*33% more sorry

…who are the target customers for new buildings.
I have a lot of thoughts about the politics of this, but in terms of sheer numbers, we can see that the rent in Austin from pre-pandemic rose more than San Francisco, despite Austin building a lot and San Francisco hardly at all.

If I didn’t have a real job, I would spend my time doing this for every large city in America. I would be very interested in what that analysis would find, and how those findings would correlate with new construction, and with the income level of top earners…

So I looked at Austin and San Francisco in the census data for 2019 and 2024. What I saw is that during that period rent in Austin went up 32.68%, while rent in San Francisco only went up 24.96%. So Austin rose almost 50% more.

I imagine they’re disappointed that rents have gone down from their high point – too bad for them. But the fact that the pandemic created such unique conditions makes me want to eliminate it from any analysis.

One thing I know as a San Franciscan is that a lot of high earning tech workers moved to Austin (Charlotte, Nashville, etc. – but especially Austin) during the pandemic. Obviously, developers saw an opportunity to make a profit, so they built.

OK, I went to read the article, but there is a paywall. However, the headline gives me the idea of what it’s about, and I’ve seen a lot of discussion about this here and on Twitter as well - I don’t want an interminable morass, but I will try to make some response.
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I thank you for engaging with me with less rudeness and more apparent good faith than other yimbys. I will read this article but I’m crazy busy this week. Don’t be surprised if you get a very delayed response. Have a great holiday.

This is my favorite kind of response because it’s such a self-own. What could I possibly be doing between nine and five on a weekday that’s not social media? Hmmmmm….

What I think is propagandistic is calling someone a Nimby when I am in fact, all for affordable housing, even public housing, next door to me. In fact, I would love to live in it because I could truly be homeless within a year. I have zero faith in yimbys to help working class people like me.

Source?

“Trickle down” is a common synonym for supply side economics, which is what yimbyism defends

Here are some typical Silicon Valley attitudes about housing:

…But I don’t think yimbys care about the working class. I never see yimbys fighting for rent control, tenant protections, or social housing - and some of them militate against rent control, especially. They’re purely Reaganite supply-side advocates in my experience.

I’ve seen the studies and at best it’s a very tiny percentage over a very long time - decades or even generations. It does nothing for people in the bottom third of income in the short term, which is what we need to prevent displacement.
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