I grew up in San Francisco and living there for almost 30 years. This is one of the greatest analysis of the SF geography / city planning I've ever seen. You actually understand the problems at hand. The one thing I might add is more investment in public transportation. The city already has traffic equally bad as LA or NYC with no real public transportation alternatives (buses in SF are overcrowded, ghetto and a bandaid solution).
"This part of town is already ruined." Every time I've been over there on my moto I've felt the same way, it's a nightmare to navigate and full of dead space. Fantastic video!
"I'm driving home to Marin from work in San Francisco and I think I'm going to stop in the Marina district to grab a bite to eat" - Said no commuter ever.
@@IcelanderUSer I commuted from Mill Valley to the San Francisco financial district by car no problem, and if I didn't you just take the ferry over from Larkspur or Sausalito. Transit is very good, plus there's Bart
There's definitely been a TON of high-density housing development going on in Dogpatch/Mission Bay/Hunters Point, but to be honest I stay pretty cynical of its outcome. A huge problem I've noticed here in the city is that while there are a ton of tech companies in the SoMa and so on, the big majority of tech companies line up in south bay/peninsula and a ton of the more affluent folk decide to buy housing in SF. Almost no one here seems to live where they work because rich people snatch up housing to fulfill their dreamy 'cultured' city life.
So true!!! Mission natives have to move out because they cant afford the high cost of living caused by rich people/big business. I have friends that commute all the way from Pittsburgh everyday to get to school. I hope that I can keep living in San Francisco but I honestly doubt I'll be able to afford to.
Stephanie Wennerstrom as a white guy that went to the mission in like 1999, there wasn’t a single other white guy on mission, Valencia, Guerrero, streets etc back then. was a sketch area with violent gangs.
There are a few solutions to the problem; 1. You only let 1 person buy 1 house that they live in - Too many wealthy Chinese have purchased lots of homes as investments that sit empty. 2. You create large tax incentives for raising and building extremely tall housing projects. 3. You elect people into council that keep landlords from voting down new developments - too often its actually nearby landlords that strike down new developments. They do this because they want their stuff to stay artificially expensive. 4. You enforce rent brackets based on income in each city for each household; Basically you allocate specific amounts of housing for each income bracket and any new development has to have a reasonable breakdown. This would make it so that all new developments were not only just for millionaires. 5. If everyone stopped using the internet for a year collectively, the income of the whole bay area would decrease by about 50%.
@@Exascale i really like the one home limit that you live in idea, no not living in it and renting it out. While I dont like controlling people from owning more then one home, SF has a problem that needs to be addressed. New housing projects should preferences to people that are already living in the bay area 40 miles or so from SF.
I was born and raised in San Francisco and lived there for 24 years. I'm 28 now and was finally forced out in late 2014 due to the high prices. I moved far east deep into Contra Costa county and it's still expensive. I landed a job on the east coast and will be moving there soon. This housing crisis forced me out of my home city and i'm sad. Great video!
LoneSniperFox I moved to NC. I live 5 minutes from the beach and 3,000sq mansions go for 250k.... I have no idea why anyone would ever want to live in SF
Love this video about fixing SF’s housing crisis. But I would of loved it if you talked about the future of the entire Bay Areas housing and transportation hurtles.
Only one correction. Riverside park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan is nice. The highway runs through it in parts, but it's generally quiet, has great views of the river, and is very walkable. Also the bike path that runs most of the west side of the island is really nice. I agree Manhattan has no at all used it's river fronts well. But Riverside park is actually very nice.
The lack of design and forward thinking has resulted in the nightmare currently of tunnels, areas with no rail, only now adding metro in areas that have been allowed to sprawl without sufficient public transportation. A layout like Melbourne or even Brisbane could have vastly made a difference.
@StrategicFooyoo Sydney is expensive by Australian standards but it still doesn't compare with SF prices. Back when the AUD was $1.05 USD, sure it was competitive. But at 0.70 USD Sydney looks very affordable compared to SF. Look at any cost of living comparison website like Expatistan or Numbeo and compare it for yourself, if you don't believe me.
Rent control and zoning is some of the prime reasons places like SF and NYC and even London are having a crisis. Time to rethink these disastrous policies
This would be great, but it wouldn't be enough. The problem is that most of the land in the San Francisco metro area is being taken up by single-family housing. If we upzoned 30-40% of existing single-family neighborhoods to allow low-rise apartments, that would make much more of a difference than a single luxury high rise district.
San Francisco has also been horrendously mismanaged. Lots of political posturing and virtue signaling and random acts of direct democracy. The sliver of industrial land to the southeast is not especially well-served by transit, and it actually got worse after $⅔ billion of investment. The new T-Third light-rail line is horrible; I usually bike faster than the train on Third Street. player.fm/series/infill-1401824/eat-local What would be good is to build more housing near existing investments in transit. For example, the Glen Park BART station is the least-used BART station in San Francisco, it’s well-connected to SFMTA buses, and it’s in an extremely walkable neighborhood with libraries and shops and parks. Cater-cornered from the station is a large empty parcel that has been used without a permit as a parking lot. That’s an ideal location to be rezoned for transit-oriented development. So, in one of his last acts as Supervisor after the citizens voted him out, Jeff Sheehy… Legalized the parking lot. Indefinitely. For example, the Twin Peaks tunnel was constructed at great expense to ferry commuters downtown from the new racially exclusive residential developments at the West Portal. That area is served by many SFMTA bus and light rail lines, and the height limit is… 26 feet. Only small and expensive boutique shops allowed there. Naturally, that location was a rallying point for the “progressives” (fauxgressives?) to campaign for the rights of neighborhoods to be exclusionary. Of course, San Francisco should also be building better transit, but with the United States’ cost disease, that will take a while for the benefits to be felt.
@@biennium992 Yea all that fuss about the Glen Park choice real estate well, the public can no longer use it, it"s NOT going to be converted to housing, It's now been made Private Parking! Fuck It
I agree with you 100%. The problem is, Californians hate apartments. They would rather be priced out than have an apartment they can afford to live in. It works for Paris or New York but Californians expect to live in a single family house rather than “stack and pack housing projects” as they call apartments. Thankfully Seattle doesn’t have the same mindset or I would have been priced out a a long time ago. It’s expensive enough as is, even with all the high rise apartments going in.
Scorcese TrackingShot I get that. A yard is nice sometimes but mistiming it properly is a lot of work petiole with apartments don’t have to do. Depends on what people want. A lot of Americans dread all the weeding and lawn mowing but are culturally expected to have a big yard to show they “made it” in life so they do.
Treasure Island would have been perfect too for giant luxury condos. I lived there briefly and it was great. Cheap, and the best views of the city. But the city found a rock of asbestos or something kicked everyone out of their houses and off the island...
the city saved you from getting brain tumors. serious nuclear pollution at hunters point too. navy cleaned ships used for atomic testing there, and did other things we don't know about. dumped untold a lot of radioactive material off the farallon islands as well. covered it up forever but all you have to look at are cancer rates. if we knew the real pollution levels who knows how the population would react.
@@bogusrick65 Problem is nobody is addressing the fact the "island" is subsiding into the bay. The cost to fortify the boundary is staggering and the large developments of which you speak won;'t happen until this problem (among others) is rationally addressed.
@@rdmorris1947 Hey, believe what you want. I'm just here to say that the development has been started and is making fast progress. As for Treasure Island "subsiding into The Bay," that is up for debate.
The real sitch here is the corruption in local politics that is preferencing luxury development and space for continued tech takeover when in reality they could do more for affordable housing. Look up the plans for the new firehouse in FiDi. It's not about what's being used, it's the missed opportunities. Also build something in the nothingness by the highway entrances in SOMA. Lots on lots just being partitioned for $2500 studios. Sweet.
Careful whatcha wish for! Rather than erect some business facility, a midrise residential block is being tucked within a highway cloverleaf petal here in the Island of Montreal.. .. . .
The problem is that real estate and construction cost are so sky high that the only way the developers can make the numbers crunch is with a luxury development with insane prices. It sucks, but it's the market forces.
Or when the city does try to develop affordable housing or homeless shelters, selfish rich people petition and sue the hell out of them because "Ew, I don't want to see poor people in my neighborhood."
Unrecognizably, Montreal's Griffintown steeped in Irish history is swiftly being redeveloped into mediocre multi-stacked condos, and it was just reported that an entrepreneur who conducts historical walking tours now regularly gets insulted, booed, jeered, and mocked at by many a miserable and ignorant _arriviste_ of a resident any time he stops his flock at a point of interest there. It's eerie learning of that, because such derisions might signal an end to Quebec's social contract that's long chartered blending residents of differing income brackets into neighbouring each other. Sure there are ritzy towns and areas around the island here, yet for the most part such mixing does indeed seem to foster desirous community cohesion.
Holy crap dude. Wow. Great video. It had an unintended consequence of giving me a huge bout of nostalgia. I spent just a single weekend in this city, and had a wonderous experience with my four Americans friends. I'm from London, or just south, and San Fran really hit me after two months of time in Los Angeles and its decentralized state San Fran checked all the boxes. I was even glad to see a cloud atop The hill a sight I'd never thought I'd see. I was only there a short time but due to the cities connectedness I had experiences in almost all the areas you mentioned. Just wanted to say thank you for doing such a great job with the video and giving me that. You've definitely just gained a sub. Wishing you all the best from across the pond. Cheerio!
Been hearing talks of housing on treasure island being built for 10 years. Wtf is going on? That one lane extremely short freeway entrance to the bay bridge would get crazy backed up
Big poppa yeah took years to get approved but I’ve read that they’re moving ahead and figuring all the traffic and logistics now. More info here sftreasureisland.org/construction
Guys guys guys. I'm so smart I just came up with the solution. The way to prevent gentrification of working class ethnic neighborhoods is to GENTRIFY working class ethnic neighborhoods! I just did it. Now give to my patreon.
Weather plays a big factor. NYC doesn't see the nice year-round weather that SF enjoys. But if there were more waterfront attractions in NYC, it would probably feel a bit more attractive.
My grandma had a house in SF too. I used to visit and play with other kids in the street all the time. I’d never seen any place with as much street life. None of her relatives could afford to buy it from her so none of us live in the city anymore even though some of us became tech workers with remote jobs in SF.
You’re actually not wrong, Mission bay had been a Up and Coming new high density mixed use district, theres actually a couple exits to that district and its not bad. More in likely they’ll do the same to Dog patch regardless of the toxic soil or not. Good video! Love from San Bruno, CA ✌️
Good review of the city planning. It's totally true the south east part of the city is pretty forgotten. I think there's some pollution issues with those areas. But the city is expanding in that direction with the new warriors stadium and redevelopment of candlestick point. Treasure island was looked at some years ago for redevelopment but it's been zoned mostly for low income housing.
Manhattan waterfront is actually very continuous and accessable. There are tons of people that walk/jog/bike on the West and Eastside trails. The Westside in particular is undergoing a boom of new parks and piers.
I am an urban liberal... and I am telling you: Google Map doesn't show you utter lack of green and open space, horrendous homelessness, failing public infrastructure, peeing and drugs on the street, poorly constructed and maintained buildings.
NIMBY attitudes, growth protests, the constantly growing beaucracy, and red tape, mostly all driven by The Left, and do gooder protesters can't figure out why they are priced outta market.
@fullmetaljaco right. Because Mississippi and Alabama where the republicans have been in charge since the 60s are such booming metropolis's. Lets compare west memphis and san francisco lol
@@dejanjovanovski1686 why being a booming metropolis should be the standard of everything? At least compare the carbon footprint between those two examples if you want to set a standart. But you wouldn't want that, would you?
"west end drive turns back into a highway, completely blocking your view"... bruh, youre looking at riverside park. its a beautiful view of the Hudson that spans 50 blocks.
I'm glad I found you, your video was really refreshing and insightful giving me a new perspective on a topic (city planning, geography, etc.) I probably wouldn't really care much about. Keep up the good work, you earned yourself a new subscriber! P.S. I like the intro music, reminds me of a theme song for a TV show
Over here in Oakland, they're building 7 or 8 tower apt bldgs in Downtown all at once and advertise "affordable housing " They are not affordable also theres about 2000 empty units in Oakland. It's not the lack of housing, it's the costs. They keep building more and more but it's not doing anything other than bldg more high priced units.
Man, in general North American cities are nt really the best in terms of urban planning and architecture, always bulky, wide and metallic skyscrapers are engorged by low density suburbs with huge spralling highways and a non existing rapid transit system, but when they do it right, man is it good ! Thank you San Francisco ! Also, I highly extremely recommend you to do a video about Montreal, Canada . In Canada, there s too much attention on Toronto and Vancouver, which are in general better than the US in terms of creating a beautiful and functionnal city, but nothing compares to Montreal. This city is just an architectural and engineering underrated pearl of diverse streets and walkable arrondissements and because of the history of French and British presence in the region, Montreal has a very noticeable european influence that shows througout this north american city. I swear you wont be dissapointed !
Fully agreed about the beauty of the downtown and amazing European inspired architecture. The only issue I have with the city is driving. Montreal has some of the most poorly planned highway infrastructure I've ever seen. The traffic is horrendous, you have major highways that end abruptly(U-turns are a way of life here,) highway exits are actually just an entrance to a restaurant or a business that in the winter you can't even see over the snow piles to merge properly..I don't understand how there aren't major accidents everywhere you look.
Wow, I like how you combined the great things and the bad things about San Francisco into one well executed video 👍🏼 I love visiting San Francisco and I definitely agree with a lot of the points you made! Keep up the great work!
As someone who lives in the Dogpatch neighborhood mentioned here, this video seems oddly oblivious to the fact that this is already happening. Those google maps scans are pretty out of date, but there's been a huge amount of development of luxury condos, office space, and now the Warriors stadium along the bay from ATT park down to the former site of Candlestick. Development in that area hasn't been without it's problems, but what you're suggesting here does seem to be happening. That being said, rents and property prices still seem to be increasing beyond any semblance of reason so I don't think this is an ample solution to the issue.
Imagine if new York decided all of Manhattan, before it had not even a single mid rise, was "historic" and therefore worthy absolute preservation: new York would be nothing.
Thank you! I was almost going to thumbs down and click out because his voice was annoying me in the beginning. Spoke in a smug/asshole way even if he wasn’t being that way. He has that type of voice. Once I fast forward the vid, it was a little more tolerable.
Europa Man im not even an immigrant but fuck off with that shit. America was built on being a melting pot and will continue to be. Food and cultural offerings from around the world are part of why I love my home region. You know what led to Silicon Valley? The ability for companies to easily bring over educated workers from all over the world (although primarily Asia) on visas. Get your deus vult ass narrative out of here.
Discovered your channel recently! I absolutely love it! I'm studying architecture and this is such a great view of how everything ces together! Keep up the great work💪💪🔥
Ramble opinion: The reason it’s so successful is the culture and people’s ability to make do. Gentrification will eventually extinguish the flame of culture by adding too much fuel for it to burn. Paradoxically, something has to be done to keep people, their ideas and their culture in the city, otherwise it will dry up and become a ghost town. I look at the rich moving in as spectators and tourists with a cultural vacuum. There’s no reason why the culture has to be trapped on the cape. The people who make SF so wonderful will leave and go somewhere else, which will in turn carry the flag and attract more people. It’s a natural cycle of life and, I think, in the long term, SF should prepare for that decline and manage it so there’s something left. It’s like a bigger scale copy of its own expo island, or a city after hosting the olympics. It’s about knowing the inevitability of a decline and making sure there’s a good city left after it happens. The new high-rise buildings, marinas and reclaimed land and better public transport will delay this decline by, say, 50 years but it’s still coming. I do think that when high-rise exclusive areas pop up, it’s a bit of an omen. I think... even the position as a giant startup incubator will close eventually - startups are a phenomenon which only occur in cultural microclimates: culture, challenges, education, communication, time and money. How long will that even be around for?
Most of us are moving to Austin but Austin is turning into the exact same shit hole because we vote for the exact same policies. Mexicans have been bitching about gentrification since the 60's here. The mission has been dead long before 2000. It used to be an actual ghetto. In actuality SF is a booming city, its the hollywood for tech at this point. Nobody is coming here because they want to feel culturally like SF they are coming here because they want to make the big bucks. Its always been this way since the gold rush. The ONLY time in our history that SF has EVER had cultural immigration was when a bunch of hippies came here to join cults or live off the doll while they got high and fucked everything that moved.
Actually the whole westside of Manhattan is a park. You can bike walk from the Battery to Ft. Washington. Definitely worth doing if your from the area at least once in your life time.
I actually live in the new development here at hunters point and I can sadly say,trying to give more housing doesnt help. The residents and surrounding neighborhood dont care about the nice new buildings and continue to act in a matter that shows they would rather destroy than grow
brandon bevis that’s like saying “I did go to the gym for a day but I still don’t have abs. Working out doesn’t help.” We need a loooooot of housing to decrease demand and bring the housing cost down.
I lived at 3rd and Quesada ("dog patch") for 4 months (2 years ago) after living in other part of the city since 2000. In 4 months there were 4 drive by shootings and one I witnessed. After that I was done with SF and moved to Oakland.
They have expanded like that in recent years but a lot of that area you are talking about on the coast is very hazardous. There are like three Superfund sites there. While you may be able to convert some of that more inland industrial area. You will never (for mainly Political reasons) be able to redevelop Potrero Hill. The solution is to build up Brisbane to the south of San Francisco as well as make it easy for people to build new homes and small multi-unit buildings all around San Francisco.
I'm 100% agree with you. Bay area should study Miami. The whole bay area should study Miami..... North San Jose near Milpitas has the land can build millions of new house if they build the new building. But the worst part is..... The resident did not want to build new high apartment, their estate will cut the rent.....The Legislator even don't agree to any build more than 50 feet. The density in the Bay area is less than 2000/km2, but other major cities in the world are 20000/km2
Oh! The Boonies! Alviso is such a undeveloped area you can go there and see old ships still docked there. I agree with you, I am from Milpitas and it really sucks to see more high end apartments near the Great Mall go up. Disgusts me to no end! Milpitas is my home town and I can no longer live there.
@@MisterMonsterMan I'm not saying there is not a problem. I am saying that you are overlooking a systematic problem of all cities and subscribing this problem to only SF thus perpetuating a stereotype.
San Francisco is (was) a great city. I lived there for 29 years, having moved out one year ago. Every neighborhood is pretty much self contained. Once living in a neighborhood, I would find myself rarely leaving it (except for work) because there was no need to. I lived in the Mission, Inner Sunset, upper Haight and the Outer Richmond. It was always the same; everything I needed was right there. But now the city has became a dirty, over crowded and over priced hole. Oh, and as others have pointed out, the ridiculous cost of housing now applies to the entire Bay Area, not just San Francisco.
San Francisco native here....haven’t yet read one single “solution” here in all these comments. Building tons of cheap housing only adds yet more people to an already densely populated city...to cure homelessness you need to solve drug abuse, mental health care as well as income disparity. High real estate prices are set by the free market, not city planners. People are entitled to hate on SF for its liberal politics, but I don’t see people flocking to Alabama....just sayin’...
Finally, a rational comment. (My other was intended as hyperbole.) You nailed it with the mention of income disparity; that is the core issue. And no, Republican leadership couldn't (or wouldn't) fix that in a million years. I've been in SF for 30. We have our share of problems, of course, like anyplace with a high concentration of people, but it's still an amazing city.
I use to live in San Francisco and had a business there but had to leave because I lost my rent controlled apartment. This idea you have is really great. I totally forgot about this part of town. A whole bunch of high rise apartments would really help the problem of housing and maybe help the city grow even more. Great video and good idea.
The areas that you mentioned have been being developed for years since before I left the city in 2016. The only problem is that it will take the city another decade or 2 before they can get any reliable public transportation to service the areas sufficiently.
What I would like to know is how it is even possible for working class people to live in the Bay Area other than living with their parents? It is going to get to the point where restaurants and other businesses will have to cut hours because they cannot find people to work there. And the reason why they cannot find people to work is that no one making 5 figures or less can afford to live there. I honestly think the day is coming where some businesses are actually going to have to provide on site housing options to try and attract workers.
I know this video is super old, but I think it left out that one of the proposed condo high rise zones, Treasure Island, contains radioactive waste from when it was a Naval base-- and thus isn't ideal for redevelopment. I stayed there for a few weeks before learning the backyard grasses were potentially toxic to pets! Not to mention, its slowly sinking into the Bay at it's current weight... Tl;dr: its screwed in an earthquake
I really enjoyed your short documentary. I've lived in San Francisco about 35 years. And I never realized the neighborhood connection you pointed out. It made me squeeze out a little love for San Francisco. I live right in that ultra desirable neighborhood in the mission. The most sought after neighborhood in the country. Well about 2/3 of the neighborhood is. A third of it is Third World. There was a developer who spent $10 million in 20 years of his life trying to get a project built in hunters point. He just gave up because the environmentalist had a lock on anything that moved. For a moth who is thinking about landing on a tree out there. To the gasoline in the ground from when they built submarines. I just think the 90 or 100 times I siphon gas for different various combustion engines. Is probably about 1000 Worse than living on top of that ground with a huge chunk of cement between us. The only hope is the homeless problem is so bad that the supervisors will bend the environmental rules. But if you were a developer here would you take on that? Knowing with the last guy went through. Knowing that for the very first time NASA is working with a private company to reach space. And four days before that he's fighting with Alameda county over his business and threatening to move. The state and the county don't like business. They don't like cars. I don't even think they like people. I think they believe we take up to much room. Your doc really reminds me how the two sides of the city will break soon. my wonderful 1998 Lincoln town car has a few problems. Windows been broken a few times, glove box opened with her crowbar so it doesn't close. Right side mirror smashed repeatedly. Gas cap broken open. everything stolen out of the trunk. and then you look for parking which on average you get between three and four tickets a month. Get out of your car and make sure you don't step on any needles. And we learn the hard way if you jump away from the needle be careful cause you're gonna land on some human poop. than you pass a few people not sure if they're alive or dead. when you get to the door make sure there's nobody coming toward you. Than you plop yourself down In that one bedroom apartment where the rent is more than you would pay for a whole ranch in another state. yeah I'm obviously venting. I'll be amazed if anybody reads this.
Hi . 1998 Continental. 500 dollars deductible. S.F. is no place to own a motor vehicle if parked on street. SF is quite cold And it has no summer. Have a good day. Thank you Jesus for the shoes I wear and the bed I sleep in and for the wife beside me and for running water in our motel room in West Sacramento California..
Sunset district needs to be redeveloped. It’s pretty much all bleak 1960s low density housing. Perfect area to redevelop without the loss of history. Also it’s mostly middle or upper middle class Asians and white folk so they minority issue isn’t really there. Imagine ocean beach lined with towering buildings and mixed developments. That would bring new life to the hole west side of the city which is otherwise inaccessible and unpopular besides the beach
im afraid, even with moving all the rich people to the unused coast wont solve it. because no only theres a lot of rich yappy tech guys moving into SF, but a lot more of average dudes, college graduates, and jobseekers moving in to SF too. i still believe the core solution is to densify, not only SF but the whole bay area. south of SF county is already a suburban hell hole, we can start there and make it more mixed use and denser like current day SF. ik it's very sad to see those beautiful historical victorian era buildings go, but its even sadder to see more and more SF residents and newcomers on the streets unable to afford housing. because its not only the land value that's high, but also the stock of housing that's also really low. we can build more reclaimed land, like how Tokyo or Shanghai did but it'll take very massive funding, espescially in SF. that's why im highly suggesting SF to upzone the entire city. it's a hub for a metro area of 8 million people! no one said the downtown shoud be locked away in that tiny corner. im not saying skyscrapers either, im talking about high rises in the 50-100m range that better fits the city, with probably several more skyscrapers here and there that will bound to come. because the current 2-3 story high houses and buildings are just not enough. the point is that, SF needs to densify, it's just a necessity that should've been done decades ago.
Regarding your bit about how Miami solved their housing problem at circa 20:00 - the problem with building high-rise buildings in San Francisco or anywhere in California are earthquakes! They don't exist in Florida so the apartment buildings can be built much higher. We have mother nature to thank for that one!
What I saw when I visited SF a few years ago was a huge homeless problem. There was literally needles and human feces on the sidewalk in the downtown area. I offered a guy a full meal and was yelled at for not giving him some cash. Setting that aside, it's a nice city.
It's gotten much better than back in 2019, a pleasant surprise considering what you'll see in the news. However, SF had a homeless problem in the 90's, in the 2000's, in the 2010's, etc. It never went away, but the city did nothing to prevent it from getting worse in the 2010's and allowing the homeless population to essentially take over areas like the Tenderloin (which is terrifying to even drive through). At this point, I truly ever wonder if the city will do anything about it aside from keep it contained to a few blocks. The rest of the city is still as beautiful as ever.
The Tech companies should start building a new "smart" city in the desert the same way Las Vegas was Built (or the plains or Forest or whatever). With slides, hyperloop, bike circuits that interconected all their districts or boroughs with affordable pod housing.
Mr. Beach, your solution omits some inevitabilities. Building on under-utilized land will not lower the cost of housing for the rest of the city one single cent, nor will it slow down the rising prices for housing. It is clear that prices are not becoming harder to afford, they are already impossible for far too many to afford, and are getting harder. Despite the lies taught in grade school economics about supply and demand, no landlord will lower the rent, no home seller or any developer will lower the rental or purchase price, unless the city suffers a drastic economic collapse, such as happened in Detroit, Mi., any development income from building on under-utilized land will never go to helping those disadvantaged by the rising prices, but instead will line the pockets of the already rich, and the developers who build the projects for them. There are no legislators willing to tax the properties of the rich, so you can forget income from taxes being used to help the people struggling with cost of living prices. Opening restaurants bars and clubs in the post-covid era is doomed. Coronavirii are not a one-off anomaly, they are here to stay. the virus' mutations will prove vaccines to be ineffective. San Francisco is headed for an economic collapse, and helping the rich stay rich won't solve the problem. "Trickle down" economics, as subtly implied in your treatise, was a lie from the start, and has predictably failed most spectacularly. The unwillingness of legislators to mitigate sheer greed will ensure the coming collapse.
That part of town you said is already ruined, its build on reclaimed land from the bay. In an earthquake it shakes more than a bole of Jell-O in the hands of a turrets patient. In 1989, the streets moved like waves of water. Not a good place for high rise buildings.
I should build a generic ML-driven city sim to train on real city infrastructure/traffic/crime/etc. data, so you government can simulate problematic cities, and subsequently fix them.
Build on radiation? Govt did tests on radiation exposure in the 40’s when no one knew what it did. Soil samples were found to be toxic. One of the nukes the USA dropped on Japan went thru hunters point and put on a ship there
Do yourself a favor and actually check out Manhattan sometime. It surprises me how people don't know about the waterfront, from Riverside Park to the bike paths on the east side. Also, what fifth borough? :P
Just a note, there was no "Mexican-American War". It was an invasion (north to south) - sure Mexico attempted some sort of defense having no other option but calling it a war is like saying stealing candy from a baby is "a fight".
Good video. Great to see people talking about walkable affordable cities that are designed for all people. A couple of quick suggestions. In your narration don’t forget to use or expand your transitions so people can follow you from one major idea to the next. And when clicking through the map go a little slower so people can absorb each new view.
I was born in San Francisco and lived there most of my life. But in 2004, I called it quits when I retired. My parents died and their little Sunset rowhouse that they paid $5000 for in 1952 was now valied at 1.7 MILLION. Madness! I sold their house and moved to Phoenix where buying a home is not an impossible dream. My adult kids have all left for Texas and other areas of the USA where the American dream still lives on. My last daughter in Marin is moving to Dallas in June 2020. San Francisco is now populated by the rich, the tourists and the homeless. The Middle class is in full flight. If for some reason the high tech industry collapses, San Francisco is going to be in big trouble. They've sold out to the yuppies, and the rest of us are moving on.
Michael, you are off base with regards to Manhattan. Those “projects” as you snidely refer to them, are middle income housing fronting on the rivers. Do you consider residential uses with open accessibility to the river unworthy? On the Hudson River, there are continuous parks, walkways, and redeveloped pedestrian piers from Battery Park to the north end of the island. The freeways and highways you reference are 6 lane surface streets with crosswalks at every corner, exactly like the Embarcadero in SF. It doesn’t help your point if you misrepresent the facts. Manhattan is not perfect, nor does it have San Francisco’s stunning topography, but it has admirably turned over its waterfront to recreational use for its residents.
The only thing I Dislike about San Francisco is how it's officials, landowners who offer rent, law enforcement... Mistreated me and my family! Last year I saw 19 homeless people through eviction in the mission district! ( I was one of them )!!!!!! San francisco doesn't deserve to be fixed!
Whose they? I live in Manhattan no one is stopping me from seeing the Hudson River, East River, New York Harbor or South Street Seaport. I can’t forget that Manhattan island or surrounded by water when these boroughs are situated
Most of downtown SF is landfill as well. I lived in a new apartment building in SoMa near the bay and it had a gallery showing all of the old ship artefacts that were dug up when building the basement and foundations. Apparently during the gold rush crews would abandon their ships to search for gold and there were so many ships clogging up the bay that they started scuttling them to make room for new arrivals.
My perfect solution: zeppelins. Lots and lots and lots of zeppelins. Build a second San Fransisco above the city made entirely out of zeppelins. Tether them to the buildings on the ground, and there you go, you've just doubled the living capacity of the city. AND, zeppelins are not threatened by earthquakes, so they're super safe. ... I'm a genius.
I live in SF. The reason why that south east area is under utilized is because of transportation. Density grows around the bart and that little southern area takes an hour via bus to reach downtown.
@@crazedspidermonkey I'm certain for the 63 people who didn't make it it was big enough. Watch out for the next disaster maybe heading your way. Not funny. I live here
How to fix SF? Police can actually take action and arrest the criminals breaking into peoples cars. I was in the city limits with my car once and we got our window bashed in. Nothing was even in car.
SF should create a development bank for the express purposes for building more housing. It would provide loans to existing homeowners to add another story to their house if feasible. Building up in neighborhoods like the Richmond and the Sunset is critical. It should also rip out the SROs in the Tenderloin and build high rises for tech workers. The tax revenue would be enormous and it would take stress off the rents in the neighborhoods. The interest on the loans would fund city services. It would create a virtuous circle. If the city was really bold, it could issue it's own currency to fund the loans. In addition to building up, revising rent control is a must. Rather indexing rent increases to inflation, impose an annual cap around 5% to 7% on all rentals. A lot of the rent controlled housing stock is in a pitiful state because rents are so far below market value due to historically low inflation that landlords can not maintain their property. Finally, as the city builds more housing, transportation must be addressed. Building a BART line from the Golden Gate Bridge down 19th to Daly City and from Powell Street down Geary to Ocean Beach would make it infinitely easier to get around. This will never happen because the city is inherently resistant to change.
I'm still scratching my head as to how the Outer Richmond has completely escaped gentrification. It's just a chill neighborhood that's safe, affordable, has reasonable parking, and sure, a little boring, but not at all terrible.
LA Mayor is going to shut down the nat gas electrical plants in the city. This is totally insane. Wind and solar cannot replace nat gas. No major city has ever attempted to do that, and Garcetti is making you guys the guinea pigs. He has ZERO knowledge of the industry. A total fool making this decision.
yes! This man needs to be on city council! Thank you for the interesting and well thought out video! We definitely need to start speaking realistically about the housing crisis here!
Great series mike. Would love you to do a video on Melbourne Australia. Voted seven times most liveable city in the world but your analysis might tease out any issues you notice on its layout or limitations. It's growing at 2000 people a week so there are definitely challenges ahead
have you ever heard of earthquakes? San Francisco can't build highrises on landfill in an area that is prone to earthquakes. In addition, while it is true that the Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhood is majority industrial, there is a large minority population there that calls that place home. Quite frankly, no matter where you build in San Francisco, someone will be upset with the development.
I was born in Sf and lived there for a long time. It has a lot of problems, but I can not deny that it is a beautiful and dynamic city. The big problem in my opinion is that most construction firms are interested in building expensive apartments in expensive areas. For many years the area right off the bay bridge was being developed and became very expensive housing. The city should be encouraging development in its further out areas. The rent price in Sf is a basic economics problem: too many people and not enough housing. But, I still believe any development in SF should complement our existing skyline. Many people despise the ManhattaniZing of SF, so we should try to preserve our unique SF identity in the architecture.
This guy sounds like what Morty would be doing if Rick never entered his life.
Rick: Morty we need to go adventures and stuff
Morty: shut the fuck up you nihilistic bitch; I’m to busy studying and shit!
Huh, he really does sound like Justin Roiland
He has a voice made for texting
this guy brings up some good points but the housing crisis is not limited to SF its the WHOLE BAY AREA
@@ElLapiz24 Haven't been to Toronto I see.
Good insight and true !
@@ElLapiz24 you are a dumbfuck absolutely a dumbfuck
I'd argue that this is also a huge issue with the whole West Coast of North America.
deadass
I grew up in San Francisco and living there for almost 30 years. This is one of the greatest analysis of the SF geography / city planning I've ever seen. You actually understand the problems at hand.
The one thing I might add is more investment in public transportation. The city already has traffic equally bad as LA or NYC with no real public transportation alternatives (buses in SF are overcrowded, ghetto and a bandaid solution).
San Francisco has a NIMBY problem, and Miami has a "going to be underwater" problem. Both are major problems!
San Francisco has both problems.
Danny Hightower So Miami has no problems to you?
@@greysnake2903 never said that bro. Just said that San Francisco has both the problems he mentioned.
This guy must be really good at the game Cities Skylines
even with mods, that game is way to unrealistic and restricted to be fun
following
@@necronut Try Citystate
Your picture was my reaction to this comment.
@@necronut look at those reviews, pretty bad for citystate
"This part of town is already ruined." Every time I've been over there on my moto I've felt the same way, it's a nightmare to navigate and full of dead space. Fantastic video!
Hello Peter, Love your videos!
"I'm driving home to Marin from work in San Francisco and I think I'm going to stop in the Marina district to grab a bite to eat" - Said no commuter ever.
My dad said that last week...
people from marin are always in the marina whataya talk
I’m amazed that you can still drive to work in San Fran. Sounds like they need more transit.
@@IcelanderUSer I commuted from Mill Valley to the San Francisco financial district by car no problem, and if I didn't you just take the ferry over from Larkspur or Sausalito. Transit is very good, plus there's Bart
@@sheayoung2837 I heard Bart is a shithole
There's definitely been a TON of high-density housing development going on in Dogpatch/Mission Bay/Hunters Point, but to be honest I stay pretty cynical of its outcome. A huge problem I've noticed here in the city is that while there are a ton of tech companies in the SoMa and so on, the big majority of tech companies line up in south bay/peninsula and a ton of the more affluent folk decide to buy housing in SF. Almost no one here seems to live where they work because rich people snatch up housing to fulfill their dreamy 'cultured' city life.
So true!!! Mission natives have to move out because they cant afford the high cost of living caused by rich people/big business. I have friends that commute all the way from Pittsburgh everyday to get to school. I hope that I can keep living in San Francisco but I honestly doubt I'll be able to afford to.
Stephanie Wennerstrom as a white guy that went to the mission in like 1999, there wasn’t a single other white guy on mission, Valencia, Guerrero, streets etc back then. was a sketch area with violent gangs.
We're now infested with transplants that come from the middle of nowhere and everything is slowly changing and accommodating to them :(
There are a few solutions to the problem;
1. You only let 1 person buy 1 house that they live in - Too many wealthy Chinese have purchased lots of homes as investments that sit empty.
2. You create large tax incentives for raising and building extremely tall housing projects.
3. You elect people into council that keep landlords from voting down new developments - too often its actually nearby landlords that strike down new developments. They do this because they want their stuff to stay artificially expensive.
4. You enforce rent brackets based on income in each city for each household; Basically you allocate specific amounts of housing for each income bracket and any new development has to have a reasonable breakdown. This would make it so that all new developments were not only just for millionaires.
5. If everyone stopped using the internet for a year collectively, the income of the whole bay area would decrease by about 50%.
@@Exascale i really like the one home limit that you live in idea, no not living in it and renting it out. While I dont like controlling people from owning more then one home, SF has a problem that needs to be addressed. New housing projects should preferences to people that are already living in the bay area 40 miles or so from SF.
This problem is not just in sf it’s the whole Bay Area
I want Emeryville to be come Gentrified, we Already need more Housing, Hospitals and Services.
@@markplott4820 Why would you want gentrification?
@Crawcrawc how much do you make a month?
@@markplott4820 Isn't Emeryville already pretty gentrified, except for maybe some of the places that border northwest Oakland.
Mark Plott Gentrification csuses things to become expensive.
Man I thought I was a map junkie until I seen these epic videos. Keep em coming bro.
I was born and raised in San Francisco and lived there for 24 years. I'm 28 now and was finally forced out in late 2014 due to the high prices. I moved far east deep into Contra Costa county and it's still expensive. I landed a job on the east coast and will be moving there soon. This housing crisis forced me out of my home city and i'm sad.
Great video!
LoneSniperFox I moved to NC. I live 5 minutes from the beach and 3,000sq mansions go for 250k.... I have no idea why anyone would ever want to live in SF
Love this video about fixing SF’s housing crisis. But I would of loved it if you talked about the future of the entire Bay Areas housing and transportation hurtles.
Only one correction. Riverside park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan is nice. The highway runs through it in parts, but it's generally quiet, has great views of the river, and is very walkable. Also the bike path that runs most of the west side of the island is really nice.
I agree Manhattan has no at all used it's river fronts well. But Riverside park is actually very nice.
Do one for Sydney. The inner city was never designed well.
plz
The lack of design and forward thinking has resulted in the nightmare currently of tunnels, areas with no rail, only now adding metro in areas that have been allowed to sprawl without sufficient public transportation.
A layout like Melbourne or even Brisbane could have vastly made a difference.
@StrategicFooyoo You can literally buy a European *castle* for the price of a Sydney apartment.
@StrategicFooyoo Sydney is expensive, but not on SF's level.
@StrategicFooyoo Sydney is expensive by Australian standards but it still doesn't compare with SF prices. Back when the AUD was $1.05 USD, sure it was competitive. But at 0.70 USD Sydney looks very affordable compared to SF. Look at any cost of living comparison website like Expatistan or Numbeo and compare it for yourself, if you don't believe me.
I've been waiting for someone to make this argument forever. It just seems so obvious but completely overlooked. Keep preaching, brother.
Read the comments, apparently it’s not so overlooked after all. If it was that simple then they would have done it
Rent control and zoning is some of the prime reasons places like SF and NYC and even London are having a crisis. Time to rethink these disastrous policies
JJ B San Francisco zoning is literally 1,000 times worse than New York.
@Jacob yt it's called socialism that it prized as "we care about you"
@Jacob yt where you moving too? Come to Nevada brosef
@Jacob yt dude let's go sail. I'm down!!! No joke!
This would be great, but it wouldn't be enough. The problem is that most of the land in the San Francisco metro area is being taken up by single-family housing. If we upzoned 30-40% of existing single-family neighborhoods to allow low-rise apartments, that would make much more of a difference than a single luxury high rise district.
San Francisco has also been horrendously mismanaged. Lots of political posturing and virtue signaling and random acts of direct democracy. The sliver of industrial land to the southeast is not especially well-served by transit, and it actually got worse after $⅔ billion of investment. The new T-Third light-rail line is horrible; I usually bike faster than the train on Third Street. player.fm/series/infill-1401824/eat-local
What would be good is to build more housing near existing investments in transit. For example, the Glen Park BART station is the least-used BART station in San Francisco, it’s well-connected to SFMTA buses, and it’s in an extremely walkable neighborhood with libraries and shops and parks. Cater-cornered from the station is a large empty parcel that has been used without a permit as a parking lot. That’s an ideal location to be rezoned for transit-oriented development. So, in one of his last acts as Supervisor after the citizens voted him out, Jeff Sheehy… Legalized the parking lot. Indefinitely.
For example, the Twin Peaks tunnel was constructed at great expense to ferry commuters downtown from the new racially exclusive residential developments at the West Portal. That area is served by many SFMTA bus and light rail lines, and the height limit is… 26 feet. Only small and expensive boutique shops allowed there. Naturally, that location was a rallying point for the “progressives” (fauxgressives?) to campaign for the rights of neighborhoods to be exclusionary.
Of course, San Francisco should also be building better transit, but with the United States’ cost disease, that will take a while for the benefits to be felt.
@@biennium992 Yea all that fuss about the Glen Park choice real estate well, the public can no longer use it, it"s NOT going to be converted to housing, It's now been made Private Parking! Fuck It
I agree with you 100%. The problem is, Californians hate apartments. They would rather be priced out than have an apartment they can afford to live in. It works for Paris or New York but Californians expect to live in a single family house rather than “stack and pack housing projects” as they call apartments. Thankfully Seattle doesn’t have the same mindset or I would have been priced out a a long time ago. It’s expensive enough as is, even with all the high rise apartments going in.
It’s because Californians wants homes with garages and yards. Suburban living in the city, a lot of east coasters don’t get it
Scorcese TrackingShot I get that. A yard is nice sometimes but mistiming it properly is a lot of work petiole with apartments don’t have to do. Depends on what people want. A lot of Americans dread all the weeding and lawn mowing but are culturally expected to have a big yard to show they “made it” in life so they do.
Treasure Island would have been perfect too for giant luxury condos. I lived there briefly and it was great. Cheap, and the best views of the city. But the city found a rock of asbestos or something kicked everyone out of their houses and off the island...
Nuclear was found and hidden.
the city saved you from getting brain tumors. serious nuclear pollution at hunters point too. navy cleaned ships used for atomic testing there, and did other things we don't know about. dumped untold a lot of radioactive material off the farallon islands as well. covered it up forever but all you have to look at are cancer rates. if we knew the real pollution levels who knows how the population would react.
Treasure island has a large development on the way.
@@bogusrick65 Problem is nobody is addressing the fact the "island" is subsiding into the bay. The cost to fortify the boundary is staggering and the large developments of which you speak won;'t happen until this problem (among others) is rationally addressed.
@@rdmorris1947 Hey, believe what you want. I'm just here to say that the development has been started and is making fast progress. As for Treasure Island "subsiding into The Bay," that is up for debate.
The real sitch here is the corruption in local politics that is preferencing luxury development and space for continued tech takeover when in reality they could do more for affordable housing. Look up the plans for the new firehouse in FiDi. It's not about what's being used, it's the missed opportunities. Also build something in the nothingness by the highway entrances in SOMA. Lots on lots just being partitioned for $2500 studios. Sweet.
Careful whatcha wish for! Rather than erect some business facility, a midrise residential block is being tucked within a highway cloverleaf petal here in the Island of Montreal.. .. . .
The problem is that real estate and construction cost are so sky high that the only way the developers can make the numbers crunch is with a luxury development with insane prices. It sucks, but it's the market forces.
BS..market dynamics are highly orchestrated, period.
Or when the city does try to develop affordable housing or homeless shelters, selfish rich people petition and sue the hell out of them because "Ew, I don't want to see poor people in my neighborhood."
Unrecognizably, Montreal's Griffintown steeped in Irish history is swiftly being redeveloped into mediocre multi-stacked condos, and it was just reported that an entrepreneur who conducts historical walking tours now regularly gets insulted, booed, jeered, and mocked at by many a miserable and ignorant _arriviste_ of a resident any time he stops his flock at a point of interest there. It's eerie learning of that, because such derisions might signal an end to Quebec's social contract that's long chartered blending residents of differing income brackets into neighbouring each other. Sure there are ritzy towns and areas around the island here, yet for the most part such mixing does indeed seem to foster desirous community cohesion.
Holy crap dude. Wow. Great video. It had an unintended consequence of giving me a huge bout of nostalgia. I spent just a single weekend in this city, and had a wonderous experience with my four Americans friends. I'm from London, or just south, and San Fran really hit me after two months of time in Los Angeles and its decentralized state San Fran checked all the boxes. I was even glad to see a cloud atop The hill a sight I'd never thought I'd see. I was only there a short time but due to the cities connectedness I had experiences in almost all the areas you mentioned. Just wanted to say thank you for doing such a great job with the video and giving me that. You've definitely just gained a sub. Wishing you all the best from across the pond. Cheerio!
That cloud is called fog. It always settled on Twin Peaks in the evening.
I have the same, visited for a few days last year and had a nice time there.
TLDW: Zone east of the 280 (Dog patch, Hunters Point, Bayview, Treasure Island) to high rise housing to solve some of the housing crisis in SF.
Been hearing talks of housing on treasure island being built for 10 years. Wtf is going on? That one lane extremely short freeway entrance to the bay bridge would get crazy backed up
Big poppa yeah took years to get approved but I’ve read that they’re moving ahead and figuring all the traffic and logistics now. More info here sftreasureisland.org/construction
Guys guys guys. I'm so smart I just came up with the solution. The way to prevent gentrification of working class ethnic neighborhoods is to GENTRIFY working class ethnic neighborhoods! I just did it. Now give to my patreon.
No one cares about "the water" when you're in NYC lol
True. Murky brownish/green water full of oil and gasoline fumes is not attractive.
MarloSoBalJr Dodging poo and needles isn’t exactly a walk in the park either.
Weather plays a big factor. NYC doesn't see the nice year-round weather that SF enjoys. But if there were more waterfront attractions in NYC, it would probably feel a bit more attractive.
To solve the San Fran crisis, what you said was pretty dang spot on. It would help the city a tonne.
Edit: did you make a video about Los Angeles?
My grandma had a house in SF too. I used to visit and play with other kids in the street all the time. I’d never seen any place with as much street life. None of her relatives could afford to buy it from her so none of us live in the city anymore even though some of us became tech workers with remote jobs in SF.
You’re actually not wrong, Mission bay had been a Up and Coming new high density mixed use district, theres actually a couple exits to that district and its not bad. More in likely they’ll do the same to Dog patch regardless of the toxic soil or not. Good video! Love from San Bruno, CA ✌️
"looks like downtown lisbon"
bro what lmao
it does a little bit, but that was such a generalization.
I had the same reaction lol looks almost nothing like Lisbon actually
Well, San Francisco is the “Lisbon of the Pacific”
Good review of the city planning. It's totally true the south east part of the city is pretty forgotten. I think there's some pollution issues with those areas. But the city is expanding in that direction with the new warriors stadium and redevelopment of candlestick point. Treasure island was looked at some years ago for redevelopment but it's been zoned mostly for low income housing.
Manhattan waterfront is actually very continuous and accessable. There are tons of people that walk/jog/bike on the West and Eastside trails. The Westside in particular is undergoing a boom of new parks and piers.
I am an urban liberal... and I am telling you: Google Map doesn't show you utter lack of green and open space, horrendous homelessness, failing public infrastructure, peeing and drugs on the street, poorly constructed and maintained buildings.
NIMBY attitudes, growth protests, the constantly growing beaucracy, and red tape, mostly all driven by The Left, and do gooder protesters can't figure out why they are priced outta market.
@fullmetaljaco right. Because Mississippi and Alabama where the republicans have been in charge since the 60s are such booming metropolis's. Lets compare west memphis and san francisco lol
you get what you vote for
@@dejanjovanovski1686 why being a booming metropolis should be the standard of everything?
At least compare the carbon footprint between those two examples if you want to set a standart.
But you wouldn't want that, would you?
"west end drive turns back into a highway, completely blocking your view"... bruh, youre looking at riverside park. its a beautiful view of the Hudson that spans 50 blocks.
Just 1 thing as someone who lives in miami. We ALL pronounce it “brickle” even though it’s spelled Brickell
I'm glad I found you, your video was really refreshing and insightful giving me a new perspective on a topic (city planning, geography, etc.) I probably wouldn't really care much about. Keep up the good work, you earned yourself a new subscriber!
P.S. I like the intro music, reminds me of a theme song for a TV show
My wife's and daughters' favorite show...they watched each episode at least 5 times #gilmoregirls
Over here in Oakland, they're building 7 or 8 tower apt bldgs in Downtown all at once and advertise "affordable housing "
They are not affordable also theres about 2000 empty units in Oakland.
It's not the lack of housing, it's the costs. They keep building more and more but it's not doing anything other than bldg more high priced units.
Affordable housing in California is like Obama care 3x the cost it should be.
"its not a lack of housing"
This is false. There is a huge housing shortage thanks to NIMBYs. Just build more high rise apartments
Man, in general North American cities are nt really the best in terms of urban planning and architecture, always bulky, wide and metallic skyscrapers are engorged by low density suburbs with huge spralling highways and a non existing rapid transit system, but when they do it right, man is it good ! Thank you San Francisco ! Also, I highly extremely recommend you to do a video about Montreal, Canada . In Canada, there s too much attention on Toronto and Vancouver, which are in general better than the US in terms of creating a beautiful and functionnal city, but nothing compares to Montreal. This city is just an architectural and engineering underrated pearl of diverse streets and walkable arrondissements and because of the history of French and British presence in the region, Montreal has a very noticeable european influence that shows througout this north american city. I swear you wont be dissapointed !
Montreal ‘s regional rail commuter rail network is useless
Fully agreed about the beauty of the downtown and amazing European inspired architecture. The only issue I have with the city is driving. Montreal has some of the most poorly planned highway infrastructure I've ever seen. The traffic is horrendous, you have major highways that end abruptly(U-turns are a way of life here,) highway exits are actually just an entrance to a restaurant or a business that in the winter you can't even see over the snow piles to merge properly..I don't understand how there aren't major accidents everywhere you look.
Wow, I like how you combined the great things and the bad things about San Francisco into one well executed video 👍🏼 I love visiting San Francisco and I definitely agree with a lot of the points you made! Keep up the great work!
As someone who lives in the Dogpatch neighborhood mentioned here, this video seems oddly oblivious to the fact that this is already happening. Those google maps scans are pretty out of date, but there's been a huge amount of development of luxury condos, office space, and now the Warriors stadium along the bay from ATT park down to the former site of Candlestick. Development in that area hasn't been without it's problems, but what you're suggesting here does seem to be happening. That being said, rents and property prices still seem to be increasing beyond any semblance of reason so I don't think this is an ample solution to the issue.
thanos was right. if he wiped out 50% of people. san francisco and every other city will be aight
thekiller500099 they showed sf haha it was fucked up
@@spacecowboy8789 Nah, just send all the drug addicts and bums to work camps
maybe start with the corrupt city democrat government?
@ Then who will do the service work? It's not like lots of people who grew up here are ready to do it.
@ If there weren't service jobs for them here, they wouldn't come. Those born here don't want to do that work.
Imagine if new York decided all of Manhattan, before it had not even a single mid rise, was "historic" and therefore worthy absolute preservation: new York would be nothing.
You can’t develop hunters point, I’m pretty sure it’s still super contaminated
Well... they’re doing it anyway lol
The Cliffhouse no longer has the laughing lady. That is part of the Musee Mechanique, and that is now located at Fisherman's Wharf.
Keep doing what you're doing, man! Your videos are incredible!
Video starts at 13:34
You're welcome.
Is this a prank?
Thank you. All that map scrolling was making me dizzy.
Thank you! I was almost going to thumbs down and click out because his voice was annoying me in the beginning. Spoke in a smug/asshole way even if he wasn’t being that way. He has that type of voice. Once I fast forward the vid, it was a little more tolerable.
And miss that Rincon Park joke? no thanks.
Born and raised in the Bay Area, this really answers it all. The whole region needs to supercharge development in its underutilized super blocks.
Europa Man im not even an immigrant but fuck off with that shit. America was built on being a melting pot and will continue to be. Food and cultural offerings from around the world are part of why I love my home region.
You know what led to Silicon Valley? The ability for companies to easily bring over educated workers from all over the world (although primarily Asia) on visas.
Get your deus vult ass narrative out of here.
17:36 Hand Job Nails & Spa lol, ok SF
Sounds like someone needs a hand job!
I’ve been there ;)
Discovered your channel recently! I absolutely love it! I'm studying architecture and this is such a great view of how everything ces together! Keep up the great work💪💪🔥
Ramble opinion:
The reason it’s so successful is the culture and people’s ability to make do. Gentrification will eventually extinguish the flame of culture by adding too much fuel for it to burn. Paradoxically, something has to be done to keep people, their ideas and their culture in the city, otherwise it will dry up and become a ghost town. I look at the rich moving in as spectators and tourists with a cultural vacuum.
There’s no reason why the culture has to be trapped on the cape. The people who make SF so wonderful will leave and go somewhere else, which will in turn carry the flag and attract more people.
It’s a natural cycle of life and, I think, in the long term, SF should prepare for that decline and manage it so there’s something left.
It’s like a bigger scale copy of its own expo island, or a city after hosting the olympics. It’s about knowing the inevitability of a decline and making sure there’s a good city left after it happens.
The new high-rise buildings, marinas and reclaimed land and better public transport will delay this decline by, say, 50 years but it’s still coming. I do think that when high-rise exclusive areas pop up, it’s a bit of an omen.
I think... even the position as a giant startup incubator will close eventually - startups are a phenomenon which only occur in cultural microclimates: culture, challenges, education, communication, time and money. How long will that even be around for?
Most of us are moving to Austin but Austin is turning into the exact same shit hole because we vote for the exact same policies. Mexicans have been bitching about gentrification since the 60's here. The mission has been dead long before 2000. It used to be an actual ghetto.
In actuality SF is a booming city, its the hollywood for tech at this point. Nobody is coming here because they want to feel culturally like SF they are coming here because they want to make the big bucks. Its always been this way since the gold rush. The ONLY time in our history that SF has EVER had cultural immigration was when a bunch of hippies came here to join cults or live off the doll while they got high and fucked everything that moved.
Actually the whole westside of Manhattan is a park. You can bike walk from the Battery to Ft. Washington. Definitely worth doing if your from the area at least once in your life time.
yeah he clearly tried his best to just overlook as much of the Manhatten shoreline to make a point instead of just giving facts.
This is one of the best videos I've watched in a long time. Have been saying everything you described for years. Love it!
Thank you for taking the time and putting alot of thought into actually fixing problems. Most people just bitch and complain.
I actually live in the new development here at hunters point and I can sadly say,trying to give more housing doesnt help. The residents and surrounding neighborhood dont care about the nice new buildings and continue to act in a matter that shows they would rather destroy than grow
brandon bevis that’s like saying “I did go to the gym for a day but I still don’t have abs. Working out doesn’t help.” We need a loooooot of housing to decrease demand and bring the housing cost down.
@@nickfromefa Nobody wants to build housing here though because renter laws fuck you in the ass really fucking hard here as well.
Of course they don't care how nice the buildings are! The forces behind those buildings are destroying lives.
eliza washington I don’t understand. What do you mean?
I lived at 3rd and Quesada ("dog patch") for 4 months (2 years ago) after living in other part of the city since 2000. In 4 months there were 4 drive by shootings and one I witnessed. After that I was done with SF and moved to Oakland.
They have expanded like that in recent years but a lot of that area you are talking about on the coast is very hazardous. There are like three Superfund sites there. While you may be able to convert some of that more inland industrial area. You will never (for mainly Political reasons) be able to redevelop Potrero Hill. The solution is to build up Brisbane to the south of San Francisco as well as make it easy for people to build new homes and small multi-unit buildings all around San Francisco.
I'm 100% agree with you. Bay area should study Miami. The whole bay area should study Miami..... North San Jose near Milpitas has the land can build millions of new house if they build the new building.
But the worst part is..... The resident did not want to build new high apartment, their estate will cut the rent.....The Legislator even don't agree to any build more than 50 feet.
The density in the Bay area is less than 2000/km2, but other major cities in the world are 20000/km2
Oh! The Boonies! Alviso is such a undeveloped area you can go there and see old ships still docked there. I agree with you, I am from Milpitas and it really sucks to see more high end apartments near the Great Mall go up. Disgusts me to no end!
Milpitas is my home town and I can no longer live there.
@@mogshot Yes. They should develop a new city in north 237.
Millions? Nah.
The Bay Area is much more densely populated when you consider buildable land.
@@youmothershouldknow4905 Built new city in north 237 is much better than build high building in San Jose
Yeah! Really nice....But what about the drug addicts and crap all over??
He addressed it as a problem. It goes along with the homeless problem which goes along with the un-afordable COL.
it's in Pittsburgh too
You don't think other cities have this problem as well? I sense bias against SF by forwarding a false narrative.
@@Cerulean0987 SF homeless and drug abuse problems are well documented and widely known. Nobody is making anything up here.
@@MisterMonsterMan I'm not saying there is not a problem. I am saying that you are overlooking a systematic problem of all cities and subscribing this problem to only SF thus perpetuating a stereotype.
San Francisco is (was) a great city. I lived there for 29 years, having moved out one year ago. Every neighborhood is pretty much self contained. Once living in a neighborhood, I would find myself rarely leaving it (except for work) because there was no need to. I lived in the Mission, Inner Sunset, upper Haight and the Outer Richmond. It was always the same; everything I needed was right there. But now the city has became a dirty, over crowded and over priced hole. Oh, and as others have pointed out, the ridiculous cost of housing now applies to the entire Bay Area, not just San Francisco.
Completely agree with you. Moved to SF in 2000 for art school and moved to Oakland 2 years ago. It's a bummer what the city has become.
I loved the part about "when starfleet sets its headquarters"
LLAP!
San Francisco native here....haven’t yet read one single “solution” here in all these comments. Building tons of cheap housing only adds yet more people to an already densely populated city...to cure homelessness you need to solve drug abuse, mental health care as well as income disparity. High real estate prices are set by the free market, not city planners. People are entitled to hate on SF for its liberal politics, but I don’t see people flocking to Alabama....just sayin’...
Finally, a rational comment. (My other was intended as hyperbole.) You nailed it with the mention of income disparity; that is the core issue. And no, Republican leadership couldn't (or wouldn't) fix that in a million years. I've been in SF for 30. We have our share of problems, of course, like anyplace with a high concentration of people, but it's still an amazing city.
I use to live in San Francisco and had a business there but had to leave because I lost my rent controlled apartment. This idea you have is really great. I totally forgot about this part of town. A whole bunch of high rise apartments would really help the problem of housing and maybe help the city grow even more. Great video and good idea.
Its happening here tho. Tons of apartments being made dude
The areas that you mentioned have been being developed for years since before I left the city in 2016. The only problem is that it will take the city another decade or 2 before they can get any reliable public transportation to service the areas sufficiently.
It's San Francisco not San Fran or Frisco
What I would like to know is how it is even possible for working class people to live in the Bay Area other than living with their parents? It is going to get to the point where restaurants and other businesses will have to cut hours because they cannot find people to work there. And the reason why they cannot find people to work is that no one making 5 figures or less can afford to live there. I honestly think the day is coming where some businesses are actually going to have to provide on site housing options to try and attract workers.
I know this video is super old, but I think it left out that one of the proposed condo high rise zones, Treasure Island, contains radioactive waste from when it was a Naval base-- and thus isn't ideal for redevelopment. I stayed there for a few weeks before learning the backyard grasses were potentially toxic to pets! Not to mention, its slowly sinking into the Bay at it's current weight...
Tl;dr: its screwed in an earthquake
Nothing that reinforcement and fill cannot fix. A meter of soil blocks most radiation
Yet Treasure Island is slated for a huge development despite what you talk about.
@@bogusrick65 well, it'll be the first time in 30 years of living in the Bay that I've heard of it!
@@Adoralla It's been in the works for a while. sftreasureisland.org/development-project
I really enjoyed your short documentary. I've lived in San Francisco about 35 years. And I never realized the neighborhood connection you pointed out. It made me squeeze out a little love for San Francisco. I live right in that ultra desirable neighborhood in the mission. The most sought after neighborhood in the country. Well about 2/3 of the neighborhood is. A third of it is Third World. There was a developer who spent $10 million in 20 years of his life trying to get a project built in hunters point. He just gave up because the environmentalist had a lock on anything that moved. For a moth who is thinking about landing on a tree out there. To the gasoline in the ground from when they built submarines. I just think the 90 or 100 times I siphon gas for different various combustion engines. Is probably about 1000 Worse than living on top of that ground with a huge chunk of cement between us. The only hope is the homeless problem is so bad that the supervisors will bend the environmental rules. But if you were a developer here would you take on that? Knowing with the last guy went through. Knowing that for the very first time NASA is working with a private company to reach space. And four days before that he's fighting with Alameda county over his business and threatening to move. The state and the county don't like business. They don't like cars. I don't even think they like people. I think they believe we take up to much room. Your doc really reminds me how the two sides of the city will break soon. my wonderful 1998 Lincoln town car has a few problems. Windows been broken a few times, glove box opened with her crowbar so it doesn't close. Right side mirror smashed repeatedly. Gas cap broken open. everything stolen out of the trunk. and then you look for parking which on average you get between three and four tickets a month. Get out of your car and make sure you don't step on any needles. And we learn the hard way if you jump away from the needle be careful cause you're gonna land on some human poop. than you pass a few people not sure if they're alive or dead. when you get to the door make sure there's nobody coming toward you. Than you plop yourself down In that one bedroom apartment where the rent is more than you would pay for a whole ranch in another state. yeah I'm obviously venting. I'll be amazed if anybody reads this.
Hi . 1998 Continental. 500 dollars deductible. S.F. is no place to own a motor vehicle if parked on street. SF is quite cold And it has no summer. Have a good day. Thank you Jesus for the shoes I wear and the bed I sleep in and for the wife beside me and for running water in our motel room in West Sacramento California..
Sunset district needs to be redeveloped. It’s pretty much all bleak 1960s low density housing. Perfect area to redevelop without the loss of history. Also it’s mostly middle or upper middle class Asians and white folk so they minority issue isn’t really there. Imagine ocean beach lined with towering buildings and mixed developments. That would bring new life to the hole west side of the city which is otherwise inaccessible and unpopular besides the beach
im afraid, even with moving all the rich people to the unused coast wont solve it. because no only theres a lot of rich yappy tech guys moving into SF, but a lot more of average dudes, college graduates, and jobseekers moving in to SF too. i still believe the core solution is to densify, not only SF but the whole bay area. south of SF county is already a suburban hell hole, we can start there and make it more mixed use and denser like current day SF. ik it's very sad to see those beautiful historical victorian era buildings go, but its even sadder to see more and more SF residents and newcomers on the streets unable to afford housing. because its not only the land value that's high, but also the stock of housing that's also really low. we can build more reclaimed land, like how Tokyo or Shanghai did but it'll take very massive funding, espescially in SF. that's why im highly suggesting SF to upzone the entire city. it's a hub for a metro area of 8 million people! no one said the downtown shoud be locked away in that tiny corner. im not saying skyscrapers either, im talking about high rises in the 50-100m range that better fits the city, with probably several more skyscrapers here and there that will bound to come. because the current 2-3 story high houses and buildings are just not enough. the point is that, SF needs to densify, it's just a necessity that should've been done decades ago.
Regarding your bit about how Miami solved their housing problem at circa 20:00 - the problem with building high-rise buildings in San Francisco or anywhere in California are earthquakes! They don't exist in Florida so the apartment buildings can be built much higher. We have mother nature to thank for that one!
What I saw when I visited SF a few years ago was a huge homeless problem. There was literally needles and human feces on the sidewalk in the downtown area. I offered a guy a full meal and was yelled at for not giving him some cash. Setting that aside, it's a nice city.
It's gotten much better than back in 2019, a pleasant surprise considering what you'll see in the news. However, SF had a homeless problem in the 90's, in the 2000's, in the 2010's, etc. It never went away, but the city did nothing to prevent it from getting worse in the 2010's and allowing the homeless population to essentially take over areas like the Tenderloin (which is terrifying to even drive through). At this point, I truly ever wonder if the city will do anything about it aside from keep it contained to a few blocks. The rest of the city is still as beautiful as ever.
The Tech companies should start building a new "smart" city in the desert the same way Las Vegas was Built (or the plains or Forest or whatever). With slides, hyperloop, bike circuits that interconected all their districts or boroughs with affordable pod housing.
Mr. Beach, your solution omits some inevitabilities. Building on under-utilized land will not lower the cost of housing for the rest of
the city one single cent, nor will it slow down the rising prices for housing. It is clear that prices are not becoming harder to afford, they are already impossible for far too many to afford, and are getting harder.
Despite the lies taught in grade school economics about supply and demand, no landlord will lower the rent, no home seller or any developer will lower the rental or purchase price, unless the city suffers a drastic economic collapse, such as happened in Detroit, Mi., any development income from building on under-utilized land will never go to helping those disadvantaged by the rising prices, but instead will line the pockets of the already rich, and the developers who build the projects for them. There are no legislators willing to tax the properties of the rich, so you can forget income from taxes being used to help the people struggling with cost of living prices.
Opening restaurants bars and clubs in the post-covid era is doomed. Coronavirii are not a one-off anomaly, they are here to stay. the virus' mutations will prove vaccines to be ineffective. San Francisco is headed for an economic collapse, and helping the rich stay rich won't solve the problem. "Trickle down" economics, as subtly implied in your treatise, was a lie from the start, and has predictably failed most spectacularly. The unwillingness of legislators to mitigate sheer greed will ensure the coming collapse.
I live in sf and well, two doors down a house that has been abandoned is being sold for 1 million dollars!
That part of town you said is already ruined, its build on reclaimed land from the bay. In an earthquake it shakes more than a bole of Jell-O in the hands of a turrets patient. In 1989, the streets moved like waves of water. Not a good place for high rise buildings.
"Three Block Long Murder Bridges". Line of the video.
I should build a generic ML-driven city sim to train on real city infrastructure/traffic/crime/etc. data, so you government can simulate problematic cities, and subsequently fix them.
The city should have bought candle stick park land and built massive affordable apartments.
Exactly. Apparently, Jed York is not so bright into building a new stadium next to the Candlestick, might as well utilize the space for techies
It would just turn into another hood there’s one already nearby we don’t need more
You mean projects?
They are doing just this with Lennar.
Build on radiation? Govt did tests on radiation exposure in the 40’s when no one knew what it did. Soil samples were found to be toxic. One of the nukes the USA dropped on Japan went thru hunters point and put on a ship there
This is the guy I want to sit next to at Thanksgiving. Subbed.
Mike you play with Google maps real good
Do yourself a favor and actually check out Manhattan sometime. It surprises me how people don't know about the waterfront, from Riverside Park to the bike paths on the east side.
Also, what fifth borough? :P
Just a note, there was no "Mexican-American War". It was an invasion (north to south) - sure Mexico attempted some sort of defense having no other option but calling it a war is like saying stealing candy from a baby is "a fight".
Good video. Great to see people talking about walkable affordable cities that are designed for all people.
A couple of quick suggestions. In your narration don’t forget to use or expand your transitions so people can follow you from one major idea to the next. And when clicking through the map go a little slower so people can absorb each new view.
"Burn San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland to the ground... Start the whole Bay area over again.. That's how you fix San Francisco
Tough HStacks exactly what I was thinking. Built high apartments
I was born in San Francisco and lived there most of my life. But in 2004, I called it quits when I retired. My parents died and their little Sunset rowhouse that they paid $5000 for in 1952 was now valied at 1.7 MILLION. Madness! I sold their house and moved to Phoenix where buying a home is not an impossible dream. My adult kids have all left for Texas and other areas of the USA where the American dream still lives on. My last daughter in Marin is moving to Dallas in June 2020. San Francisco is now populated by the rich, the tourists and the homeless. The Middle class is in full flight. If for some reason the high tech industry collapses, San Francisco is going to be in big trouble. They've sold out to the yuppies, and the rest of us are moving on.
San Francisco. A vortex of Smug. Living anywhere in the bay area is ridiculously expensive.
Michael, you are off base with regards to Manhattan. Those “projects” as you snidely refer to them, are middle income housing fronting on the rivers. Do you consider residential uses with open accessibility to the river unworthy? On the Hudson River, there are continuous parks, walkways, and redeveloped pedestrian piers from Battery Park to the north end of the island. The freeways and highways you reference are 6 lane surface streets with crosswalks at every corner, exactly like the Embarcadero in SF. It doesn’t help your point if you misrepresent the facts. Manhattan is not perfect, nor does it have San Francisco’s stunning topography, but it has admirably turned over its waterfront to recreational use for its residents.
The graphics are so beautiful. Is this google earth?
Yes (well technically Google Maps I think)
Yeeees
The only thing I Dislike about San Francisco is how it's officials, landowners who offer rent, law enforcement... Mistreated me and my family! Last year I saw 19 homeless people through eviction in the mission district! ( I was one of them )!!!!!!
San francisco doesn't deserve to be fixed!
Too bad they're building the warriors statement right in the middle of dogpatch. no way will there be room for "affordable housing" now
theSkintellectual if everyone leaves.the demand drops
Whose they? I live in Manhattan no one is stopping me from seeing the Hudson River, East River, New York Harbor or South Street Seaport. I can’t forget that Manhattan island or surrounded by water when these boroughs are situated
Wasn't Treasure Island created from landfill? How can you build high rises on that?
Apparently you can. sftreasureisland.org/development-project
Most of downtown SF is landfill as well. I lived in a new apartment building in SoMa near the bay and it had a gallery showing all of the old ship artefacts that were dug up when building the basement and foundations.
Apparently during the gold rush crews would abandon their ships to search for gold and there were so many ships clogging up the bay that they started scuttling them to make room for new arrivals.
Most of downtown is build on landfill.
Who would be dumb enough to buy there?
i would pay for an album of all the songs at the end
10:00 I don't get it, how is that racist?
I’m glad someone else was confused about it lol
He called it Lincoln Park, even though it's "Rincon Park" (like an mock-asian accent)
Ahh thanks for clearing that up
@The Truth hurts lolwutfucc
My perfect solution: zeppelins. Lots and lots and lots of zeppelins. Build a second San Fransisco above the city made entirely out of zeppelins. Tether them to the buildings on the ground, and there you go, you've just doubled the living capacity of the city. AND, zeppelins are not threatened by earthquakes, so they're super safe. ... I'm a genius.
I live in SF. The reason why that south east area is under utilized is because of transportation. Density grows around the bart and that little southern area takes an hour via bus to reach downtown.
I'll tell ya what. The massive earthquake in the 80's did it's best to fix that place. Came close too.
Came close? lol-you're clueleew!
@@andytaylor5476 ...what's a clueleew?
(typo)-clueless
@@andytaylor5476 mmmm probably not. It definitely needed a bigger earthquake. lol
@@crazedspidermonkey I'm certain for the 63 people who didn't make it it was big enough. Watch out for the next disaster maybe heading your way. Not funny. I live here
How to fix SF? Police can actually take action and arrest the criminals breaking into peoples cars. I was in the city limits with my car once and we got our window bashed in. Nothing was even in car.
Along with 5 other cars. No consequences.
SF should create a development bank for the express purposes for building more housing. It would provide loans to existing homeowners to add another story to their house if feasible. Building up in neighborhoods like the Richmond and the Sunset is critical. It should also rip out the SROs in the Tenderloin and build high rises for tech workers. The tax revenue would be enormous and it would take stress off the rents in the neighborhoods. The interest on the loans would fund city services. It would create a virtuous circle. If the city was really bold, it could issue it's own currency to fund the loans. In addition to building up, revising rent control is a must. Rather indexing rent increases to inflation, impose an annual cap around 5% to 7% on all rentals. A lot of the rent controlled housing stock is in a pitiful state because rents are so far below market value due to historically low inflation that landlords can not maintain their property. Finally, as the city builds more housing, transportation must be addressed. Building a BART line from the Golden Gate Bridge down 19th to Daly City and from Powell Street down Geary to Ocean Beach would make it infinitely easier to get around. This will never happen because the city is inherently resistant to change.
I'm still scratching my head as to how the Outer Richmond has completely escaped gentrification. It's just a chill neighborhood that's safe, affordable, has reasonable parking, and sure, a little boring, but not at all terrible.
Shhh. The newbies still think it sucks or is toooo far from the Mission
i don't know. it seems like it might have fallen to the same fate, since all of the houses there cost like a million dollars
Omg can you please do a video on Los Angeles California
LA Mayor is going to shut down the nat gas electrical plants in the city. This is totally insane. Wind and solar cannot replace nat gas. No major city has ever attempted to do that, and Garcetti is making you guys the guinea pigs. He has ZERO knowledge of the industry. A total fool making this decision.
@@yaimavol Garcetti is right!
@@Nicholas-f5 Why is he right?
yes! This man needs to be on city council! Thank you for the interesting and well thought out video! We definitely need to start speaking realistically about the housing crisis here!
Funny to see how American cities are perfect grids
Great series mike. Would love you to do a video on Melbourne Australia. Voted seven times most liveable city in the world but your analysis might tease out any issues you notice on its layout or limitations. It's growing at 2000 people a week so there are definitely challenges ahead
have you ever heard of earthquakes? San Francisco can't build highrises on landfill in an area that is prone to earthquakes. In addition, while it is true that the Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhood is majority industrial, there is a large minority population there that calls that place home. Quite frankly, no matter where you build in San Francisco, someone will be upset with the development.
I was born in Sf and lived there for a long time. It has a lot of problems, but I can not deny that it is a beautiful and dynamic city. The big problem in my opinion is that most construction firms are interested in building expensive apartments in expensive areas. For many years the area right off the bay bridge was being developed and became very expensive housing. The city should be encouraging development in its further out areas. The rent price in Sf is a basic economics problem: too many people and not enough housing. But, I still believe any development in SF should complement our existing skyline. Many people despise the ManhattaniZing of SF, so we should try to preserve our unique SF identity in the architecture.