I can't think of a more Boomer thing than paraphrasing a Nextdoor thread on a blog, so congratulations, Joe. If nothing else, these comments will serve as a time capsule of pre-pandemic, trickle-down economics, Capitalism first Burlingame values: when membership to a community and belonging to a place was premised on the purchase power of the consumer and nothing else. How quaint. I appreciate the historian aspect of your work here, Joe, but maybe you should have called it Burlingame Gentry.

FYI reusable bags will be back at least at Trader Joe's, beginning next week, I believe.

Sign Me Up, you win. Bye!

As someone who has lived here more than three decades longer than you, Bruce Dickerson, I can tell you my extrapolation is based on a trend I have personally witnessed and experienced. Unless people here make the hard choice to include their low-wage, low-skill, non-tech ,hourly earning neighbors into their concept of community, beginning with basic needs like housing and transportation, the future will be ghettoization and a yawning income gap. I would include gentrification, but that happened a long time ago. Automation will not replace house cleaners, nannies, nursing assistants, elder care workers, or lots and lots of folks we've both encountered in the last two months including cooks, food delivery folks, and grocery store clerks... automation will not replace them all of them in your lifetime and probably not in mine. Why do we expect robots to take better care of others than we do already when we're the ones building them? In the meantime, I'd love to see Joe take on the topic of universal income that you mentioned. I'm sure the comment section will be a virtual hug box. As an aside, what in the world makes you say that building housing close to jobs is a "wrong reason" for doing so? Or is Bruce Dickerson a fan of hours long commutes and all its impacts?

A single family home cannot be bought in Burlingame or San Mateo and certainly not Hillsborugh for less than seven figures. It's a lovely place for all the folks who meet that income or inheritance threshold. Where do you propose that people who have deep connections to these communities or who work essential jobs, or both, who fall short of that bar live? Will you make the tired suggestion that they leave here move to more affordable places no matter how many decades they or their families have called this place home? What's the logical extrapolation of your idea? Less dense, affordable housing/ more single family, expensive properties ---> Fewer dwellings for teachers, hourly workers, low wage/low-skill (essential) workers ---> Longer commutes, disconnection from work/home environments for those workers ---> Ghettoization/ loss of community feeling so prized here ---> Widening gap between the economically blessed and the economically stressed What a dream.

Nice, JP. What are you doing to support your community during this crisis? PS, I'm a woman.

I care deeply, Joe. It's why I willingly risk my own health and postpone seeing my own family every time I go to work. What I don't care for is seeing my neighbors use this crisis to advocate for policies that make living here even more untenable for my fellow essential employees who are also risking their health for far less money to support your ability to SIP and stay virus free as you fear monger about the dangers of density. We had a housing crisis before coronavirus hit and the fact that it did does not mean we should give up trying to solve it.

I guess a nice thing about running your own blog is that you can claim "there's ample evidence" of something without having to actually provide any. Carry on.

LOL, JP. Are you implying that density is the cause of the explosion of cases in NYC? If that were so then cities as or more dense than NY would be experiencing the same number of cases, but that simply isn't so. It would also imply that outbreaks can't happen in less dense cities and towns but we know the opposite is true. We also know that transmission of this virus can be mitigated through modification of BEHAVIORS regardless of density. I"m a front-line healthcare worker providing direct care to COVID positive patients. And, sit down for this because it will shock and horrify you, I live in a setting that's denser than a single family home. Somehow I haven't infected my entire building. So come at me with anti-science accusations all you want but it rings hollow. And please tell me what you would propose as housing options for low-wage essential employees who are keeping the basic gears of our society running through this? Or have you not bought food, gas, and other items since SIP went into effect? And if you had to go to the hospital, would you not want the floors and beds disinfected and basic supplies to be stocked?

Has the science changed on COVID-19 now showing it can be transmitted through solid walls and doors? Can any of the folks Joe is quoting point to a single case where an outbreak of coronavirus can be blamed on an apartment building? I'm wondering where "Ann & Phelim", Linda, and Joe think low-wage essential workers should live during a pandemic: you know the ones who are stocking grocery shelves, delivering food, working at gas stations, and staffing the hospitals in non-clinical roles? Or maybe y'all will support a wage or housing cost schemes for those essential employees that would allow them to afford single family dwellings in areas like ours where prices begin in the 7 figures? Somehow I doubt it. It seems to me the people using this crisis to further their agendas along with a little good old-fashioned fear mongering are the people Joe is quoting, and it's pretty gross.

Getting back to the original topic of "Renters (getting) screwed," I can remember a year in which my rent increased more than 20% because I asked for a light switch change in the same month my smoke detectors were switched out. Actually, the request was made by an apartment sitter of mine and not myself because I know better than to request more than a single change in the fall months of the year when my annual rent increase letter is due to be slid under my door. Some years it's as low as 2%. One year it was especially painful and was $250/year; or around 20%. The point is, I never know how much it will be. I'm currently living with a broken stove and a leaking hot water faucet in the bathroom. I dare not ask for either to be repaired because I've already had the busted window blind repaired this summer and too much at once results in astronomical housing expense increases. So, I shut off the hot water in the bathroom at the valve beneath the sink. And I use an air fryer instead of the oven even though I love to cook and prepare my own meals as a way to save money. I'm completely ignoring the death knells my fridge is making. Last fall the building's washer/dryer was replaced and now it costs 25% more in quarters to do laundry even though it's twice as hard to get quarters for the task (my credit union has contracted). It's a pretty mundane list of grievances, yeah? Compound that list every year you've lived in your residence. Imagine being afraid to ask that both your sink AND your stove get fixed because both at once is surely too much, too greedy. Now imagine that stress every year when new things arise that need fixing. Sometime you ask for them to be addressed and you are punished. Sometimes you pretend they can be ignored and still you are punished. Rent control means a person can ask to have their stove, sink, and heat fixed in the same season and not be forced out of their home from punitive rent increases.

Joe, care to calculate the difference on property taxes for the last 30 year with and without Prop 13 and what that difference might have earned if invested conservatively? Would you still make the argument "there are no 'lucky beneficiaries' in California'? You and I have been paying the same sales tax and have been subject to the same income tax agendas but we're not on the same planet when it comes to paying for the privilege of paying for housing here. And yet I can practically hear you rubbing your hands together when you gleefully post about how us renters "are screwed" under Newsom's new legislation. Is that because you see the writing on the wall about Prop 13 despite how much that has benefitted you for so many years? I'm just curious how you are so eager to benefit from and even defend the wildly unequal tax benefits to long-time property owners of this locale but would be so quick to denegrate a similar scheme when offered to residents here? It all feels like a class issues writ small and it's gross.

As a lifetime resident of SM and Burlingame and a renter I look forward to knowing the maximum amount my housing costs will increase next year... and the nest.... and the next... just like so many of you who continue to benefit from Prop 13 I love this town and hope every year I will not be priced out. A maximum increase of my rental costs per annum will allow me to calculate just how long I can continue to live, work, and contribute here. I'm all the time discouraged at the vitriol toward renters on this forum. You assume I'm here to leech off the teat of City Hall and Sacramento. Meanwhile, I can tell you what B-ave looked like in the 80s, 90s, and 00s. I remember Coyote Pt, SFO, downtown SM and SF from the last four decades. I've eaten, shopped, studied, and worked in your town for dozens of years. I stay because I love it here, maybe even more than you do. I simply do not have the capital to invest in property that you do. That does not make me a bad Burlingame resident. Many of you are property owners and landlords. Perhaps you benefit from Prop 13; you might even be in a position where you would be unable to afford your property were it not for that beneficial piece of legislation. Consider for a moment that you are fortunate to have a surer footing in living here and not that you love this town more than some renter because you sign a check to a mortgage company and not a rental agency. We are all neighbors.

Less housing, more parks! The parks will make great campsites for those people who can't find affordable housing here. Just wait until the Facebook campus opens. You folks will really bust a nut when young techies looking to stash their cash or who just don't want to pay Burlingame rents start parking their RVs all over town.

LOL, sick burn Phinancier.

^^^Deporting the low paid dish washers, cooks, house cleaners, and child watchers will not magically solve the affordability problem we all live with. Under what formula does the above poster believe that millions of "illegal" people are competing at just under the $61/hr income level to afford rental property here (SM county) thereby competing for space against equally salaried "legal" residents?? (See the latest figures on the least affordable counties in the US. Spoiler: San Mateo loses). I'd wager those UBER low paid workers triple and quadruple on "cheap" rent to stay in this area and work at thankless jobs that make your life more seamless. They simply do not occupy space that would otherwise be held by some imaginary low-paid "legal" worker. Show a little humanity and start thinking outside the Fox News box.

"It might also be time to reconsider whether SamTrans should be allowed to operate on our section of El Camino Real." This is a little Marie Antionette of you, Joe. What of all the poor slobs who rely on public transportation to move up and down the peninsula and through the enclaves their jobs don't afford them to live in? Or the disabled? Not to mention the environmental benefit of reducing single vehicle traffic (and its associated headaches)? Let them drive Teslas!

There's also a mini bloom happening at the corner of 3rd and El Camino in SM on the empty lot of a former gas station. Orange poppies and purple lupine (?) are popping!

Both Behan's and (obviously) Broadway Grill are both on Broadway which has the larger share of empty retail space but also venues open to showcasing live music. Fostering local arts and music means being flexible, open to experimentation, and willingness to think outside the high-end retail box. B'Ave passed that threshold long ago. I wish the empty retail space owners on Broadway would be open to considering pop-ups (restaurant, shops, clubs) even while they let the spaces sit idle as they wait for high rev tenants. I would happily wander into any space that seemed welcoming and featured pumping music of any genre (or food, or art, or goods).

Well said, BMW. How many of these high performance vehicles will be sold to low performance drivers? At least it's not at the Broadway intersection snarl.

"... or do I not "get" the message." All this pearl clutching is the basis of the joke. Because the phrase is street, but the street is B'game Avenue. It's, like, ironic. ;) If you really want to be offended, check out our POTUS on twitter.

I think this is hilarious and I sport mine proudly when I shop at the farmer's market or Safeway or Mollie Stones. Be sure to say hey if you see me! :) Honest question: what does "behaving like they belong here" look like, Joe? I've lived here for decades, since birth actually, and have no idea what you mean by it except it sounds a little like Get Off My Lawn Kids and is exactly the reason why this bag is funny. Lighten up.

You've made a classic fallacy of composition error here. Why do you assume the tagger represents "the types of people who are in favor" of Prop 10 instead of one human with a spray paint can? If you saw a truck with a McCain bumpersticker taking up two parking spaces, would you assume all McCain supporters are jerks who can't park or just the truck driver? Broad brushes are only good for covering up spray paint.