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Berlin Google Campus occupied

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Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#91

Post by TulliusCicero »

bildung wrote: post #38
TulliusCicero wrote: post #14

> New tech companies are driving the rents up in the area higher and higher. The endpoint of this process can be seen in San Francisco, which once must have been a halfway livable city. This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists who work hard to prevent new housing from going up. Yes, tech companies brought the demand because of good jobs, but last I checked, we wanted companies to offer high payin…

> If the people need more housing, the solution is, shockingly enough, to build more housing. I know this is a popular opinion, but is there empirical evidence for this? Isn't this solution based on the assumption that there was a one-time surge of people, leading to a one-time rise in demand for housing?

Sure, take a read here: http://cityobservatory.org/urban-myth-busting-high-income2/

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#92

Post by evanlivingston »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #72
titzer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists I don't think you quite grasp the effects of a massive influx of hundreds to thousands of new individuals making $150k-250k. It increases rent across the board, which impacts all the people in an area. Sure, it might create a few new jobs for baristas and shopkeepers, a few bartenders and waitresses. But ultimately it just leads to gentrification and pri…

> I don't think you quite grasp the effects of a massive influx of hundreds to thousands of new individuals making $150k-250k. I'm from the bay area and pay close attention to land use/zoning issues, so yeah, I think I do. The bay area has had particularly extreme series of decades of rent increases precisely because of anti-housing policies. If the market was allowed to respond, rents would still rise, to be sure, b…

Or conversely, look at Portland for an example a place where keeping up with housing demand has not translated into preserving a quantity of affordable housing. Abstracted supply and demand alone does not result in ensuring housing at various price points

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#93

Post by TulliusCicero »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #17
TulliusCicero wrote: post #14

> New tech companies are driving the rents up in the area higher and higher. The endpoint of this process can be seen in San Francisco, which once must have been a halfway livable city. This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists who work hard to prevent new housing from going up. Yes, tech companies brought the demand because of good jobs, but last I checked, we wanted companies to offer high payin…

Sure enough adding more housing when there is speculation works as we’ve seen in Vancouver.

According to this, average 1br rent in Vancouver is only $1500/month, which seems pretty reasonable to me for a major city, especially one that's seen as very desirable like Vancouver: https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-vancouver-bc-rent...

If we could get SF down to 1500/month I'd be ecstatic, that's less than half the current price.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#95

Post by cbnotfromthere »

Xylakant wrote: post #74
cbnotfromthere wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"many people that had been living there for decades and sometimes were quite involved in the improvement of the area are now forced to move" Please slow down with fake news. No eminent domain ever happened in that area since 50 years ago, hence literally NOBODY was forced to move out.

No? I remember at least three demos that were happening down the street from our office because people had to move out in the last few years. And eminent domain is not the only way to force people to move. Renovate the building, you may now raise the rent so people can't afford it. No eminent domain, people were still forced to move.

"And eminent domain is not the only way to force people to move. Renovate the building, you may now raise the rent so people can't afford it. No eminent domain, people were still forced to move."

So it's not just fake news from you, it's Communist fake news. Because you claim that market transactions are FORCED. You have the right to your own opinions, but you don't have the right to your own facts. You claimed FALSELY that people are forced our of that Berlin district, while what actually happened is that some people did not want to enter into voluntary transactions.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#96

Post by deminature »

titzer wrote: post #52
TulliusCicero wrote: post #14

> New tech companies are driving the rents up in the area higher and higher. The endpoint of this process can be seen in San Francisco, which once must have been a halfway livable city. This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists who work hard to prevent new housing from going up. Yes, tech companies brought the demand because of good jobs, but last I checked, we wanted companies to offer high payin…

> This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists I don't think you quite grasp the effects of a massive influx of hundreds to thousands of new individuals making $150k-250k. It increases rent across the board, which impacts all the people in an area. Sure, it might create a few new jobs for baristas and shopkeepers, a few bartenders and waitresses. But ultimately it just leads to gentrification and pri…

Where are large tech companies supposed to put their offices? If they're in areas where the workers want to live and can reasonably commute to, they're accused of gentrification. If they're in areas where they're not upsetting the existing housing situation, they can't attract any talent to fill positions. These companies can't win.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#97

Post by TulliusCicero »

evanlivingston wrote: post #92
TulliusCicero wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think you quite grasp the effects of a massive influx of hundreds to thousands of new individuals making $150k-250k. I'm from the bay area and pay close attention to land use/zoning issues, so yeah, I think I do. The bay area has had particularly extreme series of decades of rent increases precisely because of anti-housing policies. If the market was allowed to respond, rents would still rise, to be sure, b…

Or conversely, look at Portland for an example a place where keeping up with housing demand has not translated into preserving a quantity of affordable housing. Abstracted supply and demand alone does not result in ensuring housing at various price points

Portland still greatly restricts where denser housing may be built. When you concentrate most of the new stock in huge towers, it's harder to get anything affordable since huge towers are inherently expensive to build.

The point isn't that fewer restricts means housing prices won't climb at all, but that they won't climb as quickly. For the truly affordable segment, they're either served with old housing (like with cars), or with public housing.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#98

Post by joshuakarjala »

beat wrote: post #63
joshuakarjala wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of free "non developer" labor being exploited by early stage startups is immense

If someone is working for free on a voluntary basis, they're probably not being "exploited". When I was trying to build a startup, I got plenty of free help from various friends and interested parties who were excited about what I was building - but nothing on the level of employee-level work. Hell, if someone was remotely useful and willing to put in real hours, I'd have called them co-founders and given them equity…

Plenty of startups have students / recent grads in marketing, pa roles working 20-40 hours a week for no pay.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#99

Post by pixl97 »

ant6n wrote: post #51
driverdan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3-5 story isn't very tall. Tear them down and go taller.

Firstly, the higher you build, the more space you need between buildings, and the more space inside the buildings is used for infastructure. There are diminishing returns, and it runs out that areas with good coverage of 5 story buildings can have very high density, often more than areas with high rises. Plus, Berlin likes to protect their heritage; often tearing down and rebuilding whole neighborhoods turned out to…

>often tearing down and rebuilding whole neighborhoods turned out to be a very bad idea.

Reminds me of this

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-like...

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#100

Post by usrusr »

driverdan wrote: post #29
Xylakant wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been in the area? There's no single family housing there at all for quite some distance (I'd say a few kilometers in each direction at least). It's mostly densely built-up with 3-5 story apartment buildings.

3-5 story isn't very tall. Tear them down and go taller.

After the big pan-european city teardown of the mid-twentieth century that was mostly invented in Berlin, people have grown kind of fond of the surviving buildings. If anything gets torn down in Berlin to build new highrises it will be existing, unfashionable highrise. Plenty of those available for teardown, just not at popular locations. Not popular precisely because they are not surviving pre-war stock.
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