Am I the only one who hates how it's become received wisdom that, to quote the article, "A skyrocketing real estate market, fueled in large part by the tech industry" is the main culprit for this?<p>What about height and floor area limits, surrounding communities on the peninsula that won't build, aggressive neighborhood associations in San Francisco, overly-restrictive building and zoning codes (wife is architect in SF, currently going through 2-year permitting process on one of her projects), and excessive developer fees?<p>It's telling that other cities, e.g. Washington, DC, are experiencing similar levels of economic and population growth, without all the hand-wringing, just by building more hosting stock.<p>It doesn't have to be this way. It's this way because SF's electorate <i>chooses</i> to make it this way.
Housing is the real problem. Let's call it what it is. Once you have a place to live, then the cost of a pleasant existence is a) pretty cheap, b) controllable [eat out versus eat at home], and c) more or less the same in many parts of the country. Education and health care costs are close runner ups but the real affordability crisis that we have to solve for is affordable housing in desirable areas (job centers). On the other hand, there is so much household savings tied up in housing that any major effort to reduce prices would cause a lot of economic pain. I don't have any answers.
Areas of household income around $16,000, what reported occupations are these? Part time temp work on and off?<p>Also, isn't there a lot of utility by looking at assets as well. It wouldn't seemingly change a discussion around the article presented, but it is kind of pointless to have a discussion of annual income and neglect people that have assets greater than their income, liquid or not.
I'm surprised they didn't adjust for cost of living across each city. I lived in D.C. for four years, and it was certainly less expensive than NYC/SF, broadly speaking.
Pointless summary of original. Please link to original:<p><a href="http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2016/wealth-divides/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2016/wealth-divides/index....</a>