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Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

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Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#111

Post by danans »

mjb394 wrote: post #109
w1ntermute wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because tech workers clearly fail to "contribute to the city's culture."

I don't know anyone who works 60 hours a week and also participates in the kind of community that Oakland has. People actually know each other there! They talk to their neighbors and strangers on the street, and it brightens everyone's day to have that little touch of human connection. They go to parties and talk about things other than their jobs. They paint and draw and play music and plan events and fundraisers th…

I work in tech, work reasonable hours, live in Oakland, and do all those things. I also have many neighbors who work in tech and outside tech (healthcare, law, skilled trades) and work reasonable hours, and do all those things.

I think doing all those things is a function of whether someone is in a particular industry. It is a function of whether one has a desire to be involved in one's community.

Having kids is a stronger predictor of community involvement if you are looking for one.

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#112

Post by azinman2 »

rdl wrote: post #50
azinman2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently #2 in US. Hardly the past. http://lawstreetmedia.com/crime-america-2015-top-10-dangerou...

I'm not even arguing that Oakland as a whole is dangerous; it's specific blocks in the good/high-traffic areas, and then large areas (Oakland is huge geographically) which are bad-but-no-one-goes-there. There's some street crime on top of that, but not actually much more than similar areas in SF. Way more than, say, Salt Lake City, though. Most of the serious crime in Oakland is in places you won't accidentally go (a…

Except most cities aren't on that list. SF has similar places where "good rich people" avoid -- but it still isn't in the top 10.

I also don't like this implicit because it's "poor against poor" then somehow that's ok and we can ignore those statistics. Poor people are people too. Talk about gentrifying.....

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#113

Post by gluelogic »

mc32 wrote: post #82
Pyxl101 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should a city subsidize housing? That seems like something the market should drive primarily. For that same reason, I'm skeptical about whether zoning and permiting are a good thing in general.

Zoning and permitting are a good thing. It means a city can have long term planning and allocate resources and budget things accordingly. Mishmosh cities have existed and do currently exist in emerging economies, they tend to be chaotic and crime ridden messes. That said, I think zoning needs to be updated to reflect more modern economies. Mixed use, company housing (it's had a stained past, but still it can work, if…

There's no zoning in Houston. Crime is pretty intense though

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#114

Post by rdl »

azinman2 wrote: post #112
rdl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even arguing that Oakland as a whole is dangerous; it's specific blocks in the good/high-traffic areas, and then large areas (Oakland is huge geographically) which are bad-but-no-one-goes-there. There's some street crime on top of that, but not actually much more than similar areas in SF. Way more than, say, Salt Lake City, though. Most of the serious crime in Oakland is in places you won't accidentally go (a…

Except most cities aren't on that list. SF has similar places where "good rich people" avoid -- but it still isn't in the top 10. I also don't like this implicit because it's "poor against poor" then somehow that's ok and we can ignore those statistics. Poor people are people too. Talk about gentrifying.....

It isn't that it is ok -- but having rich people and businesses move to Oakland, pay taxes, and thus better fund things like schools, police, and other jobs will help with poverty. Because the violence isn't uniformly distributed and thus isn't targeted at them, it is less of s deterrent.

Also, a lot of that current violence is due to war on drugs and after effects, so the best way to address it is to wind down the war on drugs.

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#115

Post by mc32 »

gluelogic wrote: post #113
mc32 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoning and permitting are a good thing. It means a city can have long term planning and allocate resources and budget things accordingly. Mishmosh cities have existed and do currently exist in emerging economies, they tend to be chaotic and crime ridden messes. That said, I think zoning needs to be updated to reflect more modern economies. Mixed use, company housing (it's had a stained past, but still it can work, if…

There's no zoning in Houston. Crime is pretty intense though

No city zoning, but my understanding is HOAs control the zoning instead.

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#116

Post by philsnow »

nabaraz wrote: post #101
gmarx wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you until the thing about four companies that could wipe out Uber. Which companies and how?

Lyft, Sidecar, Haxi?

Tesla, Google, Apple, ? somebody else.. oh that company that retrofits self-driving kit onto existing cars maybe?

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#117

Post by sneak »

plorkyeran wrote: post #105
sneak wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has to be by design.

They're two separate bridges built decades apart. They put a bike lane on the new eastern span despite it not being very useful at the moment so that whenever a new western span is built it won't run into the exact same issue (and there's some ideas being thrown around for adding a bike lane to the current bridge, but they're all hideously expensive).

Thank you for providing a least-hypothesis that is even more probable than "ordinary racism/classism". :)

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#119

Post by aeling »

muzmath wrote: post #108
aeling wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Midwestern coder, I could definitely see peers making that mistake - 80k seems like a lot when you're used to rent in the low hundreds. That said, where are you getting 80k? I didn't see it in either the GP link or the original story, and would expect Uber to be hiring at higher salaries than that given other comments in this thread re: the cash/stock split.

Low hundreds? Not even in the middle of no where in the midwest will the low hundreds get you a half-decent place.

Sorry, I should have clarified - I'm thinking of a few friends in particular who would be fresh-out-of-undergrad developers coming from shared apartments where they were paying $300-$350/mo. The change from 8k debt/year to 80k income/year is significant enough that there are people who wouldn't question the 80k number as a far-more-than-enough wage.

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#120

Post by pmorici »

aeling wrote: post #90
pmorici wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems overly optimistic to think that anyone from the midwest would be dumb enough to think that $80k was a livable salary for that area even in Oakland.

As a Midwestern coder, I could definitely see peers making that mistake - 80k seems like a lot when you're used to rent in the low hundreds. That said, where are you getting 80k? I didn't see it in either the GP link or the original story, and would expect Uber to be hiring at higher salaries than that given other comments in this thread re: the cash/stock split.

It's in the TC article linked in the parent comment to mine. They are talking about reducing costs by reducing living expenses via VC provided company housing for employees to the point were 80k seems like a viable salary.

"You need to tell that engineer from the University of Michigan that he can live here on a salary of $80,000."

I'm from the Midwest as well, you're probably right it is a mistake a new grad would make I certainly remember being surprised that my starting salary, though above average for students from my university according to the published stats didn't go quite as far as I imagined it would in a more expensive metro area than I was used to.

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