LOL, 90 minute 'super commutes'. Come to Los Angeles and try 2-3 hour super duper commute.
90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
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Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#72Oh, tech companies. If only there were a way to have conversations about, create, and transmit computer programs using some kind of long-distance network. Maybe we could break the data up into "packets". Just thinking out loud here. Then maybe everyone creating textual output for a living wouldn't have to transport their physical body to an office. We can dream.
The people profiled in the article are a restaurant manager and a construction superintendent. How are they going to telecommute?
Once there are unlimited remote jobs, the theory is they can live next door to the restaurant and construction site again. At least over the long term. In the meantime - that is playing out in smaller towns where remote employees are living.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
the ridiculous salary and equity while I'm here would be foolish to pass up So - how much of the "ridiculous" salary is left after subtracting living costs and taxes, actually?
Much more than other places in the US. I keep seeing this type of comment, do the math, 2-3X salary increase, rent 2X increase, but rent is only ~25% of your salary, cost of things around ~25% higher. You are much better of in Silicon Valley as a techy in general.
Besides rent, are other things really 25% higher in the Bay Area? Taxes are a bit higher, but cars, computers are about the same, groceries can even be cheaper. A plane ticket to Tokyo is probably even cheaper than most places.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it'll only stop when everyone says enough is enough and leaves Or, alternatively, when enough people start voting in politicians who would allow building lots of new homes in central locations. Manhattan has 3.9× the density of San Francisco. At Manhattan density, the City of San Francisco could house 2.5 million more people.
This is such a tiresome argument. Even if you could suddenly build all of the housing required to reduce prices on a short timescale, you'd have to solve the infrastructural problems that come with it (roads and transit), and convince developers to build into a massive loss (i.e. I am a developer, and you expect me to build and finance at today's costs, and pay for it with tomorrow's lower rents). Construction is a s…
Even with a massive drop in rents, rents would still more than cover development costs. The limiting factor isn't the cost to construct high density housing units - it's the difficulty of getting permission to build high density housing units.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but I would put housing density above mass transit in efficacy.
I think many of the people making these huge commutes don't want dense housing, they want a big house with a yard and a garage.
Might feel a bit counterintuitive, but allowing dense cores, at least all the people desiring urban, walkable, lifestyle would get to live near the core. And thus these people would not compete for the suburban homes so the suburban homes might stay a bit cheaper.
The denser the core, the more there is room for suburbia nearer the core, too.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are companies out there that are fully remote (like my current employer https://www.sonatype.com/ ). Though I suppose many of them don't like to hire fresh graduates so you could be in a bit of a chicken/egg problem.
I've been a fully remote developer for 4 1/2 years. My employer has no physical office. I live in a pleasant medium-sized town, I bought a house for less than a Bay-area toolshed, and I can commute myself downstairs to make a sandwich. If every worker were remote, can you even imagine how hard you'd have to work to justify a physical office to the CFO and potential hires?
I have a similar setup, but I also live 2 time zones from my employer. to make things easier, I work 6am-3pm. I often go run errands after work before traffic start getting bad, but sometimes, I end up caught in 'rush hour' traffic and I just feel sorry for all of them. (and I live in a small town of 150k people)
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#77I recently had an opportunity to move out to the Bay Area with my current job (I am currently at a satellite office). The commute time combined with CoL and a few other factors made the decision easy to not go. I currently have a 3 minute commute and I would honestly lose my mind if I had to commute 90 mins one way. I have also been seeing a general rise of articles mentioning how many people are leaving, how insane…
If people were actually leaving, then these problems would be getting better... not worse.
If you can live somewhere that public transit (by rail) is feasible, then its quite tolerable. Of course this is the US, where that's less common than it should be.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it'll only stop when everyone says enough is enough and leaves Or, alternatively, when enough people start voting in politicians who would allow building lots of new homes in central locations. Manhattan has 3.9× the density of San Francisco. At Manhattan density, the City of San Francisco could house 2.5 million more people.
This is such a tiresome argument. Even if you could suddenly build all of the housing required to reduce prices on a short timescale, you'd have to solve the infrastructural problems that come with it (roads and transit), and convince developers to build into a massive loss (i.e. I am a developer, and you expect me to build and finance at today's costs, and pay for it with tomorrow's lower rents). Construction is a s…
Instead lets do nothing? That is the tiresome argument.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know I chose to move out here because it was the best career move I could make. Having a FANG company on my resume plus the ridiculous salary and equity while I'm here would be foolish to pass up.
the ridiculous salary and equity while I'm here would be foolish to pass up So - how much of the "ridiculous" salary is left after subtracting living costs and taxes, actually?
I make ~175k/year cash, and I'm able to put away about 60k/year in savings. If you add in the equity I'm receiving (currently illiquid, but company is one of the mega-corns), I'm able to save an additional 60-100k/year on top of savings from salary.
I live a decent life, 2 annual international trips, own a car, lease a ski house with friends in the winter, if you make over 120k, life in the bay area is quite nice.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#80Oh, tech companies. If only there were a way to have conversations about, create, and transmit computer programs using some kind of long-distance network. Maybe we could break the data up into "packets". Just thinking out loud here. Then maybe everyone creating textual output for a living wouldn't have to transport their physical body to an office. We can dream.
What's interesting is that I routinely see comments little different from this one. Just as routinely, companies choose to pay whole multiles times as much for engineers in-person instead of remote. Is it possible that we're missing something in this? And that there might be more to this than companies being unwilling to try remote workers? I know my own experiences with working remotely and having remote colleagues…
> Is it possible that we're missing something in this? And that there might be more to this than companies being unwilling to try remote workers?
If open-plan offices are any hint, it's that actual knowledge worker productivity (let alone well-being) is pretty low on the list of things managers look for.
> I know my own experiences with working remotely and having remote colleagues have upon occasion been other than an unalloyed positive.
Sure but the same can be said of office work.