<story><title>Peak Valley?</title><url>https://avc.com/2018/09/peak-valley/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>justinzollars</author><text>I encourage everyone who lives in San Francisco to join YIMBY.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sfyimby.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sfyimby.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The fundamental problem in the Bay Area is a lack of affordable housing. This pushes us into higher paying tech jobs, when we may prefer to start a company. Its my dream to start a company but paying bay area rent is expensive!&lt;p&gt;This is what you can do to help:&lt;p&gt;- Housing Costs (Our SF politicians lack focus: Think tech cafeterias and Social Engineering vs Building Housing)&lt;p&gt;What can you do: unseat Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Jane Kim, Hilary Ronen and Sandra Lee Fewer. This group votes against housing every chance they get. Aaron has introduced the silly tech cafeteria legislation.&lt;p&gt;- Demand infrastructure. We must demand it.&lt;p&gt;I do not want to lose our dynamism, so lets change SF</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chroma</author><text>I used to think that this was the solution, but it&amp;#x27;s now clear to me that the state and local governments are too incompetent to fix this problem. Over the past decade, the bay area has gotten so much worse. The cost of living has skyrocketed. Commutes have gotten longer. The homeless problem has become something out of a George Romero movie. None of these show signs of improving, and it&amp;#x27;s not due to lack of trying. The city of San Francisco spends a quarter &lt;i&gt;billion&lt;/i&gt; dollars a year on homelessness.[1] That&amp;#x27;s $33,000 per homeless person per year![2] The city is experiencing the greatest economic success in its history, but it can barely keep Muni running. Imagine how bad things will get in a downturn.&lt;p&gt;What laws do we see being passed? Plastic bag bans. Plastic straw bans. Scooter bans. Tech company cafeteria bans. Laws that demonstrate a total lack of knowledge of economics, incentives, or any sort of numerical analysis.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve given up on the bay area and am preparing to move. I know the tech jobs and community won&amp;#x27;t be as good, and I&amp;#x27;ll miss my friends, but I can no longer stand being governed by complete nincompoops.&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sfchronicle.com&amp;#x2F;bayarea&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;29-million-increase-for-San-Francisco-12902707.php&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sfchronicle.com&amp;#x2F;bayarea&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;29-million-incre...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2. There are approximately 7,500 homeless in SF according to &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;hsh.sfgov.org&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;2017-SF-Point-in-Time-Count-General-FINAL-6.21.17.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;hsh.sfgov.org&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;2017-SF-Poin...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Peak Valley?</title><url>https://avc.com/2018/09/peak-valley/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>justinzollars</author><text>I encourage everyone who lives in San Francisco to join YIMBY.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sfyimby.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sfyimby.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The fundamental problem in the Bay Area is a lack of affordable housing. This pushes us into higher paying tech jobs, when we may prefer to start a company. Its my dream to start a company but paying bay area rent is expensive!&lt;p&gt;This is what you can do to help:&lt;p&gt;- Housing Costs (Our SF politicians lack focus: Think tech cafeterias and Social Engineering vs Building Housing)&lt;p&gt;What can you do: unseat Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Jane Kim, Hilary Ronen and Sandra Lee Fewer. This group votes against housing every chance they get. Aaron has introduced the silly tech cafeteria legislation.&lt;p&gt;- Demand infrastructure. We must demand it.&lt;p&gt;I do not want to lose our dynamism, so lets change SF</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kelp</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d like to add that the Bay Area affordability problem is not some unsolvable situation that we have to just be resigned to accept. But it does require getting involved somehow. If you have a decent paying job, the easiest way is to start donating to organizations like SF YIMBY, and &amp;#x2F; or political campains of pro YIMBY candidates. People such as Sonja Trauss, Christine Johnson, who are both running for SF D6. David Chiu and Scott Wiener have had a great track record in the State Assembly and State Senate.&lt;p&gt;We got into this affordability situation by passing a series of laws at the state and local levels, over many years. We&amp;#x27;re never going to be as cheap as Akron OH, but we can slow the price growth, and maybe reduce it some by making it easier, and cheaper to build, by changing state and local laws to allow that.&lt;p&gt;Finally, local politicians are actually quite accessible, so your voice can be heard. And groups like SF YIMBY help to amplify that voice. Fundamentally, most politicians do what they think will get them votes, so it helps to find a group of like minded individuals.</text></comment>