downtown, see our family at the coty nextdoor, and feast in the near chinatown without even stepping on a car because there's affordable transit. We want an America where people can freely live in a detached house, a condo, a rowhouse, an apartment, a duplex, a triplex, and other variety of houses that fit our needs. We want an America where people can freely choose how they go to places they need to go and not just stuck with the option of riding a big clunck of steel with wheels. We want an America where people can have the freedom of being able to be close to what they need without having to cross a 6 lane Stroads, driving an overly expensive car, or fearing to die from a crash. We want a free America, that gives their people the freedom to live comfortably. C'mon guys, we always say that we're the best at stuff. Now, we don't wanna to lose to the europeans do we? Let's show them we can compete with them and be the best country in the world that we always said we do. Now, in Housing Options, walkable neigborhoods, and Transit Options.
@@ahmedzakikhan7639 Americans are known to be ignorant of facts and value their feelings and fears over anything, many think US have the best of everything
That guy is a joke, he doesn't want the increase in housing supply decreasing the values of him and his cronies' assets. Affordable housing to him means less money in his pocket. That man should be ashamed, he is the human embodiment of greed. His sweat looks like it smells like Gatorade. He should live in a tent for a week under the bridge near my house.
@Real Napster it would, especially because the culture is currently developed around urban sprawl and suburban living. But it's still killing it slowly.
Right I agree with you. People can have there big house with big backyard and at least have a 2-3 story building with housing and stores so it makes the neighborhood walkable and more interesting. That all were asking if these dense people think it will destroy there homes smh.
@@nancybaumgartner6774Nobody is doing that. Nobody will seize your property to convert it into a duplex or condo. If your neighborhood changes, then the changes are because the demand was there for it to do that, not because people want to force change.
We need the missing middle. We can have suburbs with duplexes, cottage homes, single-family homes, and even SROs can be in the same neighborhood. There are types of housing which aren't high rises or single family homes!
@@alicewalton7821 Not everyone wants to live with other people. My grandmother's house on Lake St. a ONE bedroom 2 story home was for JUST HER. She earned it. When she died and my mom sold it to someone who was going to make it a 3 unit and flip it? The neighborhood got together and stopped him. It's still a SINGLE FAMILY house. He was able to do interior work to make it more bedrooms. Added a floor. You want to live with other people rent an apartment or a condo.
Indeed. Not everyone wants to live in a box in the sky, but not everyone wants to live in an unwalkable, unlivable neighborhood either. I recommend you watch a video by not just bikes about this topic, as well as a second video he's done about this extraordinary streetcar suburb in Toronto. I'm just reading the comments and seeing how everyone thinks this entire think is a quid pro quo and how it's communist. But restrictive zoning laws is one of the reasons why California is so expensive. Only being allowed to build single family homes and apartment towers means the supply can't be met so prices rise. The best cities are the ones that grow naturally, and are built for people, not cars.
@@yesihavealastname1562 the world is ONLY over populated where stupid humans gather in millions. Just another Stupid Human Trick, like religions and politics.
There shouldnt be single zoning in the Bay Area at all, given how many people living there (and how high home prices are). Also the Bay Area needs an extensive public transport network. The infrastructure there is an embarrashment for one of the richest & most technologically advanced region on Earth. Money & brainpower are abundant there!
@@urbanistgod Dude! Use that brain of yours. If we build more apartments, Condos, duplexes and more then we can have lower cost of housing, More local loan or in that area so companies don’t need to bring in foreign workers and the infrastructure actually gets used
@@kevo212 if you don't increase the supply of housing the prices will go up and real Californians will be forced to move out. Idiotic policy by short sighted politicians like Reagan and Feinstein exacerbated this problem and ruined San Francisco and Los Angeles. Then they passed prop 13 to cover up the problem. There's not too many people in California, there's too many cars and traffic because of SFH zoning
One way is to dezone agriculture land. Agriculture takes over 80% of total water usage. Faming industry can relocate to the deep south and midwest where land is more fertile and cheaper.
Good idea, i mean how long can we watch these pristine neighborhoods and watch people who are indigenous to this land be homeless living in a tent? While you have some rich foreign investor building mansions for the rich! Time to wake up California and take back your state!
No one’s squatting and setting up a duplex on your property. Getting rid of single family zoning gives flexibility to developers and property owners to usually build up to 3-4 units on a lot.
@@matthewbiehl3412 it essentially forces out single family houses, similar to Europe. Are these great quadplexes affordable in Europe? I don't think so.
That's how we got to the car dependent system we currently live in. The powerful auto industry demonizing pedestrians, buying up public transit then running it to the ground and getting into powerful government positions to get the money they needed for their superhighways (later the Interstate highway system) Heck, the boss of GM became Eisenhower's Defense Secretary, and the gas tax was created by the auto industry lobbying for it. Every major city planning feature: single family zoning, lack of transit funding, and parking minimums were all done to ensure the auto industry could sell as many cars as possible and fatten their plate.
If you really think building brand new units is going to lower rent, then I have a bridge to sell you. It cost a lot to build places, and they aren’t going to turn around & rent them out for a small amount. It cost a lot to buy or rent; it’s sad, but that’s the way it is.
Free advice for people on fixed incomes. Don't move to LA, SF and major cities in Cali. You can find 4000ft housing for 650k in riverside. Beautiful community
What they are after here are the "middle, like duplexes or a complexs that is under 4 stories that can house multiple units but share some amenities like parking...or even A playground/garden.
I just like most people just want a rowhouse or a condo in a nice low or mid rise structure. I hate having to do yard maintenance and my kids prefer public green spaces or inside playing on their ps4 console. The sweet middle is missing.
When areas have more houses per lot, infrastructure is more efficient overall. Sewer or water pipes may need widening underground, but it is more efficient than continuing to build miles and miles of pipes into low-density and sprawling developments. Another example is with denser development, public transportation is more effective, and those options can transport people with much less resource use than paving new roads or expand existing roads, plus the energy and emissions going into car development, etc.
Are they going to put in more freeways to get to all these new places? Then we’ll have eminent domain where many people lose their houses. How are they going to supply water to all these places when we are already running out it? They will be cutting beautiful trees down, and the neighborhoods will turn into ghettos.
Really? Careful of what you ask for... Maybe do some really good research into cities like NYC and their housing programs and how bad some of their neighborhoods are before you commit.
@@lovecate1 fair point, doesnt have to be luxury only but I should clarify NOT low-income housing. We’ve had condos built two blocks from my house and with Wholefoods, Equinox, Mendocino, etc moving into our neighborhood shortly after, its been so convenient and property values have only gone up.
@@dudoji85 Sometimes politians only tell you part of their plan upfront. Yes, right now they are saying the middle class will get this housing knowing that they are planning to expand that 5 yrs from now to include others. Just stay on top of this issue and attend as many meetings as possible.
We should make laws against housing monopolies- oh wait, that wouldn’t be profitable. In the name of racism and hardships, please allow us to remove the laws preventing us from making more money.
I just got off the phone with Capitalism. After much consideration, he responded with “F*** the working class”. I let him know that greed kills and revolution is possible.
@@pohakumana More like Marxist stuck in a state full of Trump supporters that have overindulged in conspiratorial thinking and religion rhetoric. You’re just about as far off as you could possibly be.
The real problem is minimum parking requirements. If you remove this you'll get more human spaces built. Buildings instead of parking lots and parking structures, taller buildings as developers are no longer constrained by the need to provide parking per floor, more walkable neighborhoods, less need for car infrastructure.
But who wants to walk around when criminals are being released early from prison? People talk about this public transit walkable cities when in reality transit stations are magnets for crime.
@@diegoflores9237You can live wherever you want, seems like you'd rather live in a car centric suburb. Hey, that's cool. Obviously there are people who want to live in NYC, San Fransisco, Chicago, Boston otherwise rents wouldn't be so high. Singapore, Tokyo, HongKong, Zurich, Stockholm have walkable cities with great public transit systems. They don't have a great deal of crime compared to many unwalkable American cities. Crime is a reflection of our society's priorities, not a result of public transit.
@@Basta11 we can used the money we save from road building and use it for mental institutions , a win win situation for society. I get to travel without cars, and people get the help they need.
We haven't built housing at the pace of growth since the 1970s. When did affordability start to decline, you guess it, the 1970s. We need more housing now! Call your state representative and demand statewide upzoning that forces NIMBY cities to abandon their exclusionary ways.
@@acommentator69 Theres so many pieces to this puzzle. And its disturbing how many people dont grasp how deep in the hole we are. They just keep talking about surface problems when those are far from the underlying problems.
Too bad people are stupid and don't get that. Great comment there, that's exactly what's happening to the housing market. High interest rates should crush it if it's kept long enough. These people are nothing but thieves legalizing themselves.
True... have you noticed they keep building Luxury Apartments...??? Yet no houses? They say it’s not supply and demand it is though.... not enough houses to go around so supply is low and prices keep going up.
Bingo. We shall all be renters living in small apartments. While the rich get to have cars and single-family homes, the rest of us will be forced into rental apartments and mass transit systems that take hours to get to work. REITs, pension funds, corporate real estate firms, AirBnB landlords are all bidding up the price of housing. The rich have run out of places to store their money and need new investment vehicles.
@@davidkellogg9728 yeah it's all well in fun until you have a water saving kitchen sink. I have a water saving kitchen sink. I literally fill my water cups and my coffee pot from my bath faucet because of it
Although coming up with a single family zoning was racist of Berkeley to do in the early 1900, it was no different from the kind of stuff going on in the US in those days . There are clauses in the San Francisco neighborhoods which prohibited sale of properties to Asians, Blacks and JEWS in those days. And let's not forget the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892 .
I don't think anybody's saying it's going to completely solve the problem, but any long term solution is going to require finding ways to greatly increase the available housing stock and this is a start.
Baby boom-era generations in the past were spoiled rotten with low-priced single family homes on seemingly-endless swaths of land as the nation suburbanized. Now that supply is reaching its limits, and unless these 1950s-era zoning restrictions are reversed, people will be priced out of their hometowns, home prices will continue to skyrocket out of control to where they're being used as investments rather than necessity, and the homeless problem will grow even worse. Getting rid of single-family zoning won't solve the affordability crisis overnight, but it's a start.
We have rent control in SF... But when someone leaves, the landlord can charge whatever they want. There's deals out there, I have one. The issue is we have over 25% of houses in SF vacant because they are foreign owned by people who bought them as an investment never intending to use or rent them.
@@brandonannisette6023 Spain has way higher home ownership rates and Spain also has a way higher percentage of people living in multi-family homes and apartments than the US. Singapore has a home ownership rate of 89%, the highest in the world. Take a look at Singapore as well and you will also see that most people there also live in multi-family homes. The US has a home ownership rate of 65%. You know you can own an apartment you live in, yes?
Lol single family homes aren't the problem. The problem is artificial inflation in cities caused by businesses that want higher profit margins than is sensible. Plus a lack of economic development in places outside of "city" areas
People always leave out artificial inflation, speculation from investors and so many other things. And thats not even getting into the reality that should we all be cramming ourselves in major cities. Shouldnt we have big companies actually invest in smaller cities and spread people out? Then you also have the fact that everything they build now is not aimed at the average joe, Its aimed at people making 100K or more a year and has all the high end treatments. There is no such thing as a starter home anymore.
I find frustration on how expensive living in California! It's ridiculous! My senior father live with me and my brother and we w k rk full time job's and STILL can't afford finding a new place to rent because that's also expensive. Now our land lord wants us to move out this house we were renting because her greeting self also wants that piece of cake because they are in that GREETY person. I cry so much and started this week.
This is going to sound strange but it might actually be time to stop job growth in some spots... Its a crazy idea but what cost dose it come to is the city going to pay those home owners the cost to move so their block of 50 families can become a block of 1000 families... Why not recommend new companies to move down the road to areas that need the job growth and population boost...
Companies congregate in cities because it is the best way to gain access to the specialized workers that they need. That's why so many tech companies congregate in the Silicon Valley even though it's so expensive, it's the best way for them to get access to all the hyper specific tech workers they need. If you built up a tech company outside that area, you're gonna have a hard time finding the specific software engineers you need, and you will probably have to pay extra to relocate them to where you are. That's why you have cities built around specific industries, Bay Area for tech, Los Angeles for entertainment, New York is like everything all in one. Having hubs in cities also makes room for industry-specific small businesses to prop up to do subcontract work for the big companies. There are some industries with broad talent pools that can do fine wherever you put them, but those companies don't put themselves in big cities anyways, why would they if the land/rent in a city is so expensive. Our society is moving towards increased specialization, and specialization works best when people can congregate in one place. We need to build cities that can support specialized industries and we are failing, and if we fail too hard, they might just move off to a country where they can do business more efficiently.
no body is forcing the 5 people out there houses it just that say one of the 50 people wanna make there property able to house 2 3 or how many additional families they can. Also it’s good to add more density as car culture is why the US is so unhealthy. we go in cars to go to everything. why not be able to walk to school , to work or to the grocery store . then you don’t even need to go to the gym as you get exercise doing everyday things . PS jobs grow ins one places and not others due to the services that place provides.
Build more, sure. But don’t allow these massive apartment construction companies to be predatory with their pricing and lease cancellation harassment like exorbitant fees for wear and tear.
If you can't afford to live in the Bay Area then move. And Big Tech needs to spread its offices out across the country instead of concentrating everything in such a small area.
If we did this and invested in small town living again, We would far better off. But now, the powers at be and the cities dont want that. Even though small town living could actually be pretty good now and we wouldnt lose anything.
@@kevo212 Not all people who aren’t paid a lot are bad at their jobs, but it definitely is low for those occupations in the area, which was my point. Maybe he’s a public defender or works for a nonprofit that does pro-bono legal work? Those are the only explanations I can think of.
@@MattSezer true true, I didn't think of that. Just seems extremely low... That's something they should talk about before they both take lower salary jobs in their profession and then decide to live in Cali lol
People need to live within commuting distance of jobs/economic opportunity, and in practice that often means clustering around these expensive urban areas.
Yes, please...best to go out of state. California is too dense with population. Best to develop other cities and states. 7 Bungalow Courts and quadraplexes okay... Build houses in States where the water supply is sourced and abundant. Thank you.
California is not dense AT ALL!! There's just too many CARS! Waste of space building parking lots instead of apartments. PLENTY of water in Northern California!!!
Californian cities must abolish single family zoning. San Jose is notorious with having 95% of residential areas dedicated only to single family homes.
@@franke2273 um, you seem to forget that California has a water crisis nowadays? More sprawl is dangerous to the environment. Some duplexes and triplexes would be just fine, and can still blend in to preserve neighborhood character, which is why I am puzzled why even those are opposed by NIMBYs.
We really missed our chance the last year and a half, We could have scored big on population reduction. But instead everyone begged for protection and to be kept alive. All for the cause of less people until you realize your number might be up lol.
I am generally against single family exclusive zoning. That doesn't mean I want to ban single family homes. Just open up the regulations/zoning and allow the market to decide. That means no more or far less mandatory parking minimums. No more or far less setback requirements. No more or far less minimum lot sizes for buildings. No more banning of mid sized housing/mixed use development buildings. That means chill on the giant minimum road sizes. Use smaller more maneuverable firetrucks like they do in literally everywhere else on earth. Increase ambulance fleet sizes so firetrucks don't get dispatched to calls that don't require specifically a firetruck.
Chicago has a really beautiful downtown and very walkable neighborhoods and very low price. Twin cities as well is a great place. But those are only 2 good midwest cities to raise families
@Real Napster The major cities that have all the issues lol. Thats another piece to this puzzle. But everyone just focuses on the poor and unaffordability. They miss so many other societal issues that are staring them in the face, or that they themselves actively promote on the daily.
How about allowing RVs and vans and providing utilities? There's an idea. Oh yeah you can't tax or pay mortgages on Rvs or Vans so it would never get approved since lawmakers and banks are all in bed together. Yeah, just move.
They've got a lot of work to do to make San Francisco a City that is for regular working People again, as well as the wealthy. When I was living in CA. I spent a week in San Francisco, beautiful, diverse city, I walked all over the place, and I stayed in a old high rise Hotel, that was I think about 20$ a night, give the 20$ and get Your Pillow, but that was 30 Years ago! That place is probably closed and demolished now I bet.
About the traffic, if the dense housing is near stores, schools, etc they won't need a car. Well, they would need great public transit. IDK how many American cities have great public transit
It also means more tax revenue per unit area of land. In many metrics low density suburbs have a greater cost per capita for public goods such as roads
Also means less people will have cars because most people don't want cars in first place, except car enthusiasts which only make under 10 percent of population. So more dense walkable cities and suburbs with great public transport means elimination of suvs and only manual transmission sports cars will be made, and everyone will be happy.
@@GhostOfAMachine Even without SUVs all over the place driving in cities/suburbia sucks. Driving is best for society and the driver on side roads and in the country side.
We are talking about new developments here. If all new suburbs constructed consisted of duplexes(or bigger) that would alleviate a lot of pressure on demand.
@@slitor But they never build affordable places anymore. All new housing is strictly high end builds. and any truely affordable housing is made to be section 8. How do I know? I used to deliver plumbing supplies in Denver to all the new construction. And everything that was deemed affordable was either still very expensive or was section 8. But the normal housing was all high end, half million dollar homes. Theres so much wrong with the housing market that density just isnt going to do anything. Its litterally greed and a scam. City zoning rules are only a small part of the issue. The rest is the developer, special interests groups, local governance and possibly some people who wish to enact social experiments. But no one ever dares talk about this.
@@joshuakhaos4451 They build high-end because of lack of space, BECAUSE of the Single-family only zones! If you are only building on one alotment for only one family, of course they are gonna maximize that profit.
@@slitor Then why were there such things as starter homes prior to 08?? why the sudden switch to nothing but gigantic luxury homes that most cant afford?
The big picture of everything related to urban planning in the US comes down to one simple thing. Money in Politics. The U.S. is planned the way it is by the automotive lobby. It’s designed to make as high of profits for automotive companies as possible, at whatever expense. That expense is our social lives, our ability to breathe good air, the climate, and our mobility, among other things. The things that allow for auto centric infrastructure include building large freeways, building stroads of at least 6 lanes, residential only zoning, single family zoning, strict parking requirements, large lot sizes, setback requirements (ty not just bikes for mentioning this), and the construction of power centers that have lots of parking. US infrastructure is designed to make walking and biking literally impossible and make driving your only option ever. The members of the automotive lobby include Automakers such as GM, fossil fuel companies such as Chevron, gasoline station convenience store chains such as Circle K, Rubber companies such as Goodyear, parts companies such as Delphi, insurance companies such as Progressive, mechanic companies such as Discount Tires, auto part retailers such as AutoZone, suburban retail companies such as Target, Walmart of course, suburban mall companies such as Simon Property Group, fast food chains which make bank off drive thru such as McDonalds or Taco Bell, Car dealers, people who own billboards because those make money and they are on the side of the road, police departments which collect lots of fines, courts that collect court fees, states that collect money from gasoline taxes, hospital companies that make money off people having car accidents, law firms that make tons of money off of injury cases that are caused by bad car accidents, trucking companies such as Swift, Class I Railroads such as Norfolk Southern, house building companies such as Lennar which profit from single family home building but not at all from any 7-plex, landlords profit from the housing shortages that are built into this system such as American homes for rent, gyms that profit off of our lack of exercise since we can’t walk anywhere such as Planet fitness, Pharma companies that money medicating us for the conditions that people develop thanks to living in an auto centric place, airline companies that make lots of money off of the lack of high speed rail such as Delta or United, social media firms that make bank off us using their apps for the social interaction we don’t get in the real world thanks to this infrastructure such as Meta or tinder, gig work apps such as Uber or DoorDash, bars which make money off of being the only real third place for so many such as Applebees, cement companies that make lots of money from all of the asphalt that car centric infrastructure needs to be laid, construction companies that build all of the roads, banks that make lots of money off the interest that comes from auto loans and medical loans and loans relating to living in an auto centric society such as Wells Fargo, of course the firms that own companies in any of those industries such as *BlackRock* or *Vanguard* (which they both manage to own just about every company in every industry I mentioned), the media companies that take in a lot of money from all of these different companies and broadcast pro car propaganda in exchange for the money they get to advertise brands, the consulting firms that get paid by auto lobby associates firms to make propaganda for the auto lobby, think tanks that get tons of money from these companies such as the U.S. chamber of commerce, lobbying companies that get sweet commissions from these companies and their think tanks such as the dude who called Joe Manchin “their kingmaker”, and of course, politicians such as Joe Manchin or John Cornyn, or the guys who are running the DNC and filling fossil fuel lobbyists into it, or more likely than not regardless of their party… your city councilors or state legislators who are taking in sweet money from the automotive lobby. If you think about it like I am… the U.S. economy is centered around the car. Like… everything about the US is centered around the car. Most of the places we interact with in America only exist because they center around the car. So many of the jobs that happen to exist in America exist only because of the car. We spend lots of money to keep up infrastructure that isn’t really healthy for us. We spend lots of money to do things much of the rest of the world gets for free because a couple rich men decided that they wanted to build a city to make their personal passive income, and succeeded immensely in doing so. Car centric planning is a part of the infrastructure that helps make the rich richer and the poor poorer as the richest 100-400 families largely own the large companies in the industries that benefit from car centric planning. Car centric planning is making use isolated, broke, and stressed. That isolation is what leads people down the path of radicalization and conspiracy theories and in many cases, racism and bigotry if they they radicalize to the right like what the auto lobby tries to get people to do bc radicalizing the other way means you see the auto lobby as the problem. Crazy thing is… the auto lobby isn’t the only really big lobby. You will see big lobbies have a lot of the same companies and industries if you look into it further. We seriously need to break this economy, let it die, and then make a new not economy but actual society that isn’t based around automobiles and driving and a few people making extraordinary amounts of money.
They should be happy moving to a cheaper area, Portland, instead of complaining. Buy a house with a yard on the outskirts, for much less than the cost of renting an apartment in San Francisco. Lead a simpler life.
Rent is not going down period. Multifamily rental high rises just allow the developer to make more money off less land. And when the contract with the city is up, they will convert and sell all the units as overpriced condos with absurdly inadequate parking.
The lack of housing raises the prices... simple economics... supply and demand look at what’s happening with cars rn... many people want cars but not enough to go around so they raise the price.
We have to be careful with apparent solutions which may bring new issues. Ending single-family housing zones not necessarily makes properties more affordable. See the case of Washington, DC. New condos are being built in areas of single-family houses. The issue is that a new condo can cost 70% to 80% of the value of an actual house (without including condo fees). Unless there is actual control of the properties prices and expected targeted buyer (low income buyers), the idea of ending single-family housing zone is more a way for construction companies/developers to build luxurious apartments which cost as much as a house.
Whats wrong with that? The people with means can live in the more luxurious high density housing while the rest can live in the lower cost housing projects. It's still America, you still have the right to pursue happiness...we aren't fully commie yet.
Yes, but it's not always the new construction where the affordability comes into play. New construction is always likely to command top (or at least good) dollar, but any increase in stock is going to put downward pressure on housing costs somewhere (usually in older housing stock that is now less desirable in comparison to what's being built)
One of the things that make them so expensive is the parking. Parking spaces add 20%-50% of the cost of the apartment. It’s all about square footage - more square feet means more expensive. Parking takes space. Parking requirements also make larger apartment because one way to minimize the amount of parking spots built is to make fewer larger units - hence luxury condos with 2 parking spaces each being practically the cost of a house in the suburbs.
If you eliminate parking requirements then some units will cost 20% - 30%. Instead of $3000 a month with parking, it could be $2000 without. You could also have a larger number of small units like efficiencies with shared communal areas - perfect for single people, couples without kids, students, elderly, transients, long stay tourists, seasonal workers, weekday commuters, and workaholic professionals.
@jim meeks An imaginary example & a 2nd you have never dance recently like I have, seems your loopholes are NYMBY or YIMBY as long as I get to gentrified it, your life is sad!.
@jim meeks I don't approve underneath over another as both or one over the other hasn't work, your thinking is bad from a confused brain, facts not feelings!.
What the mayor of Berkeley did not tell us was that for years the city resisted increasing development of their city, it was the developers who wanted denser housing but not Berkeley residents because the traffic, water, sewage just won't handle more people , this is after all a university town and UC is always expanding.
Once the city is completely bankrupt they will not worry about such things . big tech is starting the next silicon valley overseas . San Francisco will be 100x worse than Detroit .
Thank you for talking about the issues of single-family zoning and housing affordability. Low-density zoning like single-family zoning is an absolutely massive impediment to more affordable housing in cities across the nation. We need to massively increase supply of housing. There are even ways to do this aesthetically and with natural vegetation. It very much is a supply and demand issue; however, it is likely that increasing density and doing nothing else will not fully solve the issue. It is also true that subsidized units for those in various income groups below an area's median income must also be built and/or integrated into market-rate buildings. There are pleasing ways to make these buildings, as well. Additionally, upzoning areas to denser levels brings in more people (who want to be there), which will bring in more tax dollars which can be allocated towards affordable housing. It is about a cycle of inclusivity rather than exclusivity. Not to mention that denser housing, when done in conjunction with responsible land use and transportation planning, reduces carbon dioxide emissions per capita.
You’ve been drinking from the YIMBY koolade. Which is a playbook large developers have written from the top, and have successfully convinced eager young people that this plan will save their planet. It won’t. It will just provide more income for these greedy developers, increase water demand to the limit in CA, increase smog because people will not chose to commute on the bus like you idealistically think they will. Kids will loose yards/ gardens, people will be packed in like sardines, traffic will increase! Wake up and consider you’ve been duped. There’s SO much land in America away from urban cities and single family homes. Areas where new eco homes and communities could be developed, but it costs developers too much. Have you researched the units that these new CA bills will create? Substandard building materials, rules in place that market values with go into affect after 2 decades and only a small percentage of units are even designated for low income. Study up - Yimby’s have been sold a dream for sustainability that will only create worse problems and put money in the developers pockets!! It’s like the greedy leading the blind.
@@kirstin1272 Hi Kirstin, thanks for your reply. I'm not quite convinced that I'm drinking YIMBY kool-aid overseen by developers. Perhaps we can find common ground in the understanding that yes, developers generally do try to maximize profit, often at expense of benefits to people living in those developments and the larger community. And developers monopolizing (or nearly so) development is very unhealthy for a number of reasons. These are reasons that certain regulations on development can be beneficial, so long as they are not excessive (I'm sure there are many court cases on what is considered 'excessive'). However, it is true that developers are usually the ones who create housing, so what is your alternative proposal? Sure some people can create their own houses but that is not sufficient for the U.S.'s whole population. And public housing, when done thoughtfully, is indeed an option. There are also non-profit developers, and these show some promise. But how do you think apartment buildings will come to be? Or do you not think there should be apartments? I agree with you that water limits in CA are significant, and that tons more people living there without a solution is quite problematic. However, there are ways to develop and regulate so that buildings are more water-efficient and energy-efficient. Denser development promotes efficiencies in resources! Is that not true in general? Of course we need to consider overall population growth in these areas, as well as per-capita resource use. Public transportation can be utilized more if it is rational for people to use it. Low cost, and faster time-wise than automobiles. This means light-rail, for example, or buses with bus-only lanes. And bicycles and walking, of course, though you are correct that smog is a big issue in southern CA (though this is severely exacerbated by the automobiles in the sprawled-out regions!). Can you imagine how much less air pollution there would be in the LA area if most of those cars were no longer needed? Of course that is a huge transformation, especially for the LA area, but there has been progress for their public transportation. Yes, electric cars are coming out and I support them as they don't emit air pollution during use, and their lifecycle carbon emissions are significantly less than gasoline-powered vehicles (even considering higher initial construction emissions); however, electric cars don't solve the sprawling land development issues. I live in Seattle, though, where, although still too dependent on cars, public transportation has been heavily and increasingly utilized (aside from during the pandemic). Buses and trains often filling up. There's no negative stigma about using them, and there is support for increasing their capacity. Our light rail system is expanding a lot! Faster than cars, safer, more sustainable, less expensive to use. It is an interesting idea you have about ecohomes and sustainable communities in areas of the country where it would be feasible. Perhaps there are ways for that to work financially. That's a longer discussion haha, but it's possible. Given the population of the U.S., I'm not quite sure how this could be done sustainably given the amount of land that would need to still be altered, and transportation needs. In terms of losing yards/gardens, I do think greenspace is extremely important. It can be carefully located on properties at ground-level. I support generally increasing park space. Additionally, I'm a huge proponent of green roofs- I could talk about them for hours but there are a ton of benefits, and they can partially or completely make up for lost vegetation at ground-level. But if you are talking about California and drought, think about how much water lawns across the state use! And backyard pools. Of course agriculture and commercial interests use even more water, but that's a different discussion. But yes, we need to think about climate change in terms of where people live. Packed in like sardines....not really. I mean apartments should be designed with human needs in mind. That includes noise insulation, in my view. But you can have more than enough space in apartments. It's also a cultural thing (that's in some ways changing). Over the decades, house size has gone up while family size has gone down. Americans too often have way more space than is needed- don't you know people who have rooms in their house they don't even use? In other countries, apartments are the norm, and they are just fine. I mean they are the norm in a lot of the U.S., as well. Don't get me wrong- I love nature. Which is why less sprawling development allows closer access directly to nature, and less disruption of the environment itself, and less resource use! I'm honestly not particularly familiar with the CA bills you are talking about. I agree with you that construction materials is a very important topic. Cost is of course a big discussion there, but better materials would be better for people living there, and the buildings would last longer!
@@kirstin1272 Except for the U.S.and Canada, mixed-use development is the norm. Much cheaper housing. Not everyone wants to live in an overpriced house that they have to maintain. Stop forcing property owners from building the types of housing they like.
@@kirstin1272 There's a lot of land, but people can't very well live in a cornfield that's 100's of miles away from good jobs and other amenities. We don't just need more housing, we need more housing where people actually want/need to live.
Bad bad idea... we were evicted (the only time I have ever been evicted) in San Jose because my autistic grandson made too much noise. We would not survive without our single family house. I sought legal help and I was told homeless shelters were full of families with autistic children that made too much noise.
I'm sorry you and your family had to go through that. That is a tough situation. I do think a type of middle approach could be sought. For example, certain building materials can better insulate sound. Depending on what the material is it could be more expensive, though, but perhaps not. Additionally, "single family homes" can still exist in denser formats in certain ways, like townhomes. A plot of land that would normally have just one house could have two or three or four units, yet they are still separate buildings from each other. A last point is that ending single-family zoning doesn't truly get rid of all single-family houses. It simply allows denser development on those plots of land. Someone could still build a single-family home or still buy an existing one (depending on how the law is written), but over time it might not be as economically feasible as it would be seen as more profitable to build more units on the same plot of land. Anyway, single-family homes will still exist but I do think there are ways to densify housing that can be inclusive of all people with their own particular needs.
@@jasonsteinberg5404 Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I definitely agree with higher density and secondary dwelling units, second and third stories, decreasing setbacks to zero lot lines even. We added on a room and bathroom to take in a family member with dementia. However, families with disabled children that make noise, need ground floor access, need extra security measures on doors and windows, just can't live in apartments. Some can, but many can't. The mortgage company doesn't care how much noise your child makes, or how many locks and bars are on doors and windows, the HOA or Condo Association does. If the goal is to prevent homelessness having large amounts of mentally ill and disabled people and children (like Tourette's and Autism) in apartments won't help. They will be put back out on the street. Our house is built like Fort Knox and we need the extra perimeters of the fences for escape artists. (We have two autistic boys.) We can't get that in an apartment.
More housing when there is more water ... and no more IC engines in personal use vehicles. Also, eliminate houses as a commodity. Not going to happen, but it needs to.
@@11DelgadoBrian Before immensely expensive (non-sustainable) desalination, we need to stop using expensively purified drinking water to flush away our waste products. Also, solar-powered atmospheric water condensers on the roofs of all coastal single family structures is a very do-able thing. New Building Codes, without grandfather clause exemptions, need to be researched and implemented ... WITHOUT political considerations. Tax credits, rebates and need-based grants, and a moratorium period on property tax reassessment based on the modifications could combine to make this work. Further, Limiting dwelling resale pricing to the general inflation index, AND limiting resale period to 5+yrs would help to stop community destruction by greed.
@@f.n.schlub I feel like people keep saying we are running out of water but then we still dump tons of water into grass lawns and golf courses and random foliage by highways, if we just didn't waist so much it would be fine..
The only way to make high density housing work without driving people crazy, is to modernize construction materials that includes concrete floors and/or soundproofing. Most high density living in US cities are in creaky wooden houses from 1927. All for someone else to make a buck off someone else. Rethink everything. We can simplify, and reduce cost at the same time. 3-D printing, storage containers, and Pre-Fab units are the immediate answer right now.
It sounds like Berkley's mayor has been approached by developers and now has a different tune. I live in NYC and I can tell you that denser housing is not going to equal cheaper housing. The YIMBY people want to park a housing project in these nice suburban neighborhoods and they are going to use white guilt to do it. Developers are going to build expensive but poor quality multi unit housing. They will set the rent at the going rate, which will be expensive for this area. Then the government will offer tax breaks if they open up the units to low income renters. So the tax payers are going to end up subsidizing this housing. Because the housing is subsidized by tax payers the owners of the properties will not be able to vet renters. So you could end up with homeless people as neighbors. Now some homeless people work and are decent people that fell on hard times. Others...not so much. You could end up with a crack addict living down the hall. They will also probably open a homeless shelter in these neighborhoods. So you will begin to see addicts, ladies/gentlemen of the night and their managers populating your living space. You are also going to get the type of people that you don't want for neighbors. The type that plays loud music in front of your house at 2 am. My advice to people in these communities is to fight this with all your resources.
New York City, as dense as it is, still has just half the population density of Paris, and Paris has a lot less high-rises. It's because they have densely organized 6-story buildings throughout the city, whereas there is Manhattan with a bunch of high-rises (many of which aren't housing), some high-rises in other boroughs, but lots of relatively low-rise and even single-family homes within the city limits (not just Staten Island but also in Brooklyn and Queens). This could lead to larger discussions but this is just an example. As for the rest, I do think you are distorting it a bit. It's too long to respond to every single point you raise but firstly, densifying housing is not just "housing projects." There is a whole spectrum of housing forms that are private- duplexes, tri/quadriplexes, rowhouses, townhouses, cottage housing, small apartment buildings, mid-sized, mixed-use, etc. Secondly, "housing project" is using a term that tends to bring up poorly funded and managed towers of concentrated poverty without support in the building or in the surrounding area. Things are changing- where I am in Seattle some buildings are public housing and you probably wouldn't even notice as they blend into the area. It is true, at least here, that a number of private developments get tax breaks for providing about a quarter of their units to people making less than the area's median income (various percentages of area median income in different buildings). Some of those are even still fairly expensive, but at least provide a more affordable option compared to market rate (I live in one of these subsidized units in a market-rate building). There are certain rules in leasing- if there were a bunch of hardcore drug addicts disturbing others and people blasting music at all hours, that wouldn't be allowed in a typical building. Lastly, for people who are homeless and without jobs and have drug, mental health, and/or other issues, there needs to be publicly-funded housing which itself contains supportive services to address these various issues. There are developments that have these types of combinations of housing and services. I actually recall doing a grad school project which involved these types of combination developments recently in NYC and they seemed to be designed very thoughtfully. There aren't enough of these types of developments. Denser housing in general can also increase tax revenue which can be directly allocated to these services. And sure, security does need to be a consideration and I am hopeful this can be done in measured and responsible ways. On a larger scale, we need more federal funding for housing and various services as this is a nation-wide issue.
@@hadamerryweather577 R1 can also become C1 or I4 but that doesn't mean it should and spot zoning isn't allowed in any placed I've heard of. Just my opinion but every town has old rundown houses. Instead of expanding, build from within, and keep single family areas. Or move away from places with such high prices.
Well, some of those run down houses can be demolished and be replaced with duplexes. Single family houses are still allowed, but this bill loosens regulations and allows other residential development to be built as well.
Affordable housing is not possible with high taxation state.. To mention, price of commodity, lumber and building materials, wages of worker to build house and combine with high property tax all together.. Its ignorant to say its all about supply and demand, you have to look at the entire picture whats driving this high cost
"In New York, density has not made housing affordable"
Imagine how much a Single Family House would cost in manhatten.
yep, hahaha and imagine just transportation. You would have to pay like 100k for parking then. You are absolutely right, that argument is mindbogglingly stupid.
they have single family homes in manhattan, the brownstones were designed for single families. unfortunately few can afford them, below central park.
About 5 million.
@@garlandstrife no way, for true single family house you need a LOT more than that. Apartments in 100+ floor buildings go for over 5-6 Million. To own the entire land it would be atleast 50 Mil.
Goes to show how density is one of many steps you need to take to make housing affordable. Density does help a lot with the cost of housing, but you need to also consider what type of housing you build. You should prioritize non market housing and public housing (that is as quality as private housing and that takes investment. NYCHA is not what I want, I want Vienna’s model) a bit more than private housing. In an ideal world for me, most housing would be public and like 80% of people would live in either non market housing or public housing (invested in properly) and rents would be very affordable. Private housing would be for profit, but private housing would only make 20% of all available homes and they would largely cater to wealthier people.
Point is, the bigger issue other than density is the fact that there is a profit motive in housing and that housing is a commodity and not a right in the US.
People be like "but i dont wanna skyscrapers!" No fam. It's not even skyscrapers. We're literally asking for buildings that's not even 10 stories high. We only want housing to be reached by the average workers, we only want to be able to go do groceries without needing a car. We just want to be able to bike through the streets without bothering drivers. We just want to be able to go to work at downtown, see our family at the coty nextdoor, and feast in the near chinatown without even stepping on a car because there's affordable transit.
We want an America where people can freely live in a detached house, a condo, a rowhouse, an apartment, a duplex, a triplex, and other variety of houses that fit our needs. We want an America where people can freely choose how they go to places they need to go and not just stuck with the option of riding a big clunck of steel with wheels. We want an America where people can have the freedom of being able to be close to what they need without having to cross a 6 lane Stroads, driving an overly expensive car, or fearing to die from a crash.
We want a free America, that gives their people the freedom to live comfortably.
C'mon guys, we always say that we're the best at stuff. Now, we don't wanna to lose to the europeans do we?
Let's show them we can compete with them and be the best country in the world that we always said we do.
Now, in Housing Options, walkable neigborhoods, and Transit Options.
I totally agree its not like we want to tear down ALL single family houses and build skyscrapers. We just want options that we don't get now.
These people should visit Netherlands.
@@ahmedzakikhan7639 Americans are known to be ignorant of facts and value their feelings and fears over anything, many think US have the best of everything
@@infantebenji Yeah totally the case
THIS X10000
Did that guy just say that supply will never influence demand? 😂
That guy is a joke, he doesn't want the increase in housing supply decreasing the values of him and his cronies' assets. Affordable housing to him means less money in his pocket. That man should be ashamed, he is the human embodiment of greed. His sweat looks like it smells like Gatorade. He should live in a tent for a week under the bridge near my house.
More efficient use of space is important for an economy. Driving through urban sprawl is a migraine.
Yes, but keep this "More efficient use of space" affordable?
Reducing California's population by about 10 million would benefit our state AND our country.
@@alicewalton7821 why?
@Real Napster it would, especially because the culture is currently developed around urban sprawl and suburban living. But it's still killing it slowly.
@@alicewalton7821 That would reduce the economy severely and downgrade it's GDP.
I wanna see 3-6 story condos with some having local shops on the bottom. Whats wrong with that?
Right I agree with you. People can have there big house with big backyard and at least have a 2-3 story building with housing and stores so it makes the neighborhood walkable and more interesting. That all were asking if these dense people think it will destroy there homes smh.
The auto lobby (it’s a long comment I added that goes into detail about every industry participating in the auto lobby)
Don’t force it on others. But people like you never stop.
@@nancybaumgartner6774Nobody is doing that. Nobody will seize your property to convert it into a duplex or condo. If your neighborhood changes, then the changes are because the demand was there for it to do that, not because people want to force change.
@@np51486 nope. There is a lot of push back between pack ‘em and stack ‘em’s and warehouses .
Nobody wants either of them , and there is no “demand” .
We need the missing middle. We can have suburbs with duplexes, cottage homes, single-family homes, and even SROs can be in the same neighborhood. There are types of housing which aren't high rises or single family homes!
Tree houses for employees on the multibillionaire Estates?
@@richardmaclean4519 why would they want rodents living in their trees? My treehouse has an owl living it, no rats up there.
But keep R1 zoning as is.
@@alicewalton7821 Not everyone wants to live with other people. My grandmother's house on Lake St. a ONE bedroom 2 story home was for JUST HER. She earned it.
When she died and my mom sold it to someone who was going to make it a 3 unit and flip it? The neighborhood got together and stopped him. It's still a SINGLE FAMILY house. He was able to do interior work to make it more bedrooms. Added a floor. You want to live with other people rent an apartment or a condo.
Indeed. Not everyone wants to live in a box in the sky, but not everyone wants to live in an unwalkable, unlivable neighborhood either.
I recommend you watch a video by not just bikes about this topic, as well as a second video he's done about this extraordinary streetcar suburb in Toronto.
I'm just reading the comments and seeing how everyone thinks this entire think is a quid pro quo and how it's communist. But restrictive zoning laws is one of the reasons why California is so expensive. Only being allowed to build single family homes and apartment towers means the supply can't be met so prices rise. The best cities are the ones that grow naturally, and are built for people, not cars.
And where is all the water for all those extra people coming from? In a drought there isn't enough water for the people who are already here.
huh? They're going to bring snow from mt hood
@@pohakumana
Yeah.....you bet!
as my religious friends (who believe overpopulation is a myth) would say, "The Lord will provide." 😂
@@yesihavealastname1562 the world is ONLY over populated where stupid humans gather in millions. Just another Stupid Human Trick, like religions and politics.
@@yesihavealastname1562 you might remind them that The Good Lord helps those that help themselves.
In additional to zoning, I hope there will be movement to end excessive regulations, ridiculously expensive permits, etc.
ok sure, never happen, fees only rise
@@pohakumana
Well! That’s going happen outside of California.
California can’t deregulate since it’s a Earthquake, Volcano, and Heatstroke country.
@@whathell6t Volcano and heatstroke? WTF? are you FOX taught?
@@pohakumana
Well! Have you actually visited Mt. Shasta, CA; and Lassen Peak, CA?
Hopefully the single family home zoning will remain. We need more affordable single family homes, not condos and townhouses
Don't come up here to Portland. Housing costs here have skyrocketed over the last few years as more and more Californians move here
But that's happening everywhere.
@@suen5006 Not in Alabama or Mississippi. There are options.
@@alicewalton7821 But who wants to live in Alabama or Mississippi? That's why housing is so cheap there
@@shipnerd62962 maybe because no one wants to live there! Not me!
@@alicewalton7821 those are not options, seriously.
There shouldnt be single zoning in the Bay Area at all, given how many people living there (and how high home prices are).
Also the Bay Area needs an extensive public transport network. The infrastructure there is an embarrashment for one of the richest & most technologically advanced region on Earth. Money & brainpower are abundant there!
Yeah, there is money and brainpower there.......there’s just no common sense!
I disagree. People simply shouldn’t live there if they can’t afford the live there.
@@urbanistgod yes let the poor die i guess lmao
@@BernardoPatino When did I say that?
@@urbanistgod Dude! Use that brain of yours. If we build more apartments, Condos, duplexes and more then we can have lower cost of housing, More local loan or in that area so companies don’t need to bring in foreign workers and the infrastructure actually gets used
They protect their weird neighborhood even though they have people peeing on the sidewalk. Yeah, good job.
Finally, somebody is spotlighting the zoning issue, which is a direct cause of real estate prices.
If the coronavirus has killed 5 million Californians we wouldn't have any crisis.
So why isn't real estate cheap in Europe then? Also, immigration is a worse issue.
@@acommentator69 Rent is cheap housing isn't. Primarily because Europe is land constrained.
@@ahmedzakikhan7639 there is tons of undeveloped land in Europe. Europe is bigger than America.
@@acommentator69 I am referring to Western Europe. No it isn't bigger. Eastern Europe probably is bigger.
Um I think California needs to solve their water crisis before they build more houses.
one way is to not build any more homes haha, I’d like that, this place has too many people already
@@kevo212 if you don't increase the supply of housing the prices will go up and real Californians will be forced to move out. Idiotic policy by short sighted politicians like Reagan and Feinstein exacerbated this problem and ruined San Francisco and Los Angeles. Then they passed prop 13 to cover up the problem. There's not too many people in California, there's too many cars and traffic because of SFH zoning
One way is to dezone agriculture land. Agriculture takes over 80% of total water usage. Faming industry can relocate to the deep south and midwest where land is more fertile and cheaper.
Good idea, i mean how long can we watch these pristine neighborhoods and watch people who are indigenous to this land be homeless living in a tent?
While you have some rich foreign investor building mansions for the rich!
Time to wake up California and take back your state!
So the elected officials want us to share our Single Family Properties, while the live in Single Family Mansions. I don't think so.
No one’s squatting and setting up a duplex on your property. Getting rid of single family zoning gives flexibility to developers and property owners to usually build up to 3-4 units on a lot.
It's a scam to keep people renting, and ultimately down. Yea, give up your inefficient single family properties awarded through exploitation.
Exactly. Single family for them, but not for "regular" people
@@matthewbiehl3412 it essentially forces out single family houses, similar to Europe. Are these great quadplexes affordable in Europe? I don't think so.
@@matthewbiehl3412 Now they are talking about building 12 units on each lot.
This is not some grassroots "national movement". This is people with power and wealth trying to reorganize society.
That's how we got to the car dependent system we currently live in. The powerful auto industry demonizing pedestrians, buying up public transit then running it to the ground and getting into powerful government positions to get the money they needed for their superhighways (later the Interstate highway system)
Heck, the boss of GM became Eisenhower's Defense Secretary, and the gas tax was created by the auto industry lobbying for it.
Every major city planning feature: single family zoning, lack of transit funding, and parking minimums were all done to ensure the auto industry could sell as many cars as possible and fatten their plate.
It's everywhere even in Berlin. Rent it's too high. Try people working 3 jobs to pay their rent.
Sounds like Berlin has too many people. Perhaps a few million of them should move elsewhere.
@@rennatawilson9622 You first.
If you really think building brand new units is going to lower rent, then I have a bridge to sell you. It cost a lot to build places, and they aren’t going to turn around & rent them out for a small amount. It cost a lot to buy or rent; it’s sad, but that’s the way it is.
@@chrischamberlain7628 No it’s because of supply and demand. Building it cost a lot but not 1K a month.
As long as we don't go back to "Slum lords," people on fixed incomes are in dire need of affordable housing.
Free advice to people on fixed incomes.......don’t move to San Francisco.
Free advice for people on fixed incomes. Don't move to LA, SF and major cities in Cali. You can find 4000ft housing for 650k in riverside. Beautiful community
Rent control causes slum lords.
What they are after here are the "middle, like duplexes or a complexs that is under 4 stories that can house multiple units but share some amenities like parking...or even A playground/garden.
We're definitely headed that way.
No City was designed with only single-family housing for an entire neighborhood. I hope we start planning diversified communities
google the two largest subdivisions in the country, BOTH are single lots for one house, an acre is small. That's why I bought 3.
Ever heard of San Jose? 95% is dedicated to single-family.
@@pohakumana that's not a city that's a suburb.
@@ahmedzakikhan7639 It will be a city once it's built out. It has a FD, stores and businesses.
No apartments.
@@pohakumana what kind of a business ?
I just like most people just want a rowhouse or a condo in a nice low or mid rise structure. I hate having to do yard maintenance and my kids prefer public green spaces or inside playing on their ps4 console. The sweet middle is missing.
We need only single family homes
@@urbanistgod We need more options and then you can pick the kind of housing that you want
@@IsaiahDanielJohnson No. We need only single family homes.
@@urbanistgod I can’t tell if you’re kidding
@@IsaiahDanielJohnson No. We need only single family homes.
Sure rezone add more houses per lot, how about infrastructure to support the added housing?
When areas have more houses per lot, infrastructure is more efficient overall. Sewer or water pipes may need widening underground, but it is more efficient than continuing to build miles and miles of pipes into low-density and sprawling developments. Another example is with denser development, public transportation is more effective, and those options can transport people with much less resource use than paving new roads or expand existing roads, plus the energy and emissions going into car development, etc.
Are they going to put in more freeways to get to all these new places? Then we’ll have eminent domain where many people lose their houses. How are they going to supply water to all these places when we are already running out it? They will be cutting beautiful trees down, and the neighborhoods will turn into ghettos.
@@chrischamberlain7628 allow mixed use housing, you know, just like what they did before Euclidean zoning went way too far.
Single family home… Who can afford that anymore?
BIG TECH, AND BIG PHARMA!!
I’m a SFH owner and I absolutely support this!!! Yes in my backyard
Really? Careful of what you ask for... Maybe do some really good research into cities like NYC and their housing programs and how bad some of their neighborhoods are before you commit.
@@lovecate1 This is also about housing for middle class, not low income.
@@lovecate1 fair point, doesnt have to be luxury only but I should clarify NOT low-income housing. We’ve had condos built two blocks from my house and with Wholefoods, Equinox, Mendocino, etc moving into our neighborhood shortly after, its been so convenient and property values have only gone up.
@@dudoji85 Sometimes politians only tell you part of their plan upfront. Yes, right now they are saying the middle class will get this housing knowing that they are planning to expand that 5 yrs from now to include others. Just stay on top of this issue and attend as many meetings as possible.
I own property in Los Altos Hills, Lake Tahoe and Seattle - NO WAY!
We should make laws against housing monopolies- oh wait, that wouldn’t be profitable.
In the name of racism and hardships, please allow us to remove the laws preventing us from making more money.
I just got off the phone with Capitalism. After much consideration, he responded with “F*** the working class”. I let him know that greed kills and revolution is possible.
jim crow
@@classwarhooligan923 Qtard stuck in the state with a failed power supply, LOL
@@pohakumana More like Marxist stuck in a state full of Trump supporters that have overindulged in conspiratorial thinking and religion rhetoric. You’re just about as far off as you could possibly be.
@@classwarhooligan923 I just got off the phone from starving he says he will come with you.
The real problem is minimum parking requirements. If you remove this you'll get more human spaces built. Buildings instead of parking lots and parking structures, taller buildings as developers are no longer constrained by the need to provide parking per floor, more walkable neighborhoods, less need for car infrastructure.
But who wants to walk around when criminals are being released early from prison? People talk about this public transit walkable cities when in reality transit stations are magnets for crime.
@@diegoflores9237You can live wherever you want, seems like you'd rather live in a car centric suburb. Hey, that's cool. Obviously there are people who want to live in NYC, San Fransisco, Chicago, Boston otherwise rents wouldn't be so high.
Singapore, Tokyo, HongKong, Zurich, Stockholm have walkable cities with great public transit systems. They don't have a great deal of crime compared to many unwalkable American cities. Crime is a reflection of our society's priorities, not a result of public transit.
@@Basta11 we can used the money we save from road building and use it for mental institutions , a win win situation for society. I get to travel without cars, and people get the help they need.
We haven't built housing at the pace of growth since the 1970s. When did affordability start to decline, you guess it, the 1970s.
We need more housing now! Call your state representative and demand statewide upzoning that forces NIMBY cities to abandon their exclusionary ways.
I doubt you live in a dense area. Also we need less immigration
@@acommentator69 Theres so many pieces to this puzzle. And its disturbing how many people dont grasp how deep in the hole we are. They just keep talking about surface problems when those are far from the underlying problems.
@@acommentator69 Yes you can migrate out of the city to Des Moines, Iowa
@@hspatel1799 how is des Moines not a city 😄😄😄?
Yes so more rich people can make further multiple housing investments
Too bad people are stupid and don't get that. Great comment there, that's exactly what's happening to the housing market. High interest rates should crush it if it's kept long enough. These people are nothing but thieves legalizing themselves.
True... have you noticed they keep building Luxury Apartments...??? Yet no houses? They say it’s not supply and demand it is though.... not enough houses to go around so supply is low and prices keep going up.
Bingo. We shall all be renters living in small apartments. While the rich get to have cars and single-family homes, the rest of us will be forced into rental apartments and mass transit systems that take hours to get to work. REITs, pension funds, corporate real estate firms, AirBnB landlords are all bidding up the price of housing. The rich have run out of places to store their money and need new investment vehicles.
We have no water, oh my God we need houses for more people!
The kind of urban infill we need is extremely water efficient
@@davidkellogg9728 yeah it's all well in fun until you have a water saving kitchen sink. I have a water saving kitchen sink. I literally fill my water cups and my coffee pot from my bath faucet because of it
@@honestlynate7922 landscaping is the big water use, not kitchen faucets. Go wild!
Although coming up with a single family zoning was racist of Berkeley to do in the early 1900, it was no different from the kind of stuff going on in the US in those days . There are clauses in the San Francisco neighborhoods which prohibited sale of properties to Asians, Blacks and JEWS in those days. And let's not forget the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892 .
Reasonable housing, these small 4 plexes will close in on 700,000 in 6 months how is this a homeless solution ?
Because its better then just 1 unit on one lot.
I don't think anybody's saying it's going to completely solve the problem, but any long term solution is going to require finding ways to greatly increase the available housing stock and this is a start.
Baby boom-era generations in the past were spoiled rotten with low-priced single family homes on seemingly-endless swaths of land as the nation suburbanized. Now that supply is reaching its limits, and unless these 1950s-era zoning restrictions are reversed, people will be priced out of their hometowns, home prices will continue to skyrocket out of control to where they're being used as investments rather than necessity, and the homeless problem will grow even worse. Getting rid of single-family zoning won't solve the affordability crisis overnight, but it's a start.
The only thing that will bring the prices down there is rent control. Too much greed, and CA has let pricing and gauging get out of hand.
We have rent control in SF... But when someone leaves, the landlord can charge whatever they want. There's deals out there, I have one. The issue is we have over 25% of houses in SF vacant because they are foreign owned by people who bought them as an investment never intending to use or rent them.
He is now pro density? Meaning someone paid him more money!
Yes, developers have probably contacted him.
Nope, he grew a brain and decides to root for the greater good and rejects bribes from racist property owner associations
I'm excited to be stuck in a apartment or glorified apartment the rest of my life. So much space in U.S but not enough housing wtf
What is wrong with that though? Other countries build up, and they're just fine. They even have better living standards than the US. Haha.
@@ianhomerpura8937 don’t you want to own your home ?
Come to China.
@@brandonannisette6023 Spain has way higher home ownership rates and Spain also has a way higher percentage of people living in multi-family homes and apartments than the US. Singapore has a home ownership rate of 89%, the highest in the world. Take a look at Singapore as well and you will also see that most people there also live in multi-family homes. The US has a home ownership rate of 65%. You know you can own an apartment you live in, yes?
Lol single family homes aren't the problem. The problem is artificial inflation in cities caused by businesses that want higher profit margins than is sensible. Plus a lack of economic development in places outside of "city" areas
People always leave out artificial inflation, speculation from investors and so many other things. And thats not even getting into the reality that should we all be cramming ourselves in major cities. Shouldnt we have big companies actually invest in smaller cities and spread people out?
Then you also have the fact that everything they build now is not aimed at the average joe, Its aimed at people making 100K or more a year and has all the high end treatments. There is no such thing as a starter home anymore.
And overpopulation
@@urbanistgod ok boomer
@@urbanistgod Yes why don't you just leave then. One extra spot for the rest of us.
@@BernardoPatino What a stupid comment I’m young
I find frustration on how expensive living in California! It's ridiculous! My senior father live with me and my brother and we w k rk full time job's and STILL can't afford finding a new place to rent because that's also expensive. Now our land lord wants us to move out this house we were renting because her greeting self also wants that piece of cake because they are in that GREETY person. I cry so much and started this week.
You can find good jobs outside of California. You can move
Live where you can afford to live
Yeah move out the landlord is not greedy because of supply and demand.
This is going to sound strange but it might actually be time to stop job growth in some spots... Its a crazy idea but what cost dose it come to is the city going to pay those home owners the cost to move so their block of 50 families can become a block of 1000 families... Why not recommend new companies to move down the road to areas that need the job growth and population boost...
Companies congregate in cities because it is the best way to gain access to the specialized workers that they need. That's why so many tech companies congregate in the Silicon Valley even though it's so expensive, it's the best way for them to get access to all the hyper specific tech workers they need. If you built up a tech company outside that area, you're gonna have a hard time finding the specific software engineers you need, and you will probably have to pay extra to relocate them to where you are. That's why you have cities built around specific industries, Bay Area for tech, Los Angeles for entertainment, New York is like everything all in one. Having hubs in cities also makes room for industry-specific small businesses to prop up to do subcontract work for the big companies. There are some industries with broad talent pools that can do fine wherever you put them, but those companies don't put themselves in big cities anyways, why would they if the land/rent in a city is so expensive. Our society is moving towards increased specialization, and specialization works best when people can congregate in one place. We need to build cities that can support specialized industries and we are failing, and if we fail too hard, they might just move off to a country where they can do business more efficiently.
no body is forcing the 5 people out there houses it just that say one of the 50 people wanna make there property able to house 2 3 or how many additional families they can. Also it’s good to add more density as car culture is why the US is so unhealthy. we go in cars to go to everything. why not be able to walk to school , to work or to the grocery store . then you don’t even need to go to the gym as you get exercise doing everyday things .
PS jobs grow ins one places and not others due to the services that place provides.
Their drug addicts dude, they're homeless and living there because it's nice weather and the drugs are cheap and you all let them live on the streets
Build more, sure. But don’t allow these massive apartment construction companies to be predatory with their pricing and lease cancellation harassment like exorbitant fees for wear and tear.
If you can't afford to live in the Bay Area then move. And Big Tech needs to spread its offices out across the country instead of concentrating everything in such a small area.
If we did this and invested in small town living again, We would far better off. But now, the powers at be and the cities dont want that. Even though small town living could actually be pretty good now and we wouldnt lose anything.
Based on what they said, a lawyer and a teacher only had a combined income of around $140K?
Sounds about right.
they must not be very good, that’s really low for california salaries
@@kevo212 Not all people who aren’t paid a lot are bad at their jobs, but it definitely is low for those occupations in the area, which was my point. Maybe he’s a public defender or works for a nonprofit that does pro-bono legal work? Those are the only explanations I can think of.
@@MattSezer true true, I didn't think of that. Just seems extremely low... That's something they should talk about before they both take lower salary jobs in their profession and then decide to live in Cali lol
This is more about changing voting blocks, than rezoning to ameliorate any housing issues.
Live where you can afford to !!! I would love to live in Beverly Hills but i don't - WHY ? .... BECAUSE I CAN'T AFFORD IT !!!
Unfortunately Americans are drifting in to Communism. Gimme Gimme, Gimme dat housing
Seems simple enough
Almost nowhere is affordable.
People need to live within commuting distance of jobs/economic opportunity, and in practice that often means clustering around these expensive urban areas.
Yes, please...best to go out of state. California is too dense with population. Best to develop other cities and states. 7 Bungalow Courts and quadraplexes okay... Build houses in States where the water supply is sourced and abundant. Thank you.
If our population stabilized and people stopped over breeding (anything more than 2 kids) we wouldn't have these problems.
California is not dense AT ALL!! There's just too many CARS! Waste of space building parking lots instead of apartments. PLENTY of water in Northern California!!!
Californian cities must abolish single family zoning. San Jose is notorious with having 95% of residential areas dedicated only to single family homes.
@@ianhomerpura8937 Then the solution is to expand outwards, not stack people like sardines. Plenty of land left in California.
@@franke2273 um, you seem to forget that California has a water crisis nowadays? More sprawl is dangerous to the environment. Some duplexes and triplexes would be just fine, and can still blend in to preserve neighborhood character, which is why I am puzzled why even those are opposed by NIMBYs.
We need less people, not more housing.
Well young people especially white people aren’t really having kids anymore so i guess you’re thought will come true in a couple decades
We really missed our chance the last year and a half, We could have scored big on population reduction. But instead everyone begged for protection and to be kept alive.
All for the cause of less people until you realize your number might be up lol.
You're not practically going to get the former, so it makes far more sense to work on the latter.
Ignoring Oregon's bipartisan zoning reform focused exclusively on house scale 2-4 unit buildings
I am generally against single family exclusive zoning. That doesn't mean I want to ban single family homes. Just open up the regulations/zoning and allow the market to decide. That means no more or far less mandatory parking minimums. No more or far less setback requirements. No more or far less minimum lot sizes for buildings. No more banning of mid sized housing/mixed use development buildings. That means chill on the giant minimum road sizes. Use smaller more maneuverable firetrucks like they do in literally everywhere else on earth. Increase ambulance fleet sizes so firetrucks don't get dispatched to calls that don't require specifically a firetruck.
Move to the Midwest/plains. Better place to raise a family anyways
Chicago has a really beautiful downtown and very walkable neighborhoods and very low price. Twin cities as well is a great place. But those are only 2 good midwest cities to raise families
@Real Napster The major cities that have all the issues lol. Thats another piece to this puzzle.
But everyone just focuses on the poor and unaffordability. They miss so many other societal issues that are staring them in the face, or that they themselves actively promote on the daily.
Pass
How about allowing RVs and vans and providing utilities? There's an idea. Oh yeah you can't tax or pay mortgages on Rvs or Vans so it would never get approved since lawmakers and banks are all in bed together. Yeah, just move.
obeslty no problem. masks check
Once I found out they were living in California I paused the video that's they're fault
they should GO BACK to texas or Kansas where ever they came from.
That’s what I did lol.
Their*
They've got a lot of work to do to make San Francisco a City that is for regular working People again, as well as the wealthy. When I was living in CA. I spent a week in San Francisco, beautiful, diverse city, I walked all over the place, and I stayed in a old high rise Hotel, that was I think about 20$ a night, give the 20$ and get Your Pillow, but that was 30 Years ago! That place is probably closed and demolished now I bet.
San Fran to Portland..huge difference in finiacnce..Cheaper!
Dense housing means more requirements for resource such as water, first response personales, and more traffic for the city, isn't it?
About the traffic, if the dense housing is near stores, schools, etc they won't need a car. Well, they would need great public transit. IDK how many American cities have great public transit
It also means more tax revenue per unit area of land. In many metrics low density suburbs have a greater cost per capita for public goods such as roads
@@MrWackypackages problem is many family choose to live by good schools and commute to work.
Also means less people will have cars because most people don't want cars in first place, except car enthusiasts which only make under 10 percent of population. So more dense walkable cities and suburbs with great public transport means elimination of suvs and only manual transmission sports cars will be made, and everyone will be happy.
@@GhostOfAMachine Even without SUVs all over the place driving in cities/suburbia sucks. Driving is best for society and the driver on side roads and in the country side.
GTFO‼
How about affordable rent?
Why don't you stop foreign investment and purchase of US residential property? Oh wait am I not supposed to mention that?
Just like single family housing; multi units do housing crisis by rent increased with gentrification with mass transit creating homelessness.
We are talking about new developments here. If all new suburbs constructed consisted of duplexes(or bigger) that would alleviate a lot of pressure on demand.
@@slitor Some & still many of those remain empty as foreign collectors of real state keep them as assets in gentrified areas for higher value.
@@slitor But they never build affordable places anymore. All new housing is strictly high end builds. and any truely affordable housing is made to be section 8.
How do I know? I used to deliver plumbing supplies in Denver to all the new construction. And everything that was deemed affordable was either still very expensive or was section 8. But the normal housing was all high end, half million dollar homes.
Theres so much wrong with the housing market that density just isnt going to do anything. Its litterally greed and a scam. City zoning rules are only a small part of the issue. The rest is the developer, special interests groups, local governance and possibly some people who wish to enact social experiments. But no one ever dares talk about this.
@@joshuakhaos4451 They build high-end because of lack of space, BECAUSE of the Single-family only zones!
If you are only building on one alotment for only one family, of course they are gonna maximize that profit.
@@slitor Then why were there such things as starter homes prior to 08?? why the sudden switch to nothing but gigantic luxury homes that most cant afford?
Lol @ 2:00 😂😂😂😂
The big picture of everything related to urban planning in the US comes down to one simple thing.
Money in Politics.
The U.S. is planned the way it is by the automotive lobby. It’s designed to make as high of profits for automotive companies as possible, at whatever expense. That expense is our social lives, our ability to breathe good air, the climate, and our mobility, among other things.
The things that allow for auto centric infrastructure include building large freeways, building stroads of at least 6 lanes, residential only zoning, single family zoning, strict parking requirements, large lot sizes, setback requirements (ty not just bikes for mentioning this), and the construction of power centers that have lots of parking. US infrastructure is designed to make walking and biking literally impossible and make driving your only option ever.
The members of the automotive lobby include Automakers such as GM, fossil fuel companies such as Chevron, gasoline station convenience store chains such as Circle K, Rubber companies such as Goodyear, parts companies such as Delphi, insurance companies such as Progressive, mechanic companies such as Discount Tires, auto part retailers such as AutoZone, suburban retail companies such as Target, Walmart of course, suburban mall companies such as Simon Property Group, fast food chains which make bank off drive thru such as McDonalds or Taco Bell, Car dealers, people who own billboards because those make money and they are on the side of the road, police departments which collect lots of fines, courts that collect court fees, states that collect money from gasoline taxes, hospital companies that make money off people having car accidents, law firms that make tons of money off of injury cases that are caused by bad car accidents, trucking companies such as Swift, Class I Railroads such as Norfolk Southern, house building companies such as Lennar which profit from single family home building but not at all from any 7-plex, landlords profit from the housing shortages that are built into this system such as American homes for rent, gyms that profit off of our lack of exercise since we can’t walk anywhere such as Planet fitness, Pharma companies that money medicating us for the conditions that people develop thanks to living in an auto centric place, airline companies that make lots of money off of the lack of high speed rail such as Delta or United, social media firms that make bank off us using their apps for the social interaction we don’t get in the real world thanks to this infrastructure such as Meta or tinder, gig work apps such as Uber or DoorDash, bars which make money off of being the only real third place for so many such as Applebees, cement companies that make lots of money from all of the asphalt that car centric infrastructure needs to be laid, construction companies that build all of the roads, banks that make lots of money off the interest that comes from auto loans and medical loans and loans relating to living in an auto centric society such as Wells Fargo, of course the firms that own companies in any of those industries such as *BlackRock* or *Vanguard* (which they both manage to own just about every company in every industry I mentioned), the media companies that take in a lot of money from all of these different companies and broadcast pro car propaganda in exchange for the money they get to advertise brands, the consulting firms that get paid by auto lobby associates firms to make propaganda for the auto lobby, think tanks that get tons of money from these companies such as the U.S. chamber of commerce, lobbying companies that get sweet commissions from these companies and their think tanks such as the dude who called Joe Manchin “their kingmaker”, and of course, politicians such as Joe Manchin or John Cornyn, or the guys who are running the DNC and filling fossil fuel lobbyists into it, or more likely than not regardless of their party… your city councilors or state legislators who are taking in sweet money from the automotive lobby.
If you think about it like I am… the U.S. economy is centered around the car. Like… everything about the US is centered around the car. Most of the places we interact with in America only exist because they center around the car. So many of the jobs that happen to exist in America exist only because of the car. We spend lots of money to keep up infrastructure that isn’t really healthy for us. We spend lots of money to do things much of the rest of the world gets for free because a couple rich men decided that they wanted to build a city to make their personal passive income, and succeeded immensely in doing so. Car centric planning is a part of the infrastructure that helps make the rich richer and the poor poorer as the richest 100-400 families largely own the large companies in the industries that benefit from car centric planning. Car centric planning is making use isolated, broke, and stressed. That isolation is what leads people down the path of radicalization and conspiracy theories and in many cases, racism and bigotry if they they radicalize to the right like what the auto lobby tries to get people to do bc radicalizing the other way means you see the auto lobby as the problem.
Crazy thing is… the auto lobby isn’t the only really big lobby. You will see big lobbies have a lot of the same companies and industries if you look into it further.
We seriously need to break this economy, let it die, and then make a new not economy but actual society that isn’t based around automobiles and driving and a few people making extraordinary amounts of money.
They should be happy moving to a cheaper area, Portland, instead of complaining.
Buy a house with a yard on the outskirts, for much less than the cost of renting an apartment in San Francisco.
Lead a simpler life.
Single-family zoning keeps the neighborhoods desirable.
yep no trailerpark trash heaps
Lol yes so desirable they're unaffordable, and doesn't meet the needs of people only looking to work.
Then why is Manhattan the most desirable place in America? I don't think they have single family zoning
Which is the very essence of NIMBY-ism. Yes it may keep out the people who aren't "the right sort", but at what cost?
Rent is not going down period. Multifamily rental high rises just allow the developer to make more money off less land. And when the contract with the city is up, they will convert and sell all the units as overpriced condos with absurdly inadequate parking.
Lack of housing... 😐 it’s the cost of it, not the lack of it.
The lack of housing raises the prices... simple economics... supply and demand look at what’s happening with cars rn... many people want cars but not enough to go around so they raise the price.
Like those people living in tents can afford any kind of housing.....
@@f.n.schlub stop the cap them people are Cali natives priced out that’s why there on the streets
@@f.n.schlub keep believing that you think people are gonna travel across state line to be homeless that sounds stupid
@@f.n.schlub bs a crackhead don’t care about temp
And social services man bs man the reason it’s so many homeless people is because of the price of living simple
Jessie wont be moving in a apartment.
This is why I moved to buy a detached home with a good-sized lot six years ago. Get these properties while you still can!
We have to be careful with apparent solutions which may bring new issues. Ending single-family housing zones not necessarily makes properties more affordable. See the case of Washington, DC. New condos are being built in areas of single-family houses. The issue is that a new condo can cost 70% to 80% of the value of an actual house (without including condo fees). Unless there is actual control of the properties prices and expected targeted buyer (low income buyers), the idea of ending single-family housing zone is more a way for construction companies/developers to build luxurious apartments which cost as much as a house.
Whats wrong with that? The people with means can live in the more luxurious high density housing while the rest can live in the lower cost housing projects. It's still America, you still have the right to pursue happiness...we aren't fully commie yet.
Yes, but it's not always the new construction where the affordability comes into play. New construction is always likely to command top (or at least good) dollar, but any increase in stock is going to put downward pressure on housing costs somewhere (usually in older housing stock that is now less desirable in comparison to what's being built)
Yes and pack more living units on a given area of land each costing as much as a house.
One of the things that make them so expensive is the parking. Parking spaces add 20%-50% of the cost of the apartment. It’s all about square footage - more square feet means more expensive. Parking takes space.
Parking requirements also make larger apartment because one way to minimize the amount of parking spots built is to make fewer larger units - hence luxury condos with 2 parking spaces each being practically the cost of a house in the suburbs.
If you eliminate parking requirements then some units will cost 20% - 30%.
Instead of $3000 a month with parking, it could be $2000 without.
You could also have a larger number of small units like efficiencies with shared communal areas - perfect for single people, couples without kids, students, elderly, transients, long stay tourists, seasonal workers, weekday commuters, and workaholic professionals.
Thank god. More middle housing!! More transit.
What’s more freedom than legalizing Midrises?
We need both as multi unit apartment canyons with shops underneath & mass transport creating homelessness by rent increases.
@jim meeks Sorry hun your trauma is showing!.
@jim meeks An imaginary example & a 2nd you have never dance recently like I have, seems your loopholes are NYMBY or YIMBY as long as I get to gentrified it, your life is sad!.
@jim meeks I don't approve underneath over another as both or one over the other hasn't work, your thinking is bad from a confused brain, facts not feelings!.
@jim meeks You're the one who not once but twice has mentioned Brian, I was just repeating your babble, bye canceled troll!.
@jim meeks Whatever; sad you're so unhappy to project unto others , is cool!
What the mayor of Berkeley did not tell us was that for years the city resisted increasing development of their city, it was the developers who wanted denser housing but not Berkeley residents because the traffic, water, sewage just won't handle more people , this is after all a university town and UC is always expanding.
Once the city is completely bankrupt they will not worry about such things . big tech is starting the next silicon valley overseas . San Francisco will be 100x worse than Detroit .
Good joke
Really pathetic what's happening in the US.
Seriously
I live in Europe and you cant knock down a house and build apartments... I love it here. Poor americans having to live beside apartments
“I f***kin’ told you, bro!”
- Probably Marx
"I gave you instructions on what to do, but you did not listen" - Jesus Christ, the first socialist, probably
2:57 ignore this comment.
That hairpiece was horrible..
Thank you for talking about the issues of single-family zoning and housing affordability. Low-density zoning like single-family zoning is an absolutely massive impediment to more affordable housing in cities across the nation. We need to massively increase supply of housing. There are even ways to do this aesthetically and with natural vegetation. It very much is a supply and demand issue; however, it is likely that increasing density and doing nothing else will not fully solve the issue. It is also true that subsidized units for those in various income groups below an area's median income must also be built and/or integrated into market-rate buildings. There are pleasing ways to make these buildings, as well. Additionally, upzoning areas to denser levels brings in more people (who want to be there), which will bring in more tax dollars which can be allocated towards affordable housing. It is about a cycle of inclusivity rather than exclusivity. Not to mention that denser housing, when done in conjunction with responsible land use and transportation planning, reduces carbon dioxide emissions per capita.
You’ve been drinking from the YIMBY koolade. Which is a playbook large developers have written from the top, and have successfully convinced eager young people that this plan will save their planet. It won’t. It will just provide more income for these greedy developers, increase water demand to the limit in CA, increase smog because people will not chose to commute on the bus like you idealistically think they will. Kids will loose yards/ gardens, people will be packed in like sardines, traffic will increase! Wake up and consider you’ve been duped. There’s SO much land in America away from urban cities and single family homes. Areas where new eco homes and communities could be developed, but it costs developers too much. Have you researched the units that these new CA bills will create? Substandard building materials, rules in place that market values with go into affect after 2 decades and only a small percentage of units are even designated for low income. Study up - Yimby’s have been sold a dream for sustainability that will only create worse problems and put money in the developers pockets!! It’s like the greedy leading the blind.
@@kirstin1272 Hi Kirstin, thanks for your reply. I'm not quite convinced that I'm drinking YIMBY kool-aid overseen by developers. Perhaps we can find common ground in the understanding that yes, developers generally do try to maximize profit, often at expense of benefits to people living in those developments and the larger community. And developers monopolizing (or nearly so) development is very unhealthy for a number of reasons. These are reasons that certain regulations on development can be beneficial, so long as they are not excessive (I'm sure there are many court cases on what is considered 'excessive').
However, it is true that developers are usually the ones who create housing, so what is your alternative proposal? Sure some people can create their own houses but that is not sufficient for the U.S.'s whole population. And public housing, when done thoughtfully, is indeed an option. There are also non-profit developers, and these show some promise. But how do you think apartment buildings will come to be? Or do you not think there should be apartments?
I agree with you that water limits in CA are significant, and that tons more people living there without a solution is quite problematic. However, there are ways to develop and regulate so that buildings are more water-efficient and energy-efficient. Denser development promotes efficiencies in resources! Is that not true in general? Of course we need to consider overall population growth in these areas, as well as per-capita resource use.
Public transportation can be utilized more if it is rational for people to use it. Low cost, and faster time-wise than automobiles. This means light-rail, for example, or buses with bus-only lanes. And bicycles and walking, of course, though you are correct that smog is a big issue in southern CA (though this is severely exacerbated by the automobiles in the sprawled-out regions!). Can you imagine how much less air pollution there would be in the LA area if most of those cars were no longer needed? Of course that is a huge transformation, especially for the LA area, but there has been progress for their public transportation. Yes, electric cars are coming out and I support them as they don't emit air pollution during use, and their lifecycle carbon emissions are significantly less than gasoline-powered vehicles (even considering higher initial construction emissions); however, electric cars don't solve the sprawling land development issues. I live in Seattle, though, where, although still too dependent on cars, public transportation has been heavily and increasingly utilized (aside from during the pandemic). Buses and trains often filling up. There's no negative stigma about using them, and there is support for increasing their capacity. Our light rail system is expanding a lot! Faster than cars, safer, more sustainable, less expensive to use.
It is an interesting idea you have about ecohomes and sustainable communities in areas of the country where it would be feasible. Perhaps there are ways for that to work financially. That's a longer discussion haha, but it's possible. Given the population of the U.S., I'm not quite sure how this could be done sustainably given the amount of land that would need to still be altered, and transportation needs.
In terms of losing yards/gardens, I do think greenspace is extremely important. It can be carefully located on properties at ground-level. I support generally increasing park space. Additionally, I'm a huge proponent of green roofs- I could talk about them for hours but there are a ton of benefits, and they can partially or completely make up for lost vegetation at ground-level. But if you are talking about California and drought, think about how much water lawns across the state use! And backyard pools. Of course agriculture and commercial interests use even more water, but that's a different discussion. But yes, we need to think about climate change in terms of where people live.
Packed in like sardines....not really. I mean apartments should be designed with human needs in mind. That includes noise insulation, in my view. But you can have more than enough space in apartments. It's also a cultural thing (that's in some ways changing). Over the decades, house size has gone up while family size has gone down. Americans too often have way more space than is needed- don't you know people who have rooms in their house they don't even use? In other countries, apartments are the norm, and they are just fine. I mean they are the norm in a lot of the U.S., as well. Don't get me wrong- I love nature. Which is why less sprawling development allows closer access directly to nature, and less disruption of the environment itself, and less resource use!
I'm honestly not particularly familiar with the CA bills you are talking about. I agree with you that construction materials is a very important topic. Cost is of course a big discussion there, but better materials would be better for people living there, and the buildings would last longer!
@@kirstin1272 Except for the U.S.and Canada, mixed-use development is the norm. Much cheaper housing. Not everyone wants to live in an overpriced house that they have to maintain. Stop forcing property owners from building the types of housing they like.
@@kirstin1272 There's a lot of land, but people can't very well live in a cornfield that's 100's of miles away from good jobs and other amenities. We don't just need more housing, we need more housing where people actually want/need to live.
Bad bad idea... we were evicted (the only time I have ever been evicted) in San Jose because my autistic grandson made too much noise. We would not survive without our single family house. I sought legal help and I was told homeless shelters were full of families with autistic children that made too much noise.
Your family not being able to live in a complex means affordable apartments should not exist? Where do you morons get these stupid ideas?
@@TragicArchAngel You go live in a homeless shelter if you like that idea.
I'm sorry you and your family had to go through that. That is a tough situation. I do think a type of middle approach could be sought. For example, certain building materials can better insulate sound. Depending on what the material is it could be more expensive, though, but perhaps not. Additionally, "single family homes" can still exist in denser formats in certain ways, like townhomes. A plot of land that would normally have just one house could have two or three or four units, yet they are still separate buildings from each other. A last point is that ending single-family zoning doesn't truly get rid of all single-family houses. It simply allows denser development on those plots of land. Someone could still build a single-family home or still buy an existing one (depending on how the law is written), but over time it might not be as economically feasible as it would be seen as more profitable to build more units on the same plot of land. Anyway, single-family homes will still exist but I do think there are ways to densify housing that can be inclusive of all people with their own particular needs.
@@jasonsteinberg5404 Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I definitely agree with higher density and secondary dwelling units, second and third stories, decreasing setbacks to zero lot lines even. We added on a room and bathroom to take in a family member with dementia. However, families with disabled children that make noise, need ground floor access, need extra security measures on doors and windows, just can't live in apartments. Some can, but many can't. The mortgage company doesn't care how much noise your child makes, or how many locks and bars are on doors and windows, the HOA or Condo Association does. If the goal is to prevent homelessness having large amounts of mentally ill and disabled people and children (like Tourette's and Autism) in apartments won't help. They will be put back out on the street. Our house is built like Fort Knox and we need the extra perimeters of the fences for escape artists. (We have two autistic boys.) We can't get that in an apartment.
@@2busysecretary These are really interesting insights, thank you.
Yet another reason to leave California.
Yeah, stack 'em like cord wood 'til we get the Matrix up and running.
it's a miracle how black people are still surviving in this country.
Can we say "smart cities"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I find this hard to beleive
2:45 Dude give it up the shirt doesn’t fit
There is a homeless problem there
They're going to love Portland it's the world's largest trailer park
ICE STORMS are fun, sliding your car down a hill into traffic on Barbur Blvd.
California's BIGGEST PROBLEM is overpopulation.
First your guns , then your jobs , now your homes
@Bart Primkin can’t fix stupid but we can recall them or impeach a useless president
😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣
More housing when there is more water ... and no more IC engines in personal use vehicles.
Also, eliminate houses as a commodity. Not going to happen, but it needs to.
Desalination plants could fix the drought and it’s not the first time California has been in one.... we are in a desert after all
@@11DelgadoBrian Before immensely expensive (non-sustainable) desalination, we need to stop using expensively purified drinking water to flush away our waste products.
Also, solar-powered atmospheric water condensers on the roofs of all coastal single family structures is a very do-able thing. New Building Codes, without grandfather clause exemptions, need to be researched and implemented ... WITHOUT political considerations. Tax credits, rebates and need-based grants, and a moratorium period on property tax reassessment based on the modifications could combine to make this work.
Further,
Limiting dwelling resale pricing to the general inflation index, AND limiting resale period to 5+yrs would help to stop community destruction by greed.
@@f.n.schlub I feel like people keep saying we are running out of water but then we still dump tons of water into grass lawns and golf courses and random foliage by highways, if we just didn't waist so much it would be fine..
Great. You'll end up with the same problems you left in the city.
Evictions certainly can radicalize people
1917 is on the horizont
The only way to make high density housing work without driving people crazy, is to modernize construction materials that includes concrete floors and/or soundproofing. Most high density living in US cities are in creaky wooden houses from 1927. All for someone else to make a buck off someone else. Rethink everything. We can simplify, and reduce cost at the same time. 3-D printing, storage containers, and Pre-Fab units are the immediate answer right now.
Build high rise. Obviously.
It sounds like Berkley's mayor has been approached by developers and now has a different tune. I live in NYC and I can tell you that denser housing is not going to equal cheaper housing. The YIMBY people want to park a housing project in these nice suburban neighborhoods and they are going to use white guilt to do it. Developers are going to build expensive but poor quality multi unit housing. They will set the rent at the going rate, which will be expensive for this area. Then the government will offer tax breaks if they open up the units to low income renters. So the tax payers are going to end up subsidizing this housing. Because the housing is subsidized by tax payers the owners of the properties will not be able to vet renters. So you could end up with homeless people as neighbors. Now some homeless people work and are decent people that fell on hard times. Others...not so much. You could end up with a crack addict living down the hall. They will also probably open a homeless shelter in these neighborhoods. So you will begin to see addicts, ladies/gentlemen of the night and their managers populating your living space. You are also going to get the type of people that you don't want for neighbors. The type that plays loud music in front of your house at 2 am. My advice to people in these communities is to fight this with all your resources.
New York City, as dense as it is, still has just half the population density of Paris, and Paris has a lot less high-rises. It's because they have densely organized 6-story buildings throughout the city, whereas there is Manhattan with a bunch of high-rises (many of which aren't housing), some high-rises in other boroughs, but lots of relatively low-rise and even single-family homes within the city limits (not just Staten Island but also in Brooklyn and Queens). This could lead to larger discussions but this is just an example.
As for the rest, I do think you are distorting it a bit. It's too long to respond to every single point you raise but firstly, densifying housing is not just "housing projects." There is a whole spectrum of housing forms that are private- duplexes, tri/quadriplexes, rowhouses, townhouses, cottage housing, small apartment buildings, mid-sized, mixed-use, etc. Secondly, "housing project" is using a term that tends to bring up poorly funded and managed towers of concentrated poverty without support in the building or in the surrounding area. Things are changing- where I am in Seattle some buildings are public housing and you probably wouldn't even notice as they blend into the area. It is true, at least here, that a number of private developments get tax breaks for providing about a quarter of their units to people making less than the area's median income (various percentages of area median income in different buildings). Some of those are even still fairly expensive, but at least provide a more affordable option compared to market rate (I live in one of these subsidized units in a market-rate building). There are certain rules in leasing- if there were a bunch of hardcore drug addicts disturbing others and people blasting music at all hours, that wouldn't be allowed in a typical building.
Lastly, for people who are homeless and without jobs and have drug, mental health, and/or other issues, there needs to be publicly-funded housing which itself contains supportive services to address these various issues. There are developments that have these types of combinations of housing and services. I actually recall doing a grad school project which involved these types of combination developments recently in NYC and they seemed to be designed very thoughtfully. There aren't enough of these types of developments. Denser housing in general can also increase tax revenue which can be directly allocated to these services. And sure, security does need to be a consideration and I am hopeful this can be done in measured and responsible ways. On a larger scale, we need more federal funding for housing and various services as this is a nation-wide issue.
This guy gets it.
Every single city and town have vacant stores everywhere! Build it there not in suburbs. That stupid couple leaving SF for Portland? 😅 its the same😂
There are a lot of old properties in R1 zoned areas that need torn down and rebuilt. You can't and shouldn't get rid of R1 zones.
Huh??? R1 can become R2
@@hadamerryweather577 R1 can also become C1 or I4 but that doesn't mean it should and spot zoning isn't allowed in any placed I've heard of. Just my opinion but every town has old rundown houses. Instead of expanding, build from within, and keep single family areas. Or move away from places with such high prices.
And they should get rezoned r2 so developers can use that lot for 2+ units, and everyone wins. Cities should be dense and car free
@@Off-Grid Sfh are still gonna be built developers can now build other types of homes
Well, some of those run down houses can be demolished and be replaced with duplexes. Single family houses are still allowed, but this bill loosens regulations and allows other residential development to be built as well.
Affordable housing is not possible with high taxation state.. To mention, price of commodity, lumber and building materials, wages of worker to build house and combine with high property tax all together.. Its ignorant to say its all about supply and demand, you have to look at the entire picture whats driving this high cost
yeah-add more housing in cities and stay the heck away from the country