Native San Franciscian feeling disenchanted with his hometown and may want to relocate to la. (living, smog)

[04kL4nD]

I wouldn't say past 10 years (I moved here in 07). I would definitely say the past 3-5 though. The last two years have been the most dramatic.

[Bonez765]

Originally Posted by Bisaro TMF

That's already happening to Oakland. The rest of the Nation thinks Oakland is one big Slum but most people around here have waken up. In the past 10 years Oakland has changed faster than any city I've seen except maybe Brooklyn. The situation reminds me a lot of Brooklyn actually.

And guess where all those undesirables of Oakland are moving to? Yep, the North Bay where I'm at. Solano County is experiencing what Hayward experienced in the 1990s.

[2sleepy]

Originally Posted by Bonez765

And guess where all those undesirables of Oakland are moving to? Yep, the North Bay where I'm at. Solano County is experiencing what Hayward experienced in the 1990s.

Nothing new about that, Solano County's been that way for a long time. Last year Vallejo finally quit accepting in-transfers of section 8 vouchers; folks with SF and Oakland vouchers were flooding there because the vouchers would no longer cover the rent in most of the Bay Area.

[Bonez765]

Originally Posted by 2sleepy

Nothing new about that, Solano County's been that way for a long time. Last year Vallejo finally quit accepting in-transfers of section 8 vouchers; folks with SF and Oakland vouchers were flooding there because the vouchers would no longer cover the rent in most of the Bay Area.

I'm talking here in Fairfield(where I live) and in Vacaville. Vallejo has always been a ****hole.

[2sleepy]

Originally Posted by Bonez765

I'm talking here in Fairfield(where I live) and in Vacaville. Vallejo has always been a ****hole.

true, but from the way it looks Fairfield is catching up. I had a friend who lived on one of the "president streets" for years, he said after 2008 a ton of houses were foreclosed and bought up by investors who turned them into rentals. He said it went downhill fast. He had a neighbor parking cars all over their front yard and when they ran out of room they actually parked one on his front lawn and threatened him after he asked them to move it. The one time I visited him before he moved it did look pretty sketchy, lots of sofas on front porches

[Bonez765]

Originally Posted by 2sleepy

true, but from the way it looks Fairfield is catching up. I had a friend who lived on one of the "president streets" for years, he said after 2008 a ton of houses were foreclosed and bought up by investors who turned them into rentals. He said it went downhill fast. He had a neighbor parking cars all over their front yard and when they ran out of room they actually parked one on his front lawn and threatened him after he asked them to move it. The one time I visited him before he moved it did look pretty sketchy, lots of sofas on front porches

That area has always been like that since I first moved here (2005). All those hoodlum are Inner East Bay imports.

[AnthonyJ34]

Originally Posted by 04kL4nD

The worst part about LA isn't the smog and traffic, it's the idiots who live down there and think they're God's gift to the universe for living there. LOL ROFL

Yeah, especially the West Side snobs.

[justmeinca]

Originally Posted by Bonez765

I'm talking here in Fairfield(where I live) and in Vacaville. Vallejo has always been a ****hole.

Not $hit, Fairfield is turning into new gang land?

Woman shot dead in Fairfield - SFGate

"
Funny, I moved to the Fairfield area in 2011 to buy a home and to get out of the Oakland BS. I am stupid. It did not occur to me that gentrification would push the gangs and their families to the area, and rather quickly. It wasn't Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood when I got here, but in four years I can see a difference. Suppose I should sell while I can, and just rent (for many years for free off of my equity) somewhere nice in the East Bay.
"

[phantompilot]

Originally Posted by cardinal2007

It is pretty much zoning, currently there is a lot of demand for people wanting to live in SF, and then Palo Alto. If you're very wealthy there is a big status boost living in SF, and also for Palo Alto, so people do want to pay a premium and move there, the rest of the Bay Area is also fairly expensive, but not $1000/sqft+, but there is a plenty of demand to live there.

I'm certain that if you build any half-way decent apartment building in any SF, SM Co, SC Co, Alameda Co, Contra Costa west of Pittsburg, and Marin Co. it will fill up pretty fast.

But zoning does not allow any of that, housing supply goes up much more slowly.

So yeah, more people don't live there because they would have nowhere to live, basically making them homeless As much as people want to live here, they are not willing to be homeless.

I disagree that zoning should be to blame - most of the Bay Area is simply already built up. By zoning if you mean not allowing the hills and mountains to be developed with high density or not destroying protected and vital habitats such as wetlands and grasslands, then you're correct. But if you simply mean "regulation of use type" then I don't see it at all.

Which communities still have buildable spaces appropriate for residential housing?

And when you look at the economics of high-density housing, you quickly realize that these kinds of developments represent huge costs to local governments - this is why residents fight against them....because they raise the costs of delivering services but they don't generate the revenues needed to defray those costs. The current residents don't wish to subsidize new residents, obviously, and neither do they want to see their quality of life degraded. That is why there is opposition to increasing population density.
And there is also opposition to sprawl for the same and similar reasons.

[cardinal2007]

Originally Posted by phantompilot

I disagree that zoning should be to blame - most of the Bay Area is simply already built up. By zoning if you mean not allowing the hills and mountains to be developed with high density or not destroying protected and vital habitats such as wetlands and grasslands, then you're correct. But if you simply mean "regulation of use type" then I don't see it at all.

Which communities still have buildable spaces appropriate for residential housing?

And when you look at the economics of high-density housing, you quickly realize that these kinds of developments represent huge costs to local governments - this is why residents fight against them....because they raise the costs of delivering services but they don't generate the revenues needed to defray those costs. The current residents don't wish to subsidize new residents, obviously, and neither do they want to see their quality of life degraded. That is why there is opposition to increasing population density.
And there is also opposition to sprawl for the same and similar reasons.

Without restrictive zoning a lot of homeowners would've sold their homes to developers a long time ago and developers would've built apartments in a lot more areas in the Bay Area. Places can and have been demolished to build denser housing. You can disagree all you want, doesn't change the facts, the incentives are clearly there if the zoning were more lax.

Regarding this: "And when you look at the economics of high-density housing, you quickly realize that these kinds of developments represent huge costs to local government" it is quite the opposite, low-density housing costs a lot more in tax services than high density housing does, mostly since governments are tasked on maintaining infrastructure outside particular people's homes, private roads, private sewage lines, private water pipes for developments are rare (though I have seen some developments like that out East, and kudos to them), but if you build a high rise complex for 1000 people the government will not maintain any of that inside the building, the infrastructure is interior to the building and the owners usually pay a hefty HOA fee to maintain it, while the roads a developer built for a housing subdivision become the burden of all the taxpayers, same for storm drains under the road, same for utility poles, same for sewer lines under the roads (if that were all private and owned by an HOA then the HOA fees would be high like for condos). That part is well documented, you should really look it up, that way you'll be a little less ignorant of the facts.