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Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

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Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#71

Post by technofiend »

idlewords wrote: post #21
peter_d_sherman wrote: post #12

"Every increase in the real wealth of the society, every increase in the quantity of useful labour employed within it, tends indirectly to raise the real rent of land." -Adam Smith, "The Wealth Of Nations" Book I, XI. Of the Rent of Land, Conclusion https://www.bartleby.com/10/111.html

"We will pretend to be a suburb in 1957 forever" —Mountain View and Palo Alto zoning board

Austin similarly chose to not annex the unincorporated areas surrounding the city, resulting in the new construction going with septic systems rather than tied to city sewage. There's a reason I can no longer safely swim in Bull Creek due to high fecal coliform levels and that's why.

https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/swimmers-braving-bull-creek...

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#72

Post by mattnewton »

onemoresoop wrote: post #52
esoterica wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies put their offices in expensive cities because that’s where most of the people who work for them want to live. If Google decided to move their HQ to rural Kansas tomorrow, most of the company would quit overnight.

But why wouldn't they have a smaller branch in Kansas? (maybe not Kansas but there are a lot of places in the US other than NY and CALI). And smaller offices all over the US?? It would be cheaper too, employees would maybe consider moving to a smaller hub where they could actually buy a home, local economies would benefit as well, etc..

Google has small branches around the US (and around the world) hiring. https://careers.google.com/locations/

A common joke (prank? Advertising tactic?) internally is to make links with titles about finding affordable housing refer to the Pittsburg office page, and people do make the switch. Just less than keep coming to the Bay Area I bet.

Disclaimer: Random Google grunt, my opinions are my own, I don’t know anything you don’t about google’s plans to expand offices, etc.

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#73

Post by pcwalton »

docker_up wrote: post #48

To all those that say "build more housing" will solve all our problems, I don't think they've actually been looking at the housing markets. All of the new housing in the Bay Area is at a premium price. All of it. There are tens of thousands of condos slated to be built in SF. They are all top of the end condos. They haven't and they won't dent the prices. Building more homes will just let more rich people move to the…

> To all those that say "build more housing" will solve all our problems, I don't think they've actually been looking at the housing markets.

Nobody thinks building more will solve all the problems. But it's a necessary part of the solution. Economists have in fact looked at housing markets and come to this conclusion. Here's an example recently: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sHh6BJ8dPoN9VQj-PXTPK5ATa8m...

> Force Facebook, Google and Amazon to build outside of the Bay Area. I guarantee that will be the quickest way to curb demand and to throttle house prices. Have Google build in Kansas City instead of San Jose. Have Facebook build in Detroit.

Nobody, and certainly not random suburban municipalities, can force large multinational companies to do that sort of thing. And, as I've explained before, it's a failed strategy in the first place. If the market was going to solve the problem that way, it would have by now.

The problem is simply that the FAANG companies all think the best engineers live here in the Bay Area. The best engineers in SFBA have a choice of where they work. So if Google were to decide to leave the Bay Area, a lot of Google employees will go work for competitors instead. This dynamic is why so many tech companies locate, or have a significant presence, here.

> it will help increase house prices in other areas

In other words, it gentrifies those communities and drives residents out, all because wealthy Bay Area suburbs don't want to build housing. That's unfair.

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#74

Post by pcwalton »

ppseafield wrote: post #66
docker_up wrote: post #48

To all those that say "build more housing" will solve all our problems, I don't think they've actually been looking at the housing markets. All of the new housing in the Bay Area is at a premium price. All of it. There are tens of thousands of condos slated to be built in SF. They are all top of the end condos. They haven't and they won't dent the prices. Building more homes will just let more rich people move to the…

There's been a ton of expensive development all over Portland. Condos and apartments in desirable areas, none of it affordable except for rich folks. However, housing prices have stabilized here somewhat. Having more options for rich folks in highly desirable areas means less pressure on housing away from those areas. Something like 65% of San Fransisco is zoned for single family housing. Some rich people looking to…

> There's been a ton of expensive development all over Portland. Condos and apartments in desirable areas, none of it affordable except for rich folks. However, housing prices have stabilized here somewhat. Having more options for rich folks in highly desirable areas means less pressure on housing away from those areas.

Correct. This is the economic consensus view, and a lot of data has borne it out.

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#75

Post by pcwalton »

jedberg wrote: post #59

A big part of this is prop 13 and tax policy. My anecdote is not unique: My mom inherited my grandfather's condo when he died. Because of Prop 13 (and it's follow ups) she gets to keep his original tax rate from his original home, which was set in 1978 . She makes about $500/mo profit on the condo only because her tax rate is about $500 less per month than if it were purchased new. If we didn't have Prop 13, it would…

> And then to make matters worse, a local developer is trying to tear down our old mall and build "more housing" on it, but if you look closely, what they're really building is a huge office park with the bare minimum of housing to call it a housing project. They want to put in space for 15,000 workers and 4,000 people to live. That will not solve any housing problems.

A lot of the Vallco project will be affordable housing, which was necessary to qualify for SB 35, funded via the office space. Adding to the market-rate housing deficit is a problem, but subsidized affordable housing is so desperately needed, and funding for it is so scarce, that I think Vallco is a win on balance.

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#76

Post by thorwasdfasdf »

mochomocha wrote: post #16
malms wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only people would move to other places when there's no space somewhere. Oh well.

No space? Yet I'm driving on 280 every morning and all I see are green fields. Yet 75% of San Francisco land has zoning rules that prevent buildings of more than 2 stories. What you really meant is: no space for you, I got mine

This.

580 Westbound is jam packed to a slow crawl, on a 7 lane highway! With people making commutes 100 miles every day! You would think there'd be sky scrapers everywhere, at least close to the highways. Nope. NOt a single building or house for miles and miles, nothing but green and yellow slopes of nothingness. It's such a waste.

With commute distances x10 more than normal and most global C02 coming from commuting, I can't even imagine how terrible this is for the environment.

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#77

Post by tlb »

galfarragem wrote: post #58
mochomocha wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the "oh we need better infrastructure first" chicken and egg problem. Of course infrastructure projects don't happen either. It took 20 years to rebuild half of the Bay Bridge. The shiny SF TransBay terminal was barely opened last year and got closed right away. SF has been debating for 10 years whether or not to turn a car lane into bus only on Geary Blvd... Because NIMBY also opposes transportation projects…

The best leadership solution - in open source at least - seems to be a BDFL..

It works in open source for a decade or two. Cities need continuity over much longer time horizons.

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#78

Post by mav3rick »

maxmax wrote: post #67
hedora wrote: post #18

This article fails to mention that Mountain View has been blocking improved transit to service the office parks in the area for at least a decade. Starting a private bus service wasn’t Google’s “plan A”. Their preferred approach was to get the city to set up adequate service between the Mountain View train station and surrounding office parks. Although a bit of new housing is finally going in, it’s clearly too little…

If only the company that would benefit from this subsidy would contribute in some way...

Google has done a lot for Mountain View.

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#79

Post by [deleted] »

peter_d_sherman wrote: post #12

"Every increase in the real wealth of the society, every increase in the quantity of useful labour employed within it, tends indirectly to raise the real rent of land." -Adam Smith, "The Wealth Of Nations" Book I, XI. Of the Rent of Land, Conclusion https://www.bartleby.com/10/111.html

[deleted]

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#80

Post by tlb »

docker_up wrote: post #48

To all those that say "build more housing" will solve all our problems, I don't think they've actually been looking at the housing markets. All of the new housing in the Bay Area is at a premium price. All of it. There are tens of thousands of condos slated to be built in SF. They are all top of the end condos. They haven't and they won't dent the prices. Building more homes will just let more rich people move to the…

You're mixing up two things. When a lot of new premium housing is built, you might indeed see the reported "average sales price" go up, since there are lots of sales of new fancy new houses.

But the price of older housing goes down. Because people who bought a new premium house, therefore did not buy an older house, which reduces demand for older houses.

There are lots of nice older (1940-1990) houses in SV that are good to live in. Before the tech boom they were perfect for middle class families: pleasant and affordable. They could be affordable again (and they're still pleasant) if the supply of premium housing were increased enough.

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