Amateurs. People in New York have been commuting two or more hours each way since at least the 70's.
Some people who work in the city live in Pennsylvania.
90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
101–110 of 302 posts
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The benefits of remote work go disproportionately to workers, while the detriments seem to fall toward managers. Since it's managers deciding whether to hire remote or on-site, it's not that surprising that they act in their own interest and hire on-site, even if it's more expensive.
My manager has repeatedly encouraged us to work from home, because we're space constrained (loud), but I have absolutely no desire to do so... why would I want to bring work in to my own home? If the business is fine with my productivity hit, so am I.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#103Oh, 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.
Not everyone can work remote. In fact I'd wager a majority, including many of those who think they can work remote, cannot. And teams dealing with remote workers is also a source of friction. Remote work is only part of the solution. Urbanism, prioritizing transit & deprioritizing cars, increasing density are also parts
I used to remote work in my old job... now I have a commute of at least an hour... and it’s only 17 miles :(
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The permission (via zoning and permitting) is part of the cost.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Assuming every person who takes the bus would otherwise drive This assumption is where the problem is. For example, Google employees live in central San Francisco but commute to work in Mountain View because a bus service was added. They wouldn't be attempting that commute in a car in the first place. These busses have added to traffic, not reduced it.
Sure, but how would they get to work if there were no buses? A fraction of them would drive, no? Buses are a net positive.
Maybe they would live in Mountain View and walk, so not creating any new traffic at all? Or live somewhere on the train line and take a train?
If none of those people would drive instead, or even if only a couple of them would, then the massive bus is a negative.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
75% of SF rental units are rent controlled.
Its still difficult to understand, even if one is under rent control, it is still beneficial to push for more housing units. Additionally, single family homes do not fall under rent control in Alameda County, where nearly half of the housing units are rentals.
Problem is that if there's more development, you may end up being forced out of your rent-controlled place to make way for a bigger building.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Assuming every person who takes the bus would otherwise drive This assumption is where the problem is. For example, Google employees live in central San Francisco but commute to work in Mountain View because a bus service was added. They wouldn't be attempting that commute in a car in the first place. These busses have added to traffic, not reduced it.
> They wouldn't be attempting that commute in a car in the first place. I think that's an unfounded assumption. I know plenty of people who do in fact drive daily from SF or Oakland down to MV/SJ.
> I think that's an unfounded assumption
Well so was the original assumption!
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#108Oh, 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.
>Then maybe everyone creating textual output for a living wouldn't have to transport their physical body to an office. Remote work hasn't taken off on a large scale because massively successful multi-billion dollar companies like Google/Facebook/Amazon/Apple/SpaceX were not built with remote workers . You get (relatively) minor companies touting it such as Automattic and Basecamp. Those smaller businesses haven't ach…
They were also built in a time where "Super Commutes" weren't necessary.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#109This article points out the challenge of asymmetric wages on communities. Engineers, managers, and executives living close to work and wait staff, support services, teachers, etc commuting in from far afield.
It isn't sustainable, and it will crash back to earth. One of the houses near me recently sold for way more than expected, and I pointed out that the development it was in had been build during the dot.com boom, what was more nearly all of the houses in that development had fallen out of escrow (the buyers walked away) when the crash hit because their source of wealth (stock in technology companies) essentially evaporated over 6 months.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
>the theory is they can live next door to the restaurant and construction site
Yes, because construction sites remain under construction for 10-20 years. /s
Not everyone wants to find a new home every month.