Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall • Hacker News Board

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

#841

Post by nsnick » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 2:04 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #366

john_moscow wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly this seems to only cover people who don't have kids. Do you think people with kids are stuck in SF, or have they moved out much earlier?

Oddly enough a traditional risk of moving with kids is the "lost year" due to the disruption of changing school districts. But this year is going to be lost anyway, and a 100% certainty is no longer a risk. And if school is going to be online anyway, then they could stay plugged into the old district until they get fully plugged into the new one.

What is typically lost when a child changes schools?

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

#842

Post by werber » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 2:06 PM UTC

brian_herman__ wrote: post #826

radicaldreamer wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only in the short to medium term... the characteristics which make SF an attractive place to live (just like NYC) are resilient and sticky. If you consider a post-covid world 5 years from now, do you think that SF with it's museums, bars, restaurants, and proximity to nature will be an unattractive place to live? Do you think that remote-first/remote-only companies where the majority of employees are outside of the b…

Look at Detroit. It has farm land now. Soon a robocop statue!

Detroit is actually pretty great, we have some pretty awesome museums (the DIA has a really impressive collection), affordable orchestra, ballet, and opera, great parks (belle isle is magical), the food scene isn’t SF or NYC but it’s accessible and experimental, there are tons of pop ups, food trucks and the like. Besides that, It’s extremely affordable outside of a handful of neighborhoods. Obviously there are problems, but it’s actually a really easy and fun place to live

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

#843

Post by api » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

Crises like these tend to pop bubbles. The "everyone has to be in one of 5 or 6 cities to have a career" bubble is popping.

It's terrible for the inhabitants of these cities as it makes them unaffordable, and it's terrible for everyone else as it makes it impossible for them to accumulate wealth and drains the rest of the country of talent. The only beneficiaries are pre-existing property owners in these cities, and banks to some extent.

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

#844

Post by ghaff » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 2:12 PM UTC

josephmosby wrote: post #824

hpkuarg wrote: post #823

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, where else have you lived with such a great balance of everything?

#1 suggestion: Washington, DC. Museums (the Smithsonian museums), bars, restaurants (one of the Michelin cities), proximity to nature (there's a national park that cuts through the middle of the city, there's the National Arboretum, and you're about an hour drive from numerous state parks in Virginia and Maryland) #2 suggestion: Chicago, IL. Museums (check), bars (check), restaurants (also a Michelin city), nature (L…

Access to nature from SF does require that you actually take advantage of it. There are probably a lot of young tech folk (among others) in SF who don't own a car and tend to mostly do urban stuff. In practice, if you need to rent transportation or depend on friends every time you want to go more than a few miles, you're probably not going to do it.

And at that point, you lose a lot of what makes SF appealing versus other cities.

As for weather, some people do value not having snow or typical summer heat/humidity (or both). But SF isn't the only place with a nice climate (and, for many, SF is gray and foggy relative to even other nearby California options).

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

#845

Post by metalforever » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

gravypod wrote: post #549

baron816 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternate experience: I just moved into SF a week ago from elsewhere in the Bay. I was able to get a large, modern, luxury 1BR in a decent location for under $3K + almost a 1 month concession and no deposit. Being a single, young(ish) guy, it still makes sense to be in a city. I have more space than I need now, and I can afford the rent. Maybe things aren’t that nice right now, but I’m hoping they’ll get back to semi…

You can rent-to-own a 6br house on a 6k+ sqft lot with a detached garage in NJ with a ~1hr commute to Manhattan for $3,500/month in NJ. $3k/month on an apartment gets you a luxury huge 2 to 3 bedroom with in unit w/d and bowling/swimming in the basement or something in Hoboken with a Thinking 36k/year (more then the total comp of many workers in America) is cheap housing is a Bay-area distortion.

I live in the area and I think this is a bit exaggerated. I dont think the commute is 1hr door to door either. It's almost 1hr d2d from Harrison and I know you arent talking about Jersey City / Newark / Harrison / Bayonne

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

#846

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

clappski wrote: post #805

habosa wrote: post #778

I moved out of SF in March. Not because of the virus, I just had a long-planned move (to London) with interesting timing. Unlike many of my tech peers, I love San Francisco and the Bay Area. It's a beautiful city and surrounded in all directions by even more beautiful places. The food, music, and art scenes are all amazing. Oh and it happens to have near-unlimited job options for my career of choice. The only reason…

> all I could think in my first month in central London was "wow it's so cheap here". I think you're possibly the first and last person to have that thought ;)

I dunno, when I moved from Ireland to London, pretty much everything except rent and travel was much, much cheaper.

That probably says more about Ireland than it does about London though.

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

#847

Post by metalforever » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

jdhn wrote: post #827

kelnos wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up in NJ about an hour south of Manhattan, that sounds like a living situation that would make me very unhappy as an adult (don't get me wrong; I had a great childhood). But I have some dear friends who lived in San Jose for several years and then ended up moving back to rural South Jersey, so, clearly, to each their own. Even the 25min commute from Hoboken would make me sad. I want to be able to…

>I have some dear friends who lived in San Jose for several years and then ended up moving back to rural South Jersey That's a hell of a jump. What about rural South Jersey appealed to them?

Ive lived in San Jose and I can assure you that besides jobs, San Jose kind of sucks as a place to live. It's mostly just strip malls and good weather, imho. Campbell was a little nicer and had some cute shops.

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

#848

Post by fragmede » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

gfxgirl wrote: post #822

radicaldreamer wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only in the short to medium term... the characteristics which make SF an attractive place to live (just like NYC) are resilient and sticky. If you consider a post-covid world 5 years from now, do you think that SF with it's museums, bars, restaurants, and proximity to nature will be an unattractive place to live? Do you think that remote-first/remote-only companies where the majority of employees are outside of the b…

If I came from maybe Flagstaff Arizona I'd think SF has "museums, bars, restaurants, proximity to nature" but having lived in plenty of other places with more museums, bars, restaurants and proximity to nature SF was a let down.

San Francisco is a very small city, but it is a city nonetheless which puts it on the list of places in the US where you can live (and I mean truly live) without a car, even before the age of Uber/Lyft. (Unsurprisingly, the other places on that list are also cities.)

Due to tech money and location, it occupies a weird place in the various lists of world's cities. It is just tiny a small city compared to other cities in the world, and geography and politics aren't about to let that change any time soon.

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

#849

Post by jimbob21 » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

VRay wrote: post #706

redisman wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bay Area nature is unparalleled Puget Sound and Denver metros might disagree

This is ridiculous. Basically every city in the USA is within a couple hours' drive of "amazing nature" The only reason I live in the Bay Area is because my net worth goes up WAY more here per year than it does elsewhere.. If that changes, I'm out

Finally a truthful comment. Everybody goes there to make money, that's it. There's nothing wrong with that, so why do people still try to pretend that isn't the reason when out of view of their employers?

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

#850

Post by fragmede » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 2:25 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #844

josephmosby wrote: post #824

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#1 suggestion: Washington, DC. Museums (the Smithsonian museums), bars, restaurants (one of the Michelin cities), proximity to nature (there's a national park that cuts through the middle of the city, there's the National Arboretum, and you're about an hour drive from numerous state parks in Virginia and Maryland) #2 suggestion: Chicago, IL. Museums (check), bars (check), restaurants (also a Michelin city), nature (L…

Access to nature from SF does require that you actually take advantage of it. There are probably a lot of young tech folk (among others) in SF who don't own a car and tend to mostly do urban stuff. In practice, if you need to rent transportation or depend on friends every time you want to go more than a few miles, you're probably not going to do it. And at that point, you lose a lot of what makes SF appealing versus…

For the purposes of the weather, I say that SF isn't in California. For better or worse. (During this current heatwave, I think better. Today's high is forecast to be 76/24.)

What are other options for similar mild weather? LA/San Diego gets too hot, Atlanta gets humid as well, Boston and NYC get too hot and humid in the summer, and are snowy in winter (though I don't mind that so much). Seattle's got too much rain.