Who’s to blame for the housing crisis? New American Media pondered that question and whether it’s OK to point the finger only at so-called “techies.” Some argue techies, who through injecting their wealth and jobs into the area, are to blame for the evictions and disappearance of the city’s eclectic culture.
Placing blame for the housing and eviction crisis solely on “techies” is an oversimplification, and counterproductive in solving the aforementioned problems, reported New American Media.
Other forces potentially at fault, they highlight, include real estate spectators, the education system and even the San Francisco city government, which has offered tax breaks to tech companies as Twitter.
How about people focus on getting a better job? Or upping the minimum wage? Things that are, you know, legal.
Then again, be careful what you wish for….. if more people can suddently afford to live in San Francisco you’ve pretty fucked yourself. But you’ll be more than happy to help them out, right?
Oh right. Thought so.
There is an unfortunate viewpoint in SF among some people that they are entitled to live in one of the most desirable and expensive places on the planet not because of what they do and contribute.
But based on who they are. Or rather their deluded fantasy about their own self-image.
I call them Peter Pans – folks from elsewhere who do not want to ever grow up and/or be an adult. They think they can come to SF and freeze their immaturity in time and get away with it.
And of course part of that immaturity is the inability to pay their way and their unreasonable and self-entitled expectation that somebody else will pay for them to have what they cannot afford.
Immature Underachievers – San Francisco used to be a safe haven for them. Not anymore.
nutrisystem, would you like a list of the places with higher rents than SF, and which I cannot afford?
And do you see me whining that I cannot live in those places? And demanding that the government “do something about it”?
No, you do not. Because I am a realist, I accept my limitations, and I do not try and force and impose myself on a location where I lack the fiscal power to sustain myself there.
3K a month in a town where the average income is approaching 100K a year doesn’t sound so wrong to me. But if it was too rich for my blood, I’d move to Oakland. I wouldn’t whine at you to give me a subsidy.
Here we go again…
“John”, why don’t you explain to us simple folks why $3000/month apartments are the way it’s SUPPOSED to work – the sign of a healthy economy.
Explain to us why we should be smiling about HappyFace Surveillance Corporation dumping 10 thousand highly paid workers into an already overheated rental market.
Explain to us how it’s awesome that people who work here full-time are unable to afford a studio apartment.
No one owes you anything. I lived outside the city __FOR YEARS__ until I was able to afford it.
Suck it up, and shut the fuck up.
I agree that putting the blame on “techies” is wide of the mark. Clearly the relative affordability of any neighborhood is a complex array of factors.
But I also dispute whether we really have a housing crisis at all. There was a housing crisis in 2008, when homes could not sell and rentals could not rent. But back then, nobody called it a crisis.
But now, ever home for sale, sells. Every rental for rent, rents. Maybe not at a price that everyone can afford, but certainly at an agreed price.
If we have liquidity, with everything selling and renting, then clearly there are enough people who can afford homes here. So what crisis?
Seems to me that this is only a crisis for those people who think they should be able to afford what they would like to be able to afford, but cannot.
If places are selling and renting, and prices are increasing, that is a fairly healthy housing market, and far from any alleged crisis. This crisis is dreamed up and drummed up by the madia to try and sell copy by through hyperbole and by inducing panic.