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Everybody wants to live somewhere but nobody wants to build
Dispatches from the Housing Wars
Let’s talk about two housing stories. The first one is in the Daily Mail, the UK’s favorite SF-bashing “right-wing tabloid” (Wikipedia’s phrase, not mine) that is owned by regular guy Jonathan Harold Esmond Vere Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere. The DM will go to such amazing lengths to talk about how awful San Francisco is even in articles that have nothing whatsoever to do with SF that it makes me think SF ghosted them or started dating The Sun after they broke up. It’s really something.
The feature of interest here is Oklahoma City, which I’m sure has its own charms despite being located in Oklahoma. Let’s see how they’re gonna drag us into this because the Daily Mail is a messy bitch who loves drama.
Hey! That’s not very nice. We’re merely a NATIONAL symbol of urban decay. But the interesting thing here is not DM’s total obsession with us, which is gross, but the amazing cause and effect noted in this article. OKC’s average house prices has increased 354% since 2001 which is kind of mind-boggling. What do you think happens next?
'If you talk to Oklahomans who've been here for a while, they will tell you that you can visibly see a difference,' he added.
The realtor said that 'folks panhandling at major intersections and in front of major retailers' was now a common sight, while homeless encampments had 'sprouted across the city' almost overnight.
No shit? If housing costs triple, people become homeless?
Anecdotally, growing desperation has led to a rise in some property crime, with a number of break-ins to vacant buildings as people try to find shelter, Jones said.
The housing crisis has caused a vicious cycle; seemingly, rising costs lead to more evictions lead to more homeless lead to more crime.
Oklahoma County saw 17,868 evictions filed in 2023. There were 8,602 judgments resulting in eviction, according to data from Shelterwell, a state housing group.
Now, around 1,4000 people in the city experience homelessness on any given night, with about 500 of them sleeping on the streets.
DM can’t help herself and snuck a little “seemingly” in there, like “seemingly, not eating leads to more hunger.” 8000 evicted people don’t just vanish, Daily. They have to go somewhere. And although getting the fuck out of Oklahoma would be the best, not everyone can afford to do that.
Jones said the construction boom has been focused on high-end properties, with new stock out of reach for about 40 percent of Oklahomans.
This has created a squeeze at the lower end of the market - for homes worth between $100,000 to $150,000 - which are not profitable for developers.
It has meant more renters, soaring rental prices and, ultimately, evictions, Jones explained.
Jones gets it. Not enough affordable housing, more homeless people.
This concept, however, remains distressingly elusive to the residents of the Daily Mail’s bete noire, SF. From the gathering spot for cranks and weirdos, Nextdoor:
The “monstrosity” in question is replacing a fenced-off parking lot that replaced a McDonalds that was bad even by McDonalds standards. This is a 160-unit 100% affordable development and the NIMBYs of SF are BIG MAD about it.
(Larry, if you have questions, the project has a great & comprehensive FAQ right here.)
Half the comments are about how it has no parking, like everyone who moves in is gonna have a car. There’s a grocery store literally across the street, the Haight is one of the most walkable neighborhoods in the city, and it’s on the corner of two major bus lines. Then there’s stuff like this:
Yes, it is hell. This is directly across the street from the monstrosity:
Anyway, as some more enlightened commenters have pointed out, there are existing 4 and 5-story monstrosities (like the ones visible in the right of the above picture) and no one’s complaining about them, because when they were built people were sane and understood you didn’t get to freeze the city in the exact state it was the day you moved here.
We just need to accept that a certain portion of the population will reflexively be against any new building, let them vent, and then bulldoze their houses and put up 5 to 8-story mixed used developments.
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