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

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

#141

Post by hatsunearu » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 6:05 PM UTC

lex_luthor wrote: post #59

ucaetano wrote: post #52

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…

True. But a non-political solution to affordable housing could be coming soon in the form of rapid transit via Hyperloop. Hyperloop could put deflationary pressure on housing prices. If Hyperloop actually materializes, and their route transit times are anywhere near what they say they will be, then real estate prices should decline in the bay area, or at the worst level out. I doubt people will continue to pay crazy…

Hilarious comment. Hyperloop is literally a bomb.

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

#142

Post by fencepost » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 6:06 PM UTC

wang_li wrote: post #45

nxsynonym wrote: post #2

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…

Just yesterday I was commenting here on this very situation, but she has already moved her home out of the city in search of less expensive rent. She really should find a job out of the city as well. If the highly paid workers in the city want to buy coffee or sandwiches or whatever, they can pay prices that reflect the true cost of living in the city and not some indirect subsidized price.

TL;DR on my own comment: she's in her early 60s with all that entails for jobs and job hunting. She's making the best of being basically trapped.

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

#143

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 6:06 PM UTC

rjsw wrote: post #111

mmanfrin wrote: post #91

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.

[deleted]

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

#144

Post by chx » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 6:07 PM UTC

mmanfrin wrote: post #91

ucaetano wrote: post #52

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…

https://goo.gl/maps/BeMyux1Ha2T2

in less than 1.5 hours you can be in Zurich from Konstanz without a transfer (if you insist on 7am sharp then it's one transfer taking less than five minutes). Just in case you want to live in a nice university city and not a little village. And it's way, way cheaper than Zurich https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

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

#145

Post by flick » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 6:07 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #81

ucaetano wrote: post #52

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…

> The housing and infrastructure problems in the SFBA are purely political, and self-inflicted. That's true, but the implication that these decisions are inarguably stupid ("self-inflicted") is unfair. It's a conscious and IMHO defensible choice by the people who already live here: we would prefer to deal with the problems caused by insufficient housing than by the problems caused by overly dense population.

But the thing is that you (Bay Area landowners) are not really bearing the cost of insufficient housing. In fact, you're benefiting through increasing home values (for which you are not taxed due to Prop. 13). It's renters and others like Ms. James who are being hurt. The particularly cruel aspect of this is that once these people have been forced to the edges of the Bay Area, they no longer get to participate in the future decisions that will either exacerbate or alleviate this problem. Ms. James no longer gets to vote in Alameda, and thus has no say in the decisions that keep housing costs high and her commute long.

That's why I believe housing policy needs to be decided at the Bay Area or CA state level. When these decisions are made at the local level, it's people like your friends who selfishly vote to inflict the high costs of housing on to others. Hopefully this NIMBY-ism can be averted by making sure that all stakeholders get a say in the housing policy of a incredibly interconnected region.

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

#146

Post by jedberg » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 6:08 PM UTC

PopsiclePete wrote: post #7

So why do we keep commuting for jobs that don't really require our physical presence? It was a long hard battle for me to be able to work from home, and yes, I sometimes do miss out on face-to-face interaction, but going to the office 2 instead of 5 days a week is still a huge win - I'm not in a car out there, making traffic worse for you . You're welcome. Can we please solve the supposed "interaction" problem with s…

My company is 100% remote, but it is not without it's challenges. As you mention, the whiteboard is a big one. There isn't a good digital equivalent yet that isn't a fortune.

But not everyone wants to work remotely. I asked my friend, and he said he would never work at a remote company because, "I enjoy having face to face conversations with my coworkers about work."

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

#147

Post by midnightclubbed » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 6:08 PM UTC

KekDemaga wrote: post #31

falsedan wrote: post #18

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.

The price of land dwarfs the cost of construction. Outside of the Bay there are huge housing developments underway and although I am sure property developers would rather have less regulation they do not seem to be struggling to build homes. In a state with active fault lines and environmental pressures from much of it being in the desert deregulation is not going to help our long term prosperity or safety.

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

#148

Post by rbcgerard » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 6:08 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #71

nxsynonym wrote: post #2

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…

On the other hand, I feel that she's over-compensating a little. No-one's saying the $1600/month that she was paying for a 1br in Alameda is "cheap" in any way... But at $81K salary, her $1000/mo rent is only just touching 20% of her take home, which is in the "very comfortable" range (for reference, most property management companies want you to be "not exceeding 35% of take home income").

I think the answer is she's making a choice based on her preferences:

1. Live and Work in SF make $80k, and live in small expensive housing

2. Work in SF and make $80k, live in Stockton and get more and pay less for a house, and spend a ton of time commuting

3. Live and Work in Stockton, make way less, live in a place larger than SF but Smaller than #2 and not have to commute

She chose #2 - others make different choices

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

#149

Post by stillhere » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 6:09 PM UTC

lex_luthor wrote: post #59

ucaetano wrote: post #52

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…

True. But a non-political solution to affordable housing could be coming soon in the form of rapid transit via Hyperloop. Hyperloop could put deflationary pressure on housing prices. If Hyperloop actually materializes, and their route transit times are anywhere near what they say they will be, then real estate prices should decline in the bay area, or at the worst level out. I doubt people will continue to pay crazy…

They'll just raise prices in the exurbs.

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

#150

Post by WillPostForFood » Thu, Aug 17, 2017, 6:09 PM UTC

santaclaus wrote: post #70

ghomrassen wrote: post #62

What's to stop San Francisco from creating a lot more high-density housing? Doesn't that solve many issues with housing supply? Looking at wikipedia, the density is crazy low even compared to other major cities in the US.

> What's to stop San Francisco from creating a lot more high-density housing? Entrenched residents who oppose new construction, primarily. Look at the recent kerfuffles involving residents opposing the replacement of parking lots with housing.

Lack of infrastructure as well. Despite the low density, it is pain to get around SF and bay area generally unless you are luck enough to have a trip that starts or ends near one of the few rail lines. Double the density, and getting around would go from bad to worse.