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Oakland relaxed a lot of zoning, and permitting regulations about 5 years ago, and so now you're starting to really see production sky rocket. This article [0]

Oakland relaxed a lot of zoning, and permitting regulations about 5 years ago, and so now you're starting to really see production sky rocket. This article [0] mentions 2019 was had 15x more units completed than 2018. And 3x the total units from 2013-2018 combined. Anecdotally, I have several friends who've all moved to Oakland in the last year or so. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and maybe, hopefully, SF will take the hint. [0] - https://www.city-journal.org/oakland-rezoning-california-housing https://www.city-journal.org/oakland-rezoning-california-hou...

klipt 6y ago
I think SF has already taken the hint that they can outsource their residents to Oakland. Residents strain the city budget via things like public schools. Businesses put money into the city budget via gross receipts taxes. SF wants the businesses but is very happy for residents to live elsewhere.
- lumost 6y ago
  CT went this way as well, eventually the businesses look to follow residents - particularly younger residents who can't afford the inflated rent or down payments.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    CT has a different problem, they kicked the labor expenses 30 to 50 years into the future via underfunded defined benefit pension benefit, retiree healthcare, and other deferred compensation. They don’t have a tier 1 city which people are willing to pay a premium to live in, and the taxpayers today are balking at paying for labor performed decades ago. I’d be wary of starting a business subject to a relatively deeply indebted government if I had other options.
  - gen220 6y ago
    Can you expand on this? Did CT follow Oakland, where SF is NYC? Or if CT is SF, where is the corresponding Oakland? I live in NYC, and my view of CT is that its modern identity is dominated by being a suburb to NYC, with a handful of big and old businesses in the big cities to keep domestic economy afloat. The places in my mind that don't fit this model are all east of New Haven, at which point CT starts to be "Coastal New England", a region that, excepting Boston, continues up to Bar Harbor, ME. But my view is obviously biased by my limited experience, I'm curious to hear more of your perspective.
    - lumost 6y ago
      During the suburban expansion of the last century many southern CT towns allowed in businesses but declined to expand housing and transit availability. This combined with strong NIMBYism drove up housing prices in southern CT. A good modern analogue of southern CT from the 70s-90s would be the valley in the bay area e.g. Palo Alto, Mountain View etc.
      - throwawaybbqed 6y ago
        Not disagreeing with you but some additional points: I don't think CT's housing issues are anywhere remotely as bad as the Bay area. Stamford is the tier 1 city in CT IMHO, which seemed kind of lame. i.e. we would have friends in places further east (almost as far as New Haven) who would come to Stamford for the "scene". I use quotes because the scene in Stamford was pretty muted. We (who lived in Stamford) would drive to Manhattan for our weekends and special weeknights. I thought it worked really well for us. For 2400 a month, we were living in Luxury apartments and life was car friendly. Housing didn't seem too overpriced (starter homes were 600K IIRC). IMO, Stamford was pretty neat a few years back .. not sure if it has changed. Bay area housing just went stupid until the pandemic hit. I moved out and so did many people I know. It was just not "affordable" on a 200K salary if you have multiple kids and a stay at home spouse. The housing you could get for $2400 was terrible in most parts that were reasonable commuting distance. I also would take metro north over caltrain any day. Taxes are bad in both places. Stamford seemed more affordable and a lot better culture to me. I love the Bay area but can't make the math work :(
  - gota 6y ago
    What is CT? Pardon my ignorance
    - chub500 6y ago
      Connecticut
    - onecommentman 6y ago
      Connecticut (CT) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_and_territory_abbreviations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_and_territo... You can’t follow the game if you don’t have a program. And it’s even an ANSI standard...
  - DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
    I grew up in southeastern CT and visit there occasionally. It's hard to describe how dead it is for commercial software development, even compared to Boston. Even if one was inclined to open a good software shop in CT, you'd have neither low property prices nor an existing pool of highly skilled labor.
    - jeffe 6y ago
      doesn't Greenwich have a good amount of quant shops?
      - DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
        I'm not sure, but that's an excellent counterpoint if so. I shouldn't have presumed to speak for the parts of CT near NYC.
        lumost 6y ago
        Westport is home to Bridgewater capital, and Fairfield was until recently home to GE headquarters ( which also used to mean a lot more ). I haven't lived in the area for some time, but I haven't heard of many new businesses form in the last ~20 years.
- zapita 6y ago
  This is true, and will remain true until prop 13 is repealed. The same dynamic is at play between San Jose and Mountain View/Cupertino/Palo Alto.
  - fortran77 6y ago
    What does Prop 13 have to do with the fact that they're not building enough housing?
    - pound 6y ago
      not enough housing to meet demand means raising property values, which is beneficial for property owners without having to pay more taxes
      - fortran77 6y ago
        I don't think every California home owner is some evil beast trying to keep others out. I support building more homes, and would love it if every single family detached home were automatically rezoned for two units on the parcel. But if it weren't for Prop 13, my home and my business would have been forced out by people moving in and paying too much money for homes next door to me. And "raising property values" only raises my property tax, while giving me no real benefit.
        zapita 6y ago
        > But if it weren't for Prop 13, my home and my business would have been forced out by people moving in and paying too much money for homes next door to me. Prop 13 does not solve this problem. It merely shields historical homeowners from it, while amplifying it for everyone else. Many people and businesses were forced out by speculation because of prop 13, but you and a small group of people were exempted so you don’t care.
        fortran77 6y ago
        How dare you say "I don't care." Who are you to speculate about what I think about?
- lostdog 6y ago
  Anecdotally, I definitely came across more startups being located in the East Bay during my last job search. The founders already lived there, so they located the company there too.
jrnichols 6y ago
I thought this was interesting about San Francisco: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Faster-and-cheaper-San-Francisco-saves-by-15380178.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Faster-and-cheap... They're building affordable housing, prefabricated.
- sagarm 6y ago
  Prefab won't be a solution for housing shortages in California because of trade union opposition. The fact that there is more than enough work to go around doesn't stop them from opposing efficiency improvements and extracting rents in the form of union labour requirements in housing bills.
  - tdaltonc 6y ago
    What levers do construction trade unions have to stop prefab?
    - LurkersWillLurk 6y ago
      Campaign finance, presumably.
lmeyerov 6y ago
I'm not sure it's so rosy in Oakland. For commercial real-estate in oakland, we were hit with the reverse -- rent kept going up as folks like Uber were eyeing it. Community housing groups were rightfully concerned for the relatively poor community as well. It reached the point that we moved to a spot in SF (union square) because prices reached a similar level. We went fully-remote right before covid as we had a remote culture, so not sure how it is now. If true, good to hear Oakland is fixing the path it was on..
8ytecoder 6y ago
SF gets a lot of flak for housing - quite deservedly so - but we give a free pass to cities like Mountain View and Palo Alto. They have much much more restrictive zoning. Palo Alto outright bans a second storey. That’s where people go to work as well. They want to keep the offices there but not let the people live. What would be good is a tax system that’s distributed based on where people live nullifying the advantage of the lopsided advantage for favoring businesses over residents.
- usaar333 6y ago
  I agree with Palo Alto, but how is Mountain View restrictive by Bay Area standards? It's added a higher percent of people than Oakland on the past decade.

klipt 6y ago

I think SF has already taken the hint that they can outsource their residents to Oakland. Residents strain the city budget via things like public schools. Businesses put money into the city budget via gross receipts taxes. SF wants the businesses but is very happy for residents to live elsewhere.

lumost 6y ago
CT went this way as well, eventually the businesses look to follow residents - particularly younger residents who can't afford the inflated rent or down payments.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  CT has a different problem, they kicked the labor expenses 30 to 50 years into the future via underfunded defined benefit pension benefit, retiree healthcare, and other deferred compensation. They don’t have a tier 1 city which people are willing to pay a premium to live in, and the taxpayers today are balking at paying for labor performed decades ago. I’d be wary of starting a business subject to a relatively deeply indebted government if I had other options.
- gen220 6y ago
  Can you expand on this? Did CT follow Oakland, where SF is NYC? Or if CT is SF, where is the corresponding Oakland? I live in NYC, and my view of CT is that its modern identity is dominated by being a suburb to NYC, with a handful of big and old businesses in the big cities to keep domestic economy afloat. The places in my mind that don't fit this model are all east of New Haven, at which point CT starts to be "Coastal New England", a region that, excepting Boston, continues up to Bar Harbor, ME. But my view is obviously biased by my limited experience, I'm curious to hear more of your perspective.
  - lumost 6y ago
    During the suburban expansion of the last century many southern CT towns allowed in businesses but declined to expand housing and transit availability. This combined with strong NIMBYism drove up housing prices in southern CT. A good modern analogue of southern CT from the 70s-90s would be the valley in the bay area e.g. Palo Alto, Mountain View etc.
    - throwawaybbqed 6y ago
      Not disagreeing with you but some additional points: I don't think CT's housing issues are anywhere remotely as bad as the Bay area. Stamford is the tier 1 city in CT IMHO, which seemed kind of lame. i.e. we would have friends in places further east (almost as far as New Haven) who would come to Stamford for the "scene". I use quotes because the scene in Stamford was pretty muted. We (who lived in Stamford) would drive to Manhattan for our weekends and special weeknights. I thought it worked really well for us. For 2400 a month, we were living in Luxury apartments and life was car friendly. Housing didn't seem too overpriced (starter homes were 600K IIRC). IMO, Stamford was pretty neat a few years back .. not sure if it has changed. Bay area housing just went stupid until the pandemic hit. I moved out and so did many people I know. It was just not "affordable" on a 200K salary if you have multiple kids and a stay at home spouse. The housing you could get for $2400 was terrible in most parts that were reasonable commuting distance. I also would take metro north over caltrain any day. Taxes are bad in both places. Stamford seemed more affordable and a lot better culture to me. I love the Bay area but can't make the math work :(
- gota 6y ago
  What is CT? Pardon my ignorance
  - chub500 6y ago
    Connecticut
  - onecommentman 6y ago
    Connecticut (CT) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_and_territory_abbreviations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_and_territo... You can’t follow the game if you don’t have a program. And it’s even an ANSI standard...
- DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
  I grew up in southeastern CT and visit there occasionally. It's hard to describe how dead it is for commercial software development, even compared to Boston. Even if one was inclined to open a good software shop in CT, you'd have neither low property prices nor an existing pool of highly skilled labor.
  - jeffe 6y ago
    doesn't Greenwich have a good amount of quant shops?
    - DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
      I'm not sure, but that's an excellent counterpoint if so. I shouldn't have presumed to speak for the parts of CT near NYC.
      - lumost 6y ago
        Westport is home to Bridgewater capital, and Fairfield was until recently home to GE headquarters ( which also used to mean a lot more ). I haven't lived in the area for some time, but I haven't heard of many new businesses form in the last ~20 years.
zapita 6y ago
This is true, and will remain true until prop 13 is repealed. The same dynamic is at play between San Jose and Mountain View/Cupertino/Palo Alto.
- fortran77 6y ago
  What does Prop 13 have to do with the fact that they're not building enough housing?
  - pound 6y ago
    not enough housing to meet demand means raising property values, which is beneficial for property owners without having to pay more taxes
    - fortran77 6y ago
      I don't think every California home owner is some evil beast trying to keep others out. I support building more homes, and would love it if every single family detached home were automatically rezoned for two units on the parcel. But if it weren't for Prop 13, my home and my business would have been forced out by people moving in and paying too much money for homes next door to me. And "raising property values" only raises my property tax, while giving me no real benefit.
      - zapita 6y ago
        > But if it weren't for Prop 13, my home and my business would have been forced out by people moving in and paying too much money for homes next door to me. Prop 13 does not solve this problem. It merely shields historical homeowners from it, while amplifying it for everyone else. Many people and businesses were forced out by speculation because of prop 13, but you and a small group of people were exempted so you don’t care.
        fortran77 6y ago
        How dare you say "I don't care." Who are you to speculate about what I think about?
lostdog 6y ago
Anecdotally, I definitely came across more startups being located in the East Bay during my last job search. The founders already lived there, so they located the company there too.

jrnichols 6y ago

I thought this was interesting about San Francisco: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Faster-and-cheaper-San-Francisco-saves-by-15380178.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Faster-and-cheap... They're building affordable housing, prefabricated.

sagarm 6y ago
Prefab won't be a solution for housing shortages in California because of trade union opposition. The fact that there is more than enough work to go around doesn't stop them from opposing efficiency improvements and extracting rents in the form of union labour requirements in housing bills.
- tdaltonc 6y ago
  What levers do construction trade unions have to stop prefab?
  - LurkersWillLurk 6y ago
    Campaign finance, presumably.

lmeyerov 6y ago

I'm not sure it's so rosy in Oakland. For commercial real-estate in oakland, we were hit with the reverse -- rent kept going up as folks like Uber were eyeing it. Community housing groups were rightfully concerned for the relatively poor community as well. It reached the point that we moved to a spot in SF (union square) because prices reached a similar level. We went fully-remote right before covid as we had a remote culture, so not sure how it is now. If true, good to hear Oakland is fixing the path it was on..

8ytecoder 6y ago

SF gets a lot of flak for housing - quite deservedly so - but we give a free pass to cities like Mountain View and Palo Alto. They have much much more restrictive zoning. Palo Alto outright bans a second storey. That’s where people go to work as well. They want to keep the offices there but not let the people live. What would be good is a tax system that’s distributed based on where people live nullifying the advantage of the lopsided advantage for favoring businesses over residents.

usaar333 6y ago
I agree with Palo Alto, but how is Mountain View restrictive by Bay Area standards? It's added a higher percent of people than Oakland on the past decade.