I'd like to believe that in a future where VR is affordable enough for most people, we'll have virtual reality offices that allow us to communicate with co-workers and have meetings as if we were actually there.
90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
241–250 of 302 posts
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#242This is increasingly common in the Boston area as well. Cambridge/MIT is a massive biotech hub, meanwhile we have huge companies with many large offices in the downtown or in surrounding suburbs. Many workers live in RI, NH, or Central Mass, and getting to work for 9 am consistently will involve leaving at 730 for many, many workers due to congestion, construction, and the god-awful mess that is Boston infrastructure…
What I find amazing is companies insisting on being located near Kendall or the Seaport District (and paying massive amounts of money for the privilege) to be "innovative." Why aren't more companies in New England going to where the commercial real estate and housing are cheaper?
A few reasons, I suppose:
* No T access or...
* Other transit stations don't have existing office buildings or are equally built out, losing to other advantages as...
* No "scene" - Kendall and the Seaport have a "feel" to them that you don't find at, say, Alewife
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is such a tiresome argument. Even if you could suddenly build all of the housing required to reduce prices on a short timescale, you'd have to solve the infrastructural problems that come with it (roads and transit), and convince developers to build into a massive loss (i.e. I am a developer, and you expect me to build and finance at today's costs, and pay for it with tomorrow's lower rents). Construction is a s…
Fortunately for developers it won't be suddenly. Most land in the city is already occupied: even if the construction and banking industry could rebuild the entire city in two years it takes longer than that to get the current land owners to agree to sell their current house which works just fine for them right now. Companies only build new offices quickly because they are willing to locate to any new suburb that curr…
"Fortunately for developers it won't be suddenly. Most land in the city is already occupied: even if the construction and banking industry could rebuild the entire city in two years it takes longer than that to get the current land owners to agree to sell their current house which works just fine for them right now."
Well, yes. That's my point: construction takes a long time to change housing prices. It's not a universal, drop-the-mic response to every debate.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're putting $5k away every month when your take home pay is ~$8k a month? I assume you must live a VERY spartan life in the Bay. Basically pay your rent (which must be shared or very cheap for the Bay) and utilities and not do much else... I mean the average Bay area rent is more than the difference between your take home and your savings... edit: I'm using ADP's calculator, don't know why SmartAsset is different…
Take-home pay on $175K in CA is $10k/month, not $8k/month https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#RZ3V1... Sharing an apartment isn't "spartan", it's "normal"
> Sharing an apartment isn't "spartan", it's "normal"
From my perspective, as the sole income earner of a family of four, that's a pretty shocking statement.
I feel like I've built a very comfortable life for myself and my family, and I make quite a bit less than that.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
Building more housing decreases traffic as people move to shorten their commutes. Building offices without housing is what increases traffic, which is what most cities in the bay are currently doing.
Not really. It changes things, but in the location of the new housing things get busier. The major hiways elsewhere see less traffic and the average is probably better, but the local situation needs to be fixed to handle it. Of course ideally the local situation would be everybody works within a couple blocks and so the elevators and sidewalks can handle it. Most zoning boards hate this idea though.
Not necessarily bluGill. If new housing is built across most of the city or state, there could well be less thru-traffic from the suburbs into the city.
I do agree with you though that if new housing is only built in a small number of areas, those areas could very well see more traffic. A goal of SB-827 was to increase housing across the entire state, particularly near areas well served by mass transit, in the hope it would result in less people commuting by car.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#24690 minutes is common if you work in NYC and have a suburban home.
I live in Poughkeepsie and work in Manhattan. It takes me about 2 hours and 10 minutes from the door of my apartment to the door of my office. I live a 10 minute walk from the train station in PK and work a 10 minute walk away from Grand Central. There are probably a few hundred people at the train station every morning, from much farther away than I am, who probably have to take another subway to their job once they…
If your family doesn't want to live in the city, you end up pretty far pretty quickly.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is such a tiresome argument. Even if you could suddenly build all of the housing required to reduce prices on a short timescale, you'd have to solve the infrastructural problems that come with it (roads and transit), and convince developers to build into a massive loss (i.e. I am a developer, and you expect me to build and finance at today's costs, and pay for it with tomorrow's lower rents). Construction is a s…
> Even if you could suddenly build all of the housing required to reduce prices on a short timescale, you'd have to solve the infrastructural problems that come with it The value of new multi-story units along good commute in the most expensive housing market in the world would be so high that some taxation of that profit would be more than enough to fund building the required commuter rail or subway lines and also n…
"This is how Tokyo has funded new commuter rail lines."
Japan also runs a massive defecit relative to GDP (~250% vs our ~100% value). They spend like drunken sailors on public infrastructure.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
Red Hat and Canonical have achieved great success with a lot of remote workers. Heck pretty much the entirety of Linux and its ecosystem is remote. All I hear is excuses and lack of willingness to work remotely, coped with lack of experience on how to make it work. From all sides. The secret is following the procedure and working remotely even if the person is sitting next to you. (I don't mean get into a video chat…
>Heck pretty much the entirety of Linux and its ecosystem is remote. I'm a full 100% remote worker and I would never bring up "Linux development" as evidence for businesses to adopt remote work. If remote work evangelists want to argue for the benefits of work-from-home, please do not use Linux as an example because it undermines credible business thinking. As I've said before[1] and paste again here: Open source dev…
Developers in open source companies do have finite budgets, do have deadlines and have some pressure to innovate.
And yes, they do often work for upstream projects as part of their jobs, pushing for changes they need for their deadlines.
Most of open source work is done by companies. And yes, a lot of them with remote workers.
Though I agree, I don't expect an iPhone to be made remotely though, hardware is complicated.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Heck pretty much the entirety of Linux and its ecosystem is remote. I'm a full 100% remote worker and I would never bring up "Linux development" as evidence for businesses to adopt remote work. If remote work evangelists want to argue for the benefits of work-from-home, please do not use Linux as an example because it undermines credible business thinking. As I've said before[1] and paste again here: Open source dev…
>E.g. open source project like Linux kernel where volunteers choose what they want to work on The vast majority of Linux kernel contributors work for companies who pay them to work on the Linux kernel. Many of those developers do have some flexibility in what they spend their time on but it's not like they can do whatever they feel like.
>The vast majority of Linux kernel contributors work for companies who pay them to work on the Linux kernel.
Sorry for not being clear, the context was "building" a product. E.g. rewind the clock to 1991 when Linux Torvalds and volunteers and hobbyists are "working remotely" via USENET and exchanging emails. The Linux kernel they iterated on is an astounding achievement but that collaborative process is a totally different dynamic than a business that has to spend real money and get a product out.
Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
I lived in the city (SF) and outside the city. My commute to the Embarcardero wasn't too bad when I lived in Pacifica. Just drive over the hill to Colma, park and take BART. I'd read on the way into the city and walk to work. Probably the best commute I've ever had except working from home. Pacifica felt like a small town separated from it all. But I lived in the Manor area. Living down in Linda Mar (anything past Sh…
Hello former neighbor! I used to live on the Bluffs right in the Manor area. I agree with everything you said - but the commute sucked if you didn't have a car or shared a car with a spouse who didn't work in the same area as you. Why? Because the transit out there is terrible . It's served by one single SamTrans bus line that takes 45 minutes to get from Pacifica to Daly City BART (a 5ish minute drive). If it wasn't…
Well being an Okie, I had plenty of cars already.
I put less than 1k miles on my truck in the 3 or so years I lived in the area. I really enjoyed the hometown feel of Pacifica, the people were super nice too. And we used to go hiking almost every weekend up at San Pedro Park.
Plus, best Taco Bell in the world! ;-)