The four-story, 118-year-old residence has water stains on the walls from leaks. A sundeck sags precariously above a room with asbestos in the ceiling and a pantry littered with rodent traps. A storage closet sits nearly empty, its emergency supplies never replaced after an overflowing bathroom destroyed them in 2022. And a mold test kit covered in brown fungus perched for months on a downstairs windowsill.
Category Archives: Press
People’s Park Foes to Press on with Suit
UC Berkeley has more than 45,000 students and has forecast adding 8,500 more in the next 12 years …
The Magic of Urban Fabric
Urban fabric is to humans what water is to fish.
San Francisco’s brand is on life support. City leaders lack courage to act
If it’s not dead already, San Francisco’s brand is clearly on life support. It happened because officials allowed 4,400 people to destroy it. That’s the number of unsheltered people in the city’s official 2022 point-in-time count, and they have essentially held the city’s reputation hostage.
She almost jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. How a homeless S.F. mother transformed her life
The city maintains 907 permanent supportive housing units in buildings such as City Gardens that are dedicated for families. The city also offers more than 1,400 temporary or permanent housing vouchers and rental subsidies for families, according to the latest data from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.
The Old New Way to Provide Cheap Housing
Homelessness is an American tragedy, but it’s not hopeless. In a recent column, I explored how Houston has become a national model by reducing homelessness by more than 60 percent.
Interest rates are expected to start coming down this summer
H e called this correction in the housing market both “real” and “healthy”; he spoke about normalcy returning in 1-2 years; and he posited that the market will be “crazy” when it does return because of a supply deficit.
Why Housing is Unaffordable: The Elasticity of Supply
We have a great new MRU video on housing and why it’s so expensive in many dynamic cities.
Struggling Cities Face More Pain From AI Boom
That said, in certain places land will become much more valuable, as companies choose to locate near AI centers to access the labor markets for AI researchers, or to learn about AI from the industry’s leading actors. I predict a major real estate comeback for San Francisco and nearby environs, and probably gains for Manhattan as well.
Unlocking micro-spaces and micro-businesses
Okay, so small lot sizes seem to help. But what else is needed? Is there a world where this is possible anywhere in the West? It’s probably hard to imagine. Conventional real estate wisdom would tell you that multi-storey retail buildings don’t work.