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Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

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Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#231

Post by refurb »

ryanobjc wrote: post #166
monoideism wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dispersal of bay area tech workers will be good for the country, if we can avoid breaking down in the immediate future. SV had become a total thought bubble, with the average tech worker having either no conception or a very negative conception of how most of the country lives outside of the large urban areas. Moving into areas with lots of moderates or conservatives will be a good learning experience. I don't ex…

Nearly all my colleagues and friends here in the Bay Area are from somewhere else. So this idea of a totally isolated bubble is a fiction made up on few facts to sell a story. And most people are fairly tolerant - except of the intolerable few who wish to destroy tolerance. Again more made up stories.

It's a pretty massive thought bubble, at least for the professional class. It has a massive number of highly paid, white, left-leaning people. Opinions outside of that bubble are met with "I didn't know people like you existed!".

If that's not a bubble, I don't know what is.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#232

Post by refurb »

tylerjwilk00 wrote: post #220
refurb wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add on top of that, what about just general travel or business travel? I could understand moving away from the bay area, but living in a remote town has it's costs. Need to jump on a plane for a business meeting? Well, now you're driving 2 hours to the airport and then connecting to some hub. I've done it in the past, it adds a ton of friction to travel.

Reducing wasteful polluting plane travel is a bonus not a bug. The "space" dimension is so overrated when it comes to meetings. If that is the only thing that has been keeping cities together then they're doomed.

Assuming you remove all "wasteful" travel, you're still causing more pollution living away from a major hub. Instead of a non-stop SFO to JFK flight, now you're taking a 1 hr Uber (or driving yourself) to a local airport, then taking a connecting flight to SFO.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#233

Post by kansface »

asdff wrote: post #222
three_seagrass wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a PSA: home insurance companies have been dropping fire coverage in CA so quickly now that there's a state-mandated stay to prevent them from doing it for a year. No word what the plan is after the stay but I would be cognizant of any insurance plans that you get.

At some point we need the federal government to step in to provide wildfire insurance a la federal flood insurance. It will have to be reworked for CA considering the flood insurance only goes up to 250k.

The federal government should not subsidize people to live in places so risky that private insurers refuse to offer coverage.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#234

Post by falseAss »

cusp wrote: post #88

One thing we really like about where we’re living now (peninsula) is there are a lot of mixed race couples with kids and our kids feel this is totally normal. We’re considering moving but worried that our kids will have a tough time fitting in, especially given how divided our country is. For other mixed race parents looking to move, do you have similar concerns?

In general, folks with kids are very difficult to migrate. You need to consider whether your spouse's job is remote friendly, and as you mentioned, kids need to find new playmate / school. It's just exponentially harder to relocate than single folks.

I am under the impression that this escaping valley wave is mostly about single folks or young couples without kids.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#235

Post by ShinTakuya »

azinman2 wrote: post #127
kenhwang wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better. Play during the day, work at night. ~Most~ Many engineers prefer that.

So right now it's 5pm PST, end of the work day for many. It's 8AM in Saigon. You really think people are going to work from midnight to 8am? And sometimes later in the morning depending on the situation? And this is going to be a massive trend?

Lots of companies operate across two or more time zones. Yes, it has problems, but as long as you group them together in no more than three groups it generally doesn't get too complicated, and even allows you to not have to have people on call at odd hours.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#236

Post by vecinu »

nsm wrote: post #225
762236 wrote: post #142

Until the fires it was hard to imagine giving up the weather and outdoors here in the Bay Area. Now we have COVID which means you want to be outside, but fire smoke that you shouldn't breath, so you want to be inside. I have a lot of HEPA filters running inside, and if I exercise outside, I wear a P100 even at VO2max. But if my daughter weren't keeping us here for her friends, I'd consider moving away now.

I think this is hyperbole for the majority of people who do not have existing respiratory or other health conditions. Air quality in SF proper was only bad (by which I mean Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups or above) for roughly a month this year. That certainly doesn't warrant having HEPA filters and P100 masks now in October/November (again, for most people).

This is wishful thinking. Staying for years around an area that gets "only a month" of excessive PM2.5 particles and smoke is unwise and you will soon become someone with an existing respiratory condition.

I'm leaving the Bay because I value my health way more than the "lifestyle" offered by living in the Bay. There are many other places in the US (And ESPECIALLY outside the US) that offer a fantastic quality of life.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#237

Post by [deleted] »

abeppu wrote: post #145

I wonder when the reverse will happen. As rents in SF dive, will people that were force to outlying parts of the Bay Area return? Will younger LGBT folk be able to afford to live in/near the Castro? Will more people _not_ in tech be able to live here? SF has felt like such a one-industry town for quite a while, and that can mute some of the richness and diversity that normally makes cities interesting (and perhaps mo…

[deleted]

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#238

Post by Barrin92 »

howlgarnish wrote: post #194
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For about 30 years cities were relatively undesirable places to live in for the average person. The cities that young people have flocked to in the last decade or so are designed and developed more like large scale open shopping malls than the cities of the 70s and 80s. The closest comparison to what's happening now was "White flight", a largely racist reaction to the civil rights movement involving increased protest…

> "White flight", a largely racist reaction to the civil rights movement involving increased protests and riots in cities I think you have cause and effect reversed here. The original "pull" trigger was the automobile becoming affordable to the middle classes, making suburban living possible and leading to many leaving cities. The racist bit here is that many of these suburbs had covenants prohibiting non-whites. The…

>but here too the push wasn't just racism, but also concerns about falling property values, rising crime, etc.

As a non-American you shouldn't be so quick to relativise the importance of racism because, outside of the US, where cars also exist, there never was a white flight. In fact in Europe the affluent pretty much always move into cities, not out of them, even though those cities also have a lot of the issues surrounding urbanisation. Melting pots and culture clashes, immigration, crime, it's universal to most cities. Pretty much the same in most Asian countries as well, the affluent and poor coinhabit cities. White flight and the giant suburb sprawl is pretty uniquely American.

Even in a place like England, which is traditionally very classist, you don't see the kind of segregation in schooling or housing you have in the US, and London is not super-safe either. This reminded me of a NYT article from a few years ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/opinion/sunday/stop-prete...

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#239

Post by lotsofpulp »

kansface wrote: post #233
asdff wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point we need the federal government to step in to provide wildfire insurance a la federal flood insurance. It will have to be reworked for CA considering the flood insurance only goes up to 250k.

The federal government should not subsidize people to live in places so risky that private insurers refuse to offer coverage.

Don’t worry, California and other states with wildfire risk are not swing states so there’s not much chance of something similar to the NFIP being created.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#240

Post by cyberdrunk »

vecinu wrote: post #236
nsm wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is hyperbole for the majority of people who do not have existing respiratory or other health conditions. Air quality in SF proper was only bad (by which I mean Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups or above) for roughly a month this year. That certainly doesn't warrant having HEPA filters and P100 masks now in October/November (again, for most people).

This is wishful thinking. Staying for years around an area that gets "only a month" of excessive PM2.5 particles and smoke is unwise and you will soon become someone with an existing respiratory condition. I'm leaving the Bay because I value my health way more than the "lifestyle" offered by living in the Bay. There are many other places in the US (And ESPECIALLY outside the US) that offer a fantastic quality of life…

> Staying for years around an area that gets "only a month" of excessive PM2.5 particles and smoke is unwise and you will soon become someone with an existing respiratory condition.

I live in a city which has a serious smog problem in the winter and colder autumn and spring months. Yet most people don't have respiratory conditions.

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