4 ms·

Here in Boulder CO, the cutoff for "affordable" housing subsidies is ~80k for a family of four. 104k in the Bay Area seems about right.

davidw 10y ago
Boulder managed to copy a lot of the good stuff about Silicon Valley - but also seems to have copied the brutal, rampant NIMBYism https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/business/how-anti-growth-sentiment-reflected-in-zoning-laws-thwarts-equality.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/business/how-anti-growth-... Great place, and I understand not wanting sprawl, but... build up and in?
- ProAm 10y ago
  Boulder didn't copy that, Boulder has been that way since the late 70's, tech just happened to move here and the culture was already in place.
  - davidw 10y ago
    Fair enough. It just struck me how they've managed to get a lot of the good stuff right when so many places are trying - and not doing a great job - to copy Silicon Valley, but also have that exact same NIMBY problem. William Fischel draws some links with environmentalism in Zoning Rules! ( http://amzn.to/2oIKbyM http://amzn.to/2oIKbyM ) which make sense. Not that he's against it, but just that it sometimes gets a bit perverted to further the ends of NIMBYs rather than actually protecting much of anything. Making people drive 15 miles back and forth to Longmont isn't terribly great for the planet in some ways. In any event, both SF and Boulder are both places that do have a strong sense of environmentalism (in a lot of good ways too, I think), so that could well be the connection. Edit: Exhibit A: SF's Sierra Club fighting to save... a parking garage. http://thebaycitybeacon.com/32740/282282/a/the-sierra-club-fights-to-savea-parking-garage http://thebaycitybeacon.com/32740/282282/a/the-sierra-club-f...
- sigstoat 10y ago
  it's probably worse, in a sense. you can't build up in boulder because there are height restrictions on buildings.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    Philadelphia used to have those. It used to be that you weren't allowed to build any taller than William Penn's hat[0]. Now it has a population of 1.56 million compared to boulders 105,112. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_City_Hall https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_City_Hall
  - leesalminen 10y ago
    Color me a NIMBYist, but I love the height restriction. It gives me amazing views from my little apartment. Edit to add: An image from my balcony [0]. [0] https://storage.googleapis.com/lee-salminen-fileshare/IMG_2450.JPG https://storage.googleapis.com/lee-salminen-fileshare/IMG_24...
    - sigstoat 10y ago
      hmm, i can tell exactly what building you're in. and it makes you one of the new people who've crowded in and made my grocery store obnoxiously busy. :(
      - leesalminen 10y ago
        Heh. I hate what's happened to the King Soopers up in Gunbarrel. Been here since 2012, which predates the new apartment complexes. Not exactly "new" but I will concede you deserve to have a more NIMBYish attitude than I.

davidw 10y ago

Boulder managed to copy a lot of the good stuff about Silicon Valley - but also seems to have copied the brutal, rampant NIMBYism https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/business/how-anti-growth-sentiment-reflected-in-zoning-laws-thwarts-equality.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/business/how-anti-growth-... Great place, and I understand not wanting sprawl, but... build up and in?

ProAm 10y ago
Boulder didn't copy that, Boulder has been that way since the late 70's, tech just happened to move here and the culture was already in place.
- davidw 10y ago
  Fair enough. It just struck me how they've managed to get a lot of the good stuff right when so many places are trying - and not doing a great job - to copy Silicon Valley, but also have that exact same NIMBY problem. William Fischel draws some links with environmentalism in Zoning Rules! ( http://amzn.to/2oIKbyM http://amzn.to/2oIKbyM ) which make sense. Not that he's against it, but just that it sometimes gets a bit perverted to further the ends of NIMBYs rather than actually protecting much of anything. Making people drive 15 miles back and forth to Longmont isn't terribly great for the planet in some ways. In any event, both SF and Boulder are both places that do have a strong sense of environmentalism (in a lot of good ways too, I think), so that could well be the connection. Edit: Exhibit A: SF's Sierra Club fighting to save... a parking garage. http://thebaycitybeacon.com/32740/282282/a/the-sierra-club-fights-to-savea-parking-garage http://thebaycitybeacon.com/32740/282282/a/the-sierra-club-f...
sigstoat 10y ago
it's probably worse, in a sense. you can't build up in boulder because there are height restrictions on buildings.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  Philadelphia used to have those. It used to be that you weren't allowed to build any taller than William Penn's hat[0]. Now it has a population of 1.56 million compared to boulders 105,112. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_City_Hall https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_City_Hall
- leesalminen 10y ago
  Color me a NIMBYist, but I love the height restriction. It gives me amazing views from my little apartment. Edit to add: An image from my balcony [0]. [0] https://storage.googleapis.com/lee-salminen-fileshare/IMG_2450.JPG https://storage.googleapis.com/lee-salminen-fileshare/IMG_24...
  - sigstoat 10y ago
    hmm, i can tell exactly what building you're in. and it makes you one of the new people who've crowded in and made my grocery store obnoxiously busy. :(
    - leesalminen 10y ago
      Heh. I hate what's happened to the King Soopers up in Gunbarrel. Been here since 2012, which predates the new apartment complexes. Not exactly "new" but I will concede you deserve to have a more NIMBYish attitude than I.