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$1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

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

#231

Post by epistasis »

s3r3nity wrote: post #148
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…

I want to agree that the labor market will correct at some point, but to your point, it's only at the margins for now, and is way too slow to adjust. There are too many people who feel like they _have_ to live there (or NYC / insert overly populated city here) to have a career, that any sort of correction will take decades.

If more people want to live in an area, why should we stop them? What good comes from denying people that opportunity?

I'm asking this to find out your definition of overpopulation. Because the people that want to move here don't think that's the case, and I certainly don't think that's the case given how low population density is throughout the Bay Area.

And since high density walkable neighborhoods are healthier for people and the environment than car dependent sprawl, I think that we are actually underpopulated.

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

#232

Post by shados »

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…

> and that requires changing peoples' minds

Yup, and that is straightforward, if time and money consuming. Changing zoning isn't enough: making an area denser without appropriate matching infrastructure investment isn't going to go well. If you want the next Tokyo or Paris (or even something significantly smaller), you need Tokyo or Paris' infra.

Then the next problem is that people can't stand each other. People don't want neighbors because neighbors are a pain. It's a problem everywhere, but in the west, the US has it particularly bad. I don't know about Cali, but in a lot of cities the building code is a total joke, and Americans are known to be LOUD. City rules are rarely enforced properly, either. So the only option you have is to prevent neighbors from moving in in the first place. That's easily fixed: better construction quality and clearer, enforced rules that make coexisting easier and nicer, alongside investments to keep the area from going down the shitter.

Do that for a while, and people just won't mind. Having moved from a dense city in another country to a medium sized American metro made me "appreciate" why NIMBYs are such a problem here. Living near people can become a nightmare real quick if you're not lucky.

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

#233

Post by spike021 »

kens wrote: post #195
rconti wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the absolute explosion of skyscrapers/mid-rise condo buildings in San Jose, Redwood City.. Hell, even San Carlos and Menlo Park have quite a few higher density units going in. I'm glad there's more density, and it's near transit, for the most part. Of course, it will still increase traffic, but by going with density and near transit, it'll reduce the impact vs building more single family homes.

An interesting article on why the mid-rise apartment style is so popular now: "Why America's New Apartment Buildings All Look the Same": https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-ameri... The quick summary is that the 2000 Building Code allowed inexpensive construction of 5-floor wood buildings over a concrete base. This "5 over 1" construction gives "near-high-rise densities at a wood-frame price", so i…

For downtown San Jose they need to be mid-rise since that area is in SJC's flightpath. I don't think they'd have much choice in the matter.

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

#235

Post by smileysteve »

yep_thats_right wrote: post #220

As someone who lives in a single-family home, I'm totally for public transit, having fewer cars on the streets, more walkability, etc. But until cities solve the issues of smell and noise, I'm not interested in living in a dense area. Keep it clean and quiet. Invest in urban forestry. Then it starts to look appealing.

Welcome to Atlanta! If you walk about 5 blocks from Peachtree in Midtown, you're in single family home territory; It turns from a bustling city to hearing mostly birds; from traffic to few cars (because there are no through streets from Piedmont to Monroe x 10th to Ponce, or Monroe to Highland x MorningSide to Ponce.

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

#236

Post by shados »

jefftk wrote: post #225
yep_thats_right wrote: post #220

As someone who lives in a single-family home, I'm totally for public transit, having fewer cars on the streets, more walkability, etc. But until cities solve the issues of smell and noise, I'm not interested in living in a dense area. Keep it clean and quiet. Invest in urban forestry. Then it starts to look appealing.

I live in Somerville MA, which is has about 18k people per square mile, compared to the ~2-6k I see in the South Bay. It gets that density through many two and three family houses placed closely together, and it's not smelly or noisy. Here's a representative street view example: https://goo.gl/maps/ggwHETDomuRUQAB89 You can be much denser than the Bay Area while still having trees and feeling "residential".

> and it's not smelly or noisy

Yes, yes it is. Somerville mades me go to NYC when I want a quiet vacation. The absolute noise and other issue is much lower, but the city is designed and built so poorly it can't handle it. When houses are built in cardboard with no space between the walls and the sidewalk, and someone walks home drunk, you'll get woken up something quick.

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

#237

Post by SilasX »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #222
kens wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting article on why the mid-rise apartment style is so popular now: "Why America's New Apartment Buildings All Look the Same": https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-ameri... The quick summary is that the 2000 Building Code allowed inexpensive construction of 5-floor wood buildings over a concrete base. This "5 over 1" construction gives "near-high-rise densities at a wood-frame price", so i…

There's something about that style of construction that feels like "Amazon Basics", like what you get when you don't care about craftmanship or longevity and just want the least expensive option. Those 5-story apartment buildings just have such a soulless cheap feeling to them, like they're made to have the illusion of being taller than they are. I really don't understand why they're so popular.

Amen. I think I live in such a building (in Austin) now, and the cheapness of the construction shows. I have 15 foot ceilings and I can hear conversations of people above me ... through the side walls.

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

#238

Post by scarface74 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #221
scarface74 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing that the post you responded to said “A lot of blockbuster movies and popular TV shows are being shot in other places because other places are cheaper and they offer better incentives.” The citation I linked to was right in line with my argument. And, I know for a fact that you can not only get into “cloud computing” without going anywhere near Seattle, AWS hires SAs, TAMs, etc in many major cities and most of…

> The citation I linked to was right in line with my argument. No. The wider argument we were having was about whether Hollywood is the center of the world for American movies. It definitely is, showing where movies are physically shot doesn't change that. > And, I know for a fact that you can not only get into “cloud computing” without going anywhere near Seattle, AWS hires SAs, TAMs, etc in many major cities and mo…

That’s just what I’m saying about your other example, most of the money spent on “cloud computing” from a consulting and implementation side is nowhere near Seattle. It’s spread out all over the US. In fact I would think that Seattle would be the last place you would want to be even if you are working for Amazon as an SA since the pay is the same everywhere, most of your face to face interactions are with clients, and you can live some place much cheaper and be just as effective.

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

#239

Post by erik_seaberg »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #145
PaulHoule wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the long run they'd be as productive (or more, since the commute would likely be better). The problem is it would take months or years to move, and a lot of people don't want to or can't move, so they'd quit and find a new job almost instantly.

The fact that they can find a new job almost instantly is why they came here in the first place. It would take many competing employers showing up to make another labor market similarly appealing. You'd have to pay me a lot to move to the middle of nowhere, because not only am I not excited about living there, I'm still better off moving back here for the next job.

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

#240

Post by CiPHPerCoder »

danans wrote: post #217
CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was "only $12,000" sounds very ivory tower and tone-deaf to people for which $12,000 is an awful lot of money .

It's not an ivory tower thing at all. $12000 doesn't mean the same thing when you consider the cost of living difference between the urban and rural areas. $12k goes way farther towards purchasing goods and services in the rural area, so naturally it seems like an awful lot of money there, but it purchases far fewer goods and services in a big city. This is similar to how household incomes between different countries…

> $12000 doesn't mean the same thing when you consider the cost of living difference between the urban and rural areas.

We actually agree here. I think we're speaking past each other.

I'm arguing that "only $12,000" is dismissive of how impactful a difference that makes to the lives of people who don't live in a big city.

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