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Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

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Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#431

Post by refurb »

rgbrenner wrote: post #411
alistairSH wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, they are (very) generally less affluent, so they are less able to absorb cost increases. This is particularly the case in areas that are rapidly gentrifying. It's a visible issue in some neighborhoods in DC. Blocks that were nearly 100% minority 15 years ago are predominantly young, white, and affluent. But, the corner church is still run by a minority pastor, with a largely minority congregation, all of w…

wouldn't it be more accurate to say poor people then? It's not just poor minorities who can't live in these areas.. poor whites, poor elderly, etc aren't living there either. And I'm sure Satya Nadella doesn't have a problem paying for a house anywhere, even though he's a minority.

Agree. It's a poor person problem, not a minority problem. The effort some people will put into pushing identity politics is astounding.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#432

Post by damnyou »

lisper wrote: post #429
damnyou wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soviet-style central planning is not "the market." Euclidean zoning is Soviet-style central planning.

That's ridiculous. Soviet-style central planning is not what is happening in the Bay area. The zoning there is being done by democratically elected governments and the land being developed is privately owned and can be freely bought and sold. The resulting high prices are absolutely the result of market forces.

Why are democratically elected governments and Soviet-style planning mutually exclusive? Democratically elected governments do all sorts of horrible and unjust things. For modern examples see Erdogan and Duterte.

The land itself is privately owned, sure, but undeveloped land is not very useful.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#433

Post by jamiek88 »

Mz wrote: post #237
client4 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I operate casually.

Sigh. I am really really bad at this. I ask a question. The reply is often defensive. Conversation fails to happen, often coming to a screeching halt. I am not trying to dump a project in your lap. I really appreciated your comment. It makes me want to do something with the info. Before my life was derailed, I was studying to become an urban planner, but was really more interested in regional planning. I have a since…

> More organized than a random comment on HN...

You mentioned you are bad at this, just a little unsolicited help - I am not the guy you responded to but even initially got my back up reading that. I was thinking jeez this guy puts his hand out to help, agrees to meet one other local dev, comments how he knows half of them and basically gets accused of laziness / slacktivism!

It’s clear you didn’t mean that now, tone from text is really hard to judge and people default to assuming the worst, even subconsciously so perhaps leading with your clarification in the second post or somtheing lkke it may increase your conversion to conversation rate!

Sorry if this insults you, it is not meant to.

Also, I’m putting words into the mouth of the OP of this sub thread too which are more than likely wrong.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#434

Post by [deleted] »

lisper wrote: post #399
mixmastamyk wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of space, too many NIMBYs. Just heard a lady in my neighborhood in L.A. complaining about the development of a parking lot and crackhouse into a modern apartment building. Didn’t even bother to argue, sometimes the divide is too great.

And what exactly is wrong with NIMBY-ism? Not everyone likes living in dense cities. I don't see anything wrong with groups of people who prefer to live in less dense development working together to create less dense places to live. The problem is that there are (as I said) more people who prefer to live in less dense development than there is space to accommodate them all. At that point, the market takes over and de…

[deleted]

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#435

Post by softawre »

rdtsc wrote: post #402
davidw wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where will they go Other tech hubs. Portland, Seattle - even little Bend has plenty of people from California who are attracted by the (for them) low housing prices. They, in turn, put pressure on housing prices for 'ordinary' people here. California's housing crisis has repercussions all up and down the west coast.

The funny thing is these companies talk about digital connectivity moving to the cloud, editing files in the cloud, video conferencing in the cloud, make social networks in the cloud, buy things online without leaving your house, watch movies online etc. Everything is online, pretty, efficient, and convenient. Then they turn right around and tell all their employees to move to the area, then to get in their cars, bus…

If that's really such a waste then where are all the remote-only companies eating everybody's lunch? Has it not yet been long enough since remote working has reached some workable peak?

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#436

Post by ghaff »

lisper wrote: post #399
mixmastamyk wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of space, too many NIMBYs. Just heard a lady in my neighborhood in L.A. complaining about the development of a parking lot and crackhouse into a modern apartment building. Didn’t even bother to argue, sometimes the divide is too great.

And what exactly is wrong with NIMBY-ism? Not everyone likes living in dense cities. I don't see anything wrong with groups of people who prefer to live in less dense development working together to create less dense places to live. The problem is that there are (as I said) more people who prefer to live in less dense development than there is space to accommodate them all. At that point, the market takes over and de…

NIMBY is such a tired criticism. I live in an exurban/rural town on the East Coast. My town pretty consistently votes against major developments. We like the apple orchards and forest land like it is. We don’t want suburban style developments that increase traffic and taxes or industrial development outside of the light industry on the north side of town near the highway. If you want to call it NIMBY go ahead. As far as I’m concerned it’s just voting for how the local community should be.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#437

Post by flaque »

taway_1212 wrote: post #242
mabbo wrote: post #78

It seems ironic that the land of self-aggrandizing free market disruption (Uber, AirBnb) seems so against the obvious free-market solution to their problems: increase supply. You have too little of something, and it's causing prices to skyrocket because demand is increasing. So make more of it, reducing the price. I just got back from a visit to the Bay Area. Outside of SF itself, not a single building over 4 stories…

> All that air space that could be condos, homes for people, anything at all, wasted so that "people can see the mountains better". Meanwhile, my friend and his girlfriend are paying $4000/month for 1000 sqft. My guess is that, if significant amounts of extra housing were added in the Bay Area, software devs salaries would fall. Right now, software companies need to pay insane money in order to offset the insane cost…

This assumes that the cost of living would stay the same. Salaries might fall, but so would cost of living.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#438

Post by amyjess »

chimeracoder wrote: post #383
amyjess wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LGBT people, too. I'm a trans lesbian, born and still live in Texas. When I move out of state, it's going to be a state with trans-inclusive protections at the state level. Spending this entire year worrying about Dan Patrick shoving transphobic legislation down our throats was emotionally harrowing, and I don't want to go through it again. I hope to be out of the state by the time the 2019 session begins. And Patric…

> I utterly despise hipsters, I'm a very proud neoliberal globalist Jew, and I'm an establishment Democrat that despises the Bernie wing), so that's making it hard to find a place that's exactly like what I want. I'm looking for a conservative, sprawling suburb that isn't riddled with hipsters and is located in a blue state. I also insist on a place where AC is universal, and for food-related reasons, I want to live…

I have family in Westchester, so I'm somewhat familiar with the area.

I dislike how old the houses are, and the way it's laid out, the residential areas feel like they're out in the country. And central AC isn't universal there: the house in Bronxville my aunt and uncle lived in when I was a kid didn't have it, though they installed it shortly before they sold it in 2003 (and like most New York Jews, moved to Florida). Not sure about the house in Harrison my cousin just bought; I'll have to ask her.

I'm also not a fan of how the suburbs of NYC all orbit around the city. All of the good shopping is in the city. All of the jobs are in the city. When my aunt came to visit me for my college graduation, she was shocked at the massive amount of restaurants and shopping in the suburbs of Dallas, because where she comes from, the suburbs are just bedroom communities and all the businesses are in the city. I'm also used to working in the suburbs; in Dallas right now, I live in the burbs and commute farther out in the burbs. You can't do that in New York.

And the suburbs there are laid out like shit too: Dallas suburbs are all built on an arterial grid, where the suburbs contain endless six-lane divided arterial roads placed one mile apart from each other both north-south and east-west. On the other hand, major thoroughfares in Westchester are two-lane roads, and nothing is laid out with any rhyme or reason.

My ultimate fantasy is for somebody to dig Plano, TX out of the ground and transplant it into a blue state. I want to live somewhere that's exactly like where I live now, except in a state with state-level LGBT protections and a 0% chance of electing a government that will reverse them.

To give you an idea of what I'm looking for, here are some Street View shots of residential neighborhoods in Plano. I'm looking for some place that looks identical:

https://goo.gl/maps/d9shDtPFxZ62

https://goo.gl/maps/6pLpYCtpW2R2

https://goo.gl/maps/QWRw3rVfMPr

On the other hand, here are some Street View shots of the Westchester I'm used to. I'm not a fan at all of how this looks:

https://goo.gl/maps/KKk9JrbsJ3N2

https://goo.gl/maps/Z45RMzKMcwk

https://goo.gl/maps/9DDrupuPYy92

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#439

Post by wavefunction »

tezzer wrote: post #385
WalterSear wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-driving cars are going to be rewriting the commute paradigm. It's important to factor that in.

So I still won't be able to see my kids awake because of a 1.5 hour commute each way, but I'll be able to read the newspaper on the way to work? No thanks.

@Walter

Sounds like a terribly inefficient and unsustainable lifestyle. Commuting just for stand up?

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#440

Post by sputknick »

haalia wrote: post #264
0xbear wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

400k in Bellevue buys you a dilapidated shack at the outskirts. For anything decent you’re talking $1m and up.

At this point I'd be perfectly happy with a dilapidated shack in Bellevue. Anything to cut down on the soul-crushing commute. Now if only employers embraced remote-work fully, I'd move to Gold Bar or somewhere else in the Cascades and dispense with the city altogether.

Come to Monroe, commute isn't terrible, drive is nice, town is great. I wouldn't go closer to Seattle now even if I could afford it.
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