"Blacks Being Force Out of San Francisco" was the headline in my twitter feed. It wasn’t from FOX News, CNN, BBC, or MSNBC, but it came from The Economist.   That’s right, The Economist.  

The article was about city restricted supply and demand.  It’s a really good read and I highly recommend it if you are interested in the environmental movement or politics.

But the building restrictions-- and outright bans-- resulting from the political crusades of environmentalist zealots sent housing prices skyrocketing in San Francisco, San Jose and most of the communities in between. Housing prices in these communities soared to about three times the national average.

You can read what I think about environmental extremist here.

It will be interesting to see how the increased cost of living effects the developers and producers in the area.  Will they move to decrease the cost of running the business? Will the cost be pasted on to the consumer? Only time will tell.
 
Anyway, I have some more games to play ( Crysis 2 on the PC) and work to do. I just wanted to share the story with you. Enjoy.

Reference:

Real Clear Politics - leans left

The SF Examiner - leans right (from what I’ve seen)

The Economist – nonpartisan? 

Interesting article. It's really just saying what most of us have known all along - harsh environmental regulations tend to hurt people at the lowest income levels the hardest, yet members of that demographic still tend to vote for Democrats. It's all public perception more than reality, and it works both ways.
 
Also, I don't really think RCP leans left... they have a lot of liberal opinion pieces, but they usually balance them out with ones from the right. Just thought I would defend them since it's my favorite website for following politics at a national level.

this type of logic is old. Rather than specifying the target group directly, they increase taxes and if the target group can't pay they have to "relocate" to an area where they can....   it's so crafty because the poor people will believe it's their fault and the people with mediocre or higher living standards will claim that rightly so, they should move since they can't pay. If the local government had come out with police/enforcers and proclaimed "you minorities best get out of town"  there would be an uprising, even amongst the enforcers. But increasing taxes is the stealthy way of doing the same.    
 
I guess one way to combat such a act, in the short term, will be to split the housing rent amongst multiple people. Many immigrants and illegals do this. In essence the dwelling becomes a dormitory.  I was reading that in China the factories, that make all of the devices we use, provide housing to the workers via dormitories. Should a worker cease to work at the factory, then that person will have to search for housing elsewhere.

The problem seems to be how often "black people" and "poor people" are treated synonymously. If you're percieving increased cost of living as targetting black people, the real question is why is one income bracket so dominated with a specific race.

Yea, RCP is generally the most balanced website for news/politics. A good place to hear both sides of the same coin. 
 
But, San Francisco in general has been the major force in pushing environmental/health programs and/or "solutions", even when it does make them look friggin crazy.