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$1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

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

#441

Post by slavapestov »

summerlight wrote: post #215

There's a bunch of people saying "why not going out of the Bay?" This doesn't work because for most of the foreign workers with H1B visa job security matters more to them. With H1B visa, you gotta find another job in 60 days when there's a trouble with your employer. Otherwise you'll be kicked out. Also note that Chinese and Indian people are typically stuck at H1B for 5~10 years and they're the majority of SWE H1B h…

If I understand correctly, H1-B visas are actually tied to a particular location, so the employer would have to file additional paperwork for an employee to transfer to another state.

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

#443

Post by carapace »

> Building enough housing to roll back prices to the "good old days" is probably not realistic, because the necessary construction rates were never achieved even when planning and zoning were considerably less restrictive than they are now. Building enough to compensate for the growing economy is a somewhat more realistic goal and would keep things from getting worse.

https://experimental-geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employme...

However, if the political consensus could be developed there are possibilities, e.g. "Prefab housing complex for UC Berkeley students goes up in four days"

22 units, four stories, four days.

> This new 22-unit project from local developer Patrick Kennedy (Panoramic Interests) is the first in the nation to be constructed of prefabricated all-steel modular units made in China.

> Kennedy notes that the cost of trucking to Berkeley from the port of Oakland was more expensive than the cost of shipping from Hong Kong.

> But the savings haven’t been as great as expected, he said. “Sixty-five to seventy-five-percent of the construction costs are still incurred on the site. In addition to the usual trades, we have crane operators, flagmen, truckers and special inspectors.”

https://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/08/02/prefab-housing-compl...

(Reminds me of Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion House. Factory built prefab homes that were to be delivered by helicopter, installed onto masts built onsite and containing the power/comms/water/sewage hookups.)

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

#444

Post by BurningFrog »

hangonhn wrote: post #274
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…

Lumping Mountain View in there with Palo Alto and others is really unfair. MV is doing the best it can but it can't carry all the weight of Bay Area growth. 1/5 housing starts in Santa Clara county was in MV. MV issued more permits than ALL its neighboring cities COMBINED. MV issued more permits than even San Jose. https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2018/09/28/mountain-view-leads... Unless the whole of Santa Clara county…

> it would be unfair for MV to carry the weight

The fact that it's perceived as a sacrifice to build housing is one of the core problems.

And one of the main reasons for this perception is that, for the city, it is true. Due to Prop 13, CITIES LOSE MONEY BY HAVING RESIDENTS. As long as that is true, don't expect much to change around housing in California.

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

#445

Post by closeparen »

brandall10 wrote: post #332
pickle-wizard wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After 10 years of living in an apartments and hearing all of my neighbors I got tired of it. So I bought a single family house. I have a small yard, only 1/8th acre, but it is enough of an air gap that I don't hear my neighbors.

I live in a concrete/glass/steel luxury high-rise in downtown San Diego. My neighbors can have raging parties into the early morning and I can't hear a thing unless I wander into the hallway. The construction quality of multi-family homes in SV pretty poor.

I live in such a building in San Francisco. At most I can faintly perceive a baseline. I think the difference is mid-rise vs. high-rise, probably having to do with the use of wood vs. steel and concrete.

I also run a box fan almost all the time, so quieter sounds from neighbors are below the noise floor and not perceptible.

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

#446

Post by closeparen »

reaperducer wrote: post #365
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…

The problem with housing there has one simple cause: NIMBYism ... The only solution In the real world, nothing has one simple cause or one "only" solution. The housing problem in California, and elsewhere is complex. This is akin to people who say, "The problem with homelessness there has one simple cause..." and then insert their favorite boogeyman. There are many factors involved, other than NIMBYs, and BANANAs (Bu…

Skyscraper town is immensely popular. There should be more of it.

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

#447

Post by slavapestov »

andrew311 wrote: post #49
dymk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Face-to-face communication has not been supplanted with online tools yet, and face-to-face communication is very important to this job.

An alternative way of looking at it: whether or not face to face is important for the specifics of the job, it might be important for emotional connection between humans, fulfilling a common human desire to connect with peers and be happy on the job and _outside_ the job. In other words, we might want to be around peers for social (non-job) reasons.

It's possible to have a life outside of work, and find connection with people who are not your coworkers. This is not the purpose of employment.

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

#448

Post by netheril96 »

reaperducer wrote: post #365
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…

The problem with housing there has one simple cause: NIMBYism ... The only solution In the real world, nothing has one simple cause or one "only" solution. The housing problem in California, and elsewhere is complex. This is akin to people who say, "The problem with homelessness there has one simple cause..." and then insert their favorite boogeyman. There are many factors involved, other than NIMBYs, and BANANAs (Bu…

Nothing has one simple cause, but many have a single dominant cause. It is probably the case here.

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

#449

Post by lisper »

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…

> The problem with housing there has one simple cause: NIMBYism.

It's true that there is one simple cause, but it's not NIMBYism, it's overpopulation, and it's a planet-wide problem. There are just too many people. They can't all live in the nice places because if they do, the nice places won't be nice places any more.

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

#450

Post by BurningFrog »

rconti wrote: post #92
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…

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.

Are you sure those are housing skyscrapers and not office buildings?

> Of course, it will still increase traffic

[adjusts glasses]

Actually, building housing near workplaces decreases traffic. Imagine people who used to drive in from Modesto moving in to these units.

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