What Happens to Downtown?

[dann]

Another lie about homelessness debunked:

Fox News was forced to retract a viral story that alleged homeless veterans were being forced out of hotel temporary housing in New York to make room for migrants. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.

"New York City Mayor Eric Adams asked for an investigation into the broadly-amplified but false, report that homeless veterans were being forced out of the hotels temporarily housing them in order to make way for immigrants.
MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart held an interview with Adams on Sunday, which was largely focused on Adams’ effort to deal with the influx of migrant asylum seekers who have been bussed in from border states. During this conversation, Capehart asked for Adams’ thoughts on the New York Post’s recent report, which originally claimed that homeless veterans were being “kicked out” for migrants."
Fox News Apologizes For Covering Fake News?!? (The Young Turks on YouTube, May 23, 2023 - 10:13 min.)

ETA: I hadn't seen that there is already a thread about this story.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Writer started out trying to write about how SF is not in a doom loop and:

The NIMBY ideal is in fact unachievable. They can absolutely be effective in making it illegal to build dense housing and drive out everyone but the richest people who can afford to live in their little playpen, but they can't prevent the unavoidable consequences of such an action.

The explosion in homelessness in these HCOL cities is a direct result of deliberately induced housing scarcity. Stepping over human misery (and feces) right outside your multimillion dollar doorstep is the price paid for protecting the "character" of your neighborhood by making building apartments illegal.

 

[dann]

Every time a “moderate” in San Francisco writes a 10,000 word anti-homeless manifesto just send them this quote from the city:

Judge: Does the city concede that there is no avenue for a homeless individual to voluntarily access a shelter bed at this juncture?
City: That is correct

HDizz (Twitter, June 8, 2023)

Apparently from a hearing in December.

 

[Brainster]

The NIMBY ideal is in fact unachievable. They can absolutely be effective in making it illegal to build dense housing and drive out everyone but the richest people who can afford to live in their little playpen, but they can't prevent the unavoidable consequences of such an action.

The explosion in homelessness in these HCOL cities is a direct result of deliberately induced housing scarcity. Stepping over human misery (and feces) right outside your multimillion dollar doorstep is the price paid for protecting the "character" of your neighborhood by making building apartments illegal.

You'll get no argument from me on the density issue--multifamily (finance side) was my occupation for many years and specifically affordable for about five of those. You make a complex (say) 20% affordable units and 80% market rate and it won't affect the character of the neighborhood significantly.

BTW, in Phoenix, which is becoming a HCOL city (and is experiencing a homeless surge), nobody can say that there is a deliberately induced housing shortage; they've been blowing and going for decades. Part of it is the demand side, after all.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

You'll get no argument from me on the density issue--multifamily (finance side) was my occupation for many years and specifically affordable for about five of those. You make a complex (say) 20% affordable units and 80% market rate and it won't affect the character of the neighborhood significantly.

BTW, in Phoenix, which is becoming a HCOL city (and is experiencing a homeless surge), nobody can say that there is a deliberately induced housing shortage; they've been blowing and going for decades. Part of it is the demand side, after all.

That's where I find the YIMBY argument to fall a bit flat. While zoning restriction is certainly heavily constraining supply, I suspect market forces alone aren't adequate to meet the need.

These places that are not keeping up with housing demand would be excellent places for public housing to be built, but the US is quite sour on the idea and cities don't really do big public housing projects anymore.

 

[gnome]

I read an interesting article that architecture had a role in some of the more famous housing project missteps. I can't seem to find the article now, but there were supposed to be shops on the lower levels which never materialized, creating something of a food and job desert. As well, there was poor visibility to certain areas, making them attractors for criminal activity. And if I recall correctly, common areas not built to encourage a sense of ownership by those near it, leading to maintenance backlogs and neglect as everyone treated the areas as someone else's problem.