Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Housing in the Bay Area

blog.samaltman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 407 posts

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#171

Post by redditmigrant »

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…

You talk as if culture is some constant. Culture has throughout history been shaped by change. So why should SF somehow try to hold on to the good old times, whatever that is? Why shouldn't SF change to accommodate a revolution that will likely rival the industrial revolution in its impact.

You are right in that we need to make sure development is respectful of the environment but your attitude of "they are ruining it" is not helpful. Given that attitude of yours I do sincerely hope you are the one who leaves SF instead of discouraging the new comers. I hear Portland is nice.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#172

Post by eevilspock »

birken wrote: post #81
sytelus wrote: post #13

I highly doubt this bill would pass without severe modifications. The problem is that we have two groups in population: One who own houses and other who don't. First group don't want new houses and dilute value of their property. Politicans very well knows that making this group unhappy will end their careers. The second group is often in minority outside large cities. This is why its very hard to pass laws that woul…

Around 65% of the population in SF are renters. If it were simply homeowners vs renters, renters would win in a landslide. Who do you think was pushing for proposition I (an 18 month development moratorium in the mission) to pass? It wasn't homeowners, that's for sure. It was renters living in the Mission who were (not incorrectly) terrified that new development means they will get evicted and displaced. Why did 60%…

> Around 65% of the population in SF are renters.

We don't in practice have "1 person, 1 vote". Because of the influence of money in politics, the effective reality is somewhere in between "1 person, 1 vote" and "1 dollar, 1 vote". There are far more dollars on the property owning side.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#173

Post by morgante »

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…

> 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.

I assume you're also planning to vote for Drumpf this fall?

After all, the rights of "natives" to enjoy a nice place without any cultural changes is far more important than allowing others to seek new opportunities for themselves. Where you were born is the most important determinant of where you should be allowed to live.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#174

Post by dclowd9901 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #114
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.

It rains too much, like 14 months per year is just rain. And the Seattle freeze...ya, people in Seattle don't like to talk to other people, it is like Northern Europe. /s We've always made up crazy lies just to keep the Californians away, but ultimately it isn't working. Seattle is a nice place to live/work, and has plenty of jobs for techies.

My experience with people in the bay is most are superficial and make their identity around either their careers or that they live in San Francisco. Pretty insufferable group compared to the "freeze" in Seattle. Also, believe it or not, some people actually like when it rains all the time, especially people who came from very sunny (and drought-y) climes. It's nice not having to worry about water rationing. Frankly, constant sunshine drives me batty.

I split the difference and ended up in Portland.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#175

Post by morgante »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #130
beering wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me, they are an invading army culturally speaking. In a very real sense my home is being destroyed. This is xenophobia in another skin. There are a lot of people who don't want brown people coming into the country and changing the "feel" of their home too. Anyways, as long as we severely restrict housing, techies will continue to outbid the locals on what remains. Passing this legislation might give the weirdo-f…

Xenophobia is defined (by one source) as "intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries." Maybe comparing this commenter to "a lot of people who don't want brown people" is ham fisted and inaccurate. The commenter seems more interested in the culture, the freakiness or weirdness, of the people who come in, and not so much which country they came from. I do not see where the commenter mentioned…

> The commenter seems more interested in the culture, the freakiness or weirdness, of the people who come in, and not so much which country they came from

Go to a Trump rally and ask if they actually hate minorities for the color of the skin. They'll say no.

Xenophobes and racists always insist it's about "culture" and an invading army which is somehow destroying that "culture" and ruining their way of life with an outside culture.

I fail to see how this attitude is acceptable when it comes from privileged urban hippies, but unacceptable when it comes from poor rural workers.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#176

Post by jevinskie »

morgante wrote: post #165
jevinskie wrote: post #160

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…

> My cost of living is very cheap. My commute is 15 minutes. I live close to my family. Why should I want to leave? You shouldn't. If you have a good job in such a location and are happy with the opportunities available, enjoy! The problem is that markets naturally congregate in distinct locations so anyone who is looking to advance their career needs to make their way to a hub.

I am enjoying my time here. :) I just am a bit anxious because my speciality means there is just one player in the area. Outside of that speciality, there are other attractive, but not my calling, opportunities.

This also complicates my conundrum about whether to continue to rent vs purchasing some property to start some real roots.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#178

Post by baby »

jevinskie wrote: post #160

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…

Usually you don't have a lot of career opportunity in these kind of places. Opportunities are in the cities.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#179

Post by pfarnsworth »

Companies that extract advertising and other revenue from around the world, like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, should create job centers outside of the Bay Area.

This is the only way that house prices will moderate, is if these globally significant companies spread their distribution of money around the country/world. There's too much concentration of money flowing into the Bay Area in terms of revenues, and that is creating this hyper-inflation that we see here.

My house value when up by 60% in 2 years. I can sell it for almost $2 million if I wanted to, which I don't. I keep thinking it's not sustainable, until I hear the offers that people get from these companies. Google offered one of my friend $160k + 400k in RSUs, and Facebook offered another one $180k and $500k in RSUs. That's well over $1M over 4 years for both. Of course salaries like this will cause hyper-inflation in this area.

Re: Housing in the Bay Area

#180

Post by morgante »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #144
fishtoaster wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This town won't be for the freaks and weirdos for long: they're being priced out. You can rage against the techies all you want, but unless we can build more housing, the techies will be the only ones who can afford to live here. It seems bizarre to me that those most fervently opposed to the influx of tech in SF are doing the most to harm the existing residents. If you make it hard to build in San Francisco, there w…

SF used to be beautiful. With tons more development, it will just look like Hong Kong/Singapore/Chicago/Manhattan, etc. and that beauty will be lost

When is the point of peak beauty? 1900? 1850?

Also, Hong Kong is a rather beautiful city.

Post reply on HN