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In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

nytimes.com

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Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#71

Post by tuna-piano »

msutherl wrote: post #39
1138 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work remotely in SF. I live here because I like not owning a car, walking and biking most places, and non-tech things to do. I'm just lucky I can afford it. The solution is to build more good US cities that aren't car centric. I'm not aware of any. Build a from scratch city with a target of at least 250k residents on the California coast and I'll move. I don't know how many people think similarly, but there's still…

US cities that aren't car centric: Portland, Seattle, New York, Boston. Nearby: Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto. Afar: London, Paris, Berlin. Arguably San Francisco is the most car-centric of the bunch with its comparatively non-functional transportation system.

How about Chicago? The #2 biggest non-car centric city in the nation?

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#72

Post by DrScump »

newacct23 wrote: post #12

Question: in Silicon Valley, considering the fault line, is it even safe to build up?

Unless you're right on top of a fault (like most East Bay hospitals are), proximity to the fault is less important than the rock and soils beneath you.

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#73

Post by tuna-piano »

alexmat wrote: post #63
jchrisa wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the argument that economic diversity is good for everyone. Non-market solutions to maintaining space for people of different income levels in the area might have positive externalities.

Just as a fun thought experiment, let's say we price all the service workers at current income levels out of the market so they all move away. At some point, people will be willing to pay more for service work due to a strong demand for limited services. It almost seems pernicious to have low income housing since it allows employers to get away with lower wages to cover an artificially low cost of housing, at the sam…

Your first point is definitely correct, one example (a mix of factors) would be the $17+ wages for Walmart and fast food workers in North Dakota energy boom towns(1).

Your second point is interesting, but I suspect only partially correct. I imagine subsidizing service workers to live in low income housing does allow businesses to pay service workers less in those areas. However, if those low income housing units were not the service workers best option - they wouldn't live there. So I would imagine overall that it does help the service workers, not hurt them.

http://dailysignal.com/2014/06/10/drilling-innovation-forcin...

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#75

Post by 5555624 »

true_religion wrote: post #55
msutherl wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US cities that aren't car centric: Portland, Seattle, New York, Boston. Nearby: Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto. Afar: London, Paris, Berlin. Arguably San Francisco is the most car-centric of the bunch with its comparatively non-functional transportation system.

You can get around D.C. without a car---by which I mean the city proper and not the other metro areas. In fact in the city, you're burdened by having a car.

You can easily extend that across the river to Arlington, VA. There's extensive public transportation. Cycling is taken seriously. Maybe the City of Alexandria, too; but, not the "Alexandria" part of Fairfax.

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#76

Post by rayiner »

true_religion wrote: post #55
msutherl wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US cities that aren't car centric: Portland, Seattle, New York, Boston. Nearby: Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto. Afar: London, Paris, Berlin. Arguably San Francisco is the most car-centric of the bunch with its comparatively non-functional transportation system.

You can get around D.C. without a car---by which I mean the city proper and not the other metro areas. In fact in the city, you're burdened by having a car.

Before the Metro ceased to exist.

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#77

Post by kcanini »

johan_larson wrote: post #59
alasdair_ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Portland and Seattle are both excellent cities to live in if you want a car free existence on the west coast.

Seattle? Downtown maybe. The east side (across Lake Washington) is very suburban, and not particularly suited to car-free living. I lived there car-less for a couple of summers and got into alarmingly good shape biking up and down the eastside hills.

"alarmingly good shape"

I'm imagining you one day looking down at your body and realizing, "Oh shit, I'm way too fit. Better cut out all this biking!"

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#78

Post by CydeWeys »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #45
johnwatson11218 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not against making it look like Tokyo, I agree that it would be more productive if it were more dense. I don't live there so it isn't my problem. I do think that it limits the amount of economic growth and could hurt the national economy. I think it could also make it easier for other countries to leap frog us in terms of software but that is very speculative.

There's a lot of room between SF now and Tokyo. Even moderate increases in density and building housing stock. It's not a binary choice of the status quo or a dystopian nightmare.

Is Tokyo a dystopian nightmare? The density offers a high quality of living while controlling expenses for all but housing (which is understandably expensive). The mass transit there is world class, and so you don't need to own a car with all of its attendant costs. You can buy cheap groceries to cook at home. The standard of living and options for things to do is better than living in the country once you account for the higher average salaries in Tokyo.

I live in Manhattan and it's the same here. Rent is expensive (but not horribly so if you have roommates or an SO). Everything else is reasonable.

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#79

Post by CydeWeys »

eropple wrote: post #60
CydeWeys wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absent actually owning property, does anyone have a right to live in any particular place?

This argument always comes up, and it is a bad one. No, no one has a right to live in any particular place. It's the same thing as the people who fall back on "but but First Amendment" when somebody's saying "you're an asshole." Nobody's saying it isn't legal, but you can still be an asshole while acting legally. If the best defense I could muster for something is that it is not literally illegal , I would be looking…

I don't understand your response. You're talking about the 2nd Amendment and things not being literally illegal, neither of which address what I said. I'm not talking about the legality/illegality of squatting (which is the only thing that seems relevant to housing).

I see a lot of attitudes in regards to housing that I can only describe as entitled, which is unfortunate because it's a very negative word. But nothing else immediately comes to mind. Do people have a right to live in any given area, absent their ability to pay for it? I don't think so. There's no amendment for it. There's no laws for it. The closest applicable laws are those providing for rent control, but all that does is decrease the cost of living somewhere (at the expense of supply and housing quality) -- it still doesn't guarantee you a right to live there absent the ability to pay the lower rate.

There are lots of places I would love to live in but cannot because I either cannot afford it or am not willing to spend a very large percentage of my salary on it. It's a purely economic decision. How is there a right to live somewhere that is independent of your ability to afford it? Are you making an argument that if you are born somewhere, you have a lifelong right to live there at the prevailing rent at the time of your birth (adjusted only for inflation), and that this right should transfer to your children? That's really what it comes down to when people complain about no longer being able to afford living somewhere that they previously were able to live in. I don't think there is such a right, and it's certainly not reflected in any laws.

Re: In Silicon Valley Suburbs, Calls to Limit the Soaring Rents

#80

Post by runamok »

fraserharris wrote: post #34
1138 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work remotely in SF. I live here because I like not owning a car, walking and biking most places, and non-tech things to do. I'm just lucky I can afford it. The solution is to build more good US cities that aren't car centric. I'm not aware of any. Build a from scratch city with a target of at least 250k residents on the California coast and I'll move. I don't know how many people think similarly, but there's still…

The best way i've seen this framed is: in all of the US, there are only about 2,000 blocks of housing with sufficient density & walkable services to support car free living. This is some of the most sought after and expensive real estate in the country, but zoning codes won't allow more of it to be built. Example zoning restrictions: mandatory building setbacks, mandatory parking requirements, mandatory building sepa…

Right. Something like a third of Manhattan buildings could not be built today due to similar zoning restrictions.
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