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$1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

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

#451

Post by slavapestov »

minwcnt5 wrote: post #211
CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think the fact that humans are social animals needs a citation. Humans can (and should) get their social needs met anywhere, not only at their place of employment. I've worked both onsite and remote throughout my career. I'd never advocate for forced remote work (because some people want to get their social needs met through their employer). Rather, I'd argue that it should be considered as an option.

For me it's not just about having social needs met, it's also that for a lot of engineering work in-person collaboration is crucial. Serendipitous interactions are important. Passionate discussions involving emotion and empathy are important. Being able to easily grab a co-worker's attention for a minute to show them something on your screen or sketch an idea out on a whiteboard is important. You can technically make…

When I worked at an open office in Google, a good fraction of the people had headphones on most of the day. While there was some serendipitous discussion, much of the time we'd book meeting rooms, specifically to avoid distracting those around us.

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

#453

Post by closeparen »

dgzl wrote: post #418
TulliusCicero wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus Christ, what is it with people acting like companies having lots of high-paying jobs is some kind of economic pox? Don't we want companies to be successful and pay their employees well? Why get in the way of that, instead of supporting that and helping as many people share in the success as possible?

Maybe you don't realize this but there's a homelessness crisis happening right now, partially due to massive gentrification brought on by successful tech companies. You shouldn't pretend that there aren't negative side-effects from the collection of success and wealth in Seattle, Portland and the Bay Area. Decentralizing the workforce would help decentralize the problem.

The resources needed to solve homeless & poverty are also collecting there. Tax them. Either the tax rates drive people away and you achieve decentralization, or they solve the problem and decentralization isn’t needed.

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

#454

Post by BurningFrog »

smsm42 wrote: post #314
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…

> If it were possible to build 20,000 houses in the next 20 years, it would absolutely happen without Google's help. Depends on definition of "possible". There is space, physically. But getting all the paperwork, lining up the money, placating all the NIMBYs and the special interests and politicians may be non-trivial. For Google it may be easier than for other developers, and Google may be more motivated to do it, s…

Let me point out what apparently isn't obvious to everyone:

The more housing is built near jobs in Silicon Valley, the LESS traffic there should be there, as people get shorter commutes!

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

#455

Post by alexhutcheson »

deathanatos wrote: post #423
alexhutcheson wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need much more density around the train stations than currently exists for it to be sustainable to operate those trains on a frequent schedule. So yes, you're correct that better transportation is needed, but greater density is needed to make that transportation system possible.

> be sustainable to operate those trains on a frequent schedule CalTrain during rush hour is operating many trains at 120+% capacity. As a ride, that number feels way too low given how many people are often without a seat. I type this on a ride where I didn't get a seat for the front half of the ride. Riderships what growing by 5k daily riders YoY, though I think it's finally topped out due to train capacity. Bikers…

Yeah, the key phrase here is “during rush hour”. For CalTrain, it’s hard to justify buying more rolling stock and employing more staff if that additional capacity is going to sit mostly unused for 90% of the day. It’s analogous to paying for extra racks of servers to handle peak QPS that you only really need to handle on weekday mornings. This blog post has a more analytical take on what makes peak service so expensive: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2018/01/22/base-train-ser...

If the areas around the stations were denser and had a more diverse mix of destinations (offices, retail, schools, etc.) then there would be be enough all day demand to justify running trains all day on a frequent schedule, potentially even on 5-10 minute frequencies like the RER and S Bahn systems, which would also alleviate congestion at the peak.

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

#456

Post by closeparen »

compiler-guy wrote: post #384
sxates wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SFH has domain over their property - and that's where it should reasonably end. Giving them domain over what gets built on everyone else's property is where we get into trouble.

Except that they don't exercise the preference over what happens over everyone else's property in isolation. The SFH owners collectively vote for their town councils and governments and what not. And those governments in turn make the zoning rules. If we choose to overturn those collective preferences, we need to have principled discussions as to why our preferences should rule over the other groups'.

You have to ask what’s special about geographical clustering. Homeowners have all the power because they are arranged in big, continuous, municipal-government-sized blobs. Renters have none because they are dispersed across little pockets of each jurisdiction. If all the renters moved to one suburb they could easily get zoning power there, but they can’t, because that suburb would never allow 51% rental housing. The next best thing is to push zoning power up to a more aggregated level, where the scattered renters can form a more significant bloc.

Geometry is an arbitrary basis for power, not a principled one. There’s no deep reason why the block is too small to decide and the state is too big to decide and the City of Sunnyvale is just right.

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

#457

Post by crowbahr »

lisper wrote: post #449
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.

>There are too many people

There really aren't. The fact of the matter is that NYC is a nice place to live (typing this from Brooklyn) and it's 1000x SF's density.

The world produces a caloric surplus (based on a 2k calorie diet) per capita. We're not overpopulated.

What you're saying is that you want your in demand area to remain exclusive and separate.

It's not overpopulation: it's self interest. Preservation of something you cherish.

Which is the textbook definition of NIMBY ideals.

It's selfish to stand in the way of progress simply because you like the unfair status quo.

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

#458

Post by foobiekr »

crowbahr wrote: post #457
lisper wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>There are too many people There really aren't. The fact of the matter is that NYC is a nice place to live (typing this from Brooklyn) and it's 1000x SF's density. The world produces a caloric surplus (based on a 2k calorie diet) per capita. We're not overpopulated. What you're saying is that you want your in demand area to remain exclusive and separate. It's not overpopulation: it's self interest. Preservation of so…

The current caloric surplus and population is largely supported by a truly outstanding amounts of petrochemicals being used since the start of the "green" revolution.

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

#459

Post by georgeecollins »

brianwawok wrote: post #7
georgeecollins wrote: post #4

I think this is good and should be encouraged. The Bay Area needs more housing desperately.

My only question, is will these houses have access to public transit or will they drive? If driving, can your roads handle the increased traffic? Housing, transit, schooling.. these all seem interconnected. Just increasing supply of one just strains the rest of the system, no?

But you have to start somewhere. NIMBYs (not saying you) will always find a reason to discourage housing and the problem just gets worse.
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