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$1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

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Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#151

Post by ghaff »

PaulHoule wrote: post #128
djakjxnanjak wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way, no how is Google or any other decent employer going to uproot all their knowledge workers and make them unproductive for the foreseeable future by forcing them to move to another region. The diaspora from the Bay Area will keep happening the way it has been: at the economic margins. Over time, people outside of tech who aren’t subsidized by prop 13 or rent control will get priced out. There will be a perpetua…

It's an interesting question. How much less productive would these workers be if they were moved to Salt Lake City or Henderson, NV or Syracuse, NY? If you lost 20% of the productivity but could pay 30% less that would be OK, wouldn't it?

For starters, lots of them just wouldn't move. When companies move headquarters or other large facilities they usually expect to lose lots of people even if they cover relocation and actively try to hold onto people. (Which may, of course, not be the case if the company actually wants to lay off people.)

None of this is to argue that big tech companies shouldn't be more distributed. They probably should and it's happening to some degree naturally as they grow. But trying to move already employed people wholesale to a new city, especially one that many will see as relatively unattractive, will cost you a significant percentage of your workforce.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#153

Post by ryanianian »

bcp2384 wrote: post #79

It's sad how many times I walk around in SF and see basically crumbling buildings or empty parking lots and wonder why new housing has not been built there yet? And more importantly who would actually oppose development on crumbling or wasted land?

It's pretty easy to understand locals' opposition. More people => more congestion. More housing supply => lower property values (at least at first). It doesn't matter if the housing is on what used to be a parking lot it's still more people and housing supply. (You can argue that NIMBYism is selfish and short-sighted but that doesn't mean it's irrational in the economist sense.)

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#154

Post by iandanforth »

maxsilver wrote: post #133
chucksmash wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It wouldn't surprise me if one of the biggest problems for Google was retention of young talent driven primarily by prohibitively high housing costs. Well, it would surprise me :-) According to levels.fyi, a new grad at Google is clearing $180k/year all-in. Next tier, still not senior, clears $250k/year. That's more than $20k/mo pre-tax. Even at an outrageous $5k rent on a single income and with no roommates, you'r…

> Well, it would surprise me :-) According to levels.fyi, a new grad at Google is clearing $180k/year all-in. Even at an outrageous $5k rent Is that really enough to afford to live? Is that housing cost accurate? A programmer at Google making $180k/yr salary brings in about $9,315.58 in after-tax income (according to PaycheckCalculator). The average house within 10 miles of Google's HQ currently costs about $1.5 mill…

Is it common where you are for new grads to buy homes right out of school?

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#155

Post by malnourish »

PaulHoule wrote: post #128
djakjxnanjak wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way, no how is Google or any other decent employer going to uproot all their knowledge workers and make them unproductive for the foreseeable future by forcing them to move to another region. The diaspora from the Bay Area will keep happening the way it has been: at the economic margins. Over time, people outside of tech who aren’t subsidized by prop 13 or rent control will get priced out. There will be a perpetua…

It's an interesting question. How much less productive would these workers be if they were moved to Salt Lake City or Henderson, NV or Syracuse, NY? If you lost 20% of the productivity but could pay 30% less that would be OK, wouldn't it?

In addition to what others have said, you have to consider what your competitors might do while you're spinning up. They could capitalize on your downtime.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#156

Post by chaostheory »

ProAm wrote: post #104

> The only solution is changing the zoning laws Or these companies can move. If you take successful STEM related businesses and move them to better area's the talent will follow. There is more than 1 answer to this problem, most people just want to change laws because its easier for them.

They don't need to move. If more companies accepted more remote positions, it would lessen the need for everyone to mass in certain locations. Everything would be slightly more distributed instead of overly centralized.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#157

Post by rawrmaan »

jriot wrote: post #114
munificent wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, in Seattle, it provides access to all of the other desireable aspects of living in a thriving metropolis: - Good schools - Lots of like-minded people to befriend - Lots of places to eat, activities, venues, etc. - Several higher and continuing education opportunities - Good (well, better than almost all mid-sized cities, at least) public transit options I definitely understand the appeal of living out in the co…

When you live in a rural area none of these are needed, zoo, aquarium, bike trail, running path as they are provided naturally from the environment.

Yep, just ignore half the things on the list.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#158

Post by TulliusCicero »

ProAm wrote: post #104

> The only solution is changing the zoning laws Or these companies can move. If you take successful STEM related businesses and move them to better area's the talent will follow. There is more than 1 answer to this problem, most people just want to change laws because its easier for them.

Companies aren't going to move HQ's, because that's a terrible idea. The knowledge and skills loss would take years and years to recover from, substantially impeding productivity for a long time. It's economic suicide for a company like Google.

What you're not bothering to grapple with is: why are these companies trying to expand headcount in areas that are somewhat hostile to them, and also much more expensive? Hell, even in Europe, Google's big offices are in the most expensive cities. There's a reason for that, and it's not because they enjoy lighting money on fire.

Once you've figured out the 'why' there, you can work on coming up with a fix or workaround. Until then, just blithely saying "well they're just too lazy to do this other thing" itself just smacks of intellectual laziness. It lets you slam them without having to analyze the very real issues keeping companies in expensive tech hubs.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#159

Post by maxsilver »

iandanforth wrote: post #154
maxsilver wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, it would surprise me :-) According to levels.fyi, a new grad at Google is clearing $180k/year all-in. Even at an outrageous $5k rent Is that really enough to afford to live? Is that housing cost accurate? A programmer at Google making $180k/yr salary brings in about $9,315.58 in after-tax income (according to PaycheckCalculator). The average house within 10 miles of Google's HQ currently costs about $1.5 mill…

Is it common where you are for new grads to buy homes right out of school?

It is common where I am for people who make 200%+ median income to be able to own a place to live, yes. This is true regardless of their age or education level.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#160

Post by nostrademons »

caymanjim wrote: post #75

It's great that Google wants to increase housing, but is this really going to work? The housing shortage in the Bay Area is not a money problem. If it were possible to build 20,000 houses in the next 20 years, it would absolutely happen without Google's help. The problem with housing there has one simple cause: NIMBYism. SF doesn't want to allow taller buildings and denser housing complexes. It's vastly worse in the…

That's one of the accomplishments of this program: they got Mountain View to change the zoning for North Bayshore (where the Google campus is) to support highrises with up to 10,000 housing units.
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