San Francisco's Empty Offices Might Start Converting Into Housing (sfgate.com) 147
"San Francisco's downtown has lost roughly 150,000 daily workers since the pandemic," reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
But on the bright side, "Some of San Francisco's empty office buildings are one step closer to being converted into residential units," reports SFGate: The owners of eight San Francisco office buildings responded to a request from the city for landlords interested in converting their properties into condos or apartments, the San Francisco Chronicle reported... The properties would yield about 1,100 units if they were to all be converted, according to the Chronicle. All of the buildings are located in neighborhoods downtown, including the Civic Center area and the Financial District...
Converting offices to housing is a notably difficult process, especially in San Francisco, where the city's tedious permitting and approvals process has deterred many landlords from pursuing the process entirely. However, that could soon change: The request for interest put forth by the city was part of an initiative intended to jump-start office-to-housing conversions that was announced in June. In March, Mayor London Breed and the Board of Supervisors introduced legislation that would facilitate these conversions by exempting certain downtown buildings from housing requirements that are more difficult to apply to former offices, like rear yard space and a variety of unit types.
Or, as the Chronicle puts it, "The much-discussed push to revive downtown San Francisco by converting empty office buildings to housing is starting to gather real-world momentum, with property owners looking to take advantage of a political climate in which the mayor and Board of Supervisors are desperate to activate the city's struggling central neighborhoods." While converting eight commercial buildings totaling less than 1 million square feet would not put much of a dent in the historic 33.9% office vacancy — more than 30 million square feet of space — the interest is indicative that an increasing number of landlords are accepting the reality that the pandemic and remote work has rendered some buildings obsolete. "We were pleased with the responses — it was more than we had expected, and there was a good variety of buildings," said Anne Taupier, director of development for the city's Office of Economic and Workforce Development. "We think there is a chance to see some game-changing activation...."
Taupier said that all of the property owners said that recent legislation streamlining and lowering affordable housing requirements would be key to making conversions possible. Most of them would be candidates for Mills Act tax credits, which allow cities to reduce taxes for 10 years or more to owners of historic properties.
One of the biggest applications came from Mark Shkolnikov's Group I. "The support from the city has just been remarkable," Shkolnikov said. "They have been frequently checking in to see what they can do to help move this along.
But on the bright side, "Some of San Francisco's empty office buildings are one step closer to being converted into residential units," reports SFGate: The owners of eight San Francisco office buildings responded to a request from the city for landlords interested in converting their properties into condos or apartments, the San Francisco Chronicle reported... The properties would yield about 1,100 units if they were to all be converted, according to the Chronicle. All of the buildings are located in neighborhoods downtown, including the Civic Center area and the Financial District...
Converting offices to housing is a notably difficult process, especially in San Francisco, where the city's tedious permitting and approvals process has deterred many landlords from pursuing the process entirely. However, that could soon change: The request for interest put forth by the city was part of an initiative intended to jump-start office-to-housing conversions that was announced in June. In March, Mayor London Breed and the Board of Supervisors introduced legislation that would facilitate these conversions by exempting certain downtown buildings from housing requirements that are more difficult to apply to former offices, like rear yard space and a variety of unit types.
Or, as the Chronicle puts it, "The much-discussed push to revive downtown San Francisco by converting empty office buildings to housing is starting to gather real-world momentum, with property owners looking to take advantage of a political climate in which the mayor and Board of Supervisors are desperate to activate the city's struggling central neighborhoods." While converting eight commercial buildings totaling less than 1 million square feet would not put much of a dent in the historic 33.9% office vacancy — more than 30 million square feet of space — the interest is indicative that an increasing number of landlords are accepting the reality that the pandemic and remote work has rendered some buildings obsolete. "We were pleased with the responses — it was more than we had expected, and there was a good variety of buildings," said Anne Taupier, director of development for the city's Office of Economic and Workforce Development. "We think there is a chance to see some game-changing activation...."
Taupier said that all of the property owners said that recent legislation streamlining and lowering affordable housing requirements would be key to making conversions possible. Most of them would be candidates for Mills Act tax credits, which allow cities to reduce taxes for 10 years or more to owners of historic properties.
One of the biggest applications came from Mark Shkolnikov's Group I. "The support from the city has just been remarkable," Shkolnikov said. "They have been frequently checking in to see what they can do to help move this along.
To what end? (Score:5, Insightful)
If people aren't working in downtown San Francisco, why would anyone need to live there?
To put a wall around it ... (Score:2)
If people aren't working in downtown San Francisco, why would anyone need to live there?
Well you get the homeless, the poor, and the criminals all living in that concentrated area. And then build a really big wall around it. Do be careful not to fly Air Force one over it though.
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Well you get the homeless, the poor, and the criminals all living in that concentrated area.
This would only work if there was some kind of rent control involved. Generally, when a lot of empty apartments hit the market, you sort of expect the rent to go down. That doesn't seem to be the case any more so for that to work you would need the government to regulate the rent. I'm not even sure if that is legal any more.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:To what end? (Score:4, Funny)
It makes shitting on the sidewalks more convenient.
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Despite Right Wing Propaganda, California and San Fransisco are from a failing State/City. While the need for office buildings is declining, there are advantages to to being local to the economy source. Speaking as someone who live in the country, their are some advantages with city life. Being close by to cultural activities, nearby to shops, and access to a diverse set of foods, as well if you happen to be a people person, you get to be around people. While the Office may no longer be needed, the w
Re:To what end? (Score:5, Insightful)
San Francisco has a homelessness problem, you dipshit.
And building a few expensive apartments does nothing to solve that problem, you dipshit.
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San Francisco has a homelessness problem, you dipshit.
And building a few expensive apartments does nothing to solve that problem, you dipshit.
The bigger players will quickly buy them all up and turn them into yet more Airbnb's anyway.
Local residents won't even get a chance.
Re:To what end? (Score:4, Funny)
No one wants to AirBnb to SF to fully experience the sidewalk feces.
If moron investors want to snatch them up to turn them into AirBnbs, let them, and then buy it all back after 2 years for pennies on the dollar.\
The homeless have been sleeping outside since time immemorial, I'm sure they can last another 2 years to get the granite countertops and stainless steel appliances upgrade.
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Civic Center is not exactly a premium neighborhood. Undoubtably a minimum of 10-20% of the units will end up with people that live and work in the city. The Financial District will be interesting to watch; some of the buildings are likely on the edge of residential areas and could be compelling. Right now, even the hotels in the Financial District are struggling; I doubt much will make sense for AirBNB's.
Ultimately though it is adding about 0.1% to the housing stock. Nothing compared to SoMa development, bu
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That's the elephant in the room. These office buildings don't have the plumbing for a bunch of efficiency apartments that all the homeless botherers imagine. A floor will typically have maybe two lavatories. Retrofitting plumbing is economically infeasible; it would amount to rebuilding the structure in place. So the housing created using these buildings will be downtown "lofts" with the requisite downtown loft leases. Homeless need not apply.
And no, they can't just share bathrooms. Places like coas
Re: To what end? (Score:3)
That is why out of the estimated 30M square feet available they can only get 1000 apartments. 30,000 sq ft apartments or still a lot of empty space. Itâ(TM)s a political stunt in service of the failed mayor. 1000 units does nothing but also available housing is not the biggest problem in SF driving homelessness, there is plenty of empty homes from people leaving.
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I believe you misread TFS. There is more than 30 million sq ft of available vacant office space, but the 1,100 residential units mentioned are for projects converting only around 1 million square feet of office space, or about 900 sq ft per condo or apartment.
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Yes, converting would require almost completely gutting and redoing plumbing. But that does not necessarily mean it is economically infeasible. I have been involved in projects that converted high-rise offices to condos and hotels - it was entirely feasible economically, and very profitable, for those projects.
Re: To what end? (Score:3)
Re: To what end? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep. They're going to be lofts. You can take that to the bank and cash it.
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Can be done but some buildings are not able to be converted because of inconvenient placement of windows, large windowless areas in the middle and odd support pillars.
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Why is it inevitable that they will be expensive? Why can't there be a rule saying that they have to offer some affordable apartments, or even some social housing?
Why can't the local government just buy the land, since it's going cheap now that they can't fill the office space, and develop their own mix of affordable and social housing?
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Worse than that, I read it as there is actually a rule saying they *need* to include a mix of affordable housing - and they want it waived.
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Re:To what end? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:To what end? (Score:5, Informative)
Homlessness is not restricted to the drug addicted mentally ill poor people you know. Many people aren't all too far from being homeless themselves. Many homeless are actually working class people - they actually have a real day job, but they can't afford housing and their landlord evicted them to rake in AirBnB money. Or to jack up rent.
So having more housing can lower the demand for the housing and prices go down.
If no one wants to live there because no one works there, that means there are places people can live even if it isn't ideal (e.g., requires a commute).
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Most unhoused individuals experience relatively short-term homelessness (64%).
https://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/who-is-experiencing-homelessness-in-california/ [calbudgetcenter.org]
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"Homlessness is not restricted to the drug addicted mentally ill poor people you know"
It takes up a pretty good chunk of the "UNSHELTERED" homeless population.
They're there because weather doesn't kill them (Score:2)
I suppose it's true that they can't just run them out of town John Rambo style like they do in the deep South so I'll give you that. But these days they don't want to run them out of town because 40% of them are working full-time jobs. Honestly it's probably closer to 60% in a city like San Francisco
Re:They're there because weather doesn't kill them (Score:5, Informative)
"New York isn't going to have much of a homeless problem because after the winter a large number of them aren't around anymore. The same goes for places in the southwest where routinely gets over 100 degrees."
NYC has a law that requires them to shelter their homeless. Los Angeles does not.
Lets look at the differences between NYC and Los Angeles. NYC has more total homeless than Los Angeles -- but they actually shelter them (they are required to by law). Less than 5k a night are unsheltered (usually between 1k-3k). Los Angeles breaks the bank at 10s of thousands. Hell, we have more death due to exposure on Los Angeles streets than NYC does. A very dark interpretation of how we work here in LA is just to kill them on the streets. Over 2000 die on the street every year here now. In 10 or 15 years, that's a pretty huge number of folks.
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A law they are trying to suspend, yes -- and due to the migrant crisis. Doesn't change a word I said.
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There's still demand for housing in S.F., which is why the prices are high.
The snag is how to turn them into housing. Ie, an office building has fewer restrooms and less plumbing, so one set of toilets for 8 units is too few, would need a lot of interior work.
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Not with only 42% of Barcelona's population density. It's almost as if San Francisco isn't even trying to solve their homeless problem.
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Re:To what end? (Score:5, Informative)
Participants reported high lifetime rates of mental health and substance use challenges. The majority (82%) reported a period in their life where they experienced a serious mental health condition. More than one quarter (27%) had been hospitalized for a mental health condition; 56% of these hospitalizations occurred prior to the first instance of homelessness. Nearly two thirds (65%) reported having had a period in their life in which they regularly used illicit drugs. Almost two thirds (62%) reported having had a period in their life with heavy drinking (defined as drinking at least three times a week to get drunk, or heavy intermittent drinking). More than half (57%) who ever had regular use of illicit drugs or regular heavy alcohol use had ever received treatment.
https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/sites/default/files/2023-06/CASPEH_Report_62023.pdf [ucsf.edu]
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You're asserting that homelessness causes drug use, and that homelessness is caused by people who want to have people paying to be in their buildings? Are those the claims you're making?
Aren't all the rentals in San Francisco rent controlled? Explain how a city with rent control could possibly have a growing homeless population from landlords kicking people out.
Sounds like you're making arguments from a point of flawed understanding.
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I'm not sure why you think that "homelessness causes drug use" is some sort of controversial idea: [americanad...enters.org]
In many instances, substance abuse is the result of the stress of homelessness, rather than the other way around. Many people begin using drugs or alcohol as a way of coping with the pressures of homelessness.
Second, not all rentals in SF are rent controlled. But over 60% are. [bungalow.com]
The main problem with rent control is that it tends to destroy housing, [floridarealtors.org] not encourage it. [brookings.edu]
As for a growing homeless population from landlords kicking people out, it's actually quite simple.
In rent control regimes, landlords are often incentivized by the rent control structure to kick tenants out on any "valid" excuse in order to conduct actio
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I'm not sure why you think that "homelessness causes drug use" is some sort of controversial idea: [americanad...enters.org]
In many instances, substance abuse is the result of the stress of homelessness, rather than the other way around. Many people begin using drugs or alcohol as a way of coping with the pressures of homelessness.
Second, not all rentals in SF are rent controlled. But over 60% are. [bungalow.com]
The main problem with rent control is that it tends to destroy housing, [floridarealtors.org] not encourage it. [brookings.edu]
As for a growing homeless population from landlords kicking people out, it's actually quite simple.
In rent control regimes, landlords are often incentivized by the rent control structure to kick tenants out on any "valid" excuse in order to conduct actions that will allow them to relist the rental at a higher price. Due to rent control restricting the market of rentals available period(fewer apartments are built when you know you can't rent them out at a market rate), that means that there are fewer openings, less competition, etc... Basically, if I'm a landlord in SF, I know I can get somebody else into the apartment, probably at a higher rent, within an insignificant amount of time.
The only person so far who gets it. Most of your compatriots seem to be happy blaming victims.
Re:To what end? (Score:4, Informative)
" A lot of homeless drug users started the drugs after a while of being homeless"
Yes, many started using drugs after becoming homeless. Many didn't. It really doesn't matter as it is a major BARRIOR to getting out of being homeless.
"And they ended up homeless because they missed a rent payment and were kicked out by overpowered landlords."
It would more accurate to say they ended up sofa surfing with family or friends -- until something caused those bridges to get burnt. Usually substance abuse and theft to support the their substance of choice.
And "Overpowered landlords"? Los Angeles has the worst unsheltered homeless issue. And during covid? NOBODY got evicted. It didn't happen. And the unsheltered homeless numbers grew. Many "landlords" (most of which are retired folks with a single or small number of properties to fund their retirement went broke. That certainly doesn't sound like "overpowered" to me.
It's not the "rent" or "money" issues driving this, but please do go ahead and continue to help that narrative fund failing "harm reduction" programs that haven't stopped the streets of Los Angeles from killing over 2000 folks a year now (most directly related to substance abuse (OD & long term organ damage). Hell, we kill more folks on our streets from exposure than NYC -- and their winters are brutal.
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Many "landlords" (most of which are retired folks with a single or small number of properties to fund their retirement went broke.
This should never have been a thing. I can see why people were tempted - the continual increase in house prices was very attractive. It's a massive gamble to base your retirement on such a bubble though. Government should have stepped in to disincentivise using rental property for retirement income and made actual pension plans a more attractive option. May have also reduced pressure to NOT build more low-cost housing.
It sucks for the people who went broke, but that's the gamble they chose to take.
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I'm rather fond of the idea of some sort of sliding scale for property tax rates - the more properties (acreage?) you own, the higher the tax rate you pay on all of it.
Probably not so simple as (your tax) = (total value of your properties) * (base tax rate) * (number of properties you own), but that's the general idea - If you own twice as many comparable residential properties as someone else, you pay a LOT more than twice the taxes. Penalize rent-seeking behavior a bit. Not too much, there is a place fo
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Well, the homeless and criminals might like luxury apartments, too. We all know that's who's going to wind up living there anyway. Everyone else is bailing.
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If people aren't working in downtown San Francisco, why would anyone need to live there?
Exactly. In any large city, downtown is the absolute WORST place to live. No sane person wants to live somewhere surrounded by homeless and criminals.
Come on, Americans have lots of guns, why be afraid of homeless people and criminals? Just keep a gun handy whenever you answer the door, like most normal Americans do.
Oh wait, the homeless and criminals have guns too?
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You clearly don't travel outside the US much if you think "capsule flats" are a requirement for a walkable community.
You've also never been to some rather nice cities and towns in the US.
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The Tri-valley is a good choice. Except the rent here has been growing steadily and is becoming unaffordable for many.
Re: To what end? (Score:2)
San Francisco used to be a pretty nice place to be, back when people could afford to live there, did so, and therefore cared about the place.
Re:To what end? (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. That's why rent in downtown San Francisco is so cheap, not some of the most expensive real estate in the world.
Oh wait.
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There's definitely shades of Yogi Berra here. No one Lives in San Fransisco anymore, it's too crowded.
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No one says you can't.
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And yet, there are high rise luxury apartment buildings already in downtown. Some people like to live there, even if it's not me. As Crocodile Dundee said, New York must be the friendliest place in the world with all the people wanting to live near each other.
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Re: To what end? (Score:2)
7700 in San Francisco. 2000 in Miami. Miami's doing better, but it's still definitely got a problem.
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The same reason why people are flocking to Detroit for the low land prices. In another 50 years, Detroit and San Francisco are gonna be boom towns again!
Baltimore is screwed forever though. "The Wire" was the most brutal anti-Baltimore propaganda in the history of anti-city propaganda.
Approximately nobody who watched The Wire thought the picture it portrayed of civic policing, politics and society was specific to Baltimore.
About fucking time (Score:2)
where the city's tedious permitting and approvals process
See, this is where changing legislation to cut red-tape makes sense.
Not like the libertarian utopia where the content and consequence of legislation doesn't matter, only that there is legislation and it must be eliminated at any cost.
Re: About fucking time (Score:2)
Oh, Now I Can Live In The Highrise (Score:4, Interesting)
Can I live from office now?
Empty office buildings (Score:2)
Just don't board them up securely. The homeless will find a way in and convert them to housing in no time.
I've seen how that ends (Score:2)
City counsel-persons say that, then demand every apartment has a garden and a lock-up garage.
Budget accommodation means many services are shared: laundry, parking and showers. City planners whine about empty buildings, then demand that a building without that infrastructure suddenly be re-built to act like a miniature house, at the owner's expense. It's no surprise the owner decides it's more profitable to let the building rot.
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What you suggest is the easiest conversion path, since offices have communal HVAC and power systems. Have to do major plumbing changes for more shower and toilet facilities, but again if those are installed in communal block where the existing sewage lines are, not impossible.
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I read an article on doing this in NYC. It turns out that what they do is survey the buildings to specifically select office buildings that are particularly suited for the purpose. There's a lot of stuff that goes into the assessments, and a lot of it is "secret sauce" for the company doing the assessments there. After all, they don't want other companies figuring it out and raising the prices for the buildings because of it.
When you select like the "best" 5% for conversion, one can probably assume that
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"Communal" HVAC is almost a non-starter for residential units, at least the "V"entilation portion of that. Though I did do it once for a hotel, it wasn't easy, and it required segregating all the smoking rooms to just a couple of floors and quadrupling the toilet room exhaust for those floors and making it always on. For heating and air conditioning, if apartments don't have totally separate systems
This generally doesn't scale well (Score:2)
The collapse of a complex society (Score:2)
This will make absolutely no difference to the situation in SF. Any more than the building of the Renaissance Center made any difference to Detroit's trajectory. Collapses of complex societies are normally attended by lots of local initiatives to remedy local problems, which are either too small scale or are misdirected at what seem like local problems. But they are not really local problems, they are manifestations of society wide problems.
So, convert to housing. Maybe the new housing can then be sold
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>the underlying problem is that the places in which the new housing will be located are not places people want to live or work, so its not going to last.
At the very least, I think every large building should be designed to be arcology-like - a mixed-zone volume with light commercial, residential, and office space. And maybe it'd be worth expecting all large office-style buildings to be internally modular and rezoneable; the infrastructure should exist so you can rip out a commercial or office unit and
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How long before the government handouts? (Score:2)
Putting the con in confiscate (Score:2)
candidates for Mills Act tax credits, which allow cities to reduce taxes for 10 years or more to owners of historic properties.
"Finally!" says the politician. "We gave ourselves permission to ignore our own confiscatory taxes!"
Raise your hand... (Score:2)
Raise your hand if you want free money.
Plumbing Defines Civilization (Score:2)
Residences are almost defined by plumbing. Fresh water, waste water, water handling and flow. Most commercial buildings are VERY deficient when it comes to plumbing. Most have a cluster of restrooms and sinks, arranged in the same location on every floor, for simplicity of construction and water handling. It will not be easy, and will be VERY expensive, to run sewer and water connections to distant corners of the buildings.
And a year or two later, I'd expect massive plumbing leaks and explosions of black
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Those problems already exist, work from home is far from the largest cause of those problems and return to the office is not the effective or long term solution to those problems. A lot of people desire to live in the major metro areas specifically to have the things you describe but there is nowhere near the supply to meet the demand where people want to live, there is really the first major core issue.
The area around downtown in my city is quite nice but god knows you can't own a home or a condo there wi
Re:Wont happen, its a politics stunt. (Score:4, Interesting)
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That is something Vienna does, since the public housing is available to anyone regardless of income (i believe the rent is income adjusted) so they make sure to maintain a mix of dirrent income classes which gives everyone an incentive to maintain the areas.
Re:Wont happen, its a politics stunt. (Score:4, Informative)
I only recently learned that in the US effectively has a ban on public housing:
The Faircloth Amendment was a provision of the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998. It amended the Housing Act of 1937, which authorized federal financial assistance to help states and housing authorities provide housing for low-income people. The amendment says, “a public housing agency may not use any of the amounts allocated for the agency from the Capital Fund or Operating Fund for the purpose of constructing any public housing unit, if such construction would result in a net increase from the number of public housing units owned, assisted, or operated by the public housing agency on October 1, 1999, including any public housing units demolished as part of any revitalization effort.” In other words, the amendment prevents housing authorities from ever maintaining more public housing units than they had in 1999.
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It gives them the ability but not everyone will because many of those people still do like living in those cities for all the amenities they offer. I don't think that scenario will be enough to tip the scales without also adding lot's and lot's of units to the cities still, that's still the crux of the issue no matter how we slice it. So many major metros have ultra low vacancy rates.
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I have lived and commuted in large cities. I hated it. Not bad on ni
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Not so much a disagreement I suppose It's just without knowing those numbers I suppose the question if those 40% (if that is the number really is the key) actually do move out is that enough to move the needle on vacancy rates. My suspicion is it does not but I could be wrong.
My suspicion is that number is less since WFH has a built in selection bias of higher than average wage earners so in most major metros they have the ability to commute already if they so choose so they have the choice to live in or
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Regardless, people will now have the option to live where they want to live rather than where they have to live. We will all be better off for it in the medium-term.
I actually suspect this to be quite good for many people and companies. Su
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We are nowhere near a world where "everyone" works from home. Many jobs require on-site work by their nature. The work from home trend is only for office workers who have jobs that befit the practice, that's hardly "everyone."
And even within that group, there are those who prefer to work from the office. Absolutely nothing is stopping them from doing so, where they can collaborate in person with others who prefer it the same way.
For those who do work from home, they don't suffer from loniness while doing
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The problem is that some countries have really crap cities, and they can't just bulldoze and rebuild them. It's extremely difficult to convert them from the commute model to mixed use and walkable.
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Re: Wont happen, its a politics stunt. (Score:2)
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When crumple zones and airbags started allowing people to crash into trees and lamp posts and parked cars at moderate speeds without getting hurt, our streets became much more unsafe to play in than when I was a child.
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Wouldn't children have to cross the street to get to those parks?