The Unaffordable Urban Paradise
technologyreview.com
The Unaffordable Urban Paradise
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Re: The Unaffordable Urban Paradise
#2The author's recommendations are certainly apt, though I wonder if he realizes how much of a political nightmare trying to get cities like Berkeley to build more housing is. Berkeley is probably the staunchest NIMBY city of the major Bay Area cities. The mayor and city council recently outright denied a simple rebuild of a house on Haskell St (heh) that would have added a couple extra units of housing.
We believe this to be in violation of the Housing Accountability Act, and have brought a lawsuit against Berkeley that you can read about if you're interested! http://www.carlaef.org/berkeley
More broadly, the Bay Area needs to build housing as quickly as possible. If you work at a tech company, please consider getting your company involved. If you can't participate directly, there are increasingly many groups in the Bay Area dedicated to lifting outdated zoning restrictions and accelerating the pace of housing development. We would love to have your patronage! http://www.sfyimby.org/
Re: The Unaffordable Urban Paradise
#3Now everything’s changed. In 2016, the San Francisco metro area was the top location for venture capital investment in the country, hauling in $23.4 billion—more than triple the VC investment in Silicon Valley proper.
Interesting numbers, what seems to be evidence of inflation chasing inflation. There's no logical justification for such a concentrated purse of investment dollars benefiting so few people. Furthermore, it would seem that it's benefiting the same people over and over ... the most obvious driver here is turnover. Probably there are a lot of PMCs in SF who absolutely bet on (hope for) the failure of most of the companies getting these investment dollars, the second they've signed their leases. Because who doesn't lose out when a startup fails and has to shutdown? The rent takers, the leaseholders prepared with aggressive litigation... everybody else loses. (As a side note, I'm pretty sure this is how the current US president's family empire was built: http://www.citypaper.com/blogs/the-news-hole/bcpnews-trump-s...)
In the 1980s, I was part of a team doing research into the geography of the high-tech industry. We couldn’t find a single significant high-tech company in an urban neighborhood. Instead, they were all out in the suburbs—not just Intel and Apple in Silicon Valley, or Microsoft in the Seattle suburbs, but the Route 128 beltway outside Boston, and the corporate campuses of North Carolina’s Research Triangle.
Because companies in the 80's were smarter. They knew that if you wanted to build a company that can build equity, you cannot be beholden to the lease holders and the rent takers. They built in the burbs because that is where they could establish equity. Today the "barriers to entry" for owning in SF are just too high for most; the continual delusion of people who think they can build a sustainable business model while being based in SF is mind-boggling to me.
Re: The Unaffordable Urban Paradise
#4Please do correct me if I am wrong.
But isn't the whole reason lower class job salaries increased in the USA was simply because they had just won a world war?
I do not know enough about the reasons for affluence in the 50s, but surely it was in large part to success in the war?
If so, how could one suggest the minimum wage is just raised without it causing mass unemployment in the present?
I must be misunderstanding something.
Re: The Unaffordable Urban Paradise
#5Now everything’s changed. In 2016, the San Francisco metro area was the top location for venture capital investment in the country, hauling in $23.4 billion—more than triple the VC investment in Silicon Valley proper. Interesting numbers, what seems to be evidence of inflation chasing inflation. There's no logical justification for such a concentrated purse of investment dollars benefiting so few people. Furthermore,…
"Inflation chasing inflation."
Thanks for that concise summary.
Re: The Unaffordable Urban Paradise
#6This is an incredibly "urbanist" piece. No mention at all of companies moving to less-populous locations, let alone alternatives such as remote work. It's hard not to be left with the impression that the author isn't going to be happy until everyone is living like ants.
Re: The Unaffordable Urban Paradise
#7Now everything’s changed. In 2016, the San Francisco metro area was the top location for venture capital investment in the country, hauling in $23.4 billion—more than triple the VC investment in Silicon Valley proper. Interesting numbers, what seems to be evidence of inflation chasing inflation. There's no logical justification for such a concentrated purse of investment dollars benefiting so few people. Furthermore,…
Renting has been the standard model for suburban office parks too. Most companies do not own their own office buildings. It's more common for specialized space, e.g. manufacturing facilities but not usually done for offices.
Re: The Unaffordable Urban Paradise
#8Privatize the profits and socialize the losses, the great American dream.
Re: The Unaffordable Urban Paradise
#9This is an incredibly "urbanist" piece. No mention at all of companies moving to less-populous locations, let alone alternatives such as remote work. It's hard not to be left with the impression that the author isn't going to be happy until everyone is living like ants.
Hard not to be left with the impression that you consider people who enjoy living in cities to be insects, and expect every piece you read to reflect that bizarre prejudice.
Re: The Unaffordable Urban Paradise
#10This is an incredibly "urbanist" piece. No mention at all of companies moving to less-populous locations, let alone alternatives such as remote work. It's hard not to be left with the impression that the author isn't going to be happy until everyone is living like ants.
If companies want to do either of those things, that's fine, but it should also be fine to move to the city. Many people like living in cities, and even people who like living in suburban areas can use transit to commute.
Or rather, they should be able to use transit to commute, unfortunately the state of transit in most of the US is rather poor, to say the least.