Do you feel it's difficult to provide a modest middle class life today?

Probably non-profit means maybe non-profit.
Why should taxpayers expect police and fire fighters and teachers and service workers to perform jobs in their areas?
All you can focus on is your stupid 'taxpayer largess'...how about understanding the need for affordable housing and figure out how to provide this then you can talk about how to fund them...

 

Median income is $35K which is 50% of our workers. Even if we move to 75% of our workers who might be earning $50K or less, NONE of them can afford to live in the high cost areas of the US. Yet ALL of them are required to perform jobs in the high cost areas of the US. Seems logical to me if society demands these workers to be in place then make sure they can also live and work in these areas...whatever this takes! IM0 the only way to achieve this is to build vertical high-density small square footage units, managed as a non-profit, with strict rent and price controls...

 

a) I grew in cheap housing. I started married life in very cheap housing. I travelled 1.5 hours to work every day for years and years and years, then travelled a further distance to university at night ... 3 x per week.

b) The only indictment is on salaries American's pay to essential service personnel. In my country .. these people are all public servants, since our emergency services are not privatised. They are paid quite well, and can afford million dollar homes.

 

There is plenty of affordable housing, but some folk are too precious for that. They want the fancy stuff .... without having to work for it.

 

That's just it ... no one IS demanding that they live in high cost areas. It's entirely voluntary. If, however, you feel you absolutely must do so, then it's on you as a low income earner to find a way to do it other than 'one family per house'. Again, if you can't afford ONE FAMILY PER HOUSE, in a high priced area, you are making the mistake in insisting on both.

 

And what is the criteria for residency?

We have something similar in this country .. and it's being abused like you wouldn't believe. There are educated middle class 'artists' and 'yoga teachers' etc living solo in units designed for families, because they qualify on their crappy artist's income. These are young hipsters whose middle class parents could easily house them, or who could easily have studied something more useful and paid their own way, but instead they're occupying inner city apartments meant for struggling families and the elderly.

 

I feel very sympathetic to people who live in high cost of living areas, but I'm sorry, once the rent level is over $2000 a month or the house prices are over $700 thousand, it's time to get out of there. That's the free market sending an economic signal that it's a very desirable place and there's lots of other people with more money who would rather live there. I realize this is a two-sided issue, but at some point, providing "affordable housing" becomes ridiculous.

Also those people in the high price area are going to have to pay higher wages if they want workers. Maybe fewer people will want to live there if labor starts becoming more expensive... which again, it would drive down prices a bit.

For too long many of these cities have been skirting around this by using undocumented workers, because other people (the type of people who they would want to hire) would not live there and take those jobs with the price of housing being so high. The undocumented workers squeeze 10 people in an apartment, that's the only way they can do it.

 

The point is that they CAN do it. Those who gripe and whine yet refuse to share housing in this way, think that they're somehow owed a house to themselves. Perhaps because they grew up in such a house, in what is now a high priced area. Places change, economies change. Adapt or perish. Adapt means live 10 to a house, get a better job, or move. They're your options - be thankful you have three. Many have none. Of course, you could also choose the alternative - homelessness.

 

I dont see a lot of 'modesty' in the middle class anymore. Big boats, bigger campers, sports cars... surrounding houses that desperately just need a new coat of paint.

Whatever happened to canoe fishing a tent camping?

It seems to me the middle class lifestyle is being stymied with trying to live like a rockstar.

 

Also, in a functioning market-economy, Supply should be there to build new houses. Unfortunately, the spaces taken cannot be expanded in a good many cases.

The solution, that I see often here in France, is that subventions are created to build office-buildings out in wheat-fields (yes!) that attracts businesses to establish there; which happens as long as that effort is boosted by land available for housing. Once again, building permits for such housing typically are very easy to obtain.

It takes a while, but, it works. Yes, all the young want to work in a large city. Because IT'S FUN.

Well, that just too bad. You can't have EVERYTHING in life. Nobody ever taught that ... ?

Especially if you have just arrived at an age of independence and you are looking for a "good job". Who ever told you that "freedom was also a contract to have a damn well-paying job"?

It aint. The first and irrevocable law of any market-economy is the that of Supply&Demand - which applies to jobs as well. When the Supply-of-jobs concentrates itself wrongly, as it has in Silicon Valley, inevitably there is no longer "sufficient room in what is actually a tight land-space" and the Demand-for-residential-property skyrockets.

Why is anybody surprised? Why were the politicians in Silicon Valley thinking "the sky's the limit"?

What simpleton foolishness ...

Post Scriptum: I've been out of the United States for a donkey's age. But I do recall when Route 128 around Boston started sprouting high-tech start-ups because the talent was available from the universities in the Boston-area. Property prices inevitably skyrocketed, then fell, then skyrocketed once again. It's a sad story that keeps repeating itself in a country that has perhaps the most "land disposable for construction" on this planet.
PS2: Why does it happen? Because there is no centralized planning that dictates where businesses can find both office-space and housing in approximately the same area. The US employs centralized-planning of such "Demand" very badly. Which is why the lapses between Supply&Demand of Office Space and Housing will continue to be problematic. (Admittedly, it is also a challenge very difficult to predict.)

 

Doesn't change the need for affordable housing...

 

Now you just have diatribe...

 

What type of housing in San Francisco is available to those earning median wage and less?

 

It's quite simple to set income guidelines...

 

It would be diatribe were it not supported by factual evidence. Very few live within their means today.

 

Is it possible that with the country adding more people, things have changed, and there's not as much room for the young people in the more desirable cities?

In that case, these people are being displaced, and it's a trade-off, whether the country is conscious of it or not.

I suppose from one perspective you could say the young are not entitled to anything, so too bad, they'll just have to take a back seat.
Then again, more and more of the young generation are turning to Socialism these days...

 

If you don't already have a house, you're pretty much out of luck.

(Unless you're in a household earning at least $140k and then you might be able to afford something modest)

If you're talking about median wage, you're pretty much going to be commuting from an hour away through some pretty unpleasant traffic, and even then you'll be likely to live in a boarding house shared with several other people paying $1700 a month for a room, eating up 60-75% of your income.

Some of the young kids that want to live in San Francisco just end up going transient and homeless. I talked to one of them, who told me he slept in a tree. This was hard to believe so I pressed him for more details and he explained he would find a big tree, tie a hammock up there, and it wasn't vissible from the ground through all the leaves. People could walk past him below on the sidewalk and never know. He said sometimes it was hard to find a tree because there were already other people up there.

I'd think that could be a bit dangerous if something snapped and you fell out of the tree in your sleep, but what do I know? Apparently I'm pretty ignorant about these things.

 

What does property cost in San Francisco?
What is the cost of building a small house to code in San Francisco?
What are the property taxes in San Francisco?

 

Pretty expensive. The cost for a small plot of property big enough to fit a small house on is somewhere around $900,000, and that's for the more affordable areas in the city.
(i.e. if someone's place burned completely down to the ground, they might sell you it for $840,000, you'd have to have the charred debris hauled away on your own, of course)

 

Then I would suggest looking elsewhere to live, taxpayers shouldn't be held liable for providing affordable housing in San Francisco.
Businesses in San Francisco, that wish to attract employees should either pay employees enough to live within commuting distance or go out of business.

 

I can't really talk about the US as regards this subject. I don't live there anymore.

But, I can see and reflect upon the European situation, which seems far more pragmatic - but only because it is Top-Down. Most countries do not have an equality between state- and national-rights as do the US.

Here in Europe, the sales-tax (called Value-Added-Tax) is universal and not collected by the state but by the central-government. Whilst local or state-taxation pays for most of local city- and state-government budgets and the tax-revenues based upon property-valuations.

Where the government steps in is to help large cities - where employment is higher - to pull businesses out of the town-center - thus reducing rental-pressures. Largely because "businesses" grow along with the large-city, and these cities are typically anywhere from 500/2000 years old. The mayor cannot take down a large building for replacement by a newer more spacious one as might be his/her whimsy.

So, creating office-buildings outside the city along with either public-transport facilities to/from them are available, or farm-land is exploited for new housing. There the state here in Europe steps in with some but not all financing. Typically, if a state invests in new "Office Parks" the simple fact of bringing in or hiring people to work in them will produce the side effect of a family housing market.

Whatever "that Socialism" means in the US. Typically it means voting Democrat. And, let's not forget that Hillary was robbed of the presidency because she won the popular-vote!

But, it seems to me that midterms always go to the "other party" to punish the ruling party for whatever "mistakes" (obvious or presumed) were made*. What saves America - and any democracy - is the ability for the voting public to "switch sides" according to circumstances.

That was not always the case, neither in America nor in Europe. Party-lines were distinctly drawn in both instances. That is no longer the case, and it has politicians in a conniption. (Which is goodness since they richly deserve it.)

*And this is a great advantage over Europe. Voting nationally every two years in the US sends signals that politicians cannot avoid. Whereas here in Europe, governments can stay in power a donkey's age before a national election is called.

 

I have to agree. There's a willful bent to "behave like billionaires" and it's all show.

Which, I suppose, is part 'n parcel of "success" in the US. What's the sense of working yourself to near-death and making a hundred megabucks if you can't "show the world your success"?

I'm not sure what happened, but it seems to me that American modesty, once a trusted value, has been thrown out the window. The more immodest your wealth, the more people seem to like you.

Like you? For what? Our sense of values has become deeply warped ...

 

Amount of the wealth must be relating degree of the agreement for business from people. When many people agreed a business of man, he can make wealth by his business. Though the method to get agreement should be fixed by ages in past, rules over the business weren't changed so far.

Thus just I ask you about your own business:
How many methods do you know in your business to get agreement from men for your wealth?
All of answer is for above.

 

The objective of Wealth in a nation depends upon the people who constitute the market-economy (that is, all of us), and not just those who profit from the mechanism by building enormous Wealth. Most of which they cannot employ or enjoy, and must give away upon their departure!

What is the use of that "wealth"? It remains in "savings" and is invested, thus becoming the means by which a market-economy can further provide goods-and-services. But, were that wealth to return to the people by means of confiscatory taxation it could be used to promote the benefit of all members of the economy.

Thus serving a much better purpose for the market-economy community as a whole.

I frankly cannot see any good use to the development of excessive wealth. It serves only the purpose of a select elite.

That happened once before in the history of mankind. At the time, it was called "Rome" and lasted 400 years before it withered away ...

 

Agreed. There's no need for anyone to have a computer or an automobile.