Why Is There a Housing Crisis?

[KamaAina]

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/why-is-there-a-housing-crisis/Content?oid=4722242

The Bay Area's outrageous housing prices have led to howls of protest. Average rents have shot up by half during the last five years. Rents and house prices are the highest of any metropolitan area in the country and among the most unaffordable in the world. This is not just true of San Francisco but applies to the entire Bay region — now twelve counties and 8.5 million people, according to the US Census....

But while it's true that we need to expand the region's housing supply, building more housing cannot solve the problem as long as demand is out of control, as it is today. There is simply no way housing could have been built quickly enough to avoid the price spike of the current boom.

Three basic forces are driving the Bay Area's housing prices upward: growth, affluence, and inequality. Three other things make matters worse: finance, business cycles, and geography. All of these operate on the demand side of the equation, and demand is the key to the runaway housing market....

On top of this, income distribution is highly unequal, and wealth inequality is even worse, allowing the upper classes to put additional pressure on the market for good housing in favored locations. The Bay Area has one of the highest indexes of income inequality of any region, caused principally by the high salaries of the top 20 percent of earners. As for wealth, the Bay Area has more millionaires per capita than any other US metro and can claim 45 of the 400 richest people in the United States, second only to New York City.

[Travis_0004]

1. Zoning needs to be changed

New york has 55% more people per sq mile. I dont think SF has to become like New York, but changing zoning to allow taller buildings would go a long way.

[KamaAina]

2. It's not just SF. It's the whole Bay Area.

Oakland is starting to build upwards. It's tough in San Jose because the airport flight path goes right over downtown! No, really, you can see the giant SAP logo painted on the roof of the Shark Tank on final approach. Most other places are, of course, concerned that those people might move into high-density developments.

[HelenWheels]

3. Where do the "common folk" live

Where do the teachers, bartenders, hotel and restaurant workers live?

[Auggie]

4. Livermore Valley ... Vacaville ... some as far east as Tracy and Stockton. Or as south as Gilroy.

[KamaAina]

5. Our agency has a satellite office in Gilroy

the Garlic Capital of the World does, in fact, smell like garlic.

The woman who runs the show down there says that the housing situation is no better there than anyone else in the county. In fact, she has begun referring people to Merced (85 miles away)! Her rationale is that Merced recently got a UC campus, so it's coming up in the world relative to other valley towns, but it's still affordable (by California standards, at any rate).

[Auggie]

6. Wow ... Merced is way the f*** out there!

How far south from San Jose does one have to be to get "more affordable?" Salinas?

[KamaAina]

7. Possibly.

People are also starting to filter into San Benito (Hollister and vicinity).

[YoungDemCA]

8. It really is out of control. This new breed of wealthy people - many of whom didn't grow up here

are ruining the region with their yuppie, expensive lifestyles and their callous indifference (or even outright contempt) for the working class locals.

K&R.