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Housing in the Bay Area

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Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#151

Post by chuckcode »

abalone wrote: post #96

This is a contentious issue and in case you are not from SF and wondering why Y Combinator is taking a stand on it, it has to do with the politics of the tech boom. The plain truth is that the housing crisis is a combination of too much sudden demand fueled by the tech boom and too little supply. The tech community likes to deflect criticism of their sudden influx of relatively high-income workers and say "don't blam…

While the cost of housing in the bay area gets a lot of press the entire infrastructure of the bay is getting stretched by the current tech boom. The traffic is already the second worst in the nation [1], and existing public transportation like bart[2] and caltrain[3] are already overloaded.

While I'm generally in favor of development I think that this simplistic approach of just going around local planning departments is just going to lead to more problems. I think it would be better to cut state and local funding of counties if they don't match growth targets that region commits to. This way we incentivize communities to embrace growth while letting the residents still have a strong say in how and where their community grows. Letting developers call the pace hasn't made for good urban planning in other parts of the country and there is no reason to expect it to do a lot better here. Let's incentivize these parties to work together rather than giving one all the power to drive the process.

[1] http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/trafficindex/list [2] http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-gets-candid-... [3] http://www.caltrain.com/Page3882.aspx

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#152

Post by bunkat »

incepted wrote: post #140
nostrebored wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow the city with the highest average salary/cost of living usually goes unmentioned... Seattle has two huge tech companies, a lot of mid sized tech companies, and a growing startup scene... and it's not that far away from the bay.

On top of the weather, which is a big deal to a lot of people, the problem is exactly in what you said: there are two huge tech companies. And that's it. Basically, if you move to Seattle, you are pretty much restricted to working for Microsoft or Amazon and that's it. Period. Nothing else. It's a huge career limiting move, make sure you're okay with it.

There are a couple of other companies here that didn't make your list... not including the pretty active startup scene. Sure it's not any near as vibrant as around San Francisco but to say there are only two tech companies hiring people is pretty ludicrous.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#153

Post by s0rce »

fintler wrote: post #68
carapace wrote: post #65

I'm in favor of how "building in the Bay Area is approved by discretion", I call it having some power over what gets built. "Democracy" y'know? I'm from SF. I grew up here. I'm also a computer nerd. To me, the tech "industry" has been ruining the city I love since the Dot-Com boom. To me, they are an invading army culturally speaking. In a very real sense my home is being destroyed. The saddest part is, this city kin…

> San Francisco is the largist metropolitan area with the most wilderness/open space around it in the world. It's high on the list, but it's not the one with the most: Vienna 51% Singapore 47% Sydney 46% Hong Kong 40% 70% is the total green space 40% is protected Rio De Janeiro 40% London 38.40% Almost 40%! Stockholm 30% Johannesburg-Gauteng 24% New York City 19.7 % or 14% Park Score/World Culture Report San Francisc…

I'm surprised Seattle doesn't make the list. Maybe thats based on parkland within the city. To the east you have immense tracks of wilderness in the cascade mountains and to the west the olympic peninsula.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#154

Post by abalone »

epicureanideal wrote: post #147

This is good, except that I oppose subsidies for "below market rate housing". If workers are needed in an area, businesses will eventually need to pay them more. Subsidizing their housing is a backdoor subsidy to the business owners who don't need to pay their workers enough to deal with living in the Bay Area.

That's not an unreasonable perspective but you didn't go far enough. If business owners were to pay workers enough to live at market rates in San Francisco, what would the effect on prices be? How much would a restaurant meal cost? Then, once prices resettle at $50/entree, how appealing a city would SF be?

Note: Paul Graham recently spoke on how important affordable restaurants are to creating startup hubs![1] That's macroeconomics for you.

[1] http://paulgraham.com/pgh.html

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#155

Post by jly »

incepted wrote: post #140
nostrebored wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow the city with the highest average salary/cost of living usually goes unmentioned... Seattle has two huge tech companies, a lot of mid sized tech companies, and a growing startup scene... and it's not that far away from the bay.

On top of the weather, which is a big deal to a lot of people, the problem is exactly in what you said: there are two huge tech companies. And that's it. Basically, if you move to Seattle, you are pretty much restricted to working for Microsoft or Amazon and that's it. Period. Nothing else. It's a huge career limiting move, make sure you're okay with it.

I'm not from Seattle nor do I live in Seattle, but I'm pretty sure this is not the case.

There ARE other cities with a lot of quality, diverse tech jobs outside of the Bay Area. I live in one of them and I don't consider it a 'career limiting move'.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#156

Post by rcpt »

BurningFrog wrote: post #132
s3r3nity wrote: post #38

This is one of the top factors preventing me from moving back to the Bay Area. It's good to know there's at least SOME serious attempt at a solution (even if folks around here are mostly pessimistic.) It still surprises me that an industry that's all about connecting the world through the internet and allowing anyone to work with anyone else on anything says "yeah but you need to work in this small area of the countr…

VCs can make millions from owning houses. They can make billions from funding startups.

Why not both?

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#157

Post by studentrob »

jevinskie wrote: post #121
akanet wrote: post #14

People should actually call in! Over at the SFBARF, we have a thread of people reporting on how long it took to call their representatives: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sfbarentersfed/7G4Kr... . I managed to talk to someone at both of my representatives' offices within a minute, without any sort of delay. It's very easy, please do call in if you support this measure! Also, when you do call in, post here af…

Thank you for this post. I am now very encouraged to contact my state legislators. I might even muster up the courage to call my federal representatives!

http://tryvoices.com/ - great app for calling representatives

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#158

Post by pm90 »

brc wrote: post #52
s3r3nity wrote: post #38

This is one of the top factors preventing me from moving back to the Bay Area. It's good to know there's at least SOME serious attempt at a solution (even if folks around here are mostly pessimistic.) It still surprises me that an industry that's all about connecting the world through the internet and allowing anyone to work with anyone else on anything says "yeah but you need to work in this small area of the countr…

It's a good theory but I think the investors are pretty straight-up about wanting their companies on a short leash. The key will be those other cities/hubs having their own successes, bringing in the capital and expertise to nurture new talent. It's likely that the number of successful hubs that can be supported is pretty low. I happen to believe that the amount of (awful word) synergy needed to flip a few percent of…

Its true but its not limited to SF/Bay Area. I had the impression the other day that city-specific industries are much like Universities; so you see that MIT, Berkeley etc. that had CS dept's early on now have the best programs in CS. So it is with cities: the tech industry was born in Silicon Valley so of course there are a lot of Software/EE engineers out there.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#159

Post by mkhpalm »

arebop wrote: post #49
honkhonkpants wrote: post #40

When I look at this bill I have to wonder if it will really help. Outside of the city of San Francisco itself, almost nothing is being built, because the construction costs are too high. Not the permitting and planning costs, but the actual guys-with-hammers-and-saws costs. For example in Oakland there are number of properties that are fully entitled to build and have been sitting that way for years. So how does Brow…

If construction costs explain the high price of bay area housing, how is it possible that houses in the midwest are produced at less than 1/5 the price? Are the Kansas guys with hammers really making 1/5 the wages of the California hammer swingers?

Its almost 1/3rd last I checked. But thats not everything you pay a difference on when you build something. The high cost of living and many other things in the bay area factor into everything.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#160

Post by jevinskie »

There is so much pressure, career-wise, to move to either the Bay Area, the West Coast in general, or a major urban hub.

I honestly like living in a semi-rural part of the Midwest. I like seeing fields and forests while driving to work. If I want to get out to some wilderness, I can do so in 15-30 minutes. I travel in a car that, I feel, offers me freedom. To boot, I have a nice, reserved spot in the garage below my apartment. I live downtown and I still feel great freedom/"space". I cant imagine being able to do anything like this in a place like SF or even Chicago.

My cost of living is very cheap. My commute is 15 minutes. I live close to my family. Why should I want to leave?

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