A causal relationship seems very difficult to establish here. Housing prices in SF are mostly due to the fact that it's very, very difficult to build more homes. High wages, even if it's concentrated in one particular sector, spreads out to the rest, since those high earners have to spend their money somewhere. The average hourly wage among all occupations in the SF area is almost 50% higher than the nationwide average; in food service, 35% higher.
Of course, none of this causes drug addiction and mental illness.
Massive income inequality is a root cause driver of a underclass that gets crushed under soaring costs and inability to pay for basics necessities like housing and healthcare.
…because of an utter lack of ability to build more housing.
The massive wealth brought by the tech industry could easily allow abundance. But when it’s impossible to build anything, it doesn’t matter how much money is raised via taxing that wealth, it just goes everywhere OTHER than building housing, which is needed desperately for lower income folk there and working class folk who do the work in healthcare.
A fixed amount of housing will just get bid up and up and up into the stratosphere. And for the progressive Boomer types who bought into the market decades ago and are now sitting on multimillion dollar property valuations, they will support any measure other than one which increases supply in a way that could reduce their property values (see Robert Reich). It’s a recipe for misery.
And Robert Reich is why I think that concern about inequality is not actually a productive route to fixing the problem. He’s one of THE greatest voices decrying inequality (and in the past I really agreed with a lot he had to say), and when push came to shove, he opposed new housing in his area (Berkeley) which could’ve threatened his household wealth. Be concerned about “community voice” and the power of existing homeowners (which in SF means millionaires or more) to oppose building housing.
Question those who question—under the guise of progressive (or conservative) goals—the creation of abundance. “Sure, you’re creating greater overall wealth that will help the vast majority of people, but the wrong people get most of the benefit.”
> Question those who question ... the creation of abundance
I cannot agree with you more on this point. The whole history of capitalism and all it depends on (rule of law, strong private property rights, laissez-faire economic policies) has been one of a rising tide lifting all boats.
Now in the developed world, material wealth has gotten to such a level that people in power are much more keen on divvying up the pie as they see fit than baking more pie. People have gotten myopic on this topic because they see more wealth than ever before; they question why we need to create more wealth, instead of spreading the existing wealth around? And that leads to precisely the kind of thinking you underlined: a further rising tide is bad, if some people end up in bigger yachts.
Increased housing costs don't cause drug addiction, but it does cause an increase in homelessness, and that does cause drug addiction, which in turn over time can cause mental illness or make it worse.
I think that's because our winters are brutal. Homeless people would rather live in a milder climate or a place like New York with a better public transportation system.
Well, that pretty much sounds like communism, atleast in practice. Majority is suffering while the leaders and a small group are ultra rich and lives in luxury, at the expense of workers and ordinary people.
Doesn't it make sense to aim at increasing wages at the lowest end, instead of targeting higher earners?
I get the sense that people in HN believe that most tech workers in the Bay Area are some sort of high rolling millionaires. They mostly are not, and the proof is that most are priced out of housing in SF too.
Saying that inequality is caused by tech workers is thus a myopic statement.
