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Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

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Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#301

Post by [deleted] »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #285
LeanderK wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is there really no middle ground (not an American)? What about cities like Seattle or Boston (just guessing here)? For me, the thought feels a bit like just going back in time. I mean there are still issues everywhere but this is so drastic and feels like you're back to constantly fighting for really basic rights. This comment also reads a bit like it's ok for you if you don't personally feel hostility, so this might…

> is there really no middle ground (not an American)? What about cities like Seattle or Boston (just guessing here)? For me, the thought feels a bit like just going back in time. I mean there are still issues everywhere but this is so drastic and feels like you're back to constantly fighting for really basic rights. Keeping the political and social narratives focused on fights for basic rights ensures that no one pas…

[deleted]

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#302

Post by alephnerd »

ElfinTrousers wrote: post #287
alephnerd wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a kid here in the late 90s/early 2000s. It's still as crummy now as it was then. I remember seeing drug addicts on market as a kid, as well as the gang crap in Hunter Points (what's now called Mission Bay - India Basin has been renamed Hunters Point) and Mission District. The difference is Mission, Northern Tenderloin/"Lower Nob Hill", Western Addition/"Hayes Valley", and Hunters Point had been extremely gentri…

> India Basin has been renamed Hunters Point Think you got this backwards.

Indeed I did! Good catch!

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#303

Post by helen___keller »

Gravityloss wrote: post #262
helen___keller wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this isn’t true in all of greater Boston or even within the whole metro core. If you live in Watertown, Quincy, Waltham, Newton, etc etc you are going to have a very different experience My main complaint with Boston is that even if you’re happy with just the walkable city center, it’s still tough commuting if you can’t walk/bike and you aren’t going to/from downtown Boston. For example if someone in So…

If you're going 5 miles, biking sounds like a realistic alternative?

Yep, the drive and bike times for my example are roughly the same at rush hour according to google. For someone interesting in biking as a commute, Boston/camberville is probably one of the best places to live+work. If you can deal with the winter anyways

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#304

Post by ghc »

LeanderK wrote: post #292
ghc wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You definitely don't need (or want) a car in Boston. Boston is extremely pedestrian friendly and correspondingly hostile to cars. 95% of the people who complain about getting around here are commuters from outside the city.

> You definitely don't need (or want) a car in Boston I have never been to Boston, but if this is true then why is the public transport map so weird? There's the subway for inter-city travel but if you're commuting then commuter rail does not seem practical at all because of this weird gap? To me it made the impression of a neglected system, presumably because everyone commutes by car. Is there still space downtown f…

The public transit system is shaped by natural barriers and landfill, so the weird layout really has nothing to do with neglect (though there's plenty of that too!). The subway system actually covers a large area including Boston and the urban area surrounding it. The commuter rail mostly serves the urban cores of suburban communities outside Boston, so people drive to the commuter rail and then commute by train from there.

Before covid (no idea what the numbers are now) only 40% of people in the Boston metro commuted by car alone, roughly the same share as those who took the commuter rail and subway. 20% of people commuted by car and bike. The share of people who commute by car in the core of Boston is extremely small. At least 50% of roads in the city are single lane and one way. Parking is expensive and scarce. Driving 2 miles (as the crow flies) can easily take an hour, which makes walking pretty competitive as a mode of transit.

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#305

Post by seanw444 »

imajoo wrote: post #240
dumbotron wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my hobbies tend to be populated mainly by the conservative demographic What are conservative (and liberal) hobbies?

My assumption would be hunting perhaps? Since that involves gun ownership, and gun ownership/rights typically being associated with "conservatives".

Which is stupid. It's everyone's right. One side just understands the importance of it, the other tries their hardest to throw it in the trash.

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#306

Post by ghc »

helen___keller wrote: post #191
ghc wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You definitely don't need (or want) a car in Boston. Boston is extremely pedestrian friendly and correspondingly hostile to cars. 95% of the people who complain about getting around here are commuters from outside the city.

Unfortunately this isn’t true in all of greater Boston or even within the whole metro core. If you live in Watertown, Quincy, Waltham, Newton, etc etc you are going to have a very different experience My main complaint with Boston is that even if you’re happy with just the walkable city center, it’s still tough commuting if you can’t walk/bike and you aren’t going to/from downtown Boston. For example if someone in So…

This is true of even the most public-transit-centered cities like Tokyo and NYC. It's easy to find commutes that are short as the crow flies but cover a much longer distance on public transit.

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#307

Post by seanw444 »

refurb wrote: post #296
toss1 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>California’s gun control laws suppress the rights of many people Seriously? I have a relative who lives in CA and bought a pair of AR-15s a few years ago, just because... I've never seen any serious gun proposal that would actually infringe on any actual right. They are all about ensuring that background checks apply to all sales, waiting periods, red flags, etc. People seem to forget that allowing any mentally ill…

Hand gun roster and red flag laws are two good examples. Allowing the police to seize weapons based on suspicion is unconstitutional. CA only recently started allowing concealed carry after the Supreme Court forced them.

There was just a vote in SCOTUS to attempt to put an end to NY and CA's last-ditch attempts to deprive people of obtaining CCW permits without ridiculous requirements and mind boggling wait times.

Also, yes, while you may be able to get ARs, you're subject to dumb arbitrary restrictions[1] on what you can put on that AR.

And finally, CA and NY are doing their best to ban body armor. That makes me laugh, because now you can't even own methods of self-defense that aren't meant to injure anyone.

I consider CA and NY foreign nations at this point[2] (among a few others). It seems they do whatever they can to keep the common man down. They're good at one thing though: making it easy to "cheat" your reproductive system, and evade the responsibility of parenting while maintaining your rabid degeneracy as much as you want. I'm not even religious, and I find the rise in abortion disturbing. Although I guess the demographic that tend to get abortions will just be unbreeding themselves out of plurality, by definition.

[1] https://giffords.org/lawcenter/state-laws/assault-weapons-in...

[2] Should not be construed as me implying that red states are great. They're simply the lesser of two evils. I at least feel comfortable in red, although there are many things I disagree with.

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#308

Post by slg »

prepend wrote: post #254
slg wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Personal politics, IMO, is not a good reason to avoid living in certain areas. I'm a liberal-leaning moderate but many of my favorite people (friends and family) are conservative, and many of my hobbies tend to be populated mainly by the conservative demographic. This is a comment that originates in privilege. The concern for many people is not simply that they would have to be friends with conservative people. The…

> …hostile to them. This is true for a variety of targeted groups including LGBT+ people, ethnic minorities, or even just women I suppose that’s a personal design and a trade off that you and others need to make. I live in a “red state” and am described by several of the groups you mention and don’t feel the government nor community is hostile to me. I think it’s hard to understand beforehand what is hostile and how…

>I suppose that’s a personal design and a trade off that you and others need to make.

And that was effectively my point. The comment I replied to stated their opinion that it is universally bad to make this decision on a personal level. My counter did not say it was universally bad for people who belong to any of those groups to live in a red state. I said many people in those groups would feel that the local government and community are hostile to them. That isn't disproven when some members of those groups, such as yourself, don't feel the same way.

OP was applying how they feel to everyone likely because they don't need to worry about any of these concerns. I was reminding everyone that many people don't feel like they have the choice to ignore politics. And yes, if we want to be pedantic everyone technically does have that choice. We have the personal freedom to live our lives as the "this is fine" dog if we want (not saying that is you in this instance, I'm just speaking generally).

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#309

Post by slaw »

z3ugma wrote: post #279
exochrono wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see these offices turned into housing as much as anyone, but I also recommend reading this amazing NYT article on why it's not quite so simple as just rezoning or a simple interior remodel - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office...

This is very interesting, but it assumes the predicate that separated apartments with individual kitchens and bathrooms are the right way for people to live. And 1 BR and studios at that. These are buildings designed for communal occupancy as offices, why not lean into that as residences? Think like a 1-2 floor cooperative housing for a community of 50-100 people in 25-50 family units. Everyone gets private bedrooms,…

Boarding houses are banned in US due to zoning laws.

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#310

Post by AndrewKemendo »

seanw444 wrote: post #305
imajoo wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My assumption would be hunting perhaps? Since that involves gun ownership, and gun ownership/rights typically being associated with "conservatives".

Which is stupid. It's everyone's right. One side just understands the importance of it, the other tries their hardest to throw it in the trash.

Yours is a naiive position positioning itself as enlightened

Firearms are worthless without organization and there is no actual revolutionary force in America even at the seed stage that is approximating anything near even Taliban levels of insurgent capabilities.

Your 2A “movement” has neither the coherent holistic political philosophy nor the competent leadership needed to actually create a viable social structure

So no, you’re cosplaying as a hollow copy of the Taliban with none of the threat, risk or even dedication to a real cause.

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