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Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

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Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#271

Post by amyjess »

taurath wrote: post #4

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…

As somebody who lives in Dallas, I'm actually glad that Amazon is passing us up in favor of NoVa, and I've heard similar sentiments from talking to a few of my fellow Dallasites.

The consensus is that if Amazon moved here, all they'd accomplish is sending housing prices into the stratosphere and turning traffic into a nightmare. We have plenty of jobs here, and housing prices and traffic are already starting to get problematic. We don't need Amazon throwing gasoline on the fire.

I've also heard discussion about how we don't want Amazon because they could wreck the city's culture like they did to Seattle... and from what I've seen, both the right and the left are pretty unified on this. We like Dallas the way it is, thank you very much.

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#273

Post by tantalor »

kyrieeschaton wrote: post #183

Meanwhile, the executive team openly laughed at the idea of investing in offices any distance from the coast.

I work at Google in Pittsburgh and we are hiring & expanding.

Here's a story published earlier this year,

https://www.geekwire.com/2018/google-early-pioneer-pittsburg...

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#274

Post by TulliusCicero »

dionidium wrote: post #252
del82 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It would be pointless to try to speak to your particular situation, but I think a lot of people who think they can't get this or that thing out of, say, Nashville or Minneapolis, or whatever, are wrong . I don't mean to say their opinion is wrong. Live wherever you want! I mean to say that they have objectively false impressions about quantifiable aspects of those cities.

> I think a lot of people who think they can't get this or that thing out of, say, Nashville or Minneapolis, or whatever, are wrong.

If a person values a thing, saying, "well [thing] exists in these other cities too, there's just a whole lot less of it there" is maybe not a super effective counterpoint.

Like, I realize that basically every major city in the US does have public transit...technically. But pointing out that out is not useful when for most of those cities, said transit is slow, unreliable, sparse, and infrequent.

I don't just want transit. I want good transit. I don't just want walkability in a few isolated neighborhoods. I want widespread walkability.

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#275

Post by tjr225 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #178
bsbechtel wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, I mean by having lots of high-paying jobs. Speaking in the abstract, that means economic success. You're not wrong that high cost of living can often cancel much of that out at the individual level though. > quality of living is considerably lower. See my other nearby comment for why this is a "it depends" thing. A lot of people would consider living in Kansas City to have lower "quality of life" than NYC even i…

I have lived in West Michigan (Insanely Cheap), Kansas City (Kinda Cheap), and Seattle (Pretty Expensive).

Thing is, renting a 900 sq foot apartment in any reasonably urban area has gotten pretty expensive anywhere. It was about 1000-1500$ in KC when I left. It's about 1600-2200 in Seattle. My salary jump from KC to Seattle more than makes up for the difference in rent. Other things may be slightly more expensive, but I don't really notice.

Major difference is you can buy a house in Kansas City, but even that is starting to get expensive - at least in the areas that I would like to buy a house in. Even Grand Rapids, Michigan is having its own housing crisis. At least the salaries are already high in coastal towns. That said, I sometimes feel like I was saving up enough money to buy a house back in the midwest.

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#276

Post by TulliusCicero »

twentythree wrote: post #249
TulliusCicero wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't consider Portland to be a cheaper or more conservative US city, and it's still one of the better US cities at urbanism, sad as that is, but okay. * The MAX has decent reach, but it's severely handicapped in capacity and speed by running at-grade. The Portland metro cheaped out there, and the result is a train system that's only good by American standards. * Many of the MAX stops, you can go a block or thre…

> No bus lanes that I'm aware of, or at least few enough that a multiple-time visitor didn't see them, so buses are stuck in general traffic. No bus lanes, but buses aren't just stuck in general traffic. Portland has a system that gives them priority at stoplights: https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/2016/03/what_are_the_bl...

That's interesting, and good, but it's hardly a substitute for dedicated lanes, let alone separated-grade lanes. A bus with signal priority can still get slowed down by and stuck in traffic when there are flat out too many cars around.

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#277

Post by ardy42 »

tootie wrote: post #220
bsbechtel wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

> 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.

That's an incredibly broad overstatement. There are plenty of people, including "techies," who still want a suburban home with a car.

There's a lot of talk in this thread that assumes that tech workers all want to live a minimalist lifestyle in a dense urban area (or even worse: that they should want to live that way). That's frankly false. I assume what's really going on is that people are projecting their parochial preferences onto a large group that's much more diverse than they understand.

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#278

Post by mattkrause »

konamicode wrote: post #233
woolvalley wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> it would fit in the 3x annual income rule for housing affordability Could you please expand on this rule? Where did it come from? Feels like impossibility in some countries.

It’s a oft-repeated guideline in the US that you should spend no more than 1/3 of your income on housing (rent, mortgage + property taxes + ....).

It’s not a law and it certainly doesn’t apply to all people or locations. Some lenders might use it as a heuristic though.

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#279

Post by TulliusCicero »

joey-bob wrote: post #270
TulliusCicero wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I mean by having lots of high-paying jobs. Speaking in the abstract, that means economic success. You're not wrong that high cost of living can often cancel much of that out at the individual level though. > quality of living is considerably lower. See my other nearby comment for why this is a "it depends" thing. A lot of people would consider living in Kansas City to have lower "quality of life" than NYC even i…

In my experience, your fundamental assumption about what "techies" want is at least partially flawed. Not that no one in tech wants bike Lanes, public transit, and authentic South Indian cuisine. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of people who work at FAANG consider these things important in their life. But there is still a large portion that truly don't care for all that. They live in the bay because if…

You are not wrong, but I'm not saying this is the sole factor in city attractiveness here. It's just one factor. Other things equal, I think it's easier to attract top talent to cities with halfway decent urbanism than to cities that are more like giant suburbs.

I focused on it in my original comment mostly just because it's an area I'm particularly familiar with, and it's an area where the cities that are supposedly "desperate" are hardly doing anything at all. (Not that I blame the local governments for that, really, I realize the local residents mostly want their cities to stay that way)

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#280

Post by chuckgreenman »

dionidium wrote: post #205
TulliusCicero wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I mean by having lots of high-paying jobs. Speaking in the abstract, that means economic success. You're not wrong that high cost of living can often cancel much of that out at the individual level though. > quality of living is considerably lower. See my other nearby comment for why this is a "it depends" thing. A lot of people would consider living in Kansas City to have lower "quality of life" than NYC even i…

> "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…

People prefer car ownership because car manufactures lobbied for laws that shaped most modern american cities around the car. However, New York is so dense that getting around without owning a car is the norm.

Car ownership is a multi thousand dollar expense, every year. Many people would be happier with that cash in their pocket.

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