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Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

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Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#181

Post by justchilly »

lostmyoldone wrote: post #65
bluedevil2k wrote: post #18

It’s odd they don’t mention the sky high taxes in California as a driving force for the exodus and the fact the Gavin Newsom wants to raise them even more to cover Covid shortages. There’s only so much you can squeeze out of people before they’ll pack up an go.

San Fransisco has one of the highest, and in some cases - highest - housing and rental prices in the US. If taxes are as high as you claim, it would be more rational to argue that the high prices are indirectly caused by that tax, rather than prices being held down by taxes. Several causes seems more likely for a change in inventory, or pricing. An extremely high cost of housing and the consequently smaller than aver…

If you make $250k in SF (sounds high, but about average for the people I know that are leaving SF), state income tax alone is $19,996. If you make that in Texas, state income tax is $0. That $20k/year is for many people a bigger deal than the cost of living. Most people I know leaving were home owners or rent controlled.

Source: moved to Austin in June.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#182

Post by jeffdn »

paul_f wrote: post #48
wwwwwwwww wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how the homeless have made many areas of the city uninviting That's a very ugly sentence. Its is not "the homeless" who made the city uninviting. That is like saying "the sick made this hospital uninviting". Homeless people need help. They are people in distress. Those who made the city uninviting are self-centered voters, who apparently can't give two shits about the situation, and keep voting people into power wh…

Semantics, we all know what the poster meant. Whatever the cause, the homeless make large swaths of San Francisco unappealing, especially for people with young families. BTW, quite the irony that the most liberal city in the country has the biggest homeless problem. Whatever they're doing isn't working, maybe they should try something different?

San Francisco may be the most liberal city in the country (or at least one of them -- Washington, D.C. is pretty liberal, too), but it absolutely does not have the worst homeless problem: https://www.usnews.com/news/cities/slideshows/cities-with-th...

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#183

Post by toast0 »

__float wrote: post #127
kgermino wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also avoids a lot of cultural/communication problems. Even when everyone speaks the same language, words have subtly different meanings in different cultures. This is true across NA as well, but SF vs Atlanta is much closer than Chicago vs India or Brazil. Not to mention that these are also big countries with their own regional language variations.

This doesn't make much sense either -- many companies will happily employ people from India or Brazil if they live in SF or Chicago. Why are the "cultural/communication problems" not present then?

People in the US from other countries have often assimilated at least some US culture. Or will be expected to assimilate important cultural issues more rapidly in an office in the US with mostly US cultured people than in an office elsewhere with few US cultured people.

Many of the communication problems are rapidly addressed with constant realtime communication that happens in a shared office but doesn't with teams working separate hours.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#184

Post by 98Windows »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #177
tmpz22 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still got pockets of extreme beauty where you can for the most part ignore the problems, there's also a strong contingent of "lifers" who would go down with the ship if a small comet was headed to destroy the city. Also a lot of people hanging on to their property values as their entire nest egg.

Oh yea, I agree the natural beauty is astounding. It's the extreme left wing, near Bolshevik culture and attitude that has destroyed it for me. I say this as a lifelong democrat.

[flagged]

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#185

Post by draw_down »

paul7986 wrote: post #166
pyrrhotech wrote: post #158

Not sure why anyone would choose to live in SF except for geographic-specific opportunities. It's a dirty, overcrowded and high tax pit, and everyone living there that isn't in tech or finance hates you for your success.

Now with remote work there's no need to be in such an environment! My memories from each visit is the smell of urine and people who need help using bullhorns to scream their thoughts. I thought to myself this is the charm of San Francisco (circa 2008) I use to hear about in song?

Things change, friend

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#186

Post by justchilly »

sftoss31337 wrote: post #176

As a native San Franciscan, I can only say, “bye Felicia!” With all the techbros and bankers fleeing home to connecticut or wherever it is they’re from, we can rebuild our destroyed community. Hopefully this will spread to San Mateo County and the Santa Clara valley. Startup brats have turned oir vibrant, freaky, hippy, radical home into a bedroom community for the most boring rich people in the world. Covid is a god…

Those Felicias are the majority of the tax base, and fund all of the initiatives that rebuild communities. Falling housing prices -> falling property taxes -> less funding for schools. Even the new revenue tax passed last year to fund homeless programs is based employees being in SF, when they leave, no more funding.

Not to mention all the money the Felicias pump into the local economy by ubering to brunch to buy their avocado toast and bottemless mimosas from local businesses.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#187

Post by jeffdn »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #177
tmpz22 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still got pockets of extreme beauty where you can for the most part ignore the problems, there's also a strong contingent of "lifers" who would go down with the ship if a small comet was headed to destroy the city. Also a lot of people hanging on to their property values as their entire nest egg.

Oh yea, I agree the natural beauty is astounding. It's the extreme left wing, near Bolshevik culture and attitude that has destroyed it for me. I say this as a lifelong democrat.

I'd hazard a guess to say that actual Bolsheviks would be appalled by American liberals, many of whom engage in conspicuous consumption and are vastly more interested in the appearance of affecting change than in the actual work required to make it happen.

There is a vast difference between American liberals and left-wing politics.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#188

Post by lotsofpulp »

tjr225 wrote: post #173
gojomo wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Er, there's plenty of natural beauty, hiking/cycling/camping, & peaks higher than Mt. Tam east of Rockies, and even east of the Mississippi. Otherwise, your point about there still being plenty of healthy ways to get out of the home, both practically and in accordance with official guidelines, is well-made.

I’m aware that there is but heavily biased towards the diversity and depth of the natural beauty of the West Coast.

Plus the humidity east of the Rockies makes outdoor anything unappealing, at least if you’re used to low humidity.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#189

Post by gfodor »

tiredyam wrote: post #171
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a homeless shelter 2 blocks away from me, and I’m perfectly fine with it. The residents are great people as far as I can tell; I smile and wave when I see them, and I don’t begrudge the occasional panhandler or guy mumbling to himself. I mention all that to be very clear about what I mean when I say, I wouldn’t agree to live near a San Francisco homeless shelter either. I just can’t tolerate people screaming…

This needs to upvoted higher. My anecdotal experience living in SF near homeless shelters for years is that there is a stark contrast in the homeless population in SF compared to other major US cities. I don’t claim to know why, but my big take away is that there isn’t a one size fits all strategy to addressing homelessness as it varies from region to region.

I concur, for whatever reason, SF seems to have a larger density of people who are homeless who are also (sadly) suffering from mental illness or drug addiction, which has led to SF being the only city where I regularly expect (and do) see violent interactions between the homeless and others.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#190

Post by fermienrico »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #177
tmpz22 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still got pockets of extreme beauty where you can for the most part ignore the problems, there's also a strong contingent of "lifers" who would go down with the ship if a small comet was headed to destroy the city. Also a lot of people hanging on to their property values as their entire nest egg.

Oh yea, I agree the natural beauty is astounding. It's the extreme left wing, near Bolshevik culture and attitude that has destroyed it for me. I say this as a lifelong democrat.

I agree, SF/Oakland/Berkeley do not resonate with me as a life-long democrat as well.

Extreme-left wingers in my view stand head to head with extreme-right wingers. These people are the cancer of the society IMO.

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