751–760 of 1001 posts
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Only by some San Franciscans who've been sniffing their own farts for too long. Everyone else thinks that The Bay is culturually homogenous.
It’s pretty dangerous to go against the culture these days. I’ve been singled out for trying to stay out of PC culture. Backed into a coroner of either actively agree with everything PC or “consequences”.
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This story is insanely misleading though. Everyone here is talking about why the tech elite are leaving due to the quality of life when Keith Rabois specifically has like 3-4 IPOs he was an early investor in going public right now and makes no sense to stay in California in 2021 and pay state capital gains taxes on those sales. Same with Elon Musk and Tesla’s absurd stock price. And probably a lot of other people giv…
But their success has very little do with the tax burden imposed on them by the state of California (c.f. any number of Seattle-based companies).
And the other way to look at it is California is expensive because the opportunity to become rich is greater here than elsewhere.
In the last 10-15 years San Francisco gained a ton of residents that didn't want to be there at all. They moved there because the job opportunities in tech were too hard to turn down. I had some friends like this, they just never really liked the city. Now they're all leaving because their job is not making them stay. That's fine and I'm happy they have more choices now. But there's a flip side to that. One of my lea…
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Chicago is pretty segregated, but the transit situation is easily the best of any major US city. A car helps you get places quicker, but an adventurous person can get all over the city easily on the buses and trains and any given neighborhood is very walkable. The main issue is the cold. You have 3 months of amazing summer and 8 months of cold with two weeks of spring and fall on either end. If you're not from the Mi…
Cold is fine. Getting robbed at gunpoint isn't. That's the real Chicago you have to contend with.
Your experience will vary greatly, depending on which areas you visit.
It also has more than triple the population of SF, or twice as many people as SF+Oakland combined, so any absolute (as opposed to per-capita) numbers aren't comparable.
In the last 10-15 years San Francisco gained a ton of residents that didn't want to be there at all. They moved there because the job opportunities in tech were too hard to turn down. I had some friends like this, they just never really liked the city. Now they're all leaving because their job is not making them stay. That's fine and I'm happy they have more choices now. But there's a flip side to that. One of my lea…
For all the faults I take issue with, the SFBA is probably the single place I most fit in culturally in the world. It’s where I want to be. But I can’t justify paying the absurd rents to live there when my job doesn’t require me to be there AND socialization/networking/most leisure activities are on pause. After March there was nothing for me to do except enjoy nature activities/exercise outside, and my social life was in shambles.
I can’t wait for everything to go back to normal and move back to the Bay Area, but for now I am very happy I moved back in with my parents.
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The primary point is easy access to nature from a metro area. Other than easy access to nature, all of those points are true for major metro areas. But other than say, Salt Lake City, does any other metro area offer such close access to nature? Boston and Seattle are even much farther away...
>Boston and Seattle are even much farther away... I'll grant you the Santa Cruz Mountains if you're on the southern end of the Bay. You've also got the hills in the East Bay and various options in Marin and points north if you're in Marin. But Boston, in addition to various coastal walks has a bunch of nearby parks and small mountains/hills to the west and in southern NH. Also tons of sea kayaking/canoeing. Depending…
I grew up in suburban Boston. It was a very nice town - we lived on an acre of land, with woods behind the house. Drive 30 minutes in any direction, and you got basically - woods. Maybe some ponds and fields, with scattered houses and suburban town centers between. The city (a pretty nice one) was 30 minutes away. You could get to waterfront, in Boston or Salem or Nahant, but there aren't really beaches in most of Massachusetts (outside of Cape Cod). It did have a massive amount of history, though - in that 30 minute drive was basically everywhere significant to the birth of the USA.
I'm on the peninsula now, in the hills. 10 minute walk to a suburban downtown. 3 minute drive (or ~20 minute walk) and we're on some Bay trails. 5 minute drive and we're in the mountains. 5 minute drive to a massive lake over the San Andreas. 20 minute drive and we're on the beach at the Pacific Ocean. 30 minute drive (or 40 minute Caltrain) and we're up in SF. 30 minute drive and we're in downtown San Jose.
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And rent is sky-high, tax is insane, homeless with needles are everywhere, the city is one of the dirtiest in the country, and bleeding-heart citizens have passed propositions increasing crime and tying the hands of police. If there’s one thing I remember about the BART it’s the overwhelming noise and the constant smell of urine. The public transport situation is archaic and pales in comparison to other cities. You c…
Yeah I don't get it when people say SF is "walkable". No, Toronto is walkable. It's flat, dense, everything is close by, and clean. I'd be content to walk 45-50 mins to get somewhere. In SF, I dread having to walk, bike or take public transit anywhere. It's unpleasant, unsafe, smells horrible and there's rampant petty crime. And not just one district, it's like that in most of the areas you need to go to
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> I can also see why developers might have been reluctant to bet too big on new construction Why would that be?
Because if "tech elites" actually are leaving, then the increase in demand will have been proven to be transient Surely many developers would have made the bet anyway, at least in 2010-2019, but going forward it'll be worth considering whether building housing for people who are likely to leave en masse is worth the risk.
People are building houses in countries where they sell at 20x lower prices.
Unless construction workers in SV are paid 1 million $ / year, the reason for not building is not that it's not (hugely) profitable.
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This is pre-Covid: > easily accessible nature From my office in Palo Alto, I can ride my bicycle up Sand Hill Road, past horse farms, and then up a secluded 2000 ft (~600 meters) mountain with virtually no traffic and return during my lunch break . Or I can take a long lunch and ride out to the coast, through rolling farmlands. And I can do that virtually any day of the year, thanks to the local climate. Most of the…
> Many places have some of what SV offers. Very very few have everything, and I would argue that none of the cities you listed fit the bill. Ah, but all of them have more affordable housing.
I'm the one that started this discussion and it proved controversial. I tried to just talk about like, the amenities of living in the area and tech jobs, but most people replied saying "wait there's two or three of your list of five or six in...".
I may be biased because I'm not a "generalist web developer", I work in either crazy startups or kinda niche embedded/low level roles. I still get two or three really good job offers from big companies per month even when I'm not looking and they are in SV. I was getting one or more per week pre-COVID. Even when actively looking for that type jobs in Colorado and Austin I can't find them.
Colorado would be more interesting for me if I was a citizen and could work the government aerospace and defense jobs but unfortunately I can't.
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This story is insanely misleading though. Everyone here is talking about why the tech elite are leaving due to the quality of life when Keith Rabois specifically has like 3-4 IPOs he was an early investor in going public right now and makes no sense to stay in California in 2021 and pay state capital gains taxes on those sales. Same with Elon Musk and Tesla’s absurd stock price. And probably a lot of other people giv…
Is that surprising? This is exactly how they treat the rest the world in business (e.g. Apple/Google/Amazon's elaborate international tax evasion schemes see dutch sandwich/double irish style arrangements). Also see Uber/AirBNB "disruption" of not paying benefits/hotel taxes. I would be more surprised if they didn't "optimize" like that.
My point is don’t fall for their public relations spin BS.