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A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

nytimes.com

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Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#121

Post by bkmartin »

beambot wrote: post #86
lisper wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The housing and infrastructure problems in the SFBA are purely political, and self-inflicted. That's true, but the implication that these decisions are inarguably stupid ("self-inflicted") is unfair. It's a conscious and IMHO defensible choice by the people who already live here: we would prefer to deal with the problems caused by insufficient housing than by the problems caused by overly dense population.

> we would prefer [...] Pretty sure you're not speaking for me and most of my SFBA friends...

It is elected officials that make these decisions, and until people with your point of view start running for office and getting elected things won't change. As of right now it looks like the majority, however slim, of the voters in SFBA are not choosing to change. At least not as quickly as the problem seems to be progressing.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#122

Post by ethanhunt_ »

nxsynonym wrote: post #2

While the rising cost of housing is an easy target, why not put the pressure on the companies that are driving the influx of workers and out of control cost of living? If tech companies are drawing people into cities and forcing out those who keep the city itself operating, why not have them subsidize and improve public transportation? Lower income housing? Encourage more remote work or move their headquarters out of…

Why should taxpayers subsidize unsustainable prices for the restaurants/shops/services?

If it's just left alone, the market will react to this. If a 1BR apt costs $2500/mo, then the price of a sandwich might go to $25 to be able to pay that sandwich-makers $75k/yr wage. And if SFers don't like paying $25 for a sandwich then they can vote for more density.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#123

Post by sodapopcan »

It's odd this article doesn't mention what time she goes to bed or how much sleep she gets. I found that was all I wanted to know first reading the headline to the end of the article. It mentions people sleep on the train but never really confirms if she does (the one photo of her in the train she is looking at her phone so I assume not).

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#124

Post by [deleted] »

ericd wrote: post #47
andrewjl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't an issue of tech companies forcing anyone out. Bay area municipalities and NIMBY property owners have created a hostile regulatory environment for property developers, leading to a lack of new housing coming onto the market and driving rents upward.

That's not the full story. Commercial property is much more profitable for a city than housing, so every city in the peninsula is trying to build office space, and trying to offload the cost of actually housing those new workers onto other cities. The tax code needs to be fixed to realign incentives. One proposal I heard was to make it so that the state shares the income tax of the employees that live in the city wit…

[deleted]

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#125

Post by mattnewton »

deckar01 wrote: post #83

I paid about 30% of my salary in 2014 for a SRO [0] in San Francisco with a 10 minute commute. I decided that the quality of living was not worth the potential future earnings for staying in the bay area. In Tulsa I pay about 14% of my salary to rent a large apartment with a 4 minute commute. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy

70% of my salary in the Bay Area is over 1.5x 86% my salary elsewhere.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#126

Post by rbcgerard »

1. I wonder what her commuting cost are + having to have a car is a month?

2. Stockton has a median income of $45k vs $81k in SF [factfinder.census.gov] - so in SF she is right in the middle, in Stockton she is at twice the median income (for households) is it really surprising to anyone that she can get more for her housing $ in Stockton?

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#127

Post by ucaetano »

mmanfrin wrote: post #91
ucaetano wrote: post #52

San Francisco has more than twice the area of Manhattan, with half the population. The San Francisco Bay Area CSA has about the same population as Switzerland, with 2/3 of the area of Switzerland. Both have similar GDPs. If someone wanted to live in Germany, and commute to work in Zurich, with Swiss salaries and German cost-of-living, their commute would be about 1h15min. The housing and infrastructure problems in th…

San Francisco is surrounded by cities which are not San Francisco. Manhattan is part of New York City, and is surrounded by more of New York City. If someone lived 80 miles away from Zurich, in a German town such as Sankt Märgen, Google is telling me that it would take 2h 51m [1]. This tells me that if the woman in the Article made that same distance commute in German/Switzerland with, say, 30 minutes of slack, she w…

https://goo.gl/FxHp6P

53 minutes from Singen, DE, to Zurich.

You can buy a 1-2 BR apartment in Singen for http://en.immostreet.com/germany/singen-457417

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#128

Post by pavanky »

deckar01 wrote: post #83

I paid about 30% of my salary in 2014 for a SRO [0] in San Francisco with a 10 minute commute. I decided that the quality of living was not worth the potential future earnings for staying in the bay area. In Tulsa I pay about 14% of my salary to rent a large apartment with a 4 minute commute. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy

But is 70% of SF salary The only down side would be buying an actual house. A house in Atlanta would be 3-5x my yearly Atlanta salary. A similar house in SF would cost 7-8x my yearly SF salary.

Re: A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 A.M

#130

Post by btilly »

bkmartin wrote: post #121
beambot wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we would prefer [...] Pretty sure you're not speaking for me and most of my SFBA friends...

It is elected officials that make these decisions, and until people with your point of view start running for office and getting elected things won't change. As of right now it looks like the majority, however slim, of the voters in SFBA are not choosing to change. At least not as quickly as the problem seems to be progressing.

The problem is that the people impacted by the problem wind up with long commutes, and therefore do not live in the places whose policies would have to change.

If you could choose to vote where you work instead of where you live, this problem would go away very quickly.

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