Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing” • Hacker News Board

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#191

Post by tomkarlo » Fri, Oct 27, 2017, 8:58 PM UTC

usaar333 wrote: post #118

tomkarlo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are in fact planning to do just that - put more office space in that zone, which will create demand for housing in SF (the nearest major residential area) rather than adding housing. And in the past, they've blocked a proposal that would have added 70K residential units. http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-small-city-control... The attitude is essentially, "I've got mine, let's pull the ladder up after me…

To be fair, unlike the Baylands proposal, there were very valid environmental reasons to block that 70k units of housing on San Bruno Mountain. It also has ensured that residents of San Francisco have very easy access to wilderness - I'm certainly better off being able to go hiking with just a 15 minute drive.

That's fair. But it's also worth recognizing those 70K units may mean that some middle-income SF resident had to move to Pleasanton or something instead due to affordability, so our nice hiking proximity is their 90-minute commute.

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#192

Post by alkonaut » Fri, Oct 27, 2017, 8:58 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #179

usaar333 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attractive enough to pull the top talent? No The underlying problem here is the same problem you have with remote work - it's vastly harder to get complex tasks done when people are remote. For all sorts of reasons (including project expediency), you ideally want the front-line programmers in the same office as the technical leaders.

So how do you think most open source software development, for example, happens? Or does that not qualify as a complex task? Because a huge amount of open source development happens through distributed individuals and groups many of which don't even work for the same company.

Tbf, Open source is as complex but it would be VERY hard in most open source OSS to coordinate things that must happen quickly. Email a maintainer or submit a pull request? Might be merged tomorrow. Or next week. When he gets around to it. That model just doesn't work in business.

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#193

Post by winter_blue » Fri, Oct 27, 2017, 8:59 PM UTC

akgerber wrote: post #116

habosa wrote: post #18

This article really gets it. It's all about transportation. It will never be possible for everyone who wants to be in San Francisco to live downtown, or even adjacent to downtown. Just like the article said, Manhattan is much denser but no more affordable. But we make it so hard for people to get around. You can take a bus for 45m or take the BART which is overcrowded, unreliable, and has trains that can be as much a…

Manhattan is more affordable. There are plenty of 1-bedrooms available right now under $2000: https://streeteasy.com/for-rent/nyc/area:102,139,135%7Cbeds:... Brooklyn is still twice as dense as SF, and much more affordable.

Just curious -- why did you exclude midtown from your StreetEasy search?

(I happen to live in a $2.5k studio just a couple minutes away from Byrant Park. I picked it because it made my commute to work a 9 minute walk.)

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#194

Post by jacobolus » Fri, Oct 27, 2017, 8:59 PM UTC

Mz wrote: post #185

jacobolus wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meetups, museums, lectures by visiting scholars, stops on book tours, concerts/plays/other performances, cultural festivals, interesting architectural sites, professional sports, restaurants, a wide variety of interesting neighborhoods within walk distance, .... There’s nothing wrong with Fresno. Plenty of lovely people live there, and I’m sure there are all sorts of things happening all the time. It just doesn’t (to…

It just doesn’t (to me at least) seem comparable to the Bay Area. No, it isn't comparable. That is kind of the point here: If you are sick of the downside in the Bay Area of insane commutes, insane house prices, large numbers of increasingly aggressive homeless junkies, etc, then leaving might make more sense for some people than staying and hoping to fix some of these problems. But thank you for giving me a meaty re…

My wife commutes to work 10 minutes by bike. I haven’t been accosted by any homeless junkies, and all of the homeless people I have talked to recently have been either friendly or politely distant (usually they seem pretty starved for human interaction, and are really excited to have a baby wave at them). I go walking around town in the middle of the night (sometimes with my 14-month-old walking beside me) and have never felt unsafe. There are a lot of car window smash-and-grab thefts in the neighborhood, which is kind of unfortunate. And sometimes people steal packages left on doorsteps. Bike thefts are also common. None of those have affected me personally.

Housing prices are definitely a problem, but we are lucky to own a condo, so the main effect on us is a gradually gentrifying neighborhood (which process we are part of), which will probably mean less interesting neighbors in another 10 or 20 years.

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#195

Post by ghaff » Fri, Oct 27, 2017, 9:01 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #192

ghaff wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how do you think most open source software development, for example, happens? Or does that not qualify as a complex task? Because a huge amount of open source development happens through distributed individuals and groups many of which don't even work for the same company.

Tbf, Open source is as complex but it would be VERY hard in most open source OSS to coordinate things that must happen quickly. Email a maintainer or submit a pull request? Might be merged tomorrow. Or next week. When he gets around to it. That model just doesn't work in business.

Although I'll note that many businesses use/incorporate/sell software based on open source projects. The trick here is that you have expertise in and connections with the community so you're not just emailing a maintainer.

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#196

Post by watwut » Fri, Oct 27, 2017, 9:03 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #179

usaar333 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attractive enough to pull the top talent? No The underlying problem here is the same problem you have with remote work - it's vastly harder to get complex tasks done when people are remote. For all sorts of reasons (including project expediency), you ideally want the front-line programmers in the same office as the technical leaders.

So how do you think most open source software development, for example, happens? Or does that not qualify as a complex task? Because a huge amount of open source development happens through distributed individuals and groups many of which don't even work for the same company.

Quite a lot of open source development is much less distributed as you think.

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#197

Post by Mz » Fri, Oct 27, 2017, 9:04 PM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #194

Mz wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just doesn’t (to me at least) seem comparable to the Bay Area. No, it isn't comparable. That is kind of the point here: If you are sick of the downside in the Bay Area of insane commutes, insane house prices, large numbers of increasingly aggressive homeless junkies, etc, then leaving might make more sense for some people than staying and hoping to fix some of these problems. But thank you for giving me a meaty re…

My wife commutes to work 10 minutes by bike. I haven’t been accosted by any homeless junkies, and all of the homeless people I have talked to recently have been either friendly or politely distant (usually they seem pretty starved for human interaction, and are really excited to have a baby wave at them). I go walking around town in the middle of the night (sometimes with my 14-month-old walking beside me) and have n…

I just got off the street recently. I am glad to see you say nice things about the homeless population there. I have not been in the Bay Area in some years. I am repeating some of the things I have read about it.

I am struggling to understand this discussion with you. Do you have some objection to the suggestion that people who are dissatisfied should consider the Central Valley as an alternative? It isn't like it is a gun to your head insisting people who are happy should leave.

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#198

Post by chrisseaton » Fri, Oct 27, 2017, 9:10 PM UTC

ben_jones wrote: post #160

cmontella wrote: post #26

I used to live in the dead center of the city, in the Ashbury Heights neighborhood. It took me literally 1 hour to get to work, down town taking muni (fastest time recorded is 40 minutes without any delays and essentially running the "last mile"). This was the longest commute of my life, and I lived 3 miles from work. It would take me just a little more time to walk there. Biking was faster, but more dangerous -- I g…

Not talked about: you're married. Having worked from home while being single it has its ups and downs. Sure you can get to the gym more but unless you're a natural extrovert you're going to meet way less people - and you'll be less likely to "find someone" (if thats what you're after) compared to the huge number of single people in the city. I feel like this is a hidden motivation for many people. Maybe just me.

Surely the only difference is you won't meet the people at work, but you probably wouldn't date them anyway would you. You'd still meet people at every other place people meet, which is where people look for dates anyway.

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#199

Post by swendoog » Fri, Oct 27, 2017, 9:11 PM UTC

entee wrote: post #150

swendoog wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even IF there was a desire among politicians to fix the transportation issues in San Francisco I doubt they'd find a means to do so. It would cost a ton of money and congress has no idea where to get that money from. The middle class is taxed to capacity. When ~30-40% of your paycheck is taxes (including federal), and another 30-40% is exorbitant rent costs, you're left feeling quite squeezed. I myself for example, s…

One thing I wish I understood better is where the hell does the money go? The federal budget is to a first approximation is 2/3 medicare/medicaid/social security/defense. In California across state and local has it's 2/3 being spent on health care/education/pensions. The Golden Gate Bridge cost $1.5B in today's dollars to build. Today-ish it took $6.4B to rebuild the east span of the Bay bridge. How have things gotte…

I have the same damn question - where is all the money going?

Put another way, why is my dollar buying exponentially less than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago? Don't even try to tell me it's inflation.

I don't know the answer. We pay politicians to know those things and to work on finding solutions. Funny how they don't seem any better at understanding the problem and finding a solution than you and me.

So while I don't honestly have any solid understanding, I can only posit that it may have something to do with wealth consolidation [1]. I'm no proponent of socialism or artificially redistributing wealth but I look to the growing divide between the rich and poor in the U.S. (and globally) and can't help but notice it correlates quite strongly with my dollar buying less, and less. Yes, correlation != causation, but you gotta start somewhere.

If you can get past the 90s era cinematography "The Money Makers" is a fascinating documentary which illuminates some of the issues with our monetary system.

https://youtu.be/XbEu-OLMKLQ

[1] The top 0.01% of households, with net assets of over $40m, short-changed the taxman by a whopping 30%.

https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/06/daily-...

Re: Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing”

#200

Post by airstrike » Fri, Oct 27, 2017, 9:11 PM UTC

tomkarlo wrote: post #63

cmontella wrote: post #26

I used to live in the dead center of the city, in the Ashbury Heights neighborhood. It took me literally 1 hour to get to work, down town taking muni (fastest time recorded is 40 minutes without any delays and essentially running the "last mile"). This was the longest commute of my life, and I lived 3 miles from work. It would take me just a little more time to walk there. Biking was faster, but more dangerous -- I g…

That's great, but it seems kind of orthogonal and non-scalable to the problem of the Bay Area housing crisis. Are you proposing that everyone in SF move to places like the Central Valley (driving up price) and start driving around cars (increasing traffic and pollution)? What about folks who don't have the luxury of jobs where they can work remotely?

Of course someone from SF would have to call it "orthogonal"...