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In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

nytimes.com

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Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#11

Post by everdrive »

TSiege wrote: post #2

Everyone I know is griping about the cost of living. There is no easy answer, but the only viable solution is building a lot more dense housing and public transit for said urbanism. Housing being this expensive is a choice. The economy and our society would be much healthier if we decided making sure there was ample housing in high demand areas. We've conflated having a home with a financial asset. We can't have plen…

>There is no easy answer, but the only viable solution is building a lot more dense housing and public transit for said urbanism

What about fewer people with the same amount of housing stock? I'm not even arguing that this is the better solution, but I don't even see people entertain it for the purposes of arguing against it.

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#12

Post by crooked-v »

TSiege wrote: post #2

Everyone I know is griping about the cost of living. There is no easy answer, but the only viable solution is building a lot more dense housing and public transit for said urbanism. Housing being this expensive is a choice. The economy and our society would be much healthier if we decided making sure there was ample housing in high demand areas. We've conflated having a home with a financial asset. We can't have plen…

SF in particular is wild. There are so many people who oppose any and all new housing because "it isn't affordable", as if just not constructing anything, ever, will let anyone afford anything.

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#14

Post by mbgerring »

everdrive wrote: post #11
TSiege wrote: post #2

Everyone I know is griping about the cost of living. There is no easy answer, but the only viable solution is building a lot more dense housing and public transit for said urbanism. Housing being this expensive is a choice. The economy and our society would be much healthier if we decided making sure there was ample housing in high demand areas. We've conflated having a home with a financial asset. We can't have plen…

>There is no easy answer, but the only viable solution is building a lot more dense housing and public transit for said urbanism What about fewer people with the same amount of housing stock? I'm not even arguing that this is the better solution, but I don't even see people entertain it for the purposes of arguing against it.

> I don't even see people entertain it for the purposes of arguing against it.

Luckily, we have several recent real-life examples demonstrating why “fewer people” is not a viable solution:

Because you either need to forcibly remove people, which involves an army of stormtroopers kidnapping people off the street and killing innocent people in the process, or you have to control pregnancy and childbirth, involving a level of surveillance and government control over the most intimate parts of our lives, unacceptable to people even in societies that otherwise accept a high level of surveillance and government control, as well as a lot of babies abandoned in dumpsters.

Weighed against the actual consequences of “less people,” just building more houses is very appealing!

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#15

Post by apparent »

GenseeAI wrote: post #9

As an AI startup founder, my impression is that $180k in the Bay Area mostly gets you new grads or relatively junior talent these days. However, remote work has fundamentally changed the equation. Expanding hiring beyond the Bay Area, or even internationally (for example, hiring remotely from Canada), can dramatically broaden the talent pool while significantly reducing costs.

Totally agree. Lots of people want to work remotely, and in many companies that works fine for certain types of jobs.

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#16

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

everdrive wrote: post #11
TSiege wrote: post #2

Everyone I know is griping about the cost of living. There is no easy answer, but the only viable solution is building a lot more dense housing and public transit for said urbanism. Housing being this expensive is a choice. The economy and our society would be much healthier if we decided making sure there was ample housing in high demand areas. We've conflated having a home with a financial asset. We can't have plen…

>There is no easy answer, but the only viable solution is building a lot more dense housing and public transit for said urbanism What about fewer people with the same amount of housing stock? I'm not even arguing that this is the better solution, but I don't even see people entertain it for the purposes of arguing against it.

Presently high housing prices are causing this; a lot more people would be living in SF today if there was more supply, which is equivalent to the high prices having kicked people out.

Do you have any policies in mind that could reduce the population without pricing people out? Maybe a Hukou system, or a right-to-reside lottery?

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#17

Post by lokar »

everdrive wrote: post #11
TSiege wrote: post #2

Everyone I know is griping about the cost of living. There is no easy answer, but the only viable solution is building a lot more dense housing and public transit for said urbanism. Housing being this expensive is a choice. The economy and our society would be much healthier if we decided making sure there was ample housing in high demand areas. We've conflated having a home with a financial asset. We can't have plen…

>There is no easy answer, but the only viable solution is building a lot more dense housing and public transit for said urbanism What about fewer people with the same amount of housing stock? I'm not even arguing that this is the better solution, but I don't even see people entertain it for the purposes of arguing against it.

I bring it up with some people.

To do this you need to either accept:

- the area becomes an enclave for the wealthy with a high unhoused population, where most youth have to move away. People say they don't want this, I’m not sure they are being honest.

- the government regulates internal migration. You need a permit to move from the Midwest to California.

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#18

Post by rich_sasha »

I suppose a big change over the past 50 years is that we really boosted jobs that must be done in big cities. Wanna earn a lot of money? Take on a lot of debt and become a lawyer/accountant/etc. But we didn't create more cities. There's more people competing for the same small amount of commutable real estate, and the winners are the top earners.

I'm not sure how you fix it. The organic fix ought to be that businesses want to move out of the overpriced cities. But if that's also where their employment pool and investors are, that's tricky.

UK has had the same issue. The salary gap between London and anywhere else is huge. So everyone aspiring for a high salary wants to move to London. So prices are drastically higher. And there's no rebalancing in sight.

Maybe there's space for some government regulation? Tax cuts for companies hiring in lower CoL areas? No idea. But so long as an increasing pool of people is competing for a barely growing pool of housing, it's not going to get better.

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#19

Post by joinjune »

mbgerring wrote: post #14
everdrive wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is no easy answer, but the only viable solution is building a lot more dense housing and public transit for said urbanism What about fewer people with the same amount of housing stock? I'm not even arguing that this is the better solution, but I don't even see people entertain it for the purposes of arguing against it.

> I don't even see people entertain it for the purposes of arguing against it. Luckily, we have several recent real-life examples demonstrating why “fewer people” is not a viable solution: Because you either need to forcibly remove people, which involves an army of stormtroopers kidnapping people off the street and killing innocent people in the process, or you have to control pregnancy and childbirth, involving a le…

Short term you might be right. Long term we have seen that western "education" results in declines in birthrates. Demographics are destiny.

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#20

Post by watershawl »

rich_sasha wrote: post #18

I suppose a big change over the past 50 years is that we really boosted jobs that must be done in big cities. Wanna earn a lot of money? Take on a lot of debt and become a lawyer/accountant/etc. But we didn't create more cities. There's more people competing for the same small amount of commutable real estate, and the winners are the top earners. I'm not sure how you fix it. The organic fix ought to be that businesse…

But people naturally want to live near water or other natural features and those areas are usually already developed.

I suppose one could cross-reference all of the places where highway meets water meats geographic feature, but a city does not yet exist - and then propose one.

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