Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F • Hacker News Board

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#221

Post by vmception » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 11:54 PM UTC

_euac wrote: post #198

drdeadringer wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NextDoor That place was a nice idea just like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn were. NextDoor worked out just as well as the rest of them.

Haha, I hear horror stories from my friends who are on NextDoor. At some point, a guy reported seeing a coyote on Lafayette park while walking his dog at 2am. You know, just being nice to the neighbors and letting them know to be careful about their dogs. Next thing you know, a bunch of people started questioning what he was doing 'so late' on the park, then other people started accusing him of being a drug dealer or…

That's pretty funny, I've moved around SF and different neighborhoods had very different NextDoor cultures.

Some neighborhoods would never be accusative of a drug dealer, but would definitely like a review on the quality of what they are suspected of dealing.

Other neighborhoods would appreciate the warning about the coyote and move on.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#222

Post by lacker » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 11:55 PM UTC

digitaltrees wrote: post #77

vmception wrote: post #24

Still not moving back. Seeing those empty Walgreens shelves was it for me. Even the social programs and tolerance of the squalor is not that real, it is simply that the transient population is not affected: students and programmers. The same population that just left. I appreciate all the optimism for San Francisco but it just seems to lack context from the mid-atlantic cities that are carcasses of an industrial era…

You seem to be hinting at interesting things here but its hard to follow, the writing feels like a disjointed short hand with unstated context that requires experience to unpack. What are "those empty Walgreens shelves", not having been there I don't know what you mean. Further, SF was not unique in experiencing that. I experienced it in North Carolina and Utah. What do you mean "squalor that is not that real?", what…

The author is referring to the rise of crime and homelessness in San Francisco. The Walgreens comment is referring to how several Walgreens are shutting down in San Francisco, partially because they have been unable to stop shoplifting.

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Another-San-Francisco...

Many San Francisco residents are very opposed to any language that smacks of anti-homelessness - arguably anti-homeless language is promoting systematic racism - which encourages a certain crypticness in commenting.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#223

Post by glorppe » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 11:56 PM UTC

I’m licking my chops and hoping the SF bay does get cheaper; I’d love to live in the city or in Berkeley if the prices dropped significantly. Especially if commuting isn’t a big part of my life.

Meanwhile, you couldn’t pay me an extra 100k a year to consider moving to the Midwest or Texas. I just value weather and nature and outdoor activities far too much to deal with those places. I guess if your family is there or something, but most of the year is unbearable away from the west coast.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#224

Post by flurben » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 11:57 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #131

flurben wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, linguistically that comment borders on gibberish.

Please don't be rude in comments here, and please don't pile on. digitaltrees' reply gives vmception a nice invitation to expand, which would benefit all of us. Swipes like the one in your comment unfortunately have the opposite effect on conversation. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

My bad, I didn't realize this was one of those types of places.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#225

Post by orev » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 11:58 PM UTC

Moru wrote: post #205

cm2187 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at an office tower and a residential tower being built side by side by my window. I would never live in a converted office building. The resi tower has concrete separations between floors and if you are lucky, between flats on the same floor. Office buildings don’t have any real separation between floors as you are supposed to walk on accessible fake floors and have fake ceilings too. The sound insulation bet…

Thankfully you can do sound isolation without concrete. If they do that or want to save money is a different topic I guess.

Concrete separation also acts as fire barriers, which is very important in areas where people will be cooking stuff. Office buildings don’t typically have stoves with open flame everywhere.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#226

Post by dwild » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 11:59 PM UTC

albacur wrote: post #91

I'm excited by the idea of permanent remote work and moving somewhere more affordable. I moved to SF relatively late in my career, and only realized afterwards that I have nowhere near enough savings to own a nice home here. But most of my coworkers seem eager to return to the office. They miss the office environment, the perks and catered meals, and the socialization. And the managers, who subsist on meetings and in…

> All this is to say, I'm skeptical that workers won't be called back into the office as soon as leadership gets the chance.

That forget the leadership on top of that leadership though!

Where I work, before covid they were working on expanding quite a bit the amount of office space but as far as I understands, all theses plans got cancelled and instead we won't have permanent desk and instead we will works remotely 2-3 days a week. That's coming from a company that had literally no remote works before Covid (except while travelling).

It represents so much money to have less office space, as long as the manager doesn't play too much with their staff efficiency during Covid, it will just make sense to save money there.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#227

Post by octoberfranklin » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 11:59 PM UTC

Moru wrote: post #205

cm2187 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at an office tower and a residential tower being built side by side by my window. I would never live in a converted office building. The resi tower has concrete separations between floors and if you are lucky, between flats on the same floor. Office buildings don’t have any real separation between floors as you are supposed to walk on accessible fake floors and have fake ceilings too. The sound insulation bet…

Thankfully you can do sound isolation without concrete. If they do that or want to save money is a different topic I guess.

Not for low frequencies. You simply need mass for that, no way around it.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#228

Post by novaleaf » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 12:00 AM UTC

Moru wrote: post #205

cm2187 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at an office tower and a residential tower being built side by side by my window. I would never live in a converted office building. The resi tower has concrete separations between floors and if you are lucky, between flats on the same floor. Office buildings don’t have any real separation between floors as you are supposed to walk on accessible fake floors and have fake ceilings too. The sound insulation bet…

Thankfully you can do sound isolation without concrete. If they do that or want to save money is a different topic I guess.

sound isolation yes, but vibration isolation (footfalls, washing machines, subwoofers) no way.

source: I tried very hard to soundproof between floors. Sound passage is non-existent but footfalls are plainly heard.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#229

Post by octoberfranklin » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 12:01 AM UTC

Moru wrote: post #205

cm2187 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at an office tower and a residential tower being built side by side by my window. I would never live in a converted office building. The resi tower has concrete separations between floors and if you are lucky, between flats on the same floor. Office buildings don’t have any real separation between floors as you are supposed to walk on accessible fake floors and have fake ceilings too. The sound insulation bet…

Thankfully you can do sound isolation without concrete. If they do that or want to save money is a different topic I guess.

> Concrete separation also acts as fire barriers, which is very important in areas where people will be cooking stuff

Sheetrock (gypsum) can solve this problem if you use enough of it. But that can get expensive.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#230

Post by onecommentman » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 12:01 AM UTC

dannyw wrote: post #160

digitaltrees wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes some time to get a feel of the culture of a new place, but trust me as someone that has lived in a few other states, it eventually makes a big difference. California has dramatically out performed other states, and is more expensive because it was working, in part because of the culture that is unique to California.

If Californians move in bulk the culture will diffuse out; especially in tech hub cities.

That’s an interesting observation that’s normally only made about political affiliations.

I wonder if there is precedent with the migration out of NYC and the like in the post-WWII/mid Century period. It was a real boom time for the West...California in particular. A lot of folks came from back East or the Midwest...

Not many tried to explicitly recreate their East Coast/Midwest life in the West...in fact they made a point of trying to create a unique California “lifestyle”. That new California lifestyle was the hot US cultural trend from, say, 1960 to 1990.

May happen again, but in the reverse direction, Californians creating a new Montanan/Utahn/Ohioan/etc. culture by engaging in the roots of their new not-California and building something better, bringing their creativity while leaving behind their California. Of course, if they try merely to graft a California-lite onto their new rootstock...well, they could be an important new source of protein for the locals...

I don’t think this creative dynamic could happen in other “tech hub cities”, because, frankly, there is no essential culture there to work with. Austin may be nice, but it seems more parasite on Texas culture than symbiont.

(Which has been a slam against California over the years too. What’s the difference between California and yogurt? Yogurt has an active living culture. More people outside of California believe that than you might think. It’s been 30 years since CA has been a dominant nationwide cultural thing, Hollywood as almost a metaculture notwithstanding. Silicon Valley? That’s getting onto 25 years old now...that’s senescent in US cultural terms.)