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In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown

nytimes.com

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Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown

#71

Post by briandear »

jonknee wrote: post #42
xur17 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: Who is getting hurt by Google driving people to work on buses. It seems like this reduces congestion, and helps the environment, which is good for everyone. What am I missing here?

The issue was they're using public bus stops. It's not hard to picture why it's demeaning to be standing at the public infrastructure and see a fancy shuttle come and pick up "Google People" while you're left waiting to ride with the proletariat. Especially demeaning when the shuttle is in the way of the real bus. Imagine if the NYC subway had a special car for Wall Street workers that was much more comfortable.

If the Wall Street workers paid for it, what would it matter? The sense of entitlement is astounding. Whenever someone drives by in a Ferrari I don't suddenly feel entitled to throw rocks just because they aren't letting me drive it.

Want to ride the Google bus? Get a job at Google. If people studied code with as much interest as they study the Kardashians, perhaps more could move up the ladder.

The solution is that everyone at Google should drive their cars one day per week to simply illustrate the value of the Google bus. Perhaps all those workers could just stop buying things for a week and see how badly those people wish they were back.

Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown

#72

Post by waterlesscloud »

briandear wrote: post #71
jonknee wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue was they're using public bus stops. It's not hard to picture why it's demeaning to be standing at the public infrastructure and see a fancy shuttle come and pick up "Google People" while you're left waiting to ride with the proletariat. Especially demeaning when the shuttle is in the way of the real bus. Imagine if the NYC subway had a special car for Wall Street workers that was much more comfortable.

If the Wall Street workers paid for it, what would it matter? The sense of entitlement is astounding. Whenever someone drives by in a Ferrari I don't suddenly feel entitled to throw rocks just because they aren't letting me drive it. Want to ride the Google bus? Get a job at Google. If people studied code with as much interest as they study the Kardashians, perhaps more could move up the ladder. The solution is that…

"If people studied code with as much interest as they study the Kardashians, perhaps more could move up the ladder."

It's really hard to see why people hate techies in SF isn't it?

Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown

#73

Post by jonknee »

briandear wrote: post #71
jonknee wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue was they're using public bus stops. It's not hard to picture why it's demeaning to be standing at the public infrastructure and see a fancy shuttle come and pick up "Google People" while you're left waiting to ride with the proletariat. Especially demeaning when the shuttle is in the way of the real bus. Imagine if the NYC subway had a special car for Wall Street workers that was much more comfortable.

If the Wall Street workers paid for it, what would it matter? The sense of entitlement is astounding. Whenever someone drives by in a Ferrari I don't suddenly feel entitled to throw rocks just because they aren't letting me drive it. Want to ride the Google bus? Get a job at Google. If people studied code with as much interest as they study the Kardashians, perhaps more could move up the ladder. The solution is that…

The point isn't the existence of the shuttle, it's the freeloading on public infrastructure. Google was removing paying transit riders while using public transit infrastructure and inconveniencing the public. Oh and rent near a Google shuttle stop suddenly surged because of demand from Google employees. Quite literally a recipe for creating discontent in a neighborhood.

Google got the message and made a large donation, but like most things the damage was easy to make and hard to recover from.

And the solution is simple--Google (and any other company running a shuttle that uses public stops) should pay for what its using.

Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown

#74

Post by api »

doseofreality wrote: post #47
api wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Housing prices are like wages: very "sticky." Nobody wants to ever sell a house at a loss or drop their rent, so housing will sit idle on the market rather than take a write-down. The only way housing could conceivably fall (without intense depression-level pain) is if the entire rest of the economy inflated such that housing was reasonable. Everyone would be making six figures, a gallon of gas would be $…

Yes, right. Housing can never fall. I've heard that one before.

Housing fell a little bit off the 2005 highs and the result was very nearly a total collapse of the financial system. The Fed and the government did everything they could to backstop housing (at the expense of housing affordability and banking system reform) and it's now permanently unaffordable.

More accurately we could say that housing will never be allowed to fall. The entire economy will be sacrificed at the altar of home values. Homeowners vote more than non-homeowners, and so much investment capital is tied up in housing that a major fall in home values would destroy the financial system.

Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown

#75

Post by mattdoughty »

jonknee wrote: post #42
xur17 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: Who is getting hurt by Google driving people to work on buses. It seems like this reduces congestion, and helps the environment, which is good for everyone. What am I missing here?

The issue was they're using public bus stops. It's not hard to picture why it's demeaning to be standing at the public infrastructure and see a fancy shuttle come and pick up "Google People" while you're left waiting to ride with the proletariat. Especially demeaning when the shuttle is in the way of the real bus. Imagine if the NYC subway had a special car for Wall Street workers that was much more comfortable.

I get that it may be demeaning but that analogy doesn't really work. It would be like the NYC Subway didn't go to Wall Street at all, and the banks built their own subway for their workers which ran from an NYC Subway station.

Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown

#76

Post by briandear »

rosser wrote: post #51
xur17 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: Who is getting hurt by Google driving people to work on buses. It seems like this reduces congestion, and helps the environment, which is good for everyone. What am I missing here?

In that respect — traffic congestion — I think the buses are a good thing. But there's definitely a down-side. Gentrification, for example, though usually regarded as a net, long-term win, is short-term very painful for many people. Families that have lived somewhere for years, and communities that have grown up over generations, are being shredded as property-owners rent-seek. Now, yes, it's their property to do wit…

Maybe teachers shouldn't take jobs in areas they can't afford. Serious point. The market would then have to raise the prices for that labor due to the shortage until the rate equals the amount a teacher would need to afford the area.

But the real issue is that supply and demand is distorted in the area: no new supply, increasing demand. It doesn't take an engineer to see where that equation leads. Add rent control on top of that and you have modern San Francisco.

Time to open the floodgates and build. What would be wrong with Korea style 60 story housing? The problem is that people want quaint B&B style neighborhoods yet they complain about everyone wanting to live there; rather than addressing the supply issue, they want to address the demand issue. You can't even replace a toilet without having to go through regulatory and permitting hell.

I am not sure what people in San Fran actually want. It seems like they want an amazing place that's affordable while lamenting that everyone else wants to live there too.

I do take some comfort in the fact that this is one thing that can't be blamed on Republicans.

Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown

#77

Post by briandear »

dublinben wrote: post #44
Apocryphon wrote: post #25

Tech workers are not to blame, but tech workers shouldn't blame those angry at getting priced out, either. Instead, both groups should work together to lobby for more housing. So the question is, how can a hacker help?

>how can a hacker help? Help make remote work more possible and acceptable.

This this THIS! I live on two acres in the South of France. If I couldn't work remotely I'd be in San Francisco like the rest. So my three kids go to a small village school, I rarely drive the car and I paid as much for my place as I would have an apartment in San Fran.

Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown

#78

Post by waterlesscloud »

rosser wrote: post #51
xur17 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: Who is getting hurt by Google driving people to work on buses. It seems like this reduces congestion, and helps the environment, which is good for everyone. What am I missing here?

In that respect — traffic congestion — I think the buses are a good thing. But there's definitely a down-side. Gentrification, for example, though usually regarded as a net, long-term win, is short-term very painful for many people. Families that have lived somewhere for years, and communities that have grown up over generations, are being shredded as property-owners rent-seek. Now, yes, it's their property to do wit…

California law assumes the rent was paid on the date of the postmark on the envelope, though she may need to send it be certified mail to prove that.

Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown

#79

Post by tptacek »

e40 wrote: post #50
DannyBee wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thriving? I think reasonable people disagree. The vast majority of people i've talked to think SF was a craphole 25 years ago. I think a lot of people have the golden age fallacy going on :)

The vast majority of people i've talked to think SF was a craphole 25 years ago. Let's see, I've been in the area for 40 years and your comment couldn't be more wrong or uninformed.

Here's Bill Wyman's old Salon piece on it; it represents 17 years, but he grew up in East Bay in the 80s.

http://www.salon.com/1999/11/03/sf/

(I remember it because I had just moved to SF from Chicago, again, when it was published).

Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown

#80

Post by tptacek »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #68
DannyBee wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Errr, i already said it's from talking to many people (~100-200 over the course of the year) who have lived there a very long time (in most cases, 30+ years). Given i stated an aggregation of what their responses were, that's valid data . Not sure what more you want here. It seems you just violently disagree, but that doesn't make you right. It just makes you a data point in the other direction.

So you don't actually have data, just anecdotes you've selectively remembered. Noted. Side note- Nice work attempting to attach the pejorative term "violently" to my position. Not that it makes your side any more convincing, but it's smart in terms of contemporary rhetoric.

This comment is pretty rude.
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