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Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

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Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#771

Post by pmiller2 »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #530
koolba wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore. Almost everybody I know that moved out had no problem affording housing (high earners / home owners / rent controlled). People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. Whether something is too expensive is not just a function of…

Only in the short to medium term... the characteristics which make SF an attractive place to live (just like NYC) are resilient and sticky. If you consider a post-covid world 5 years from now, do you think that SF with it's museums, bars, restaurants, and proximity to nature will be an unattractive place to live? Do you think that remote-first/remote-only companies where the majority of employees are outside of the b…

I don't know about you, but I didn't move to the Bay Area for museums, bars, restaurants, or proximity to nature. I moved because that's where the jobs were (to paraphrase Willie Sutton). While I have grown to like it here, when my company tells us what the salary adjustments will be for moving to other parts of the country, I'm going to start seriously looking for a new home.

Granted, it may turn out that my new home will be the same as my old home, but, at least being forced to be remote is getting the wheels turning.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#772

Post by 7ee7ueh3j3ur8i »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #530
koolba wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore. Almost everybody I know that moved out had no problem affording housing (high earners / home owners / rent controlled). People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. Whether something is too expensive is not just a function of…

Only in the short to medium term... the characteristics which make SF an attractive place to live (just like NYC) are resilient and sticky. If you consider a post-covid world 5 years from now, do you think that SF with it's museums, bars, restaurants, and proximity to nature will be an unattractive place to live? Do you think that remote-first/remote-only companies where the majority of employees are outside of the b…

I'll be honest, I've never cared about museums and having moved around the state I find the bar/restaurant scene pretty lacking compared to southern California. There's a good view to be had that I think will gurantee a certain minimum value in the city but I can get better culture and better food elsewhere.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#773

Post by CamperBob2 »

dirtyaura wrote: post #724
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great four months a year, but what about the rest of the year? No one can eat outdoors in 20F, or bike to work in the snow and ice. SF does have the advantage of year round biking weather.

Cycling year around in New York should be relatively easy. There is winter cycling culture in much harsher climates https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/feb/12/ice-cycles-no...

What sort of gear do you need for conditions like that? During one cold snap, my chain literally froze on a long ride through some light rain/sleet. (No, I don't know how that happened, but it did.)

And that was in the Seattle area, where it rarely gets all that cold.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#774

Post by raducu »

wwweston wrote: post #722
m_ke wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Brooklyn and have seen 2-3 business close a week around me. At this point almost every other storefront is vacant (many of which have been since before the pandemic). My hope is that this will bring down commercial real estate prices down significantly and create an opportunity for a lot more small businesses in a year or so, most of which I assume will be restaurants and other "experience" based shops. The…

> My hope is that this will bring down commercial real estate prices down significantly I'm going to predict that this will not happen. More specifically, that it will be unusual in general for rents or prices anywhere to drop any more than 10%. There's something odd going on and my best guess is that there are (a) accounting/tax practices that provide incentives for vacancy with certain nominal values and (b) real e…

If everybody has access to the pool of fake money: you get inflation.

If only a handful of fools do, you will get economic devastation sooner or later, because you remove the feedbacks of capitalism and hand the reins to monkeys that just happen to have access to the money printer.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#775

Post by thu2111 »

jurassic wrote: post #431
rtlfe wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. What are these quality of life issues, and how have other cities avoided them?

Here's a short list to get you started: - Homeless issues. Mentally ill people pissing and defecating on the sidewalks in every significant public space. - Vehicle vandalism is extremely common and unchecked by police. - Extremely high income taxes with no perceivable difference in government-provided services. - Property tax law that advantages long-term owners over young people trying to buy at today's inflated pri…

Extremely high pre-COVID rents meant many adults were living in roommate situations that seem a lot less acceptable when your health is tied to the willingness of everyone in your unit to behave responsibly.

Unless you're practically retired, this is not a real issue given the COVID mortality profile. The sort of people who have flatmates tend to be younger, so the idea that COVID means nobody can or should have flatmates anymore isn't backed by any sort of medical reality.

But there does seem to be an issue here with the type of people who live in SF not seeming to perceive the risks around COVID correctly. Why is Google keeping their offices closed until 2021? All you have to do is look at the stats or the history of epidemics to realise that this doesn't make sense, especially for a workforce as famously young as Google's.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#777

Post by thu2111 »

stbtrax wrote: post #571
annexrichmond wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as someone who's lived in SF for years this is all very true. Food is expensive and a lot of it's designed to be instagrammed. There are definitely some great spots but not that many and really not that diverse (lacks middle eastern, greek, british, American bbq, spanish) Nightlife is horrible, bars pretty much close at 1am, hardly any live music, gender imbalance, and not much density so it often just feels "dead" i…

I'm not sure what you're comparing it to, SF is known to have a world-class food scene. There are multiple examples all of the things you listed(except maybe british but who wants that?), as well as things that you don't find in may other cities: burmese, cambodian, laotian, peruvian.

British people? I'd kill for a local place that regularly served Sunday roast with a Yorkshire pudding. There was one in my city for a while but sadly it was at the edge and they didn't sell enough to keep it up, as such roasts need to be prepared a long way in advance, so you had to pre-order.

Always love to grab myself one when I'm in the UK though.

Discovered the other day a restaurant that sells afternoon cream teas - perfect!

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#778

Post by habosa »

I moved out of SF in March. Not because of the virus, I just had a long-planned move (to London) with interesting timing.

Unlike many of my tech peers, I love San Francisco and the Bay Area. It's a beautiful city and surrounded in all directions by even more beautiful places. The food, music, and art scenes are all amazing. Oh and it happens to have near-unlimited job options for my career of choice.

The only reason I wasn't thinking about buying and staying forever was because the economy there makes absolutely no sense. Housing prices are out of control and the stock is of pretty low quality. Food, drink, and entertainment prices are also super high with no low end at all. NYC might be just as expensive but you can still get a dollar slice of pizza if you want it. You know SF is bad when all I could think in my first month in central London was "wow it's so cheap here".

If things come down to earth a little bit, even if it's still a Top-3 most expensive city in the US, I think I'll go back to SF and stay there.

And I think the current exodus is a win-win. People who were only there because their jobs forced them to be there were the source of a lot of the natives-vs-techies clashes which made the environment seem hostile at times.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#779

Post by dragonwriter »

thu2111 wrote: post #775
jurassic wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a short list to get you started: - Homeless issues. Mentally ill people pissing and defecating on the sidewalks in every significant public space. - Vehicle vandalism is extremely common and unchecked by police. - Extremely high income taxes with no perceivable difference in government-provided services. - Property tax law that advantages long-term owners over young people trying to buy at today's inflated pri…

Extremely high pre-COVID rents meant many adults were living in roommate situations that seem a lot less acceptable when your health is tied to the willingness of everyone in your unit to behave responsibly. Unless you're practically retired, this is not a real issue given the COVID mortality profile. The sort of people who have flatmates tend to be younger, so the idea that COVID means nobody can or should have flat…

> Unless you're practically retired, this is not a real issue given the COVID mortality profile.

It certainly is if you are one of those odd individuals whose concern for your health involves more than just near-term mortality.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#780

Post by fock »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #530
koolba wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore. Almost everybody I know that moved out had no problem affording housing (high earners / home owners / rent controlled). People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. Whether something is too expensive is not just a function of…

Only in the short to medium term... the characteristics which make SF an attractive place to live (just like NYC) are resilient and sticky. If you consider a post-covid world 5 years from now, do you think that SF with it's museums, bars, restaurants, and proximity to nature will be an unattractive place to live? Do you think that remote-first/remote-only companies where the majority of employees are outside of the b…

from a very continental european, the following points are making San Francisco very unattractive

- earthquakes and still the same wooden housing which faciliated the burning of the whole city the last time. - forest fires.

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