"not sure why I feel the need to respond to posts like these, but this pattern, where a poster expresses haughty distain that others dare downvote them, then posts "evidence" that likely misses the point of the downvotes in the first place, is annoying."
I didn't post "evidence" (scare quotes yours). The quote is right there, in the article. It's something that's actually happening, and I quoted it because of the irony.
Likewise, I lived in SF during the last crash. I saw the holes in the ground, with my own eyes -- developers pulled construction equipment out of foundations, and left them there, at mid-Market, in downtown San Francisco. I lived near two of them.
Nothing I'm saying here is even remotely theoretical. The real issue is that there's a certain popular narrative here, and any facts that disagree with that narrative are immediately ejected from the conversation. It isn't "haughty disdain" to observe that people are rejecting facts that don't fit their biases.
You're not wrong, people are just objecting to your bombast.
Also note, 2008 was unusually dramatic; one of the big projects in downtown sunnyvale went bankrupt and changed hands several times before completion. Yes, declining home prices do sometimes leave long term holes in the ground, but mostly only when prices decline a lot more quickly than expected, as they did in 2008.
I was here in 2001, too, though (or a little up the peninsula) and there was a bigger drop in rent (though not sale prices) then than in 2008. In 2001, sure, you saw 'for rent' signs, but as far as I remember, the 'holes in the ground' as you put it, of buildings who's builders had gone bankrupt partway through were rare.
Nah, people are objecting because they don't want to hear facts that contradict their preferred narrative. They want to believe that construction instantly lowers prices, and any information that contradicts this narrative is voted into the dirt on HN.
I grant you that 2008 was exceptional, as recessions go...but it's not rare to see projects abandoned. I saw it in Seattle in 2001 as well. It just depends on the state of the projects when the recession hits -- you might not get "holes in the ground" unless the decline hits quite suddenly (as in 2008), but you definitely see projects abandoned. That's universal.
I didn't post "evidence" (scare quotes yours). The quote is right there, in the article. It's something that's actually happening, and I quoted it because of the irony.
Likewise, I lived in SF during the last crash. I saw the holes in the ground, with my own eyes -- developers pulled construction equipment out of foundations, and left them there, at mid-Market, in downtown San Francisco. I lived near two of them.
Nothing I'm saying here is even remotely theoretical. The real issue is that there's a certain popular narrative here, and any facts that disagree with that narrative are immediately ejected from the conversation. It isn't "haughty disdain" to observe that people are rejecting facts that don't fit their biases.