> If you don't assume the model has predictive power

I am assuming that for the sake of discussion. Part of the reason I link to that article is because the author seems to me to be data-driven and careful about how much you can accurately predict from the data he collected and analyzed.

> people don't want the city to change.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me it's not about preserving the city in amber, I don't want it to become like Manhattan or Tokyo. Like I said above, I want to make cool high-tech arcologies and revitalize the ecology of the Bay.

> The city has changed and its a hellscape. No one can live there unless they bought their house in the early 90's or before. Teachers, Police, Firefighters, and every other kind of public servant is paid below the poverty line for the city they are supposed to serve. Low income people are forced further and further out, and entire economic sectors are starting to experience people insolvency. The city is being slowly turned into a monoculture of tech workers, and office buildings.

You're preaching to the choir here brother. You left out the traffic and insane drivers.

> The only thing the people of the city can bring themselves to do is try to legislate ever more controls on change and try to keep the city in some sort of 80's time warp. However they just banned selling e-cigarettes, and passed a law making sure the government doesn't use facial recognition software so I guess they don't feel the crisis of homelessness or high rents is something that should be given their attention.

Yeah, SF city politics is a shit-show. Everyone is so busy being Progressive that they can barely make any progress. (You like that line? You can use it. ;-) But you're being unfair IMO. I watch SFGOVTV and I can tell you that people are very much concerned about and working on homelessness and out-of-control rents (along with a lot of other weird stuff. Like "Legacy Businesses", what's up with that? I'm kind of a lefty and even I feel that that's "commie-pinko" level economic meddling. But then again, I like most of the businesses that get on the registry and receive money. I can't really hate something too much that if it helps them stay viable through the rough seas. But then again again, it's such a blatant political machination: you have to get a Supervisor to sponsor your business to be considered. Or what about this new system they're rolling out to make homeless people use a special card and account with the city to receive any help. Orwellian surveillance is fine if we are using it to help them, eh? Or the police whose job it is to board buses and trains and "check your papers" to make sure you're not evading fare. That's not progressive, it's imperial. What would be progressive is making the buses free to ride. Or doing like in Seattle: it's not the drivers' job to collect fares. You can ride the bus in Seattle without paying. You're supposed to, but if you're broke you can just mumble an apology to the driver and ride anyway.)

Er, um, rant over. Sorry about that. SF city politics is a hellofa drug...

Anyhow, we need to come together and think clearly about things to solve any of this. We have to balance growth (population and economic) with quality of life, advances in technology, ecological harmony, international politics and financial stuff, etc...