San Francisco could be on the verge of collapse. What should California do about it?

Diesel said:
Nothing's going to ever get done if no one has the political will to do it. Construction is virtually impossible in SF. What are the ideologues going to do if building becomes easier and less expensive? Move? Are they going to vote out some council members? They can either get over it or watch their city crumble.
Click to expand...

You follow real estate so you know there’s a good size YIMBY movement here and they have some backers in City government. So that’s definitely a positive. But there is still an entrenched mindset that any official who approves new market rate housing is shilling for developers and capitalists. As you know it’s simply not feasible to build only “affordable housing” done by the government. There’s not enough money for it nor would it come close to meeting the demand.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
A tale of two states: Contrasting economic policy in California and Texas
https://siepr.stanford.edu/publicat...trasting-economic-policy-california-and-texas

California’s shrinking population has big impacts

https://calmatters.org/commentary/2022/04/california-population-decline/

California is collapsing
Once seen as a progressive's paradise, the state is drifting towards a new kind of feudalism
https://unherd.com/2021/02/the-collapse-of-california/



https://www.pressreader.com/usa/woonsocket-call/20230120/281582359749928

California is going the way of Detroit or Pittsburg. Business and industry are on the way out being taxed and regulated to death. The latest one in California is the oil industry. The state is by regulation alone forcing that industry to close up shop and leave. There is nothing coming in to replace it either.
When workers have to live in substandard housing, or even are living in their cars, there's a serious problem going on, and that's where California is already at. The average wage earner in the state can't afford rent much of the time, let alone buy a house.

The state is in serious decline, and that is worsening not getting better.
Click to expand...

Detroit or Pittsburgh is not an apt analogy. Yes SF is heavily tech focused but that’s not all that’s here. There is too much money, too much innovation and too much creativity here to go the way of those cities. Companies are still being founded here and entrepreneurs are still coming.
 
cawacko said:
You follow real estate so you know there’s a good size YIMBY movement here and they have some backers in City government. So that’s definitely a positive. But there is still an entrenched mindset that any official who approves new market rate housing is shilling for developers and capitalists. As you know it’s simply not feasible to build only “affordable housing” done by the government. There’s not enough money for it nor would it come close to meeting the demand.
Click to expand...

Reconverted office space is going to require some (a lot of) market rate housing. That's just a fact. If people are going to complain about it, then perhaps an educational outreach and some public meetings would make some difference.

Again, what the public thinks only matters to a certain extent if they're not willing to support any solution whatsoever.
 
archives said:
So what you offered in rebuttal was an article highlighting Texas’s economy, which still is substantially behind California’s, and another highlighting California losing citizens, although there still ten million more Californians than any other state. Next you top it off with two editorials from conservative leaning sources

And in conclusion you wrap it all up again regurgitating talk radio rhetoric

NEXT
Click to expand...

This is funny because you and TA are exactly what I’m talking about, viewing California through an ideological prism based on partisan politics.

But much of the info he’s posting is real. You’re in New York so it’s understandable you may not care but to those here losing jobs and people does have an impact on the state.
 
Diesel said:
Reconverted office space is going to require some (a lot of) market rate housing. That's just a fact. If people are going to complain about it, then perhaps an educational outreach and some public meetings would make some difference.

Again, what the public thinks only matters to a certain extent if they're not willing to support any solution whatsoever.
Click to expand...

One of the last bi-partisan things in this country may be NIMBYism. The challenge is many of those people think they are for new housing so outreach to them will be tough.

I will say the rhetoric locally towards the need for more housing has improved. We also know rhetoric and action can be two different things.
 
Quincunx said:
I don't care where it was invented, it's where it's MADE that makes a difference now. LOL.




Your work isn't worth THAT much.
Click to expand...
We make Mac Pros HERE. AND:::

The state of Texas has been home to many semiconductor & electronics manufacturing companies since Texas Instruments was first formed in Dallas in 1951 to manufacture their new invention - the transistor.

Texas Instruments would grown to have numerous semiconductor plants in Texas, and lead the way for numerous other companies to follow. Top semiconductor companies now have new wafer Fab's being constructed, including Samsung and Texas Instruments.

Today, the semiconductor industry in central Texas is one of the fastest growing industries in this region. The semiconductor industry employs over 100,000 people and generates $8 billion annually for the economy of Texas.

Besides semiconductors, other high-tech industries are growing in Texas. Electric vehicle manufacturer Telsa Motors relocated their headquarters from California to Austin in 2021. Tesla now has a 5.3 million square ft gigafactory in Austin that will produce their Tesla Model Y and Cybertruck electric vehicles.
Click to expand...

San Francisco is dying and Texas is thriving.
 
Last edited:
Quincunx said:
LOL. And putting more chip manufacturing in the desert southwest is not going to go as well long term as you might think. But then you'd have to know a bit more about how chemical planarization works and how chip sets are made. LOL.

And then TRY to get the young engineers to move to Phoenix. Just try. LOL.
Click to expand...

Are you an engineer?
 
cawacko said:
One of the last bi-partisan things in this country may be NIMBYism. The challenge is many of those people think they are for new housing so outreach to them will be tough.

I will say the rhetoric locally towards the need for more housing has improved. We also know rhetoric and action can be two different things.
Click to expand...

Obviously homelessness also just doesn't require affordable housing. It needs drug treatment, mental health services, job training, etc. That actually might be the biggest problem in major cities since COVID.
 
Diesel said:
Obviously homelessness also just doesn't require affordable housing. It needs drug treatment, mental health services, job training, etc. That actually might be the biggest problem in major cities since COVID.
Click to expand...

Or just kicking them to the curb where they belong. Outside of city limits of course.
 
Diesel said:
Obviously homelessness also just doesn't require affordable housing. It needs drug treatment, mental health services, job training, etc. That actually might be the biggest problem in major cities since COVID.
Click to expand...

TBH, I wasn’t even thinking about the homeless when talking the housing crisis but they’re certainly a part of it. I think we discussed that a couple of years ago we passed in SF a $1 billion ballot measure for homeless services, including housing, and we can’t build any of the housing.

Yeah, when dealing with the homeless they need a host of help because especially addicts have difficulty keeping housing if they can’t stay clean. That’s a different kind of housing they often need with other services included.
 
cawacko said:
Detroit or Pittsburgh is not an apt analogy. Yes SF is heavily tech focused but that’s not all that’s here. There is too much money, too much innovation and too much creativity here to go the way of those cities. Companies are still being founded here and entrepreneurs are still coming.
Click to expand...

Don't bet on it. There's nothing there that can't move. The few tech companies actually in SF, versus being in the Bay Area, could pack up and leave at any time just as the auto industry left Detroit and the steel industry left Pittsburg. The 'silicon' part I already pointed out has left. There is no chip or computer manufacturing in the Bay Area anymore. It went to Arizona and Texas due to being overregulated in California.

I remember reading about a ladder manufacturer in that part of Cali some years ago. The state regulators came to his factory and demanded he make millions of dollars in environmental upgrades, etc. The guy called his employees in immediately while the regulators were there and told them they, with a few key exceptions, were all being laid off permanently as he couldn't afford the upgrades. He told them the regulators standing there were the cause.
He also said they could keep their jobs if they moved with him to Arizona (where he reopened his factory in Goodyear) but he couldn't afford to move them there.

They had to call the police to restrain the workers from beating the regulators senseless--or even possibly killing them--over this.

The guy stated his operating costs went down in Arizona and he still sells just as many ladders in California as before.

While that's just one case, it's typical of the state. California is killing off any sort of company that makes anything there.

Another was a Progresso soup factory near Sacramento. The place had been in operation since the 30's. The state came in and told them they could no longer run their electrical co-generation plant that burned all the scrap vegetable waste from their manufacturing process. I guess CO2 is more evil than tons of waste going to a landfill...

Anyway, the plant closed because they could no longer operate at what was already a very marginal profit. The plant was moved to the mid-west instead.

Creativity and innovation can happen anywhere. California is killing it off there.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Don't bet on it. There's nothing there that can't move. The few tech companies actually in SF, versus being in the Bay Area, could pack up and leave at any time just as the auto industry left Detroit and the steel industry left Pittsburg. The 'silicon' part I already pointed out has left. There is no chip or computer manufacturing in the Bay Area anymore. It went to Arizona and Texas due to being overregulated in California.

I remember reading about a ladder manufacturer in that part of Cali some years ago. The state regulators came to his factory and demanded he make millions of dollars in environmental upgrades, etc. The guy called his employees in immediately while the regulators were there and told them they, with a few key exceptions, were all being laid off permanently as he couldn't afford the upgrades. He told them the regulators standing there were the cause.
He also said they could keep their jobs if they moved with him to Arizona (where he reopened his factory in Goodyear) but he couldn't afford to move them there.

They had to call the police to restrain the workers from beating the regulators senseless--or even possibly killing them--over this.

The guy stated his operating costs went down in Arizona and he still sells just as many ladders in California as before.

While that's just one case, it's typical of the state. California is killing off any sort of company that makes anything there.

Another was a Progresso soup factory near Sacramento. The place had been in operation since the 30's. The state came in and told them they could no longer run their electrical co-generation plant that burned all the scrap vegetable waste from their manufacturing process. I guess CO2 is more evil than tons of waste going to a landfill...

Anyway, the plant closed because they could no longer operate at what was already a very marginal profit. The plant was moved to the mid-west instead.

Creativity and innovation can happen anywhere. California is killing it off there.
Click to expand...

There's a difference between losing a certain level of dominance, which is what's happening in California, and your claim that the state is driven by one industry and is going to be abandoned. The state still leads in venture capital (although that number is shrinking), our world class Universities aren't going anywhere, entertainment, life sciences and tech. We're not going from that to Detroit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top