San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents • Hacker News Board

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#431

Post by Ologn » Wed, Apr 06, 2016, 3:35 AM UTC

trhway wrote: post #175

TranquilMarmot wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with the amount of vitriol in your comment, but I agree with the overall sentiment. I feel like tech workers in San Francisco are fully bought-in to the "this is the best and only place to be if you're in tech" idea. So much so that they can't quite see that the grass is just as green on the other side, so to speak. You have to be fully bought-in to it, there's no other way you would be able to justify…

>I feel like tech workers in San Francisco are fully bought-in to the "this is the best and only place to be if you're in tech" idea. So much so that they can't quite see that the grass is just as green on the other side, so to speak. You have to be fully bought-in to it, there's no other way you would be able to justify the cost of living there. man, it is freedom. Freedom of employment in this case. At any moment i…

How free it is depends on the times. In 2000, the dot-com bubble collapsed. This spilled over a little into Fortune 500 companies, but not as much as it affected startups and tech companies. I left my dot-com in New York and went to work at an investment bank. A lot of people I know in the Bay area were in tougher straits - some who had moved there left. Sometimes there are advantages to a city being dependent on one industry, sometimes there are disadvantages.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#432

Post by pmalynin » Wed, Apr 06, 2016, 3:36 AM UTC

zavi wrote: post #369

vinceguidry wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not already married, you should be using it to date. College is hands-down the best place to find a significant other. Once you've graduated, the social life you took for granted quickly fades away and finding people to spend time with and then actually spending time with them becomes vastly more difficult. If you're a cisgendered male, it can be absolutely brutal. Cisgendered female, much less so but still…

What are some smart dating strategies for a straight white male new grad in the Bay Area with 6 digits of disposable income? Dating market seems extremely competitive here.

As programmers, keepers of the dark arts -- like the monks of the mountains -- we're expected to lead a celibate life.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#433

Post by CalRobert » Wed, Apr 06, 2016, 3:37 AM UTC

beambot wrote: post #399

CalRobert wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mountain View is expensive, and to many people, boring. SF is at least less likely to be the latter. Remember also that Mountain View despises mixed use and refused to rezone areas currently designated commercial-only in order to let Google workers live near their jobs. Of course, it also would have meant people who bought in the 70's would have some tiny amount of competition for their asset.

I don't live in Mountain View; I was just using that commute as an example. (As mentioned, I'm in San Jose.) I just strongly agree with many of the academic articles showing strong correlation between long commutes and unhappiness. By the time you factor in a 90-minute SF-MTV commute, you really don't get many benefits of the city on weekdays anyway...

I completely agree re: long commutes. But I also don't care for the suburbs, which is why I used to commute from Berkeley to my first job in the bay, in Newark.

Remember that commute mode can make a HUGE difference. Crawling along asphalt is probably about the least fun method.

I rode Bart counter-commute to Fremont and then a bicycle the last 4 miles. I will say, if you want to stick out as an oddball in that part of the bay taking Bart and riding a recumbent to work will do the trick. It wasn't a good culture fit, to say the least.

After that, I worked in El Segundo and lived in Santa Monica. My commute was 26 miles (round trip) of gorgeous beach bike riding, which took around 90-100 minutes a day door to door (recumbents are quick!) I was in the best shape of my life, and always loved seeing bonfires, beach goers, drum circles, and once a pod of dolphins jumping out of the water alongside me as I rode down a 12 foot wide strip of land by the Marina.

Anyway, just trying to point out that the calculation is complex and depends on the person.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#434

Post by morgante » Wed, Apr 06, 2016, 3:49 AM UTC

cylinder wrote: post #423

nunez wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in SF, but I wouldn't make the choice to move here today. It simply isn't worth Manhattan prices to live in a city full of tech bros where you can't get a good meal after 9:30. This one took me by surprise when I visited SF for the first time five years ago. I thought it would be booming with activity just like NYC, so I thought nothing of trying to find food when I arrived at ~11pm. NOTHING. Nothing was ope…

NYC is not that different. The only things open 24hrs are bodegas and diners, which serve shitty food. Even the Whole Foods in Union Square, the busiest in the nation, closes at 11pm, which is later than the grocery stores in suburban TX. I guess bars can stay open late.

As someone who routinely worked quite late in NYC, that's just not accurate.

I routinely had good meals at 10pm or 11pm at night. Never once did I eat at a diner.

Lots of restaurants stay open later in NYC, and then there are plenty of gastropubs serving great food even later.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#435

Post by davidw » Wed, Apr 06, 2016, 3:49 AM UTC

Tiktaalik wrote: post #382

davidw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the answer. Deregulate housing/small businesse spaces/offices and let the market do its work. It's crazy the amount of regulation there is that pretty much dictates single family detached homes for large swaths of the country. Here in Bend, for instance, you must have a driveway with not one, but two parking spots. Land of the free indeed... http://marketurbanism.com/ Also, this book, although it's pretty hig…

I'm not sure deregulation is actually the answer here. It's more that our municipalities have bought into car oriented design and have adopted a terrible philosophy and awful set of regulations. We need to regulate good design that leads to compact and efficient communities instead. My fear with less regulations is that while you could see taller, and denser buildings in some areas, you'd also open up the potential f…

> increase in sprawl

Deregulation within an urban growth boundary. I don't like sprawl either. Houston or LA are not my ideas of "the answer", although Houston does - apparently - get some deregulation right within the city as well.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#436

Post by aetherson » Wed, Apr 06, 2016, 3:49 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #348

aetherson wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that in-fill development could have possibly made a drastic change in rents in San Francisco is genuinely crazy . I see people making that claim all the time, and it's madness, guys. Even if literally every density-increasing project was rubber-stamped with zero money or time cost, how many housing units do you think that this city could possibly have added in the last fifteen years? Unless you're proposing…

In a system where it's easy to build new housing, you don't need eminent domain. The developer simply buys two-storey homes for much more than they're worth as houses. You also don't need to limit yourself to the existing local developers with political connections. Construction workers from all over the world could move here, just like software people do.

It's not easy to buy up entire blocks of houses. You get hold-outs, either people who understand that they're in a position to block a potentially lucrative deal and get a big payout, or just people who have a sentimental attachment to their homes or whatever.

The idea that there's a lot of elasticity to the construction trade is also naïve. Construction workers from "all over the world" can't move here -- we have an immigration process, and it's not one that's favorable to construction workers. We are also in an area that is itself not very conducive to living on a construction worker's salary.

And also, who are these developers who are so eager to build high-rise housing in a market that is stipulated to have affordable rents? It's a big capital investment to build a modern skyscraper, especially if there's a construction crunch, especially if you have to do things like buy out large areas without the benefit of government coercion, especially if there are similar projects going up across the city to compete with you. Housing is not typically a highly profitable use of real estate to begin with, and San Francisco is also a city that is not very landlord friendly.

This dream of in-fill development being a simple cure-all to San Francisco's housing ills like most "one simple trick to fix all your problems" -- click bait, not a real solution.

None of this is to say that SF shouldn't have in-fill (it should), or that SF shouldn't reduce barriers to development (it should). But be realistic. Unless you rewrite everything about SF back 50 years, it's not going to dramatically change everything about this city overnight.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#437

Post by acomjean » Wed, Apr 06, 2016, 3:50 AM UTC

Tiktaalik wrote: post #382

davidw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the answer. Deregulate housing/small businesse spaces/offices and let the market do its work. It's crazy the amount of regulation there is that pretty much dictates single family detached homes for large swaths of the country. Here in Bend, for instance, you must have a driveway with not one, but two parking spots. Land of the free indeed... http://marketurbanism.com/ Also, this book, although it's pretty hig…

I'm not sure deregulation is actually the answer here. It's more that our municipalities have bought into car oriented design and have adopted a terrible philosophy and awful set of regulations. We need to regulate good design that leads to compact and efficient communities instead. My fear with less regulations is that while you could see taller, and denser buildings in some areas, you'd also open up the potential f…

I think you need deregulation of housing stock and increased public transit.

One of the reasons rents are getting up there is fewer people driving and not a ton of options on where to live if you don't. I'm in Boston and simple little stuff like an extension of the subway can't get off the ground due to mismanagement and lack of funding.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#438

Post by morgante » Wed, Apr 06, 2016, 3:52 AM UTC

aetherson wrote: post #206

whack wrote: post #111

It's hard to overstate the impact this is going to have on San Francisco, long-term. As Technology becomes the most important industry in America, a well-governed San Francisco could have positioned itself as the next NYC. The hub where all of tech gathers, the same way all of finance gathered in Wall St. Replace the 70 year old 2-storey homes with Manhattan style apartment buildings, and rent in San Francisco would…

The idea that in-fill development could have possibly made a drastic change in rents in San Francisco is genuinely crazy . I see people making that claim all the time, and it's madness, guys. Even if literally every density-increasing project was rubber-stamped with zero money or time cost, how many housing units do you think that this city could possibly have added in the last fifteen years? Unless you're proposing…

NYC adds more capacity in a year than SF adds in a decade.

You don't need eminent domain to build high rises. Developers can easily make very compelling offers to those currently in small houses to get them to move.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#439

Post by stouset » Wed, Apr 06, 2016, 3:53 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #186

whack wrote: post #111

It's hard to overstate the impact this is going to have on San Francisco, long-term. As Technology becomes the most important industry in America, a well-governed San Francisco could have positioned itself as the next NYC. The hub where all of tech gathers, the same way all of finance gathered in Wall St. Replace the 70 year old 2-storey homes with Manhattan style apartment buildings, and rent in San Francisco would…

"a well-governed San Francisco could have positioned itself as the next NYC. The hub where all of tech gathers, the same way all of finance gathered in Wall St. Replace the 70 year old 2-storey homes with Manhattan style apartment buildings, and rent in San Francisco would have remained very reasonable, despite the rapid economic growth. This would have prevented exactly this problem where tech workers are forced to…

> Increasingly, the choice not to locate your company in SF is a sign of competitive intelligence.

Sorry, but this is flawed logic.

Tech, more than seemingly any other industry I can think of, has a winner-takes-all model of success. Given this, starting a tech company anywhere other than where the overwhelming majority of the most capable employees live is virtually suicide. And this seems to pan out in the data as well — Twitter, Square, Uber, Google, Facebook, Reddit, AirBnB, Apple, Oracle, Box, Palantir, Pinterest, Lyft, Stripe, CloudFlare… not that these are all of tech, but finding even a fraction of these anywhere (other than perhaps New York) is a stretch.

Given that, it's patently worth it to pay the extra cost per employee, when the relative value of each employee to the company ends up being so high compared to other industries.

This is not to say you can't build a strong tech company in other parts of the US, but you're stacking the odds against you by doing so.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#440

Post by morgante » Wed, Apr 06, 2016, 3:55 AM UTC

nunez wrote: post #230

whack wrote: post #111

It's hard to overstate the impact this is going to have on San Francisco, long-term. As Technology becomes the most important industry in America, a well-governed San Francisco could have positioned itself as the next NYC. The hub where all of tech gathers, the same way all of finance gathered in Wall St. Replace the 70 year old 2-storey homes with Manhattan style apartment buildings, and rent in San Francisco would…

> and rent in San Francisco would have remained very reasonable, despite the rapid economic growth. Nah. Manhattan is a really, really expensive (not as expensive as SF, though, on the average) city to live in. SF rents would have dropped, but not enough to cover the influx of people coming in. Rent prices probably would've dropped in other areas of the Bay though.

Manhattan also has a lot more demand and benefits than SF.

NYC also offers plenty of compelling options in other boroughs that are simultaneously cheaper and more convenient than their SF equivalents.