San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down • Hacker News Board

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#31

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 08, 2013, 7:00 PM UTC

king_jester wrote: post #11

DanBlake wrote: post #8

The reason for San Francisco's high rent/home price is very simple, despite how others like to complicate it more: 1: Its desirable for most people to live here. Possibly the most desirable place in the USA, depending on your tastes. As a result, people are willing to pay more to live here. There are jobs, culture, food, art and much more all in this great city. 2: Rent Control. I wont get too much into it, but my ta…

The main reason why people don't want new residential development is because it will feed into gentrification and push people out because they can no longer afford to live in SF. NYC has been and is going through this problem right now and it is not pretty. EDIT: There are a lot of comments about increasing supply as a way to make housing/apartments cheaper in SF. This is not at all well demonstrated, as in NYC new r…

[deleted]

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#32

Post by ryanobjc » Mon, Jul 08, 2013, 7:01 PM UTC

Congrats on the big move! Hopefully it works out well for you.

I used to live in Seattle. And there was much griping about people from California (usually half-whispered) ruining everything. Between the influx of California-types running up the housing market, to just general growth it was a background thread up there.

Portland is a pretty small city with a moderate cost of living. With your new salary and income, aren't you distorting the market in the same way as in San Francisco? Only even more so, due to the small market size?

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#33

Post by alxbrun » Mon, Jul 08, 2013, 7:01 PM UTC

rdl wrote: post #29

alxbrun wrote: post #13

SF is great for two categories of people: - The wealthy - The homeless (yes, social services and tolerance is much better here than in any other big city in the US) People caught in the middle who own a house will survive 10 years before quitting. If they don't own a house they have already left. I'm doing more than $100K and I had to leave the day I started a family (try to find a rent below $6K for something suitab…

I know absurdly rich people with children who moved out of the city, even when they could afford an $8mm house suitable for a family, because of the schools, too. (and weather, but mainly schools); the mortgage differential between SF and a place like Hillsborough or Palo Alto, combined with $30-50k/yr per child for 14 years or so of schools (to go to private schools in SF, vs. good public schools), is a lot of money…

Cannot agree more -- I actually moved to Palo Alto :)

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#34

Post by georgemcbay » Mon, Jul 08, 2013, 7:01 PM UTC

RyanZAG wrote: post #6

Doesn't seem like a great solution. If the tech guys leave SF, it would be like Detroit. SF and tech are now linked in the way Detroit and cars were. If you try pull the tech out, you'll be left with a husk fighting over crumbs. I don't even live in SF and this is clear to me. Or maybe it's clear to me because I don't live in SF?

Not really the same situation in that massive amounts of people fled Detroit because all the jobs disappeared (company failures combined with widescale automation in the ones that didn't fail).

There are tons of tech jobs available in SF. Arguably, there are too many jobs available there which is causing at least some of the cost of living pressure. These jobs are unlikely to vanish en masse like they did in Detroit (at least not any time soon), so even if a bunch of tech people leave SF, many will stay and it'll just move the city towards a natural equilibrium.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#35

Post by sliverstorm » Mon, Jul 08, 2013, 7:02 PM UTC

king_jester wrote: post #11

DanBlake wrote: post #8

The reason for San Francisco's high rent/home price is very simple, despite how others like to complicate it more: 1: Its desirable for most people to live here. Possibly the most desirable place in the USA, depending on your tastes. As a result, people are willing to pay more to live here. There are jobs, culture, food, art and much more all in this great city. 2: Rent Control. I wont get too much into it, but my ta…

The main reason why people don't want new residential development is because it will feed into gentrification and push people out because they can no longer afford to live in SF. NYC has been and is going through this problem right now and it is not pretty. EDIT: There are a lot of comments about increasing supply as a way to make housing/apartments cheaper in SF. This is not at all well demonstrated, as in NYC new r…

it will feed into gentrification and push people out because they can no longer afford to live in SF

Ah, I see, because it is so affordable to live in SF now?

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#36

Post by johnward » Mon, Jul 08, 2013, 7:03 PM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #21

Move to New York City. Your uppity tech salary will again be paltry peanuts compared to the all the hedge fund guys that "turn the market upside down" here.

I imagine wall street conversations being something like "Coder: I make 200k. Trader: Oh me too. Per day"

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#37

Post by typicalrunt » Mon, Jul 08, 2013, 7:03 PM UTC

alxbrun wrote: post #13

SF is great for two categories of people: - The wealthy - The homeless (yes, social services and tolerance is much better here than in any other big city in the US) People caught in the middle who own a house will survive 10 years before quitting. If they don't own a house they have already left. I'm doing more than $100K and I had to leave the day I started a family (try to find a rent below $6K for something suitab…

I feel exactly the same way except that I'm in another city, Vancouver BC. There is an odd assortment of people in Vancouver consisting of the obscenely rich, wannabe rich, obscenely poor, and singles/couples with no children. Once you have children, you are pushed out of the Vancouver area and into the suburbs due to cost of adequate living conditions [1]. But people say, "oh, it's just the suburbs, it's not that far to drive" and not realize that we have the 2nd worst traffic in North America [2].

I really shudder to think what 10-20 years will do to a city where the middle class (whatever that word means nowadays) has been completely hollowed out.

[1] http://www.vancouversun.com/news/East+Families+leave+Vancouv...

[2] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/01...

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#38

Post by indspenceable » Mon, Jul 08, 2013, 7:03 PM UTC

hayward2 wrote: post #17

I don't understand why tech workers in the Bay Area feel guilty about receiving 'high' salaries of $100 - $200k/year. This is not a lot of money... People on Wall street laugh at these amounts. So do specialized doctors, corporate lawyers, investment bankers, etc. Software engineering is unfortunately a very middle class occupation at this point. I'd love to see it get up into the ranks of the upper class (at least f…

Yes, it is a lot of money. Those professions make a lot of money too.

I feel a little guilty because I have friends who are doing things which are way better for society (teachers, for instance) and are damn good at what they do, but making only a fraction of what I make. I feel good about what my company does, but I don't think we (or especially other companies that are adding so little value to people who actually need it, rather than essentially just the tech elite in SF/NYC/etc) are adding so much more that it justifies the huge disparity in salary.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#39

Post by jusben1369 » Mon, Jul 08, 2013, 7:03 PM UTC

taway2012 wrote: post #22

dmix wrote: post #3

> The recent BART strikes are just a single data point in a larger trend: we’re alienating everyone who isn’t in technology. I'm not from SF but from an outside perspective: Taxes have increased 33% in the bay area since 2008 [1] and BART is "running at a surplus"...but BART transit workers have not had a pay raise since 2008? Can someone explain to me why the SF tech community are the bad guys here? ...Besides a few…

Taxes went up by 33% from 2008 through 2011? Doesn't seem credible to me. Can you post the article in which the image you posted occurs?

Probably referring to state taxes which are a smaller % of your total tax burden.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#40

Post by drstewart » Mon, Jul 08, 2013, 7:03 PM UTC

There's a certain amount of irony in someone complaining about how rich techies ruined SF, and then gloat about how you move to another city to do the very same thing. In 10 years, people will be complaining about how people like the author "ruined" Portland (and Austin). Actually, this already happens.