Can someone "explain like I'm 5": why does this need government intervention? My gut reaction is that if these people can't afford to live in/near San Fran, a massive, amenities-filled city, they should find jobs elsewhere? If enough people take that approach, maybe the jobs will move elsewhere too? My family wanted to move to a big city but we saw the cost and decided not to. I don't want to assume it's an entitlement thing, but it sure reads like it.
Every city has rules about what you can and can't build within its boundaries. Even lightly-regulated cities like Houston still have rules about density, lot sizes, and what you can build where. There isn't such a thing as a city without "government intervention."
The current rules were put into place by previously powerful people who wanted the Bay Area to be low density. There are new powerful people who want to change the rules so it can be higher density.
Other people (not the people who are the main focus on this article) also want the local government to help pay to build homes for poorer residents. There are families which have been living in these areas for a long time who can no longer afford to stay. Many communities are only strong because there are people who have been there for a long time, who know each other and have worked hard to build that community. Kicking them out to make room for new comers, who may only be there temporarily, in time weakens the quality of life for everyone.
In particular, the state government is stepping in to prevent local governments from passing rules that artificially restrict housing supply. As an example, in Dec 2016, the state of California issued a memorandum [1] that explicitly forbade cities from passing rules that outlaw the construction of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU), which are rental units people build on their own land adjacent to their existing house. Previously, cities had a lot of latitude to prevent these sorts of infill developments outright. Now they can't.
Is there some guide that explains the division of responsibilities between different levels of government in the US? I have lived in the US and have always been aware of my lack of knowledge in this area. (In this specific instance I am unsure whether the City / State is responsible for urban planning / transportation capacity that might possibly be impacted by sudden changes in inventory.)
Generally, the overriding principle is that the state has ultimate authority, but how this works in practice is that the state makes rules for local governments to follow, collects tax revenue, and decides on the distribution of taxes.
The biggest area of difference between states is the balance of power between city and county, from New England (where counties are basically just statistical divisions) to Hawaii (where cities are just statistical divisions, and counties handle everything). Whatever that balance is, it's at this level that things are administered day-to-day; no state that I know of, for example, has a single state-wide police force (only state forces with limited jurisdiction, like the California Highway Patrol), or a statewide primary and secondary education system ("school districts" run those instead).
That last (school districts) touches on a complicating factor in understanding US local government - special-purpose districts. These are bodies formed by agreement between a set of local governments (usually with a state veto) to jointly handle certain policy areas. For each area of responsibility, the lines are drawn differently - for example, the LA Unified School District runs services for Los Angeles and neighboring cities, which do not share the LA Police Department. The East Bay Municipal Utilities District has a jurisdiction which is based on a collection of cities, and overlaps not-quite-perfectly with the AC Transit District (a body run jointly by Alameda and Contra Costa Counties). The policy areas a special purpose district manages are often quite granular - for example, while AC Transit runs buses, a separate transit district (SF Bay Area Rapid Transit District) - run by Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco counties - runs the BART commuter rail. Despite BART running into South Bay counties, those counties do not participate in BART governance, and instead participate in the Peninsula Corridor Joint
Powers Board (San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties), which runs CalTrain, a different commuter rail service.
The results are... suboptimal. For example, in public transit, the result is a disjointed system where different transportation modes, and even different lines of the same transportation mode, are badly coordinated (have fun trying to get from Oakland to Mountain View by rail!). Compare with the gold standard of Germany, where Deutsche Bahn runs everything from intercity high-speed trains to local commuter rail and makes coordinated plans for the development of the transit system as a whole.
Government intervention helped create the problem. In California, there is a protectionist tax policy that helps keep houses bought long ago affordable to stay in. If this didn't exist, a lot of old people would sell their houses because they couldn't afford the taxes on the current assessed value. They would take their winnings from the California real estate lottery and move someplace cheaper, freeing up supply.
The insane house prices kind of only apply to newcomers on the scene and the system is rigged. It is inherently unfair and also undermines a functioning economy.
Government intervention is what is preventing housing supply from meeting demand. And jobs are moving elsewhere, hence this new drive for deregulating and building more housing.
Govt intervention via tenant laws, homeowner's laws, zoning laws, city councils/planning commissions are preventing new housing from being built- also shielding long term residents from increased property taxes- Prop 13
Therefore govt intervention/reform is needed to allow more housing to be built.
It is entitlement on both sides- but the law currently favors long term residents extremely- homeowners feel entitled to keeping their neighborhood the way it currently exists.
Most love the high property value (and low property tax!) for potential retirement and rental income- but some are frustrated their adult children cannot purchase a house and enjoy stability.
New residents feel that the law has been rigged against them and has created this situation.
>If enough people take that approach, maybe the jobs will move elsewhere too?
That is what is starting to happen now, but then there are millions of people desperate for jobs that are willing to put up with terrible conditions to make the finances work.
Given current trends of homelessness (both on street and in vehicles), extreme housing inflation, it will be interesting to see what happens without significant changes.
why aren't there more houses? maybe the government intervention already happened. anyway, they're just using their first amendment right to lobby the government, so yeah, it's an entitlement thing, in that they are entitled to do that.
So I know what part to explain, could you clarify: do you think the owner of a parcel of land that’s close to a transit hub should be allowed to voluntarily build a 4-to-6-story apartment building, or that the government should intervene and require that parcel be a single-family house forever against the owner’s wishes?
This is non-economical thinking. If a city becomes too expensive for service workers, service workers will leave the city, lowering supply and increasing wages. Its a non-problem from an economic standpoint.
An example I can think of is that Monaco (tiny but wealthy city state) is serviced by mainly French and Italian citizens who drive 2 hours per day for higher wages in Monaco, so it does seem like it works. The downside is that this creates a lot of traffic during rush hour.
You have it backwards. Excessive government regulation is what keeps prices high in the first place. Asking for upzones to allow more housing necessarily means loosening current regulations that are very restrictive.
I don't know about California, but isn't it reasonable to want to live where you were born, where your parents, grandparents and relatives live? Where you kids friends are if you have children. Moving to another city is easy for someone who doesn't have these values and is just hunting for the best paying job.
