People have a way with words, and perhaps we should pay closer attention to how they are used. Buried in a proposal for the development of ‘lazy land’1 in the city of San Francisco is a phrase that neatly expresses the city’s housing approach, and why the city won’t solve its housing crisis any time soon.
“Let them eat Bibimbap” is our expression, not San Francisco’s. Bibimbap is a traditional meal in Korea, and popular worldwide. It includes the odds and ends left over from other family meals.
Leftovers, in other words. That pretty much describes the affordable housing in the proposal being discussed here.
San Francisco is evaluating whether to sell a fire station to a developer, who will rebuild it and add a luxury high rise apartment building on top. ‘Whatever is left over’ will go towards affordable housing.
And there you have it. An expression of a fundamental attitude by both the private sector and government that affordable housing is the servant of wealth. Somehow, it’s hard to imagine a city, state and national affordable housing crisis embraced and solved by leftovers!
The project might have been developed on the basis of a new fire station, plus, say, 100 units of affordable housing. And whatever is left over would go to high rise luxury apartment — as many floors as the leftover money buys? Can you hear the inevitable response to such a suggestion ringing in your ears? It’s, “don’t be silly!” Or, “we have to live in the real world.”
Read more in the San Francisco Chronicle: Housing proposed above S.F. firehouse
It’s not hard to find this kind of so-called city commitment to affordable housing everywhere, with similar kinds of wording. Read more in The Star: Development proposed for Halifax would include one of the city’s tallest buildings — and some affordable housing
Yup. There it is again. This train is bound for glory. Tagging along behind . . . the affordable housing caboose. We predict that, bibimbap or caboose, it isn’t going to go far toward solving the affordable housing crisis.
