Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

sf.curbed.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 178 posts

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#121

Post by rdiddly »

chaostheory wrote: post #83
aphextron wrote: post #30

After recently getting back from Portland, it couldn't be more painfully obvious that the entire problem comes down to housing. They are building new (affordable!) apartments there like nothing I've ever seen. You literally can't walk two or three blocks without seeing a construction crane. And the local culture reflects that. So many business that simply could not exist in SF were thriving due to the cheap labor and…

Would love to move to the northwest, but the low vaccination rate makes us think twice

If you and yours are vaccinated, what would that matter?

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#122

Post by throwaway98121 »

malandrew wrote: post #117

It's not great. Everything interesting has moved to the East Bay or out of state. All that left is high rents. I've already got plans to leave in April. The only thing good that remains is a lot of the most interesting tech jobs at the larger companies like Facebook, Google, Uber, AirBnB, etc. However even those have a shelf-life because it's only a matter of time (5-10 years is my guess) because those are no longer…

If everything interesting had moved out, people wouldn’t be moving in and rents would fizzle out. I think you meant to say things you f8nd interesting have moved out.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#123

Post by jtms »

ummonk wrote: post #64

The boomers did everything they could to construct the housing supply and ensure their children would be unable to afford to live near them. Hope they enjoy their blessed property values!

Did you mean constrict? So you feel that an entire generation of humans conspired against the well being of yours deliberately... just because? I think you might want to consider developing a more nuanced and less reductive view of things.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#124

Post by malandrew »

maxsilver wrote: post #14

> There is an apocalyptic amount of people moving into California, and no one blames them for the overcrowding and the shifting culture. But when too many Californians leave California and settle in, say, Portland, they are blamed for ruining the place by way of simply being themselves. Part of this is where the money comes from. Poorer/lower-middle-class people (mostly) move into California, to work these jobs under…

It's not just the money either. It's the failed policies that Californians bring with them that got them in this high cost of living mess in the first place. People moved to these other states to avoid things like high taxes. Then when Californians move to these states, they start voting for policies that increase local and state taxes and policies that generally increase the cost of living.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#125

Post by dimva »

maxsilver wrote: post #14

> There is an apocalyptic amount of people moving into California, and no one blames them for the overcrowding and the shifting culture. But when too many Californians leave California and settle in, say, Portland, they are blamed for ruining the place by way of simply being themselves. Part of this is where the money comes from. Poorer/lower-middle-class people (mostly) move into California, to work these jobs under…

If people moving to your area and investing lots of their own money in the local economy is a bad thing, your local policies, politicians, and probably politics are very useless.

People investing money into the local economy should always be a good thing, and if the locals aren't capturing enough of that to mitigate the increase in costs, that's on them for voting in incompetent or evil politicians. Blaming the people coming in with money isn't going to solve anything.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#126

Post by phillipamann »

throwaway98121 wrote: post #120
_jqy3 wrote: post #116

I rarely post here but fuck it. I was born in Redwood City. I went to school briefly at UCB and graduated from UCD. I spent the entirety of my life in this small stretch of land. I immediately started working as an engineer in tech as soon as I graduated but now had to deal with this new reality the author describes. I was involved in the music and art scene in the Bay Area and almost everyone has left. The few that…

What I understood from your post is you don’t want an area full of product managers, data scientists, and software people, but you’re very content in an area that replaces them with Jewish people? I think everything you said is entirely subjective. I would personally rather be surrounded by techies than people of a particular race or religion, as long as these people come from different genders, races, ethnicities, o…

"I wanted to be near a Jewish population because that is important to me."

I didn't know that Jewish people are only Jewish people and not Jewish product managers or jewish musicians, for example.

Well, if the data is accurate about Silicon Valley. The techies you surround yourself with don't com from many different races, religions, ethnicities, genders, beliefs, etc. Your whole talk about full diversity is just talk. The Bay Area, and especially tech, is not a diverse place or a particularly enlightened place.

You saw me mention a word (Jewish) and you honed in on it. Additionally, you don't understand that a Jewish population is more than a religious population.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#127

Post by burlesona »

geebee wrote: post #35
austincheney wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California is bleeding something like 60,000 people each year just to Texas. The Californians moving to north Texas metros do not appear poor relative to neighboring Texans enjoying superior standards of living with deprecated wages compared to California. When I bought my Texas house about a decade ago the average house price in my metro was about $200,000 and now I think it is about $250,000. These average houses a…

You did say "do not appear to be poor". Is there a chance you're noticing wealthy people, because they tend to be more noticeable? Yes, people who bought a house while ago in California, sell, and move to Texas would have a lot of money. But again, is this typical? I'm not saying it necessarily isn't typical, just that "it seems like", or "appears to be" isn't data. A lot of people leave California because they can c…

I would love to see the data on this as well. But at least anecdotally around me (an immigrant working in tech in SF), the overwhelming number of people who moved here are following a plan that looks like this:

1. Get a big tech job in SF and earn > $200k per year (in some cases 2-3x that). 2. Deal with living in a run down apartment yet still paying $2200-3500/mo. 3. Shovel a large percentage of your income into savings for 5-10 years. 4. Move back to with $300k in cash.

At which point you can pay either pay straight cash, or make a huge downpayment, for a nice house and live pretty comfortable in the upper middle class for the rest of your life.

Again I would love to see scientific data on this, but in my immediate work setting, I've heard 12 of the 15 engineers I work with state this as their "life plan."

Of the three who that isn't their plan, two are Bay Area natives, and one (I think) has decided he'd like to stay.

So, circling up to the parent comments, there are certainly large numbers of these people leaving every year, taking their big bags of cash back to the corners of the world.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#128

Post by noahmoss »

rdiddly wrote: post #121
chaostheory wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love to move to the northwest, but the low vaccination rate makes us think twice

If you and yours are vaccinated, what would that matter?

Vaccines rely on herd immunity to be effective. Even vaccinate individuals can contract a disease (or a different strain of one) if enough people are unvaccinated in the community.

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#129

Post by burlesona »

malandrew wrote: post #124
maxsilver wrote: post #14

> There is an apocalyptic amount of people moving into California, and no one blames them for the overcrowding and the shifting culture. But when too many Californians leave California and settle in, say, Portland, they are blamed for ruining the place by way of simply being themselves. Part of this is where the money comes from. Poorer/lower-middle-class people (mostly) move into California, to work these jobs under…

It's not just the money either. It's the failed policies that Californians bring with them that got them in this high cost of living mess in the first place. People moved to these other states to avoid things like high taxes. Then when Californians move to these states, they start voting for policies that increase local and state taxes and policies that generally increase the cost of living.

I agree this is a key factor. Family members in the northwest are constantly complaining of the influx of Californians, specifically saying "they priced themselves out of California with their foolish policies and now they're repeating that stupidity here."

Re: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?

#130

Post by pfooti »

rdiddly wrote: post #121
chaostheory wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love to move to the northwest, but the low vaccination rate makes us think twice

If you and yours are vaccinated, what would that matter?

Babies cannot be vaccinated for a while and therefore benefit from herd immunity. Furthermore, that herd immunity benefits you if your immunization wears off before your scheduled booster shots. And everyone remembers to get their mmr booster every seven years, right?
Post reply on HN