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A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

nytimes.com

131–140 of 323 posts

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically impossible to get a job in Zurich though. In San Fransisco, a coding bootcamp grad can get 140K out the door. This is how capitalism works. We take the bad with the good. Politics reflect the will of the people and the people in San Fransisco on both sides of the aisle want to make as much money as they can, any way they can.

> In San Fransisco, a coding bootcamp grad can get 140K out the door I really hope that's not true

It probally is. I don't get those who don't see the bubble.

On the bright side, when Icantcompetewithamonoploy.com dies--the price of housing will drop, especially in the less desirable areas.

My fear is not housing, it's what us the SFBA going to do with the huge amount of homeless that will just appear.

(Anyone in this industry should be very concerned about homelessness. No real barrier to entry. No real skills, or skills that can be lost in a couple of years. And an industry that kicks people out after a certain age.)

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#132

San Francisco has more than twice the area of Manhattan, with half the population. The San Francisco Bay Area CSA has about the same population as Switzerland, with 2/3 of the area of Switzerland. Both have similar GDPs. If someone wanted to live in Germany, and commute to work in Zurich, with Swiss salaries and German cost-of-living, their commute would be about 1h15min. The housing and infrastructure problems in th…

San Francisco is surrounded by cities which are not San Francisco. Manhattan is part of New York City, and is surrounded by more of New York City. If someone lived 80 miles away from Zurich, in a German town such as Sankt Märgen, Google is telling me that it would take 2h 51m [1]. This tells me that if the woman in the Article made that same distance commute in German/Switzerland with, say, 30 minutes of slack, she w…

[deleted]

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#133
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but with a self-driving car you'll be able to sleep during your commute.

Is that really good sleep, though? I've slept on trains, buses, planes, cars where I wasn't driving, and that sleep is never the same quality as sleep in a bed.

Someone will make one that's comfy, like an RV that is a moving bedroom. The modes you mention either have to accommodate a driver who can't sleep or they have to squish a lot of people in to make it cheap.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#134
The reason it's so expensive to live near SF is because of people like this.

Your landlord knows how much you'll pay if they know you work in the gay area and will tolerate a 5-hour commute.

It's the same reason NJ is becoming more expensive. They know you'll pay because you're willing to ride PATH every day to get to work.

Don't commute more than an hour to work. If you can't afford to live close to your work, find different work.

People like this are making it even worse, and not just in SF, in NYC, in Boston, in and around Raleigh, in ATX, everywhere.

Commuting is making it harder for other people and yourself.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> new housing wouldn't be needed Bay Area housing supply has been growing less than demand for the last 30 years. New housing is needed, regardless of who is employing whom.

California building codes are pretty extreme from what I've seen, they go as far as measuring the pull force required to open a door for example. This seems like a place where a little deregulation would go a long way.

Isn't the door pull thing for handicapped accessibility?

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#136
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...because these companies can just go somewhere else that won't pressure them, so when cities are faced with a billion dollar tech campus or none at all they often feel like they have to bend. Cities often even cut taxes to see big companies come into town. Capitalism will always win against public infrastructure.

It's not really "winning" so much as finding an economic equilibrium (unless that's what you mean by "capitalism"). I think the problem here is the regulation that prevents the construction of new homes. If you remove that artificial barrier, housing costs could decline. Alternatively, the municipalities could tax the real estate developers who are profiting from the regulation, but if you can get that resolution to…

good point

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#137
post #6

While the rising cost of housing is an easy target, why not put the pressure on the companies that are driving the influx of workers and out of control cost of living? If tech companies are drawing people into cities and forcing out those who keep the city itself operating, why not have them subsidize and improve public transportation? Lower income housing? Encourage more remote work or move their headquarters out of…

This isn't an issue of tech companies forcing anyone out. Bay area municipalities and NIMBY property owners have created a hostile regulatory environment for property developers, leading to a lack of new housing coming onto the market and driving rents upward.

Keep going up the chain of causality. Property Owners are so NIMBY because there's an economic incentive to behave that way. This is only the case because Prop 13 caps their property taxes. If California had property taxes that, like other states, could increase as the assessed value of your home increases, the incentive to oppose new building would be significantly lessened and it would then be in everyone's best interest to keep housing costs low, not just those who rent or are looking to buy.

Prop 13 is immoral and has not only wreaked havoc on real estate market in the state but has also gutted the state's public education system. It needs to be repealed before any progress on these housing issues can be made. There can be provisions to ensure that people don't lose their homes to rising property taxes...Texas, IIRC, has one that allows property taxes to accrue and only need to be paid when the title of the property changes hands, which seems like a good compromise. But the state's population is going to go up which means we're going to need to build a lot more housing, and our laws need to create an environment where that can happen.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#138

While the rising cost of housing is an easy target, why not put the pressure on the companies that are driving the influx of workers and out of control cost of living? If tech companies are drawing people into cities and forcing out those who keep the city itself operating, why not have them subsidize and improve public transportation? Lower income housing? Encourage more remote work or move their headquarters out of…

Why punish companies for being successful enough to create attractive, high-paying jobs? The consequences of doing that won't be very good for anyone. A slower economy will hurt the low-income workers a bit more than the high-income workers. What we need is a solution that encourages and accommodates success, not one that punishes it.

Why not punish companies for creating jobs in an already crowded area? How many attractive, high-paying jobs in SF are tied to the city by any physical necessity? If companies want to avoid being punished, all they have to do is move their offices to a less crowded city.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#139
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco is surrounded by cities which are not San Francisco. Manhattan is part of New York City, and is surrounded by more of New York City. If someone lived 80 miles away from Zurich, in a German town such as Sankt Märgen, Google is telling me that it would take 2h 51m [1]. This tells me that if the woman in the Article made that same distance commute in German/Switzerland with, say, 30 minutes of slack, she w…

You seem to have picked the town that is furthest away from an Autobahn in Southern Germany. There are plenty of small towns along the Rhine or near the Bodensee that are commutable to Zurich. People commute to Geneva from France too.

How about Lindau? 80 miles from Zurich across the large body of water? Google shows 2:30-3 hours of morning commute by transit.
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