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

nytimes.com

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

#171

Post by Grustaf »

As the article says, she could sleep 90 minutes longer. And if she drove to work, she does have a car, she could easily leave at five.

She could also get a 3200 dollar apartment where she used to live, have at least two rooms, sleep late and still have 3550 left every month.

Maybe medical insurance and such things that we europeans don't need to buy are very expensive, but apart from that it doesn't seem very difficult to live on 3500 after rent for a single person. My whole family spends less than that after rent, four people in one of the most expensive cities in the world, Copenhagen.

I must be missing part of the equation here.

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

#172

Post by sluggg »

b4ux1t3 wrote: post #165
WalterSear wrote: post #74

I feel bad for her, but if she's taking an hour and a half to leave the house in the morning, she's >choosing< to get up at 2am.

Is wanting to be fully alert before leaving the house so strange?

yes. Particularly when you are driving to sit on a bus, then on a train where you don't have to be alert at all.

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

#173

Post by solatic »

curun1r wrote: post #137
andrewjl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 in…

> 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.

So it's not OK for rising rents to force property elderly owners to sell and move away, but it is OK for rising rents to force elderly renters to move away?

You can't defend property tax deferments for the elderly without also defending rent control for them. Either way you have the same problem of local residents thinking it's OK for everyone else to suffer lower supply and higher costs, as long as they aren't suffering.

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

#174

Post by lisper »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #156
lisper wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>It's a conscious and IMHO defensible choice by the people who already live here... This statement smells really, really bad. As the article stated, she had to leave the SFBA because she was evicted and the housing prices had gone up too much. She lived there, and didn't chose that. As with all gentrification, the population that lived there didn't chose for affluent (typically white) people to move in and raise thei…

Then she and other likeminded people should have organized politically and pressured the government to change the zoning laws before it was too late. Everything going on in the SFBA is the direct result of capitalism and democracy in action. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but I don't see any principled way you could object to it.

[UPDATE] Let me clarify: I can see how you could object to various aspects of our political system. I myself am active in trying to tackle the problem of income inequality and getting Citizens United repealed. But the housing problems in the SFBA are just symptoms of this much larger overlying problem. You can object to those, and I'll be right beside you. What I'm talking about is focusing on the high cost of housing in the SFBA in isolation as if it's a standalone problem that has a simple and obvious solution that the Powers That Be are just too dim to see or too corrupt to implement. That is not the case.

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

#177

Post by foobarian »

ucaetano wrote: post #120
lisper wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I never claimed them to be stupid. Your words, not mine. But the Stanford professor writing about the plight of the poor workers commuting for 2 hours lives in a multi-million dollar home in Atherton and votes for anti-poor-people zoning laws. The young, billionaire, startup CEO who wants to cause a positive impact in the world lives in Los Altos Hills, where zoning laws forbid lot sizes smaller than 1 acre, and bans…

Didn't the Zuckerbergs buy a couple of adjacent homes [1] so they don't have to look at their neighbors?

[1] http://www.mercurynews.com/2013/10/10/mark-zuckerberg-buys-f...

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

#178

Post by lisper »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #113
lisper wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Politics in the US are controlled by the rich, so the idea that "the people" are choosing to deal with the consequences of this housing crisis is absurd. What's happening is that the wealthy are externalizing all the suffering caused by their voracious rent-seeking onto those beneath them, including middle class developers who think their interests align with them (they don't).

I don't understand why you're being downvoted because I think your comment is perfectly valid and you are entirely correct. Nonetheless, this is the system that we have, and the housing situation in the SFBA is a product of that system. If you think it's a problem you need to change the system, not the symptom.

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

#179

Post by icebraining »

wang_li wrote: post #160
icebraining wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ...she's a public health adviser for the United States Department of Health and Human Services. I'm pretty sure she's not selling sandwiches.

The same principle applies.

How so? What do highly paid workers in the city have to do with her job?

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

#180

Post by emodendroket »

curun1r wrote: post #137
andrewjl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 in…

> 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.

That might make rational sense but it is not how homeowners actually behave.

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