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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

#601

Post by cvwright »

Bartweiss wrote: post #523
ghaff wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in the case of Boston many/most of the tech jobs still aren’t in the city itself although that’s shifted a fair bit. That’s a big difference between cities. In the Bay Area it’s hard to get away from very high prices. 45 to 60 minutes out of Boston in many directions and you’re into relatively reasonably priced housing.

Yep, exactly. Boston's financial tech is deep downtown (Harborside), but other big-name firms like Athena have set up shop in the outskirts and even run shuttles out from the city center. I suppose part of the reason is the number of colleges out past the densest part of the city, and the rest is the difficulty of building urban offices compared to expanding out into the cheaper Cambridge/Somerville/Watertown market.…

You know things have gotten bad in CA when people are saying Boston has "not too much NIMBYism" in comparison.

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

#602

Post by drharby »

taftster wrote: post #428
drharby wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The barriars to financing does not discount the accuracy of his/her/its comments

His comments. :) But "its" would have been interesting.

Attack helicoptors have opinions too

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

#603

Post by marcell »

xster wrote: post #580
marcell wrote: post #293

Whenever these threads come up, the NIMBY pitch forks come out. I 100% agree that we should build more housing in the Bay Area, but some perspective is helpful. The Bay Area is already one of the most densely populated regions in America: http://ecpmlangues.u-strasbg.fr/civilization/geography/maps/... And San Francisco is the 3rd most densely populated city in America, if you look at cities with over 100k people: htt…

Vancouver is more geographically restricted than San Francisco. Didn't prevent it from becoming a world renowned example of how to do city planning right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouverism

Perhaps they did some things better, but in terms of pure population increase I don't think it's comparable:

    Vancouver 2010: 603,000
    Vancouver 2016: 631,000 
    Vancouver increase: ~28,000

    SF 2010: 805,000
    SF 2016: 864,000
    SF increase: ~59,000
So SF added twice as many residents as Vancouver in the same time period, And this is despite SF being denser than Vancouver to begin with.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver [2] http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/san-francisco-pop...

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

#604

Post by linkregister »

lisper wrote: post #388
deepsun wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you drive 30 minutes any direction from San Francisco, you will see plenty of vast empty fields covered with wild grasses. I don't argue that we should cover all the land available with houses, I like wild grass, but I just point out that if we really hadn't enough space -- we would have settled it already. I've never heard the now popular "Earth is overpopulated" rant from anyone who lives outside major metro. Go…

> I like wild grass And that is the problem. You're not the only one. Yes, if we turned the San Francisco Bay area into a clone of Manhattan or Hong Kong or Tokyo we could accommodate a lot more people. But a lot of people would not consider that a good outcome. People who like that kind of lifestyle can have it in any of the dozens of dense cities on the planet. The SFBay area is desirable precisely because it is no…

This is a red herring argument. There is no need to raze the redwoods or pave Golden Gate Park.

Changing the single-family zoning to just allow 2 or 3 story housing on 1 out of 10 blocks would be enough to alleviate the shortage, provided developers had few enough regulatory obstacles.

It boggles my mind that the Palo Alto Caltrain abuts single family homes with 5000 sq ft yards. Their quality of life is low due to the noise and traffic. That area really should be apartments.

Going to Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, or any other similar city will show you that a little density in the right places can accommodate many people.

Paris isn’t a sci-fi dystopia. It’s still pleasant, and has more than 2x density as SF.

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

#605

Post by Apocryphon »

WalterSear wrote: post #535
riot504 wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we even need to get into any transportation system, why not work remotely 90% of the time?

Why don't we work remotely 90% of the time already? There are deep seated biological and cultural reasons why current technologies don't replace physical proximity. Some of the more important ones, such as networking, remote technologies can't even try to address. It's terrible for job seeking, lateral career changes and building connections.

Maybe VR/AR offices are the future. Certainly they'd present less legislative and social hurdles than self-driving cars.

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

#606

Post by linkregister »

lisper wrote: post #363
Gargoyle wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what people tell themselves in order to make their suffering tolerable. But the best places to live even just in California are amazingly underpopulated.

The best places to live are the best in no small measure because they are underpopulated. The SF peninsula is one of the most desirable (and expensive) areas in the greater bay area in no small measure because very few people live there, so we have less traffic, hiking trails, horse properties, peace and quiet.

Looking at Redfin, I see similarly-prices places in Presidio Heights, Marina, and near Dolores Park in Mission, all with much smaller lot sizes.

Sure, Peninsula is expensive, but its proximity to jobs is the major driver of its housing costs.

You can have all that and more in Salinas or San Luis Obispo, but you’ll find that the lack of jobs makes property values far lower.

You don’t have to tear down parkland or pave the horse trails to allow a few more large apartment complexes next to the already noise-polluting Caltrain line.

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

#607

Post by jimmydddd »

softawre wrote: post #435
rdtsc wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I would think WordPress is a good example.

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

#608

Post by linkregister »

swendoog wrote: post #510
nerfhammer wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? Have you looked at population growth vs. housing growth in those areas, or how restrictive the zoning is?

Absolutely. Take a look at Sacramento's real estate / rental prices.

Yes, Sac’s a great example of a city that is largely in line with housing costs versus median salary increases.

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

#609

Post by nradov »

linkregister wrote: post #606
lisper wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best places to live are the best in no small measure because they are underpopulated. The SF peninsula is one of the most desirable (and expensive) areas in the greater bay area in no small measure because very few people live there, so we have less traffic, hiking trails, horse properties, peace and quiet.

Looking at Redfin, I see similarly-prices places in Presidio Heights, Marina, and near Dolores Park in Mission, all with much smaller lot sizes. Sure, Peninsula is expensive, but its proximity to jobs is the major driver of its housing costs. You can have all that and more in Salinas or San Luis Obispo, but you’ll find that the lack of jobs makes property values far lower. You don’t have to tear down parkland or pave…

Salinas has a serious gang problem. Thus most people who can afford it don't want to move there due to safety concerns.

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

#610

Post by smartician »

marcell wrote: post #293

Whenever these threads come up, the NIMBY pitch forks come out. I 100% agree that we should build more housing in the Bay Area, but some perspective is helpful. The Bay Area is already one of the most densely populated regions in America: http://ecpmlangues.u-strasbg.fr/civilization/geography/maps/... And San Francisco is the 3rd most densely populated city in America, if you look at cities with over 100k people: htt…

That first map is misleading because it tops out at 530/square mile, which on an absolute scale is not very dense at all. For comparison, Tokyo metro houses 37 million people at 11,300/square mile. NY/NJ/CT has 20 million people at 4,500/square mile. The nine Bay Area counties have a mean density of 1100/square mile.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/002808-world-urban-areas... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area

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