Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 777

This past week, San Francisco's Proposition E was approved by 55% of voters . The measure works by limiting new office development if (or when) the city falls short of its affordable housing target for the year.

If the city only builds 25% of its housing target (currently set at 2,042 affordable units per year), then only 25% of its annual allocation of office space can be built the following year. (I just learned that large scale office development in San Francisco has been limited to 875,000 sf per year as a result of a Proposition dating back to 1986.)

San Francisco currently skews heavily in favor of jobs. The city creates about 8.5 jobs for every unit of new housing . And over the last decade, SF has only averaged about 712 affordable housing units per year and has never once met its target.

So at the moment, San Francisco looks destined to start building a lot less office space. And considering that new office space actually helps to fund affordable housing, I am struggling to understand why the goal seems to be to constrain job growth.

California State Senator Scott Wiener called Prop E a dumpster fire:

https://twitter.com/Scott_Wiener/status/1235303246870261762?s=20

Call me old fashioned, but I tend to think that if the goal is to build more affordable housing, you should do things that, you know, encourage the actual construction of affordable housing.

Photo by  Eduardo Santos  on  Unsplash

This is a city metric I haven't seen before. City Observatory recently looked at the number of police officers (public) and security guards (private) per capita across American cities. They also ask a bunch of interesting questions. Why do some cities have far fewer police officers? Is high security an indicator for "anti-social capital?" (Social norms aren't encouraging people to behave.) And do some cities simply have more cops because it is perceived to be necessary?

Here is what they found:

The average is about 3.3 police officers per 1,000. And in each case, city is defined as the metro area. The study relies on census data and, if we're being precise, the data represents where people live as opposed to where they work. So some cities could be reporting a lower number simply because police officers tend to live outside of the metro area -- perhaps because of housing costs. Either way, it's interesting to consider why some cities spend a lot more on security than others and why Miami has so many security guards.

Chart: City Observatory

This recent article about the kind of homes that "wealthy millennials" are buying is a useful reminder of just how expensive homes are in San Francisco. But it's also interesting in that it speaks to the types of homes that people with options are deciding to buy. In other words: If you had all the money in the world, what would be your ideal home? (According to the article, there are about 618,000 people in the US between the ages of 24 and 38 who have a net worth of at least $1 million.)

Traditionally, "luxury" has meant lots of square footage and a big lot. But as we know, that view is changing for some/many people. We are placing a greater emphasis on being closer to the city and on living in more walkable communities. The article provides a number of examples where historically desirable areas have lost ground to areas that are now popular with the under 40 set. And in some cases, there has been a complete reversal; areas have gone from being more expensive to now less expensive (on a per square foot basis).

It would seem that being able to work from anywhere hasn't made us forget the city.