251–260 of 394 posts
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95% of Googlers in NYC will be lifetime renters just like they are in the Bay Area. Hardly the gilded class
"Googlers, hardly the gilded class" is a silly argument. SWEs can afford to buy in the Bay, and can in NYC too. $250-300k is enough to afford a $1.5m place. Yes, many Google employees aren't engineers, and not everyone working there gets paid like one.
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> "Well, they should care more about A B C instead (because I do)." I'm guilty of this, but I think your formulation is a straw man. All I want to tell people is that they shouldn't reflexively rule out the middle of the country, because a lot of people really would be happier there. Not everybody, but some people . And the way (some people on) the coasts talk about the Midwest and the South is as though they're a co…
I grew up in Michigan and moved to greater NYC after grad school, and I want to push back a bit against the idea that nobody on the coasts even considers the middle of the country. My spouse and I would love to move somewhere less expensive than NYC, but we just can't make it work. We're both in fairly specialized tech fields, and prioritize walkability, diversity, great schools and career growth opportunity. Outside…
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People don't want 5000 sq ft anymore. I looked at suburban houses as an option and was thinking I hope I never have enough crap to fill this much space. I think I can comfortably fit my family of 4 in 1200 sq ft indefinitely and never own a car.
Do you have kids yet? Genuinely curious.
I mostly grew up in the city, in a small apartment, but for a while we did live in the Midwest, in a big house. The only problem with apartment living was that we had too much furniture we didn’t need from when we lived in the Midwest.
Meanwhile, the executive team openly laughed at the idea of investing in offices any distance from the coast.
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Why?
Because people are attached to their family and friends and also most don't realize that any able body person with an IQ of 100 and a decent work ethic could easily make six digits if they relocated to the right area.
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>>Companies don't want to establish new offices in cities where they cannot attract new talent or there isn't a large existing base of talent. Bangalore had this problem in the 80's and 90's. The way you beat is, surprising simple. You just start building colleges and other institutions and make it cheap and easy to study there. All of a sudden you have a massive pool of young, and hungry people. Then you do things l…
I hate to be that guy, but if it’s this simple why hasn’t it been done? And anticipating a specific class of answer: is it always political deadlock in America, or is there something more fundamental that would prevent this from working?
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I don’t understand - are you giving this near half-million single bedroom as an example of affordability?
Well if your income is $133k/yr, then it would fit in the 3x annual income rule for housing affordability, which the typical sr eng at google now exceeds.
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Eh, you can get to dense suburbia in about 45 minutes, sparse suburbia in like 1 hour, and if you're willing to commute 90 minutes, maybe two hours, you're out in what city slickers would call "rural". Also don't forget Long Island, the Other In State. (I'm one of the idiots who commutes ~2 hours from near Poughkeepsie, which is (a) still on commuter rail [the super-express Hudson line train takes ~90 minutes, plus t…
I know from my stint on Crouton on Hudson, but its still a pain. You don't truly live in the city, you just visit it from time to time.
For me, I didn't really take advantage of the city - I like occasionally went to a museum or went out to eat but I mostly just sat on the couch watching TV and surfing the internet. So I moved north and got myself forty acres of tree-covered Bath-Nassau soil with rocky outcroppings. Now my free time is filled with rennovating a 200 year old vernacular house, turning my land into a proper hobby farm, and going to various kitschy festivals and hiking trails with my family. My commute is, frankly, the most relaxing part of my week, where I can sit quietly for 90 minutes and read a book or take a nap or post WoT conspiracy theories on Reddit.
It may not be for everyone, but it's amazing to me that I can have this lifestyle while also commuting to a regular old desk job in the largest city in the country. (It's also amazing to me that I'm part of a multi-century tradition of both commuting to the city from rural upstate and of gentleman farmers coming upstate from the city.)
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Define economic winner....you mean top line income and area GDP? These places are the most expensive places in the country to live, and quality of living is considerably lower. Incomes may be lower in many areas of the country, but when you consider you can pay $2k/mo on a 5,000 sq ft mortgage instead of renting a 900 sq ft apartment, I don't view these places as economically successful as many perceive them to be.
It appears that you assume more sq. ft. implies higher quality of life. Are you aware of any studies that indicate that's true? I would think that most New Yorkers would consider the traffic mess in a place like Dallas to be an indication of a lower quality of life. I believe there are studies that indicate this is true.
It seems there is exactly one reliable way to make this assessment. Look at where people move to. The large cities with the most rapid growth are (from Forbes 2018 list[1]):
1) Boise, ID
2) Seatle-Bellevue-Everett, WA
3) Dallas-Plano-Irving, TX
4) Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL
5) Fort Worth-Arlington, TX
6) Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV
7) Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN
8) Austin-Round Rock, TX
9) Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL
10) Tacoma-Lakewood, WA
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/samanthasharf/2018/02/28/full-l...
This coupled with the Amazon news is starting to get distressing. With the amount of companies that copycat them it’s like the rich are getting richer and the economic benefits are still going to be concentrated only in the most affluent cities. The rest of the country desperately needs real industry and good paying jobs - and will go to huge lengths to try to get them but it appears nobody can come up with a busines…
> The rest of the country desperately needs real industry and good paying jobs - and will go to huge lengths to try to get them No they don't. Tax breaks aren't enough. One of the big reasons a lot of people really like NYC is that it's one of the few cities in the US that actually feels like a city. NYC is urbanist in a way that relatively few American cities are (and most of the other cities in this category are al…
Do you really think NYC is a good example of this? I found the car traffic horrific, cycling is variable at best and downright dangerous at worst. The subway is pretty amazing but massively under-invested.
Even most UK cities which have longer levels of history restricting what can be done for cyclists are better than NYC.