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

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

#421

Post by Domenic_S »

ahoyhere wrote: post #338
enraged_camel wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I'd love the city I'm sure, but after glancing around I've come to the conclusion that home ownership is unthinkable to anyone who hasn't had a cash-out event. I've never understood this crazy, if not outright insane obsession with home ownership. Why does everyone want to tie significant amounts of their lifetime earnings into physical property that historically has had very low appreciation in value? It's like pe…

Some of us value permanence. I own my house, and I have zero intention of ever selling it. It's mine, mine, mine, mine. There is an incredible feeling in owning a home that you love and plan to spend your life in. We get to plan the changes we'll make over the next decade. We can plant a tree and watch it grow. We can truly unpack our stuff AND our lives… which it's hard to ever do when you rent; most people I know m…

The next decade. Heh. Would be nice to have that kind of job security.

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

#422

Post by losvedir »

hoov wrote: post #413
losvedir wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm guessing that there's nearly a 100% correlation between the people accusing prospective homeowners of having an "insane obsession" and people who live in apartments in SF. Ha! It seems that statement is based on... nothing? I'm pretty militant anti-home ownership. This is partly to combat the omnipresent, uniquely American, societally-negative idea that you really ought to dream of owning a home some day. It's…

> I'm pretty militant anti-home ownership. This is partly to combat the omnipresent, uniquely American, societally-negative idea that you really ought to dream of owning a home some day. But, what if I really want to own a home? I'm a homebody. I want a place to call my own, and I want to make it comfortable for me. I enjoy entertaining guests, cooking for them, and making everybody comfortable -- when I move back to…

> Do you find the fact that I want to own one repulsive?

Ha, no no no... it's okay. I would certainly never say it's "repulsive" – at worst "unwise". But as long as it's a considered position, and you have the resources not just to cover your downpayment/mortgage but also to justify such a large stake in a single asset, then it can certainly make sense.

> I'm a homebody. I want a place to call my own, and I want to make it comfortable for me. I enjoy entertaining guests, cooking for them, and making everybody comfortable

Well that's certainly admirable. I would add, though, that part of the problem with finding an apartment that doesn't drive you crazy is most of the nice places are on the market for sale, rather than renting. So the more I can convince people that they'd be happy with renting, the better the rental supply is for me (and them). :-)

I can certainly understand the appeal of owning property for the additional flexibility and control it gives you, and sounds like that's what you're looking for. It's the allure of ownership qua ownership that I'm opposed to. But as you say, if you're not "pushing the "dream" on other people" live and let live.

> I'll be back in Boston soon. I'll take you out for a beer (or tea, or any alternative beverage, if you don't drink), if you want to talk.

I'd really like that! Shoot me an email to connect (my info is in my hackernews info box; I can't see any contact info for you).

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

#423

Post by esperluette »

ahh wrote: post #364
patio11 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time a young lady asked me what I did for a living I did the Old Spice guy impersonation and mentioned I was getting flown abroad to do it for an audience. She married me, so I now have the luxury of not caring anymore what people think of my answers, but they're generally some flavor of "I run a company which does X", where X is one thing I think they'll find interesting. Possible Xes include "helped teach…

Sadly, I don't run a company, and I'm not in charge of anything high status or visible. I do performance optimization and design threading infrastructure to dramatically improve the experience of writing high performance system software. I think this is pretty valuable, but there's no way to put it that seems high status to non-computer people. Should I just quit and start a company selling shit because that'll look…

Maybe you should try talking to technically-inclined women? We do exist and I would probably pepper you with tons of questions about what you do if we met at a party. (Of course, I'm married ...)

Why not say something like "I make computers go harder, better, faster, stronger?" Funny, doesn't make you sound like you're apologizing for what you do, and if someone's really interested ("how does that work?") you can follow up with an explanation. I'd try for some metaphors, too, like "Servers/computers are always juggling tasks, and what I do gives them more arms to juggle with."

I know your last question was rhetorical but if you start doing something that makes you unhappy just to find a partner then you will have a partner who loves you when you're unhappy. Not a great idea.

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

#424

Post by rdl »

nickv wrote: post #305
mc32 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF in '89, before tech started hitting, was not a pretty place. The Dirty Harry movies of the 70s, I think, were inspired to some extent by the decaying city. Technology breathed life into the Bay Area (San Jose was not much better back then either).

You have to understand that nearly all cities were shitholes in 1989 until the Urban Revitalization of the late 90s. This wasn't an SF specific thing. NYC, for example, had over 1200 murders in 1992 (!!!) compared to last year's 414. SF's revitalization has more to do with that than with "tech" jobs. I know in the Hacker News echo-chamber its hard to think there's anything but Internet Tech in SF but it's got ALOT mo…

What caused the "urban revitalization"? Was it just that people who hadn't been around during the 1968-~1980 urban hell were finally in a position to be buying their first homes?

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

#425

Post by caycep »

OK, so if someone had to point out where the "new SV/SF" is these days, where would you point?

Portland (maybe too obvious...not as much diversity?) Seattle? Austin? LA somewhere? (too many entrenched interests?) Boston? (too much blight in areas that are not Boston/Cambridge?)

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

#426

Post by nawitus »

bubbleRefuge wrote: post #176
hindsightbias wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> build more Clearly, higher density construction in NYC has dramatically reduce prices there. There is no amount of construction in the subset of 49 square miles trendies want to live that is going to solve this problem. There are a million 1%'ers from around the world that will snap up a $750K condo before you 5%'ers can get it.

Taxation can alleviate that. Provide tax relief to owner-occupants with children. Tax the shit out of non-occupant owners.

And why woulnd't that tax transfer to rent prices?

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

#427

Post by ahh »

esperluette wrote: post #423
ahh wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, I don't run a company, and I'm not in charge of anything high status or visible. I do performance optimization and design threading infrastructure to dramatically improve the experience of writing high performance system software. I think this is pretty valuable, but there's no way to put it that seems high status to non-computer people. Should I just quit and start a company selling shit because that'll look…

Maybe you should try talking to technically-inclined women? We do exist and I would probably pepper you with tons of questions about what you do if we met at a party. (Of course, I'm married ...) Why not say something like "I make computers go harder, better, faster, stronger?" Funny, doesn't make you sound like you're apologizing for what you do, and if someone's really interested ("how does that work?") you can fol…

I don't do this because technically-inclined women are rare and I'm not attractive enough to cut off 95% of the possible partners out there. Or put more bluntly, you wouldn't pepper me with tons of questions at a party, you'd pepper my colleague M, who has a more outsider-visible job and is dashingly handsome. I have to make do with his leftovers, and I can't be picky about them having technical expertise.

Also, women who aren't fascinated by computer simply do not care enough to bother trying to explain things via metaphor. I have a friend who was asked at a party "What do you do?" He replied "I'm an engineer working on--" and before he finished his sentence, she stood up and walked away. FYI, he's the suavest person I know and is _extremely_ successful with women, usually: he's learned to stop trying to explain or even mention his job at all.

I recommend you don't try giving people advice on approaching women and what to say until you've _tried it_ for a few years, which as a presumably-straight women I doubt you've done.

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

#428

Post by liveinoakland »

cpeterso wrote: post #317
liveinoakland wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where did they live? probably some sketchy part of west oakland where out-of-towners like to move because it's so grungy. you won't get robbed in piedmont, rockridge, montclair, temescal, grand lake usually, or JLS ever. but please keep upvoting this to the top! our rents are already going up because of SF spillover, feel free to avoid it and those of us in the know will keep enjoying our lives in the east bay with n…

Rockridge and Piedmont have crime, too. I live in Rockridge and follow the crime watch mailing lists. People get mugged in broad daylight at the BART station and just a couple years ago was a rash of restaurant "take-over" robberies. Crime follows the money.

Mugged in broad daylight at Rockridge BART? I'm sorry I just don't believe this.

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

#429

Post by kragen »

ecspike wrote: post #89
gkop wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically on the subject of transportation, many wealthy tech companies have deployed private buses that benefit only their employees and not the community. I don't think it's evil by any means, merely rational (at least in the short-term), but also still a missed opportunity to strengthen the community by covering employees' public transit passes, encouraging employees to live closer to work, or moving work close…

I think if all the Google/FB/Yahoo/Ebay people who are on buses took Caltrain, people would be complaining that they were late to work because there was no space on the train. Also, none of those places are right next to a Caltrain station so the company would have to have buses shuttling people back and forth at much worse fuel economy than shuttling them from SF. Google does have a SF office but as mentioned in oth…

The problem with train and bus systems is generally that, when they have low ridership, they run less frequently, leading to lower ridership, etc. If there's never any space on the train, as long as the fares are reasonably high (which I thought they were when I commuted via Caltrain, although apparently they didn't cover costs) then Caltrain can buy more cars, more trains, and more sidings, and run every ten, eight, or six minutes, instead of about every 12 minutes during rush hour, as now. Every 12 minutes sounds good, but there are only five Baby Bullet runs at present, there are 40-plus minute gaps between them even during rush hour, and you have to get up by 8 AM to catch any of them. So if you miss your Baby Bullet by two minutes, you can easily spend an extra half-hour in transit.

So I think that more people taking Caltrain would make Caltrain more useful, not less.

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

#430

Post by lostlogin »

bane wrote: post #391
gknoy wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who recently (this past year) went from being a renter to a homeowner, and had previously been a home owner for several years, it's not all rational... but here are some of the reasons. I don't have to worry about the rent going up every year / six-months. If I plan to own the house for multiple years, a large chunk of my money goes to equity: I'm banking away value for later that you will get back when yo…

The equity you build up also give you unbelievable borrowing power in the future. I'm a handful of years away from paying off my house. When that happens I'll be able to borrow, in one shot, more money than the last startup I worked for had to struggle to raise over several rounds and 5 years, and on better terms. The key is to do everything possible to minimize how much interest you pay, usually by shorter mortgage…

Two school friends finished school, maxed out about 5 credit cards to get a deposit and got a big old house and large mortgage. They worked 2x jobs each and had 5 flatmates. Both say it nearly killed them. However they both won out big time as the property went up heaps in value and this set them up very very nicely. It's easy to see the holes in this scenario as a plan, and both say they would never ever recommend it to anyone.
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