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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

#71

Post by mbgerring »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #46
mbgerring wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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 I don't think this is true at all. Birthrates are already declining. All you have to do is give proper sex ed and easy access to birth control and populations will shrink on their own. You don't even ha…

Neither the global birthrate, nor the U.S. population, are currently declining. The U.S. population may decline this year following the Trump administration’s massive increase in violent, capricious removal of immigrants regardless of legal status or criminal record.

Birthrates naturally declining is probably a good thing, but it happens too slowly to make a dent in housing prices without additional interventions.

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

#72

Post by gruntled-worker »

bombcar wrote: post #53
gruntled-worker wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's strange kinship and signaling in proximity. It's similar to college degrees. Working in SF - either in person or locally remote - puts people in a separate bin. It's not just signaling. Once people move away the kinship factor fades, even when you already know them well past the signaling stage.

This kind of boils down to "I want to live and work with people like me" which is a common feeling, but sometimes veers dangerously.

It's more like being regulars at the same bar. It cuts through demos. It's easier here since almost everyone is from elsewhere.

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

#73

Post by apparent »

> “I thought when I’d make $200k I would be able to basically not worry about money at all,” she said, adding that she and her friends stopped going out to restaurants last year and shifted to potlucks and reality-TV nights.

$200k is a lot of money, but I'm glad that when I started making money like that I continued to live my prior life for several years. The savings accumulated during that period has had a huge impact on my later financial condition, and enabled me to do many things (career-wise and otherwise) that I would not have been able to do had I shifted into "stop worrying about money, eat out all the time" mode. Many people I knew did that, and most of them are fine. But golden handcuffs can really lock you into a career/track that you might not want to be on long term.

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

#74

Post by jleyank »

Remote work or satellite offices would permit working where housing was more affordable and it would encourage 2 professional families. It would also encourage families as spare resources might be available for munchkins.

But this seems to be the opposite of what the money wants. Edit: and nobody talks about climate or commuting costs.

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

#77

Post by pseudalopex »

crooked-v wrote: post #60
orangecat wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's a surprisingly resilient alliance of NIMBY homeowners who understand supply and demand, and "anti-gentification" types who don't.

If it was just self-interest from those homeowners, they would welcome densification because that would make land values skyrocket. You can see some of that already in areas under the recent round of city zoning changes, where housing prices shot up significantly in potentially upzonable areas the second the new law was passed, even with zero actual practical changes so far. To me it feels much more like just a signi…

People have non financial interests.

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

#78

Post by Schiendelman »

bombcar wrote: post #44
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…

If SF wants to be New York of the East, let them be so. Everyone else can move literally anywhere else in the country, which is big.

This take is actively destructive. We need to let people CHOOSE to live WHERE they want to live - and let people who buy land CHOOSE to build housing for demand they perceive. That's it. That's the problem and the solution. It should be unconstitutional to limit housing production arbitrarily.

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

#79

Post by everdrive »

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…

>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

I'm really sad to see this response. President deported a large number of illegal immigrants -- to the extent that he was called the "deporter in chief" -- and he did not employ an army of fascist goons. The insane polarization of the last few years has shrunken the scope of people's imaginations, and I'm sure that people think their only choices are "open borders" vs. "barely-trained fascist thugs."

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

#80

Post by xnx »

Schiendelman wrote: post #78
bombcar wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If SF wants to be New York of the East, let them be so. Everyone else can move literally anywhere else in the country, which is big.

This take is actively destructive. We need to let people CHOOSE to live WHERE they want to live - and let people who buy land CHOOSE to build housing for demand they perceive. That's it. That's the problem and the solution. It should be unconstitutional to limit housing production arbitrarily.

How do we "CHOOSE" who gets to live in the most desirable areas?
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