It certainly entices people to hold and rent properties they own rather than sell, but those units are still part of the housing stock.
I think repealing prop 13 for commercial properties makes sense as a way to raise tax revenue, but don’t see doing so for residential property having an impact on housing costs.
There's a guy on my street that owns 27 houses, all bought in the 90s. While that guy is getting subsidized income by paying less taxes on high value property he is less likely to sell that property to developers who will build higher density housing. The same can be applied to the people who own vacation or retirement homes out here (there's a surprising amount of vacant property out here). The taxes that aren't being paid by all those people has to be made up for somewhere, so the taxes on new property owners are higher (as are the number if different fees and things like sales tax).
> The taxes that aren't being paid by all those people has to be made up for somewhere, so the taxes on new property owners are higher
No, they aren't. Prop 13 limits maximum property tax rates to very low amounts as well as limiting assessment increases, so no jurisdiction is able to make up for artificially low assessments by jacking up the nominal rate.
> (as are the number if different fees and things like sales tax).
Mostly, it's state income tax, though state and local sales tax are also affected (there are general and program-specific revenue sharing mechanisms by which state revenue goes into local coffers to pay for local programs.)
> Property value is reassessed on change-of-ownership.
Actually, it's reassessed annually, there is just a limit to annual assessment increases except with qualifying events.
Which doesn't change the fact that Prop 13 limited nominal rates to lower values than many jurisdictions (including core Bay Area ones) were before Prop 13; jurisdictions aren't making up with artificially low assessments on long-held properties with higher taxes on other properties. Yes, those other properties are assessed closer to full value, but it's not offsetting anything. If you cut the food you eat on weekdays by 50% and that on weekends by 66%, you aren't making up for the reduced weekend calories by eating more during the week.
This is an outlandish argument to make. Prop 13 contributes to shortage of housing stock. Shortage of housing stock causes prices to rise. In the event of any sale (existing property or new), the price will be higher than it would have been without Prop 13 in place. The same marginal tax rate on the new (or transferred) home now amounts to a larger amount than it would have otherwise.
Because it discourages owners of existing residential real estate from upgrading it to higher density to meet new demand, since doing do would trigger full-value assessment and decrease the returns; this means even discounting NIMBYism and zoning issues, market response to demand is slower and involves more rent increase to source the same level of redevelopment as would be the case without Prop 13.
Also, it subsidized people mstsying in their currently-owned single family homes, which makes the unwilling to (and thus demanding a higher premium to) move out of a place in-demand for working people when they retire, even if they are over housed. (This is, in fact, just a slightly different view of the retirees-being-forced-out-by-property-tax image that was used to sell Prop 13.)
Because it heavily discourages people from selling their houses, reducing turnover and with it the potential for redevelopment.
Without prop 13, houses would be re-assessed every few years. The owners' taxes would increase (or decrease) as the value of their home changed. If property values increased enough, the taxes would encourage them to sell the property for a tidy sum and move someplace cheaper. A new buyer is much more likely to demolish and redevelop than the existing owner.
Higher property taxes makes housing allocation more efficient as people not using the house, retired people in high cost areas, etc would be incentivized to either sell or rent their house out.
Note that repealing prop13 would probably not raise property taxes overall. It would spread them more fairly across all owners, instead of the current arrangement of newcomers subsidizing established owners.
Not necessarily. Prop 13 also gutted California's funding for schools. They lost 1/3 of their funding overnight when Prop 13 passed. One would hope that repealing Prop 13 would also undo at least some of that underfunding, considering California is 41st among states in CoL-adjusted per-pupil spending.
> Note that repealing prop13 would probably not raise property taxes overall.
A straight-up repeal of Prop 13 would repeal rate limits on property taxes as well as assessment increase limits (both are part of Prop 13) and probably lead to jurisdictions, over time, increasing property tax rates and overall property taxes. It would probably reduce increases in sales, income, and other taxes, which currently are used in place of property taxes because they have no Constitutional rate limits.
That's a good point, your comment led me to research a bit more, and I learned that prop13 did in fact caused local governments to rely more heavily on sales taxes. Ironically this has contributed to the perverse incentives against building housing inventory, since commercial zoning is more likely to generate sales tax and other business-related tax revenue.
Let's say that your town is considering whether to preserve a zoning policy of all single family homes with a large minimum lot size, or is looking to allow density. What would prevent you from supporting the lower-density option?
One reason may be that you are concerned that restricting the development of land would drive scarcity, leading land values to rise (which would cause your property tax to rise). You're effectively forced to pay for the cost of rising land prices.
...Now, if you are sheltered from rising land values, as per Prop 13, you now suffer no repercussions from a downzoning, and in fact may be completely indifferent to how the land market is behaving. Many homeowners are now free to act in their own best interest (which means downzoning), instead of being incentivized to create capacity for more housing.
Prop 13 creates bad incentives for existing property owners since the rising cost of services can be passed onto future home owners. If all home owners had to bear the true market cost of services they would either have to settle for less or reduce per home owner cost by allowing more density.
“If San Francisco residents really believed that sea levels were rising, they’d have all sold their homes by now.”
Apparently the author has never been to San Francisco or seen the sea level estimates for the next 30-70 years.
The last time I looked the northernmost and easternmost parts of SF will have some trouble, but by far the biggest areas of concern are east of 101 south of the city. And yes, if people thought ahead that far they would probably be concerned but even in the areas that are predicted to have the most impact we’re still talking 25+ years.
Yeah, seriously. Anyone who's ever driven in SF should know this city is not going to be underwater (well, mostly). There are hills smack in the middle of SF that are > 200 ft (~60 m) high[1].
Meanwhile, to pick a random example, "Much of Florida has an elevation of less than 12 feet (3.7 m), including many populated areas such as Miami which are located on the coast."[2]
Exactly. The highest point in San Francisco, Mount Davidson is 928 ft above sea level and is close to three times as high as the highest point in the entire state of Florida, Britton Hill at 345 ft...
I was going to comment on this one too. There are lots of projections of which sections of SF will be underwater, and those are the cheapest places to live. It is already priced into the market.
An overwhelming sense of relief washes over me as I read your comment. It's obvious the author of the article doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about.
After 8 years in SF I have been seriously considering moving to NYC, largely over my commute to South Bay, but also for the substantial increase in density which brings with it a manifold increase in cultural opportunities and activities.
The weather is a drawback (in probably 200+ days in NYC over 10 years I can remember a single week of what I would consider nice weather). I have realized that crappy climate is a poor reason to avoid the move.
My one main concern is finding a job with similar pay and interesting work. 90+% of the job listings I see are for Java enterpise-type work paying a third of what my (admittedly more than comfortable) current total pay is.
> I have realized that crappy climate is a poor reason to avoid the move.
I'd be interested to hear your reasons. For me, I'm the exact opposite. In the 3 years I've lived in CA, I haven't had bronchitis once, which used to happen almost every year on the east coast. Not having to deal with 14 degree weather and snow is one of the main reasons I moved away. For me, so much happiness flows this simple fact.
All I really mean is that on balance I think it’s worth the trade-off (due to the other pluses). I wouldn’t trade SF for say an inexpensive area with no culture and bad weather, but I think I am willing to put up with the heat & humidity along with cold & snow given all the rest NYC has to offer.
I don't agree that crappy climate is a poor reason to avoid a move. Ideally it's not your only reason, but the climate in California is definitely a major selling point for just about everyone (myself included) who have come here from the east coast and the primary reason I won't go back. And the surrounding outdoors (if you're into that) is much better in SF than NYC, and really any city I know of in the US. A 30-45 minute drive from SF can get you into Muir Woods, wine country, Half Moon bay, etc. Really beautiful places that are very accessible for a weekend day trip. 45 min from NYC gets you to... Staten Island? Coney Island if you're lucky? It's a no brainer for me on that front.
Yes I understand that and the outdoors activities have no appeal to me.
I’ve lived in Michigan, Texas, Washington, California. The weather in California is dramatically better than the others, but on balance I would much rather give up 3+ hrs of commuting a day for 1hr where some of that is in a humid subway station.
If you haven’t lived in the humid areas of Texas, you don’t know that it’s much worse than NYC/Boston/etc in summer. Rather than 85-90 with 85% humidity, think 104 with 85+% humidity. With virtually zero culture. And continual rain throughout the otherwise mild winter.
“Yeah, you say the 4-month-long Northeast summers are bad, but have you considered it would be a lot worse if you were living ankle-deep in a swamp?
“Yeah, you say the 6-month-long Northeast winters are bad, but have you considered that it would be a lot worse if you were living under a blizzard in far-northern prairie?
What kind of work do you do - and what qualifies as interesting work? I assure you a talented software developer can earn as much if not more in NYC than SF.
My chihuahua was rescued on the streets of San Francisco after an unknown period of time fending for himself. He was a little underweight but not dramatically so. No signs of previous ownership (no chip, no collar, not neutered) so he was possibly just dumped somewhere at a young age (they estimated he was 1-1.5 yrs when found).
He fiercely guards food and will snap at anyone that reaches for him. He hunts insects including flies and cockroaches (he caught at least a few of those on our walks).
I don’t think he’d be as effective as a rat terrier, but I suspect he could hunt and kill field mice and maybe small rats.
Chihuahuas are one of the most common breeds found in Bay Area animal shelters (along with pit bulls). Lots of unethical backyard breeders around here who dump surplus puppies.
Totally agree. It took me until several years out of school to realize that learning to think should have been a primary focus of university.
25 years on I am realizing that although it got me work and very decent pay I probably would have been much better off if the entire focus of university had been:
1. Learning how to think
2. Learning how to learn
Really the focus of earlier schooling probably should have been:
1. Learning how to read with good comprehension
2. Learning how to write so that others can understand me
3. Math so that I could do basic calculations required for everyday life.
To an extent, yes. But I would also say learning how to think should continue to explicitly fall under the university umbrella, or at least that particular notion should be extended to a greater degree in university.
From my experiences, too many kids straight out of high school go to university blind in the face of knowledge and don't think for themselves, and the capacity for independent thought (or lack thereof) is a very big issue.
A high school teacher of mine recently posted a fb article of how HS valedictorians are statistically average with where they go with life. Turns out following the rules and memorizing answers isn't great for risk taking behavior.
Maybe 20 years ago taking night classes, the little liberal arts school I was at required a strange CS class theoretically oriented toward turning us into Excel technical experts in a semester. The REAL purpose of the class was to teach us how to learn how to learn, and learn how to think, about being handed an inadequately documented large technical system, then be responsible for providing support for that system after a couple months, which given my workplace experience, is a ridiculously useful and financially rewarding skillset.
Of course some kids took it as drill-n-kill memorization exercise in how to set up Excel pivot tables. That didn't help much with the somewhat theoretical final exam.
I would imagine that class has been scrapped as a teaching tool; too realistic; kids need more valuable education in their limited time, memorizing google-able algorithms for interview questions would be much more financially rewarding at least in the short term.
This book and Ross-Larson's Effective Writing series are the books that finally taught me how to write. If you write as part of your job. These books are gold.
In a sense, yes. What I'm getting at specifically is that:
- Although we teach people to read, we don't necessarily put enough focus on comprehension and understanding.
- Although we teach people to write, we tend to focus on mechanics rather than on writing clearly and in a way that emphasizes our meaning.
- We don't just focus on functional math, but teach much more complex math to virtually everyone that goes through high school.
You can argue where exactly to draw the line on math (and don't get me wrong I loved math and was very good at it, at least the way it is taught in the US), but I'm not sure everyone needs to become as highly specialized as we attempt to make them in that area at that age.
> Although we teach people to write, we tend to focus on mechanics rather than on writing clearly and in a way that emphasizes our meaning.
That's not really true; the five-paragraph essay form and it's fractal expansions that dominate grade-school writing is all about clarity and focus on meaning.
It's a horrible as a model for anything other than persuasive writing for a number of other reasons, and given the way the target output influences process, it's an impediment to critical thinking compared to alternatives like thesis/antithesis/synthesis (or IRAC, which while pretty much taught exclusively in the context of legal writing is a very good model for general-purpose analytical writing.)
That sort of thing can just as well make you wish you'd gone to real estate school.
"A-I-D-A. Attention, interest, decision, action. Attention -- do I have your attention? Interest -- are you interested? I know you are because it's fuck or walk. You close or you hit the bricks! Decision -- have you made your decision for Christ?!! And action."
YMMV, but only in the last two years of high school do I recall these five-paragraph essays being a substantial part of classes. We certainly did them from time-to-time before that, but we also did a lot of other writing of many different forms, and in the last year or two also did a couple "research papers" (in the classic sense, not in the grad student moving a field forward sense).
I don't know, these exact things are what's on the SAT. I don't mean to debate its qualities as a test or whether these are things one should be testing but the notion that they are somehow not the focus of primary and secondary education while also being a key factor in college admissions doesn't quite add up.
I think it's unfortunate that people wont argue their point with you and are only downvoting.
I think a lot more of the SAT is about gaming their system these days. You could argue that making an "educated guess" by eliminating clearly wrong answers is useful maybe...but i dont think it really stacks up to what their hoping for. I dont think eliminating obvious bad choices is critical thinking, or if it is then it's a very low level of it.
Right, but as I said, I'm not talking about whether the SAT is a good test or not. Just that the fact it explicitly tries to test precisely reading comprehension, basic writing, 'practical' mathematical skills belies the notion these are not goals of primary and secondary education. If they weren't, this wouldn't be a test for US college admissions.
Reminds me about a segment on Last Week Tonight where they showed a map of South America, with one country highlighted as Peru. And John Oliver said, "Peru! A country you care so little about you didn't even realize this isn't Peru... [Highlight changes to another country] THIS is Peru."
And he's got a point. There's not much advantage to knowing the precise locations of all countries on earth, unless you're working in foreign policy etc.
I think they got their causation backwards. A working understanding of how foreign policy works is correlated with a higher education level is correlated with being able to find countries on a map.
By not having the information in your head, you are less able to know what to search for and less able to contextualize and make sense of information you do turn up in a Google search.
Of course that doesn't mean that search is useless. But let's face it; if you and a random guy off the street were both asked to program something in a language you'd never used before, you would be much more able to handle the task because you'd understand what questions to ask (what's the modulo operator? how do you write a loop?) while the other guy flailed around trying to understand the basics.
Any decent program is going to force your first two points. I don't get any professional use out of my Japanese degree, but would I have easily been able to come up with a plan to teach myself computer programming, and have the discipline to follow through with it until I found work, if I hadn't gone through the experience of getting the Japanese degree? I think probably not.
I know our education system often fails to do this, but in principle by the time you're going to college you should have mastered those things already.
My cardiologist told me never to try a low-sodium diet without talking with him first. He is very up-to-date on research and said that an equal number of people see blood pressure increase on low-sodium as see blood pressure decrease but for many (most?) people the difference is negligible. In other words if you are one of the ones who is very sensitive to changes in sodium you are as likely to be harmed as helped by lowering sodium.
I'm a graybeard so far be it from me to pass judgement. If you're applying for $300k/yr architect level job, then you should be good at every level of software development, including writing it.
Addictive or not, I think this statement is a sign that the authors didn't do much of an investigation:
>It is normal behavior that, while perhaps in many cases a waste of time, is not damaging or disruptive of lives in the way drug or alcohol use can be.
I've seen many people who ended up with serious relationship issues due to spending as much time as they did playing video games. Perhaps that was a sign of a deeper problem in the relationship, but in the cases I saw it didn't seem to be. When they were away from the games the relationship seemed great.
Likewise I've seen people calling in sick, coming in late after a late night of playing video games, etc. and ending up with work and longer-term career issues as a result of spending many of their waking hours playing games.
It can get well beyond "unwinding after work" and really start to affect your life. The same can be said for other activities, but to dismiss the idea that people who play games or do those other activities obsessively aren't harming their lives and couldn't use some kind of help seems disingenuous.
One observation here from someone who has taken a mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) class but isn't currently meditating (but would like to get back to it!):
Expect to get distracted a lot, like your mind wandering continuously. The key here is to observe that happening, and gently bring yourself back to your breath. Don't let it frustrate or discourage you. Watching yourself become distracted and gently bringing yourself back is part of the process of meditating, not some sign that you're failing at it. The noticing of the distraction is in itself mindfulness.
As Jon Kabat-Zinn suggests, you need to approach this with non-judgmental moment-to-moment awareness.
I'd second this: the way you deal with distraction isn't stopping it, it's calmly returning to the object of focus after realizing you've been distracted. This is a 'rep' if you want to compare meditation to training a muscle. In time you get distracted less, but it's not because you 'stop yourself' from getting distracted, it's because in time your tendency to not getting distracted develops through meditation practice.
It certainly entices people to hold and rent properties they own rather than sell, but those units are still part of the housing stock.
I think repealing prop 13 for commercial properties makes sense as a way to raise tax revenue, but don’t see doing so for residential property having an impact on housing costs.