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Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

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161–170 of 388 posts

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#161
This is no one's problem except the commercial real estate crowd. Being obstinate and pushy for two generations of economic growth, leveraging to the hilt and beyond, and living on the work of others has hit a state transition and they dont have a way out.

San Francisco is no stranger to boom and bust, decadence and plague. Please wave hello to your quiet and strong neighbors, the ethnic Chinese community. San Francisco has one of the highest proportions of ethnic Chinese overall of any USA metro. I predict this will increase, as the masters of Finance deteriorate into public and ridiculous escapades.

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#162
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal politics, IMO, is not a good reason to avoid living in certain areas. I'm a liberal-leaning moderate but many of my favorite people (friends and family) are conservative, and many of my hobbies tend to be populated mainly by the conservative demographic. You'll always find people here and there who won't give you the time of day if you're not on Team Blue or Team Red, but my take on it is, if I can't make fr…

The thing is that personal politics don't end up being a personal thing because they result in real policies that guide real material outcomes. At this point saying one is uninterested in living in a red state could be about party politics, but it also could just as much about not being inclined to subject onesself to starkly higher risks of being shot and killed (the outcome of someone's personal politics). eg. http…

This is such a propaganda piece. NYC has a per capita murder rate of 5.5 according to its latest report. There were 40 states with a lower murder rate [1]. The highest murder rates are all in blue cities [2]

1-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_death_rates_in_the_Uni...

2-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avoiding red states to avoid being shot would be extremely dumb for many reasons. 1. Cities and neighborhoods in any state can be safe, even in the states with the most shootings 2. If you have enough money to choose to live in another state, you're probably not going to be living in an extremely poor area that is the most likely to be beset with gun violence 3. Other commonplace things are much more likely to kill y…

Perhaps you should have a look at this book. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/william-kleinknec... Some Red States are an absolute mess. Some of their stats resemble third world countries. Their education systems are shoddy. Their drinking water systems are dangerous to health. Taxes are shameful: low taxes for the wealthy but high sales taxes which hurt the poor the most. Just for starters.

Not a fan of the GOP and I have actively worked with the DNC, but using HDI (which is the goto metric for comparing development across regions), most US states Red and Blue are roughly comparable to other western European peers.

The states that do lag significantly (MS+WV) are comparable to Portugal/Poland/Greece on developmental metrics, but they only represent ~1% of the entire American population and are anomalies due to historical social economic factors (that said, this should not mean that we should give up on them - we should in fact double down and invest in upgrading social infrastructure in laggard states).

That said, every single American state and territory fall strictly in the "Very Highly Developed" category from a development standpoint and calling them "3rd world" is only minimizing the actual suffering that exists in less developed countries as well as orientalizing actual poverty upliftment in former "3rd world regions" like China, India, Turkey, Mexico, ASEAN, the Warsaw Bloc, the Balkans, Southern Europe, South America, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.

US State HDIs - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr...

European HDIs - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_...

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#165

I live in SF and spend a fair amount of time thinking about its poor 5-year economic outlook. It's not great, but I am curious how it compares to other metros? If I were to move from SF, wanted to live in a metro area, and was uncomfortable living in a very red state - where should I consider? Where is thriving? I have a good amount of friends in Portland, but Portland is adjacent SF in terms of poor economic recover…

I can only offer anecdotes, but: 1. NYC is booming IMHO 2. Pre-pandemic, there was barely room to walk on the sidewalks in many parts of NYC, now it is better (presumably as people come in 2x a week, not 5x). Some subways have seats now, but many are still standing-room-only. 3. For the last 8yrs pre-pandemic, I used to go to SF/SV 4x to 5x a year for work/conferences...My last Cali trip (cancelled) was literally Apr…

What is with the bad economic outlook talk? The job market is amazing. Business revenue is benefiting from high prices.

A lot of outdated commercial real estate in SF needs to be converted to public housing but that doesn't mean the economy is bad. I think there is a narrative from NIMBY's who think it's bad that housing is going to be created.

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#166
post #115
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal politics, IMO, is not a good reason to avoid living in certain areas. I'm a liberal-leaning moderate but many of my favorite people (friends and family) are conservative, and many of my hobbies tend to be populated mainly by the conservative demographic. You'll always find people here and there who won't give you the time of day if you're not on Team Blue or Team Red, but my take on it is, if I can't make fr…

>Personal politics, IMO, is not a good reason to avoid living in certain areas. I'm a liberal-leaning moderate but many of my favorite people (friends and family) are conservative, and many of my hobbies tend to be populated mainly by the conservative demographic. This is a comment that originates in privilege. The concern for many people is not simply that they would have to be friends with conservative people. The…

> places like Kansas City because local abortion laws rule out certain medical procedures that could save the mother's life

What?

The headline of the article you linked literally says:

> Missouri, Kansas hospitals that denied emergency abortion broke the law

Also from the article you linked:

> But federal law, which requires doctors to treat patients in emergency situations, trumps those state laws

> In Kansas, when Farmer visited the hospital, abortions were still legal up to 22 weeks. It’s unclear why University of Kansas Health refused to offer Farmer one.

It's clear that the hospitals in these cases were the ones breaking the law by refusing to treat these women in need of emergency care.

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#167
post #29

I live in SF and spend a fair amount of time thinking about its poor 5-year economic outlook. It's not great, but I am curious how it compares to other metros? If I were to move from SF, wanted to live in a metro area, and was uncomfortable living in a very red state - where should I consider? Where is thriving? I have a good amount of friends in Portland, but Portland is adjacent SF in terms of poor economic recover…

San Diego perhaps?

+1 for San Diego. It's small enough you can be familiar with most of the neighborhoods and still big enough there's always an interesting event or new restaurant to check out. Apple has expansion plans in the region. The military/larger federal government presence is sort of nice, I sense that plus the large tourism numbers helps keep SD away from the extreme end of California politics.

The weather is a huge plus, and I anticipate the city will handle global warming a little better than other regions. The county has made a lot of good decisions with water management too, from keeping the reservoirs full to supplying almost 10% of the water supply from a desal plant.

I disagree that the coastline is the only "nice" place to get a house, the ocean is pretty accessible from most parts of the city due to the highway designs.

Of course, there's issues with homelessness, retail theft, poor public transit, expensive housing. But it all seems a little more tame to me than the same issues in LA/SF/Seattle.

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#168
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Diego perhaps?

In terms of density, San Diego is like a stretched out San Francisco. The best places to live are along the coastline and an ocean view is very expensive. My tiny condo, with a view, has a higher cost per sq. foot than $3m victorians in San Francisco. But you're right, at this point, I'd still rather be in SD than SF.

Are you downtown? I can't think of any tiny condo that costs that much anywhere else.

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak for myself but I would never work non-remote again, even if I had my own private office.

I wouldn't mind working remote if my commute is walkable. I purposely live in Boston to have access to the T, but many companies in Boston are opening up offices in Seaport which is the most awkward place to get to using public transit.

When I worked in Seaport i'd just walk from south station

Re: Downtown SF has 18.4M square feet of empty office space. We mapped every vacancy

#170

I live in SF and spend a fair amount of time thinking about its poor 5-year economic outlook. It's not great, but I am curious how it compares to other metros? If I were to move from SF, wanted to live in a metro area, and was uncomfortable living in a very red state - where should I consider? Where is thriving? I have a good amount of friends in Portland, but Portland is adjacent SF in terms of poor economic recover…

I've learned that I prefer mini-metro areas with population on the order of 250k people... you get most of the upsides of a city without many of the downsides, while also retaining advantages of smaller areas like more green spaces and lower cost of living.

I visited Boise and i realized that about myself too. I prefer all the amenities and infrastructure of a walkable city that is not too crowded.
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