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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

#651

Post by tfha »

state_less wrote: post #85
tfha wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. It's not so much about distance, it's about time. Better infrastructure for moving people in and out of the city enables a larger city, and a more populated one.

Shouldn't we at least be talking about working remotely and why that doesn't happen more often? I would bet most people have to drive in primarily because there manager did it that way when he/she was in the developer role. Working remotely is friendlier on the environment and saves time commuting. It's also cheaper for the company and more easily scales as head count increases.

It's not just about work. Sports stadiums, bars, meetup groups, nightlife, concerts, comedy clubs, etc etc all involve bringing people into the city. Commuting is just part of the battle

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

#652

Post by dawnerd »

joebubna wrote: post #269
irrational wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Portland. A house down the street was purchased for 180k 2 years ago and recently sold for 520k. And that isn't some outlier. It seems all anyone wants to talk about is how quickly home prices have inflated.

Can confirm. I both recently sold my home, and used to be a licensed real estate appraiser before switching to Software Dev. Our house in the not-super-desirable area of NE Portland was worth ~$265k when we looked at the data in late February/March of this year (strong data supporting that number). When we finally put it on the market in the beginning of May, it sold in 1 day, with multiple offers, for a sales price…

My house is alrfull day worth almost 100k more only 6 months later. It’s crazy. Beaverton and Hillsboro are really seeing pricing skyrocket.

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

#653

Post by alistairSH »

toasterlovin wrote: post #649
alistairSH wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you aren’t wrong about it being a poor problem, it would be extremely naive to believe past policies in the US haven’t contributed to some minority groups being more likely to be poor.

Wouldn’t it also follow then that the same policies have contributed to other minority groups being more likely to be rich (thinking mostly of Indians and Asians)? And if that’s the case, then maybe looking at this through a racial lens is largely irrelevant?

Most of the data I can find deals with black and white, occasionally Latino, and almost never mentions Asians. So, I don't know if your suggestion is true.

Anyways, I agree that viewing poverty solely through a racial lens is not productive. But, race does play a part. At the very minimum, blacks are more likely to be poor than whites. They are more likely to experience downward economic mobility. And more likely to experience multi-generational poverty.

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

#654

Post by falcolas »

client4 wrote: post #226
jobu wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that took a tech job in a (relatively) rural area, I can say there are some amazing perks, but also huge risks. Tech jobs pay roughly the same in rural areas as they do in larger cities, but housing costs are low enough that you can get a really nice house and still afford to put money in savings. The biggest downside is a lack of employment options. When the company had a huge layoff I started looking aro…

I agree that's a huge issue which is only slowly getting better. It's also rather normal for people to travel/work remote/move between the top cities. From Helena I drive to Missoula or Bozeman at least once a month to see friends / socialize. Regarding job movement, MT actually has a number of high tech companies per city, but it's a much smaller handful. Using Helena as an example (valley population ~80k), we have:…

In Bozeman, I've done the tour of the major (and more than a couple of minor) companies, and there are still prospects available to me.

Throw in decent internet and companies which hire remotely, and you're in good shape.

That said, Bozeman is currently experiencing a housing bubble that doesn't seem to want to break (we attribute it to the older Californians who are trying to avoid taxes on the houses they sold there). Nothing like SF, but 2x-3x the rest of Montana.

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

#655

Post by obstacle1 »

shawnee_ wrote: post #201
obstacle1 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>this goes 100X for women. Using obviously ridiculous hyperbole like this is going to do the opposite of helping to solve your pet problem, FYI. Consider other strategies for advocacy.

What makes you think it's hyperbole? It's not hyperbole; it was my experience, as a female attempting to make a living while working in technology, living there.

It's _one hundred_ times more difficult for women?

No. That's hyperbole.

It's more difficult for women? Reasonable, if debatable. But not _one hundred times_ in any possible case. That's just an exaggeration aimed at derailing an argument into the realm of emotion.

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

#656

Post by abandonliberty »

rdtsc wrote: post #461
softawre wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> If that's really such a waste then where are all the remote-only companies eating everybody's lunch? Maybe they are eating it? Facebook, Amazon, and Google just have a very large buffet and it would take a while for them to notice. Heck, I am taking little bytes (pun intended) every day ;-) But seriously, I believe that could be the next revolution in the economy. We had the industrial revolution, the technological…

Many players are already moving in the opposite direction. It doesn't mean that remote is not possible, but that remote is more challenging than colocation.

Consider: agile frameworks at their core focus on improving communication, but remote increases the barriers to communication. For humans, online social contact doesn't provide the same benefits as as f2f. It makes depression worse, not better. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4183915/

I know someone at Amazon who gets flown halfway around the world over 4 times a year. They're not remote, but a frugal company like amazon decides it's important enough for them to visit headquarters regularly.

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

#657

Post by abritinthebay »

wils1245 wrote: post #615
abritinthebay wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are paying that much in rent you can afford a mortgage on a larger place that’s a reasonable commute to the city. Now it'll likely be a condo, not a single-family home (that'll be more, or further way, or not as nice) but it's doable for sure. Not in SF, but just outside (Oakland, Fremont, Daly City, etc) What you can get will depend on what you can wrangle as a deposit but there are plenty of options if you c…

What’s a reasonable commute? If you’re in any of those places and commuting to SF you’re likely looking at an hour to get to work.

It can be an hour to get to work if you live in SF. Just depends where you live and where you work (commute from the Sunset by bus to the FiDi - it’s going to take close to an hour).

Whereas I live in Oakland and door to door it’s about 45mins if I time it right.

So I’m not sure what your objection is. Working in a big city (be it SF, NYC, or London) means you’ll have commute time.

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

#658

Post by abritinthebay »

cat199 wrote: post #118
abritinthebay wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which, btw, is not explicitly a bad thing as it means skills and talents will be spread across the country. It’s why Austin/Portland/etc grow in these areas.

> It’s why Austin/Portland/etc grow in these areas. Realize you're being colloquial here, but I think it's a bit SF centric to credit SF with growth occurring in other areas of the country... In the case of ATX you have at least UTexas & Michael Dell not playing a small part in the tech growth there, for starters..

If you look at the migration patterns of people in NorCal it’s really not. Hell, just ask the locals - it’s a damn cliche in Austin or Portland that ppl moved in from NorCal to there.

Also if you look at the businesses, networking, and where the VC money comes from, the SV connection is clear.

Flight from the Bay Area has absolutely powered a lot of growth in those places.

They were cool places in the first place of course, but that is why they were attractive to move to.

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

#659

Post by abritinthebay »

irrational wrote: post #252
abritinthebay wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which, btw, is not explicitly a bad thing as it means skills and talents will be spread across the country. It’s why Austin/Portland/etc grow in these areas.

Didn't Portland (well, Hillsboro) have 5 huge Intel campuses, with all the tech talent that comes along with those, for a lot longer than Silicon Valley has been a thing?

Portland has had two waves of growth - the first was due to Seattle’s tech scene.

So yes they did - due to that one.

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

#660

Post by abritinthebay »

oldsklgdfth wrote: post #88
abritinthebay wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read up on Prop 13 a bit. That’ll explain it.

Related to prop 13 that is also how golf courses in cali metro areas are able to exist, despite taking up huge swaths of land and having very few members. There was a revisionist history episode on it: http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/11-a-good-walk-spoile...

Fun fact about those golf courses: Remember when everyone was freaking out about Nestle using millions of gallons of CA water during the drought?

Turns out they used the same amount as one large golf course.

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