Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever • Hacker News Board

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#381

Post by sodawater » Sat, Mar 25, 2017, 12:38 PM UTC

davidf18 wrote: post #141

friedman23 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't a market failure if it is a result of regulation

There are laws and regulation that protect people from harm, e.g. product safety, physician licensing, FDA drug approvals, food inspections, etc. Then there are regulations that help special interests get an unearned portion of wealth. That would include these landowners benefiting from zoning density restrictions or in NYC before Uber/Lyft came along, the artificial restriction of 13,000 taxi medallions for a popula…

Pardon me, but thats not a mutually exclusive distinction.

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#382

Post by cylinder » Sat, Mar 25, 2017, 6:56 PM UTC

gabbo wrote: post #311

brilliantcode wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's around $126,000 USD /year in Seattle. [1] They didn't bother listing Vancouver because the salary here is so painfully low with entry level software engineering positions regularly listing $40,000 CAD /year or $30,000 USD /year, which is what a Starbucks barista in Seattle clears. As your experience goes up, so should your salary right? Not in Vancouver. It's around a couple hundred dollars per month in after-ta…

Your point is 100% correct, but IMO that link understates Seattle earnings potential. Probably doesn't include equity/cash bonus, which will happen a lot in Seattle and not so much in Vancouver. Big tech company jobs in Seattle are extremely common, and a big tech company job in Seattle will pay you much more than $126k/year USD when you include stock/cash bonus. Especially a few years into your career. If you're wil…

The difference is there's a huge tech bubble in the US which has blown up salaries for software professionals far ahead of anywhere else in the world. Think about all the flimsy startups funded by free flowing VC cash who will never make money. Once they burn through the cash they are done. When you have millions / billions thrown at you, who cares about paying developers $140k? The money almost means nothing.

It's the $150k that software engineers make in the US that's abnormal, not the $50k in Canada or EU. That is where salaries in the US will go once the funny money moves on.

Engineer shortage? Not really. This is something that can be learned by studying books, you do not even need a license. Yes, it's hard, technical stuff, but so is Mechanical Engineering yet they don't make these kinds of salaries and they have more barriers to entry.

It's funny to see the bias here: high house prices are certainly a bubble, but high software salaries are definitely 100% earned due to amazing abilities to generate wealth and market fundamentals.

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#383

Post by cylinder » Sat, Mar 25, 2017, 6:58 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #300

> Will New York, San Francisco and London become unstoppable juggernauts, soaking up more talent and becoming more expensive each year? London rent and properties took a 10% hit since the Brexit event.

No they didn't. Some high end billionaire properties did, that's all.

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#384

Post by passiveincomelg » Sun, Mar 26, 2017, 8:11 AM UTC

zimzam wrote: post #25

bpicolo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are certainly a lot of factors. People want to live in trendy cities. There's a lot to consider besides rent - culture, nightlife, etc. San Francisco sure does have some of the best food in the country (and with tech consuming most of spare time the way it is, eating out is really a huge part of culture). Rent definitely ends up being the deal breaker for many, but for others isn't. It's a lot harder for a comp…

See, here's the thing about coastal types: they are obsessed with getting the "top" talent, as if every project or startup requires it. What if most startups only need "good" developers to develop their mostly CRUD apps and don't need "the best" developers?

They must have a different definition of "top" talent. I'm thinking of people like Daniel Bernstein and Fabrice Bellard. The list is really very short.

But of course that definition is useless to a VC fueled, exponentially growing trainwreck/unicorn that wants to hire hundreds or thousands of "engineers".

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#385

Post by passiveincomelg » Sun, Mar 26, 2017, 9:02 AM UTC

Arizhel wrote: post #373

csense wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone has to be co-located in the same place. Why?

You can't question this. It's known to be true to executives and managers.

Preach the gospel sister, brother or other gender identity!

Executives and managers are the priests and offices are their temples. Amen.

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#386

Post by FullMtlAlcoholc » Sun, Mar 26, 2017, 10:30 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #378

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't the best response, but I think it's indicative of how urban high culture often becomes conflated with elitism. As I reread it, it appears that I was being dismissive of my hometown while trying not to be. First, let's be clear with our terms here. "Multiculturalism" is a heavily loaded term. Despite its Judeo-Christian heritage I would argue that the United States does not operate as a multicultural natio…

> ...there is some sort of meetup for all the things in a LA or NYC. For your kind of things. In NYC, it's harder to find great snowboarding clubs, demolition derbies, Baptist churches, bass fishing, tacos, and BBQ places. I've been to a mule rodeo before. Haven't heard of something like that in LA. Not all of those things are my bag of chips, but they're all "culture". Some "culture" either requires less population…

>harder to find great snowboarding clubs, demolition derbies, Baptist churches, bass fishing, tacos, and BBQ places

Harder to find than where? A number of the things you mention are limited simply by geography (snowboarding, bass fishing, etc.) I'd wager that you'll also find a decent amount of taco and bbq places compared, to say, Utica. There appears to be a number of Baptist churches in NYC according to google.

When I talk about LA, I'm speaking more generally about the county and its surrounding areas...There are mule rodeos around a half day's drive from LA. You are right that some culture typically requires lower population density, but you usually find some form of it in mega-cities due to emigration.

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#387

Post by fred_is_fred » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 4:20 AM UTC

paulpauper wrote: post #73

It has to at least track inflation, which varies between 2-4% a year, so yes they can go up 'forever'

Rents in fact do not have to at least track inflation. With increasing housing supply or loss of jobs, rents in will in fact go down.

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#388

Post by iamatworknow » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 6:18 PM UTC

jimlawruk wrote: post #359

iamatworknow wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the issue I face in the area where I grew up and still reside in rural New York. If you read the newspaper editorials it's a constant string of racist and homophobic garbage. I'm approaching 30 and it's very hard to find like minded people here, much less single women with ambitions and who aren't just looking for a baby daddy. So why haven't I moved? Frankly I'm scared that I can't cut it elsewhere. My job i…

Where in upstate? You should look up Duncan Crary, who lives in Troy, NY. He did a ton of podcasts with James Howard Kunstler, and has a newer one called a Small American City. It is about this very topic of revitalizing small American cities. There is also Ithaca, NY.

A few days late but I'm way farther north than Troy -- St. Lawrence county. I can check out the podcast, though.

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#389

Post by pix64 » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 7:58 PM UTC

geff82 wrote: post #4

Especially for information technology, I don't understand the rationale why it has to be concentrated at certain places. As long as there is a good net connection, it could be anywhere in the world. Let's concentrate on the US for a moment. Why can't a successful startup not be in Dallas, Amarillo, Miami or Des Moines? Talented people already move from one coast to the other, so they could as well move to any other p…

> Talented people already move from one coast to the other, so they could as well move to any other place.

But any-town, USA has nothing else to offer them in terms of entertainment, arts, food. I live in the 77th largest city in the US and this place is dead.

Re: Rents in Megacities Can't Go Up Forever

#390

Post by mehaveaccount » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 5:46 AM UTC

wan23 wrote: post #118

mehaveaccount wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree strongly. I live in NYC for work. I actually hate living here and I don't like the people I'm around. I am desperately looking for a way out of this city but my family lives on Long Island, so it's hard to justify going to another city.

Why don't you move to Long Island and commute? If you don't like the city there are plenty of smaller towns nearby and it's cheaper too.

If I live near my family on Long Island it would be a 2.5 hour commute to my job each way. If I live halfway between them and my job then I'm neither close to them nor my job. So living near my job is the least bad option, and that seems to be the option most people take.