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Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

gregkroleski.com

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Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#41

Post by kzhahou »

balls187 wrote: post #27
raverbashing wrote: post #6

The question is why do we have the most talented people in a certain industry having to live in confined spaces while paying through the roof for it. Not even Hollywood is like that. People may stay in trailers for some time but that's it As personally having to live in a tiny place (not in SF though) it is not something I want to do for an extended period of time, even though the advantages like 'city living' are go…

> The question is why do we have the most talented people in a certain industry having to live in confined spaces while paying through the roof for it. Because it's their choice. Right now the housing market in San Fran is redic. However, there are other major tech areas that don't nearly have the same problems.

It's obviously their choice. OP didn't mean anyone is forced against their will. The question is: why does the vast majority of new tech continue to

A) establish themselves in such an uncomfortable location

B) not embrace distributed teams

It's a terrible cycle at this point.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#42

Post by hellofunk »

hellofunk wrote: post #40
philh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and... Netherlands is number 30. Admittedly most of the others are a lot smaller, but Bangladesh and South Korea are a lot bigger. San Fran is also denser than the Netherlands, and AFAICS denser than any Dutch city (comparable with The Hague).

Hm I have a book right in front of me that says it is number 2 in the world, right after Taiwan. It's this book: http://www.xpat.nl/product/holland-handbook-2015-2016/ Perhaps they taking other factors into account by excluding city-states like Singapore, Hong Kong, etc.

Interesting that in the PDF preview of the book on the page, which is a slightly newer edition than the one I have, they have changed the discussion of population density to say this:

>The Netherlands is in the world’s top ten in export volume and it ranks in the world’s top twenty for GNP, even though, in terms of square kilometers, it is one of the smallest countries of the world. Though it is true that, in population density, it is on a par with countries such as India and Japan, nonetheless this only amounts to a population of almost 16.8 million.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#43

Post by bane »

philh wrote: post #24
hellofunk wrote: post #15

This isn't so bad. The Netherlands is the most dense population of any country outside Taiwan and families dwelling in small spaces continues to this day. There is a 12-member family spanning 3 generations all living in the same small house next door to me. Our tiny 60 square meter home is considered normal for our area. By American standards, SF seems like tight living, perhaps. But by world standards, space is not…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and... Netherlands is number 30. Admittedly most of the others are a lot smaller, but Bangladesh and South Korea are a lot bigger. San Fran is also denser than the Netherlands, and AFAICS denser than any Dutch city (comparable with The Hague).

The ultimate problem is that SF is not really all that dense. It's ~7,000/km^2. (Amsterdam is ~4,000/km^2).

Seoul is 17,000/km^2. But living spaces are surprisingly reasonable, even by American standards.

It always blows me away that Paris has a density of 21,000/km^2, but the living spaces I've seen are pretty bad.

Like the article says, it just makes very poor use of its space.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#45

Post by alkonaut »

atom-morgan wrote: post #22
stevoski wrote: post #7

The more I read such articles, the more I think you'd have to be nuts to choose to live in San Francisco. And yet, clearly, plenty of people do choose to live in San Francisco.

It's a weird situation. There are so many tech companies out there and I'd like to work for some of them but I don't think the sacrifice I'll take with my standard of living will be worth it.

Why aren't SF tech companies hiring more remote workers? They could pay people who work remotely a lot less, save a lot on office space etc. Tech companies are the ones that should be able to pull that off.

Even if I lived in SF I'd be reluctant to commute an hour to work if I could just as well work from home.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#46

Post by sotojuan »

stevoski wrote: post #7

The more I read such articles, the more I think you'd have to be nuts to choose to live in San Francisco. And yet, clearly, plenty of people do choose to live in San Francisco.

As someone who does not want to live there either, I can see why people move there.

It's simply where the most opportunities are. The idea is to move there and live uncomfortably until you network your way to an awesome, high paying job.

Alternatively, the tech companies there usually do more interesting stuff than in other area. Here in NYC most are related to advertising or media—stuff not easy to get exited about. San Francisco has its large share of silly ideas for companies, but it also has many that do interesting stuff.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#47

Post by JabavuAdams »

Artistry121 wrote: post #12

In another city a place this cheap would be less than $400 / month. Meaning someone could choose this lifestyle simply in a different city working for minimum wage and meet the requirements for housing costs of less than 1/3 income.

The problem is who you're living next to, at that price point, in another city.

Basically, if you live where all of the minimum-wage people live, you're going to get spill-over from all the typical problems in such a neighbourhood.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#48

Post by serge2k »

goodJobWalrus wrote: post #23
serge2k wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is over 10 times larger than the UK. Guess what, tons of land leads to different expectations. I don't understand why Europeans seem to like acting condescending about this stuff?

> The US is over 10 times larger than the UK. Guess what, tons of land leads to different expectations. I'm not sure it's just that, it's also I think, that Americans find it acceptable to live in suburbs. If everyone tried to live in the city centers (like they do in nyc or SF), small places would also be the norm.

> it's also I think, that Americans find it acceptable to live in suburbs

Guess what, tons of land leads to different expectations

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#50

Post by sawthat »

alkonaut wrote: post #45
atom-morgan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a weird situation. There are so many tech companies out there and I'd like to work for some of them but I don't think the sacrifice I'll take with my standard of living will be worth it.

Why aren't SF tech companies hiring more remote workers? They could pay people who work remotely a lot less, save a lot on office space etc. Tech companies are the ones that should be able to pull that off. Even if I lived in SF I'd be reluctant to commute an hour to work if I could just as well work from home.

Everyone keeps asking this question. The answer: they are hiring remote workers. But my question: where is the evidence that tech companies are not able to be profitable with their high payroll costs?
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