90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies • Hacker News Board

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#141

Post by hesdeadjim » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

jarjoura wrote: post #36

spyspy wrote: post #16

The sad fact is that long as people are willing to put up with this nothing is going to change. The crazy rents and terrible commutes sound insane to anyone living elsewhere but people are continuously more than happy to continue doing them to work at companies that haven't been priced out yet either. It's not an issue of social mobility either, since people living in the bay area are some of the most socially mobile…

Very few places on the planet are as temperate and offer so many options to escape into nature as the Bay Area. I agree that something has to change, but trying to convince people that the only answer is to move away is a non-starter for the majority of the population, especially those who want to live here.

If they tried Colorado they’d change their mind quick. I always thought I’d end up in the valley, but after ten years here and seeing how bad the Bay Area has gotten, there isn’t enough money to convince me to make the switch.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#142

Post by Karunamon » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #55

nathan_long wrote: post #18

Oh, 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.

I'm a programmer. "Creating textual output" is only a small portion of what I do for a living. A huge amount of my job is discussing ideas with coworkers which is simply easier to do in person.

Is there any professional idea conveyance you can do in person that you can't do over a modest video conference connection?

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#143

Post by dcosson » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #5

I realise new buildings are carbon intensive, but does anyone have the knowledge to do a back-of-the-envelope comparison of carbon emissions if these super-commuters were to move in to high-density housing that enabled them to walk or cycle to their jobs.

From what I understand this is a hot topic in environmentalist organizations. Higher density areas do objectively have a lower carbon footprint per person. I believe this is true without even factoring in commutes, because even things like heating and water (no lawn to water, etc.) are used less when people live in denser buildings. Adding in cars of course only makes this difference bigger. But the old-school environmentalist, classic "tree-hugger" types have been going around for decades with the attitude of basically just saying no to as much as possible, any type of concrete structure or large development to them is automatically bad. Of course all this leads to is more suburban sprawl and a higher carbon footprint per person, but as long as it happens in places they don't see these people seem happy to ignore it.

See for example, the Sierra club in SF which seems to now be basically a NIMBY group devoted to preventing any new buildings from going up because they might partially block views or cast shadows over existing things.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#144

Post by jarjoura » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 6:15 PM UTC

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #38

Part of me is still trying to understand why the housing shortage in the Bay Area is so severe. I understand NIMBYism from the homeowner's perspective, but there are a lot of renters in the SF Bay. SF is 63% renters, and should be able to outnumber NIMBY homeowners easily to have a lot more dense housing built. Alameda County is in 2nd place at 47% renters [1], so only a small percentage of homeowners need convincing…

Well, you can't just throw up condos all over the place and assume that alone fixes the problem. You have to build schools and other infrastructure changes, such as water and electricity to support the influx of a population.

Activism to push change requires a lot of energy and time. Most of the people who live here are busy with their jobs and families and do not have time to invest in it. So the activists who have the time to push usually want radical changes, such as 100% low income housing or homeless shelters. These are fine ideas, but for communities of upper middle class families, the change is scary and usually unwelcome. So then those families suddenly find the time to show up and protest and that's where you meet NIMBYs.

Change like this really requires the will of the local governments to make progress. Yet I think they get elected on other platforms such as, building better schools, or improving roads or downtown small businesses. YIMBY seems to be the first political wave of politicians actually running on a platform of more housing.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#145

Post by 49bc » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 6:15 PM UTC

Let’s just get a few things straight regarding remote work:

* Your job is not to “write code” no matter how much you wish it was that simple. Your job is to provide value for your company.

* You provide much more value for your company when you’re available in-person than when you’re remote. You provide value to your coworkers who can communicate to you easily, effectively, and timely.

* it’s much easier for your manager to gauge that value in person than remotely, so you create less work for those that are responsible for you’re performance (and your job).

If you over-simplify your role, then it’s easy to wonder why remote work isn’t more successful. When you become responsible for the health of the business, then it becomes much more clear.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#146

Post by dawnerd » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 6:16 PM UTC

I got my start in tech by driving over an hour each way into LA. Sucked with lower salary but now Im happily working remote and rarely driving. Last two years I've barely got 10k miles - most of those from driving from Portland to LA a couple times.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#147

Post by averageweather » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

WhompingWindows wrote: post #24

This is increasingly common in the Boston area as well. Cambridge/MIT is a massive biotech hub, meanwhile we have huge companies with many large offices in the downtown or in surrounding suburbs. Many workers live in RI, NH, or Central Mass, and getting to work for 9 am consistently will involve leaving at 730 for many, many workers due to congestion, construction, and the god-awful mess that is Boston infrastructure…

Correct regarding the 9am comment. I live 30mi west of Boston and it is essentially an automatic 90min if I were to leave my house at 730am. For reference, it is 35min w/o traffic. Natick, MA seems to have become the "I can't afford Newton and Wellesley" town. Prices are crazy.

I thought the removal of physical toll booths from the Mass Pike would help. I have seen absolutely no benefit.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#148

Post by geodel » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #80

Kalium wrote: post #43

Earlier 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…

> 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…

I recently moved to low cost city for job. Though we still have cubes but now there are about 40% smaller and walls are lower than last workplace. So in effect it is quite louder for work. However manager cabins are now twice as larger than before.

At the same time management has cracked down on any work from home requests. So somehow management does not care about individual productivity. As long as a crappy HP laptop is hooked on to 2 monitors every developer is good to go.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#149

Post by GFischer » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

rmk wrote: post #127

nathan_long wrote: post #18

Oh, 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.

Well, the main problem is that creating textual output is a small part of the process of creating value for the customer (which is ultimately what most businesses do). This is a host of processes that go way beyond text manipulation, and they require collaboration. This is best done by getting in the same room (still!) and is not likely to change (unless of course someone develops some work collaboration application…

Fortunately not every company is that close-minded.

I work in a remote office, and I collaborate every day with my team in Dallas (and most company members are distributed mostly all through the U.S. but also Canada, the UK and India).

There's a LOT of collaboration tools, we use Slack (well, we were forced on Microsoft Teams now), Jira, Skype, e-mail, WhatsApp...

I still appreciate meeting in person, they flew me once to meet most of the team.

Videocalling is decent, but still no substitute, but all those tools I outlined do enable us to create value :) .

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#150

Post by slothario » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

nathan_long wrote: post #18

Oh, 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.

Or they just need to move to cities that have room to grow.

I'm in Houston and I bought a gorgeous townhouse-style home in my favorite part of town near downtown, and it was in the $300k range. Can you buy a patch of dirt in the Bay Area for that much?