As a black San Franciscan I can say it's palpable.<p>Remarkable article revealing that there was once Black History in San Francisco, which you'd never know walking around.
While the articles that I've been seeing on HN lately aren't specifically uplifting, I /am/ glad to be (seemingly) seeing more related to the black experience.
I'm surprised there wasn't an influx after the Civil War. The article sort of glosses over that period.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodusters" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodusters</a>
This is not a black-white or other racist issue.<p>The issue is unaffordable housing and it is a problem in many cities such as NYC where I live, not just SF.<p>The cause of the unaffordable housing is zoning restrictions that limit housing density and overuse of historic landmark status through politically induced scarcity. Using politics to induce scarcity creates an additional "economic rent" or profits above for landowners (housing and apartment owners) above what they could get in an efficient market.<p>This is a basic concept of microeconomics: the use of politics to induce scarcity for receiving profits above what one would get in an efficient, competitive market.<p>This "rent seeking" makes landowners like Donald Trump much wealthier than they otherwise would be in an efficient market.<p>Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser has written extensively about this. NYTimes columnist and Economics Nobelist Paul Krugmann has written about this in his columns, and Financial Times columnist (with a masters in Economics Tim Harford) has also written about this.<p>Another example of gaining "economic rent" or "rent-seeking" is in NYC there had been a political limit of the number of taxi medallions to 13,000. The result was a medallion market value of $1.2 million per medallion. Taxi drivers that leased cabs had to pay for use of the medallion as well as the cab, and gasoline. The result is much higher fares approved by the NYC Taxi and Licensing Commission.<p>Then Uber/Lyft came along and the price of the medallions dropped from the $1.2 million to less than $700,000.<p>The rent-seeking is very harmful to the economy and of course adds to the income inequalities. It is in invisible "tax" that transfers wealth from the less wealthy to the wealthy. Money that one could be spending on goods and services in an efficient housing market is instead going towards paying additional housing costs with that money ending up in the pockets of the wealthy.<p>The race issue headline undoubtedly gets more page clicks than an article that would state that billionaires such as Donald Trump owe much of their wealth to inefficient markets resulting from the use of politics to create artificial scarcity.<p>The solution is a simple one which is to get rid of the destructive laws that create the artificial scarcity in land use.<p>It is upsetting to me that the NYTimes reporters appear not to understand basic economics.<p>For more information see:
Edward Glaeser: Build Big Bill (Mayor of NYC)
<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1.1913739" rel="nofollow">http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1....</a><p>An on-line article about "rent seeking" and the damage to the economy (includes land use restrictions)
<a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-rent-seeking-is-too-damn-high/" rel="nofollow">http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-rent-seeking-is-too-...</a><p>This book is a very fun read:
Tim Harford: The Undercover Economist
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199926514" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199926514</a>
Wait wait. So:<p>1. White people commit racism and violence against blacks<p>causes<p>2. White people flee to the suburbs<p>causes<p>3. Urban centers to deteriorate.<p>Let's examine:<p>1->2 So white people were fleeing... their own violence against blacks?<p>2->3 So when those violent people left, this cause the areas to get... worse?<p>Apparently you believe white people being present is a problem, and white people leaving is a problem. Their presence hurts blacks, and when they leave it hurts blacks too. So literally everything is the fault of white people, whether they're coming or going, here or there.<p>Even more surreal - these blacks voluntarily moved towards the whites. Then the whites moved to escape the blacks. And the bad guys here are... the whites! The ones who blacks want to live around, and who are trying to flee them.<p>It really is remarkable the rationalizations a mind is capable of.