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.
San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
21–30 of 458 posts
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#22> 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?
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#23This weekend I spent some time walking around SF and was astounded at how many new apartments are under construction. Even more interesting were the old run-down buildings which were apparently being shuttered in preparation for even more new places to live.
There will be a lot of hand-wringing about the city's loss of character, but in the end the new construction will probably ease things.
The city in essence put a moratorium on new housing after the real estate bubble burst in 2008. For several years afterwards there were virtually no new housing units added to the city at all.[1] Now that the de-facto ban has been lifted, there can actually be some new units to help give all the newcomers and old residents places to live.[2]
[1] Go here and scroll down to "Previous releases": http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?page=1691 Note the difference between 2009-2011 and now.
[2] Of course there will some who claim that no amount of new housing will fix things, or that new construction will only make things worse. It remains to be seen what the longer-term outcome will be. Rents in the Bay Area actually went down after the last two bubbles burst (the original dot-com boom in 2000 and the real estate boom in the mid-2000s), so it is clearly not impossible for the housing market to change direction.
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#24The really interesting thing about SF is that it's not 7x7 as people claim- it's actually more like 3x3. The "City" is confined to a tiny area downtown and in the Mission and SOMA. The entire southern and western parts of SF are low-density suburban sprawl. This is a result of terrible planning in the 50's and shortsighted opposition to new housing and transit ever since.
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#25I wouldn't underestimate the effects a lack of sunlight will have on you. This coming from a part of the country that receives a little bit less sunlight that Seattle (Pittsburgh area). Seasonal depression can really make life suck. I'm also probably a little bit upset because it's been raining for something like 12 days straight.
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#26The 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…
This is also happening in Austin right now. My friends in Durham are speculating that the same is beginning to happen there, although, comparitively, its still super affordable.
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#27The wealthy tech people aren't the ones ruining San Francisco. You have to ask yourself: in what universe would constant increases in tax revenues and wealthy consumers be bad for a city? The answer, sadly, is a universe where said city has an utterly incompetent government.
> The wealthy tech people aren't the ones ruining San Francisco. Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentrification
You didn't actually address any of his points, except to point out that some folks view gentrification as a problem in SF.
I actually agree with the comment you replied to. Severe governmental incompetence in SF has been worse for the city than gentrification.
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#28The 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…
SF approved "tiny apartments" http://www.wired.com/design/2012/11/san-francisco-micro-apar...
My understanding is that this is a special 'trial phase' for Kennedy. The planning department is not approving other similar projects until it studies/weighs the outcome of these.
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#29SF 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.
You'll end up with the homeless, the super wealthy, and maybe the $70-200k/yr earning singles or (young) couples without kids. Tech seems to mostly hire from that third group.
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#30I've got a possibly great job offer on the table from SF/SV, but may turn it down. 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. The real estate market is certifiably, utterly bat-dookie insane.
NYC is often considered more expensive, and Manhattan is certainly... well... Manhattan. But taken collectively the NYC metro area is actually much more affordable. You can find places to live that are nice, friendly to someone older than 25-30, and at least sanely priced. They might not be in the closest or most fashionable neighborhoods, but they'll be reachable by NYC's excellent transit system.
In SF you have nowhere good to go unless you want an absurd commute, and its transit is horrible compared to NYC. So you're either rich or you're in a crummy apartment or with roommates. That doesn't work for people who aren't kids in their 20s.
My suspicion is that it's part policy choice -- a lot of protectionism from existing property owners who want to keep riding the property bubble and a lot of NIMBYism -- and part irresponsibility on the part of homebuyers. I suspect that many homebuyers in SF are doing the irresponsible thing of squeezing into a home by spending upwards of 40%, even 50+% of their income on mortgage payments instead of the usually fiscally responsible number of ~30%. And this is punishing everyone and sucking the soul from the city.
In the long term, Silicon Valley and SF is eating its young. It's a city built on young entrepreneurs coming there and doing new stuff, but if nobody who hasn't already made it can afford to live there what happens then? The other problem is that these high costs soak up everyone's spare time and money, leaving them with the requirement to work like crazy for other people to afford to live instead of on their own innovative projects. It sucks away the marginal "play time" when innovation really happens.
If this isn't remedied, SF/SV will become an echo chamber of already-made-its and already-know-it-alls. Then it will stagnate and be left behind.
Edit: real estate hyperinflation in general is a social ill that deserves to be tackled directly as such. It seems as if real estate has mutated into this hungry sponge that sucks up all surplus economic vitality from any region that experiences success. Imagine what all that money in SV could be doing if it weren't all sucked up by real estate.
It's like beyond a certain point, people no longer get wealthier. Their houses do. The home -- the "American dream" -- has become a tool of indentured servitude and bank fiefdom.