Seattle is good!
No it's not. I'm trudging through mud and oppressive rain right this moment.
More like "my apartment is 90 degrees and it's not even June"
One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds
251–260 of 328 posts
Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds
#252After living in the SF Bay Area for 5 years, (1 in a crappy apt in Belmont, 4 in a modest home in Hayward), I have very mixed views of the place. I love the progressive politics, diversity, high concentration of smart and interesting people. I hate the traffic, over-crowded trains and the vast wealth inequality--especially since I feel that a large portion of the wealth has been retained due to tax loop holes and tha…
Do you also feel that you should decide how wealth should be retained? If people work for something (income) what makes you feel you are entitled to decide what to do with their work's result?
I love socialists, they care more about other people's money than their own lives. They fight for equal poverty for all, too, but they never mind their own business.
Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At the extreme, these things can hold a lot of people without too much land: They can hold a lot of people without too much land, but they don't reduce the land requirements for transporting goods and supplies to and waste products away from those people. Sure, you can hold a lot more people in San Francisco if you fill the city with high-rises, but that's not going to, e.g., suddenly give the city a greater supply…
Cities are greener than suburbs by and large, so actually putting more people in cities that otherwise would have lived in a burb is a win for the environment.
Is that true when you factor in utilities? IE - Where does all the water come from? At least in the burbs, you can set up your own well.
Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alternatively, repealing Prop 13, so that property taxes rise with the value. Or increasing property taxes as you get more homes. Both of these would decrease housing prices significantly.
Higher taxes is not enough. Taxing property means you confiscate it piece by piece, the owner will have to pay or lose it, but given enough time the owner will pay more than the value of the property. Why go that slow and not go for it, confiscate all properties and be happy with it? You can always follow examples from the likes of North Korea. Just in case you don't get it: you can ask for taxes when you provide ser…
Just wanted to compliment you on one of the most impressive substance-free arm-flailing retorts I have seen in recent memory. It takes skill to weave residents of both North Korea and the planet Mars into a discussion of Bay Area quality of life.
Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cities are greener than suburbs by and large, so actually putting more people in cities that otherwise would have lived in a burb is a win for the environment.
Is that true when you factor in utilities? IE - Where does all the water come from? At least in the burbs, you can set up your own well.
Yes, it is, especially when you consider utilities. Average house in the burbs has some lawn or shrubs or something that uses water, and it's not like well water is ultimately 'free' - it comes from somewhere. Also, it means less land developed, less extensive electrical and water distribution systems, and so on.
Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds
#256I'm one of those in the 1/3rd, currently in the process of moving to the Denver/Boulder area. I knew on paper the housing would be cheaper, but what's stood out to me is how much less crowded it is: You can go to stores and find parking, and not wait 15 minutes at the cashier. You can go to restaurants and actually get a table. You can make unprotected left turns. Things are busy during rush hour, but outside of that…
Meh, I was raised in the Bay and Denver is no different anymore. Trying to get a table on Larimer Square or 16th is no different than SoMa now, 2+hour wait times if you can get that. The stores are just as crowded to me, but that may be my preference for shopping with the after church crowd (btw, Sunday drivers are so bad). On the left turns, I did live in LA for a bit, so yes, the drivers here are not as aggressive in taking turns, but that doesn't mean the Tech Center or 36 is not a parking lot most days. I don't know when it was when you came here, but the roads can get really bad outside of Denver proper, because: winter. 36 just got resurfaced (the rail-line debacle aside) so give it 2 more winters. Generally we have 2 seasons here: winter and road paving. If you think that going out of DIA is a nice time, the other post on the frontpage here about wait times in the hours specifically mentions the mess that is DIA. Oh, and DIA is about as close to the city as OAK is to the Outer Richmond.
My sour grapes aside, on you expectation to no-longer job-hop: Good luck. I too would love that, but it is becoming more clear that is not going to happen. Lockheed and Ball have huge divisions on the frontrange. Which they are all closing right now. After they closed out of the mid-atlantic (Valley Forge excepted) too. There are a lot of people here that are very smart and very experienced and still have mortgages and the network of folks here. Nothing is good right now.
I do agree that Colorado is healthier though. Not many fat people to look at here. The skiing helps. Also, there is a sizable big-ish dog culture here, retrievers are somewhat small.
Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds
#257Please don't come to Austin. I moved from SF to Austin a little over two years ago, and I want to make it clear that it's terrible. The food is bad, the people are lame, and all the musicians are out of tune. I hear Chicago is where it's at, so please go there. Or New York. Or anywhere else, really. Just don't come to Austin.
I know you were being sarcastic, but Austin is very overrated. Low VC funding, small city, surrounded by Texas. Ironically, in another related study, the #1 place people want to move to from Bay Area turned out to be NYC - an even more expensive place. I guess the thought there was might as well stay in a big city if we are paying that much money
Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've completely lost sight of your point. You said Italy has good transit and affordable housing because it's dense. Now Italy only has "fairly dense" cities. Of those, the densest are on par with Seattle. I'm going to re-assert that Italy has affordable housing because they are in an economic slump. I was frankly not that impressed with their public transit, either, but I didn't spend a lot of time on it.
If Italy had the same kind of NIMBY laws that the US does in many places, half the country would have to get up and leave, or they would have to pave over everything between towns, leaving no agriculture, parks, forests or much of anything. The public transportation in Italy varies a lot, from North (pretty good) to South (awful in many places). The thing they tend to do well is that it's fairly frequent, so you usua…
> "Fairly dense" is all you need to vastly improve things in many places. Look at vast swaths of the bay area that are single story detached houses. Mix in some 2/3 story buildings in there, and you'd add a lot of supply without going 'full Hong Kong'.
Ok, but I still don't buy your argument. Seattle has a density similar to Rome. San Francisco has a density similar to Milan. Why is Italy cheaper with good public transit? It's clearly not the density, and I don't buy that it's just NIMBY-ism either (though even if so, it's still not density.).
> Also, Milan is about twice as dense as Seattle.
I was looking at the broader urban area. You're right that it is considerably denser if you only look at the 70 square mile administrative area (roughly San Francisco density).
Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the extreme, these things can hold a lot of people without too much land: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyscraper But you don't really need those in most places. Simply building 'in' more and up 2/3/4 stories would add a ton of housing in much of the bay area.
Those are very expensive to build, approaching $1000/sqft. Also require utilities, transit, and other city services (schools, police, fire, etc).
It's about as expensive to live here as it is in many skyscrapers in Manhattan. NYC seems to have those other problems pretty well figured out. I've never heard a very convincing reason that SF can't be more like Manhattan in terms of density, except that the existing residents who've "got theirs" don't like the idea.
Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Italy had the same kind of NIMBY laws that the US does in many places, half the country would have to get up and leave, or they would have to pave over everything between towns, leaving no agriculture, parks, forests or much of anything. The public transportation in Italy varies a lot, from North (pretty good) to South (awful in many places). The thing they tend to do well is that it's fairly frequent, so you usua…
> "Fairly dense" is all you need to vastly improve things in many places. Look at vast swaths of the bay area that are single story detached houses. Mix in some 2/3 story buildings in there, and you'd add a lot of supply without going 'full Hong Kong'. Ok, but I still don't buy your argument. Seattle has a density similar to Rome. San Francisco has a density similar to Milan. Why is Italy cheaper with good public tra…
Sure, in part Italy is cheaper due to the economy, but it's also because you can build outside of the historic areas to meet demand.
And there's decent public transportation.
I just don't see any relationship between decent public transportation and things being affordable or not. It's much more closely tied to density: without density, public transportation doesn't work as well.