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As someone who lived in Toronto and now lives in SV, this is great news for the region, which is flush with talent and is really doing everything to support res

As someone who lived in Toronto and now lives in SV, this is great news for the region, which is flush with talent and is really doing everything to support researchers and entrepreneurs. However the cost of living(COL) is prohibitive, maybe even more than SV and the ratio of salary to COL is definitely higher than SV.

truebosko 10y ago
I don't think I believe this. Source?
- aheilbut 10y ago
  Housing prices have been rising very rapidly over the last couple of years: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-03/million-dollar-home-contagion-spreads-to-toronto-suburbs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-03/million-d...
  - sanswork 10y ago
    House prices are skyrocketing but condos are still pretty cheap. There just isn't any more space for actual houses in the city so the ones that are there are extra valuable. You can still find tons of 1+1 units in the city for under $2000/month which is the same as it was 3-4 years ago.
    - TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
      $2k per month is really high. Even if a tech worker can afford that, it really restricts the city to the rich, which is not good. Every city needs a balance of all classes for there to be stable growth.
      - sanswork 10y ago
        $2k per month for a 1+1 in a 'luxury' condo building right in the core of the city isn't high by basically any standard. There are a lot of options in the city still that are a lot cheaper. I see a lot of people complaining about high prices in the most prime of areas. So what do you think would be a good solution to the problem? Everyone wants to live in area X but obviously they can't all fit there. How do you let them all live there and keep it affordable?
        TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
        I'd argue that the biggest factors creating the spike in housing cost is the of the centralization of most good jobs to a handful of urban centers, the purchase of housing by foreign investors as vacation or investment properties, and an artificially low housing inventory. The centralization of most jobs to a handful of urban centers is the largest and most powerful force driving this spike in prices. Jobs are flying out of rural areas and less populated cities. It increases prices, making it very difficult for a newcomer to buy in the area, let alone rent. It creates pockets of areas that reap the benefits of globalization, creating a very stark contrast between areas that benefit from it and that don't. And all this is just so that the corporation benefits from the concentrated, highly technical labor pool. The foreign investor cap should be easy to implement, but because our government is broken, it won't happen. There are lots of ways this could be addressed, with property taxes of unleased housing, taxing of a third home or beyond, and probably lots of other things smarter people could think of. The artificially low housing inventory is difficult because that stems from local government more than anything else. Fixing this might take state laws to be passed since locals will have an incentive to not have new properties made. Again, the centralization of the remaining jobs is the biggest factor in my opinion. It really needs to be addressed since it negatively hurts our society, but I don't know any other ideas on how to fix it without increasing demand for lower class labor via protectionism. That would drive companies to look to rural America for cheap labor vs Mexico or China which would weaken the requirement to live in an urban center, but obviously that would be very costly to our economy. If you have any other ideas on how to fix it, I'd definitely read it.
        sanswork 10y ago

truebosko 10y ago

I don't think I believe this. Source?

aheilbut 10y ago
Housing prices have been rising very rapidly over the last couple of years: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-03/million-dollar-home-contagion-spreads-to-toronto-suburbs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-03/million-d...
- sanswork 10y ago
  House prices are skyrocketing but condos are still pretty cheap. There just isn't any more space for actual houses in the city so the ones that are there are extra valuable. You can still find tons of 1+1 units in the city for under $2000/month which is the same as it was 3-4 years ago.
  - TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
    $2k per month is really high. Even if a tech worker can afford that, it really restricts the city to the rich, which is not good. Every city needs a balance of all classes for there to be stable growth.
    - sanswork 10y ago
      $2k per month for a 1+1 in a 'luxury' condo building right in the core of the city isn't high by basically any standard. There are a lot of options in the city still that are a lot cheaper. I see a lot of people complaining about high prices in the most prime of areas. So what do you think would be a good solution to the problem? Everyone wants to live in area X but obviously they can't all fit there. How do you let them all live there and keep it affordable?
      - TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
        I'd argue that the biggest factors creating the spike in housing cost is the of the centralization of most good jobs to a handful of urban centers, the purchase of housing by foreign investors as vacation or investment properties, and an artificially low housing inventory. The centralization of most jobs to a handful of urban centers is the largest and most powerful force driving this spike in prices. Jobs are flying out of rural areas and less populated cities. It increases prices, making it very difficult for a newcomer to buy in the area, let alone rent. It creates pockets of areas that reap the benefits of globalization, creating a very stark contrast between areas that benefit from it and that don't. And all this is just so that the corporation benefits from the concentrated, highly technical labor pool. The foreign investor cap should be easy to implement, but because our government is broken, it won't happen. There are lots of ways this could be addressed, with property taxes of unleased housing, taxing of a third home or beyond, and probably lots of other things smarter people could think of. The artificially low housing inventory is difficult because that stems from local government more than anything else. Fixing this might take state laws to be passed since locals will have an incentive to not have new properties made. Again, the centralization of the remaining jobs is the biggest factor in my opinion. It really needs to be addressed since it negatively hurts our society, but I don't know any other ideas on how to fix it without increasing demand for lower class labor via protectionism. That would drive companies to look to rural America for cheap labor vs Mexico or China which would weaken the requirement to live in an urban center, but obviously that would be very costly to our economy. If you have any other ideas on how to fix it, I'd definitely read it.
        sanswork 10y ago