"San Francisco, I love you But I'm Bringing You Down"
FTFY
San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
271–280 of 458 posts
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
"giving me the ability to pursue my own dream projects for more of the time." That's what I was getting at. SF and SV were built on that, and it's not possible there anymore unless you've got big investors.
Exactly. The heyday of SV (think microprocessor and early PC heyday) had insanely low real estate prices. A guy could get buy doing manual labor and tinker on computers as a side project in the garage back then. Today that's unthinkable. It sucks that tech companies willingly WANT to be in SF/SV, as if it's some magical technological cloud city where the rest of the world can't compare.
It is a magical technological cloud city. For certain business models.
If the company in question is betting on very strong growth, then it needs a large pool of experienced talent to draw upon. Paying 3X or 5X as much to get top talent can easily save money in the long run.
If you want to be taken seriously by big fish VCs, you have to be able to speak intelligently about how to spend more for a disproportionately positive payoff. The problem here is not the VCs, but the aspirations of the founders.
Finding less experienced talent for cheap may be the smarter move. For other business models.
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
So SF can't have nice things because they currently do not have nice things?
Yes, but at a less abstract level, SF can't have nice thing A (tall buildings) because they currently do not have nice thing B (the ability to build earthquake proof buildings).
They have the ability to build those buildings, even if they have to contract with Japanese companies to do it. What they apparently don't have is the infrastructure to regulate and inspect such buildings. They probably don't have that infrastructure because they don't actually want tall buildings regardless...
They don't have a chicken because they don't have an egg.. they don't have an egg because "Fuck chickens; move to Manhattan if you want chickens."
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#274What I'm curious about is how the low-income class is living in/around SF. I mean, there are waiters, cashiers, plumbers, assistants... where do they find affordable housing?
living in tenderloin/bayview/hunters point, furiously searching craigslist for gems, living in the east bay, being a live-in boyfriend/girlfriend
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>I'd love the city I'm sure, but after glancing around I've come to the conclusion that home ownership is unthinkable to anyone who hasn't had a cash-out event. I've never understood this crazy, if not outright insane obsession with home ownership. Why does everyone want to tie significant amounts of their lifetime earnings into physical property that historically has had very low appreciation in value? It's like pe…
> I've never understood this crazy, if not outright insane obsession with home ownership. And, I don't understand why so many people on HN seem to think it's insane. I'd like to be more in control of my environment. I don't want to be at the whims of a landlord, particularly in the future, when I have children. I want a place that is mine to customize as I see fit. I don't want to have to ask if I can paint, I want t…
It is insane when you pay sky high prices for a house. Otherwise, it may be a good decision.
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
> NYC is often considered more expensive, and Manhattan is certainly... well... Manhattan. But taken collectively the NYC metro area is actually much more affordable. You can find places to live that are nice, friendly to someone older than 25-30, and at least sanely priced. It's crazy, isn't it? I was looking at housing prices recently, for places within a 30-35 minute train commute of work (I refuse to make a car p…
If you're willing to tolerate a 30-35 minute commute, Millbrae/Burlingame is a lot cheaper than Palo Alto, and that allows for job opportunities in both SF and Silicon Valley. But yeah, Bay Area prices are really high.
I wouldn't mind a 30-35 minute commute if I didn't have to get in a car at any point. My commute from Westchester to Manhattan was amazing: a block and a half to the train, and a block and a half to my office. Almost never late, came every 15 minutes during rush hour, etc.
The problem with Cal Train seems to be that you have a mini-commute at the beginning and end of every trip. My Westchester town had several residential high-rises just a block or two from the train station. Looking at the Millbrae station, there is nothing around it--it's designed for people to drive into. And on the San Francisco side, the SF Caltrain station isn't exactly amazingly centrally located...
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#277> The recent BART strikes are just a single data point in a larger trend: we’re alienating everyone who isn’t in technology. I'm not from SF but from an outside perspective: Taxes have increased 33% in the bay area since 2008 [1] and BART is "running at a surplus"...but BART transit workers have not had a pay raise since 2008? Can someone explain to me why the SF tech community are the bad guys here? ...Besides a few…
Taxes went up by 33% from 2008 through 2011? Doesn't seem credible to me. Can you post the article in which the image you posted occurs?
I have one possible explanation.
Proposition 13 limits property tax increases to 2% per year in California. As a result, many homes are taxed at far below their market value.
If a lot of long term residents with dirt cheap property tax sold during that period you could see a dramatic bump in average tax per household.
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who recently (this past year) went from being a renter to a homeowner, and had previously been a home owner for several years, it's not all rational... but here are some of the reasons. I don't have to worry about the rent going up every year / six-months. If I plan to own the house for multiple years, a large chunk of my money goes to equity: I'm banking away value for later that you will get back when yo…
>>If I plan to own the house for multiple years, a large chunk of my money goes to equity: I'm banking away value for later that you will get back when you sell the house. (Assuming the market doesn't go pear-shape: a big assumption.) In contrast, money you spend on rent is a pure cost, and irrevocably lost. This logic is fundamentally flawed. Contrary to the popular conventional wisdom (repeated by our Baby Boomer p…
Well, it's throwing away money compared to home ownership, which also gives you a place to live. I don't know about hypothetical ultra-liquid markets, but in practise rent is usually higher than interest+maintenance fees over a longer period of time. Real estate investors need to make a profit, and so do banks, but the banks tend to have slimmer margins.
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#279The really interesting thing about SF is that it's not 7x7 as people claim- it's actually more like 3x3. The "City" is confined to a tiny area downtown and in the Mission and SOMA. The entire southern and western parts of SF are low-density suburban sprawl. This is a result of terrible planning in the 50's and shortsighted opposition to new housing and transit ever since.
> it's actually more like 3x3. The "City" is confined to a tiny area downtown and in the Mission and SOMA.
What about Nob Hill, Russian Hill, and North Beach? Pacific Heights, Marina, Haight? These aren't examples low-density suburban sprawl.
Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
#280Man spends 20s in SF, moves out later. Film at 11.