How San Francisco's Progressive Policies Are Hurting the Poor

http://reason.com/archives/2014/11/09/how-san-franciscos-progressive-policies

Left-wing regulations are increasing inequality, reducing affordable
housing, and killing economic opportunities.

In recent years, a contradiction has unfolded in San Francisco. On the one
hand, the city continues to practice progressive economic policies. But
rather than helping its poor and middle-class-as such policies are
advertised as doing-these groups in San Francisco have become more unequal,
downwardly mobile, and altogether priced-out. This raises the question of
whether the policies themselves are contributing to the problem.

 First, though, it's worth noting the magnitude of the city's inequality,
which is problematic not so much because the rich have gotten richer, but
because everyone else has gotten poorer. This was determined by a Brookings
Institution paper earlier this year which found that between 2007-2012, San
Francisco trailed only Atlanta as the nation's most unequal city, with the
top 5 percent of households earning average incomes nearly 17 times higher
than the bottom 20 percent. During this period, inequality grew far more
quickly in San Francisco than in any other U.S. city, with incomes for those
top households increasing by nearly $28,000 to $353,576, and incomes for the
bottom 20 percent decreasing by over $4,000 down to $21,313. But other
brackets were hit also, as incomes declined for the bottom 80 percent of
households, meaning those making up to $161,000. The study validated media
narratives about how gentrifying San Francisco had become exclusive to the
rich at everyone else's expense.

 A lot of the reason for this shift is because of the tech industry's
emergence. Once confined to the southern part of the region, Silicon
Valley's imprint expanded across the city throughout the 2000s, and is now a
mainstream cultural force. Not only have businesses like Twitter opened
offices downtown, but once-working-class areas like the Mission provide
housing and start-up space for industry workers, causing an influx of new
wealth and neighborhood disruption.

 But the city's progressive tendencies seem only to have worsened this
shift, with an over-reaching government that offers inadequate-or plain
wrongheaded-solutions to problems.
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