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Maybe the answer is to stop growing and let other parts of the country grow. The brain drain to SV has been disastrous for other communities. It's contributed t

Maybe the answer is to stop growing and let other parts of the country grow. The brain drain to SV has been disastrous for other communities. It's contributed to inequality and deep geographic/political polarization. Yes, you can downvote me but consider formulating a counter-argument.

Nav_Panel 9y ago
That's... not really how it works. Or, you could also argue that's what the area has been doing for the past 40 years, and look at the current state of housing. EDIT: I didn't downvote you, but I will elaborate: there's very little you can do to stop people from moving to California, short of forcefully putting them on buses and sending them away (which is what some cities actually do[1][2]). What you can do is figure out a plan before they show up to provide them decent housing for a fair price, or else they'll figure something out, something likely to be illegal/extremely uncomfortable/look a lot like homelessness. Some anecdotes: one friend of mine lived in a house-boat in Berkeley for 2 years while going to college. Another lived out of his van in Los Angeles. These are regular young people, both born in California, trying to make things work. It has been extremely hard to build new buildings in hotspots throughout the state for quite a long time. You could argue that preventing growth to meet demand is, in a sense, what it means to "stop growing" (short of turning folks away at the state line). This is what I meant by my comment. 1: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/nyregion/29oneway.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/nyregion/29oneway.html 2: https://thinkprogress.org/nevada-gets-sued-for-dumping-homeless-patients-with-mental-illnesses-onto-buses-271e5c518016 https://thinkprogress.org/nevada-gets-sued-for-dumping-homel...
- muninn_ 9y ago
  But how many people are going to move there to live in a bus? I certainly wouldn't. If property values get too high I'll just not move there. I don't understand this mentality where everybody thinks they should be able to afford to live in the best cities in the country, especially in California. It's just simple supply and demand. If housing prices get too high and people can't afford to live there they will live somewhere else. Period. Now that's an oversimplification. There is a lot to be said for mixed income communities and whatnot, but just saying "oh I can't afford to live here this sucks" is not good enough.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    I don't understand this mentality where everybody thinks they are entitled to prevent others (from the same country, no less!) from moving in to their community. It's not "supply and demand" until the supply caps come off. It's just policy set by the entrenched.
    - muninn_ 9y ago
      No different than any other prevention, or rule. Why shouldn't they be able to? If you moving to my community and doing whatever causes damage to the value of my property that's no different than doing damage to anything else. It's their community they set the rules. Why have communities or governments, or even countries for that matter? Fundamentally they do the same things. Why should I not be able to just come live in your house or just build a house in your backyard? Oh you have a great view? Let me just build a huge nonsense wall here and live in a small shack or something. Why not?
      - closeparen 9y ago
        We have laws and governments to protect public safety (from hazards such as violence, unsafe driving, unsafe building design, fire, communicable disease, environmental toxicity, etc.), to enforce property rights over what people actually own, to provide essential services such as water, sewer, police, firefighting, and education, and to look after the interests of those who can't get their needs met in the market. There's not much precedent around protecting the scarcity of assets as a job for government. Maybe taxi medallions? >Why should I not be able to just come live in your house or just build a house in your backyard? Because I own my backyard. On the adjacent lots, if you can buy them, knock yourself out. No one owns their view, unless they actually own a view easement. The government has no business enforcing property rights that don't exist. >Oh you have a great view? Are you seriously suggesting that someone else should be prevented from living the life they want, the job they want, affordable rent, enough space to raise children, etc. to protect someone else's view? That's an unbelievably fucked up level of dystopian.
        9y ago
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jdavis703 9y ago
  The thing is living in alternative housing is also generally illegal in the state. Someone in a Redwood City tiny house was forced to move because they were blocking the view and creating a public nuisance (besides that most places don't even allow for mobile homes or live-in RVs). Living out of your car/van/truck is also potentially illegal. This is truly becoming a state where only the rich are allowed to live.
pcwalton 9y ago
The obvious counterargument is that the Bay Area has been trying exactly what you propose for years, and the result has been a crisis instead of a shifting of gravity to other locations.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
closeparen 9y ago
Unless you can get a Constitutional amendment to legalize and then implement controls on internal migration, this isn't an option you have. People are already moving here faster than housing is being built, and they have been for a long time. Maintaining a housing shortage doesn't prevent migration, it just means that when migration happens it results in a pressure-cooker of a housing market. We'd need an enormous amount of building just to accommodate the people who are already here. You want to stop growth, put controls on migration or job creation. Controls on housing aren't working.
- golemotron 9y ago
  You don't stop growth by limiting it, you slow it by creating more attractive alternatives. Consider start-up zones in the interior of the US wired with fiber and zero taxation for 10 years. It is something the federal government could do to start alternative hubs.
  - mattnewton 9y ago
    Seriously, if you offered 0-2% tax and high speed internet people would come out of the woodwork. But who is incentivized to do that?
    - golemotron 9y ago
      Asking the question is the first part of finding an answer. We need to decentralize economic growth.
  - tracker1 9y ago
    Not that I want the federal govt meddling... I'm surprised other cities haven't pushed for this. I mean, just about any city within a 90 minute flight to SV is probably close enough if one has to do business there, and if you don't, all the better. I'm frankly surprised that there isn't more effort to bring tech business into Denver, Phoenix, Houston and Atlanta... They all have some, but there's plenty of room for growth and the income to cost of living ratio for tech work is pretty nice... No you don't have the relatively great year round weather, but you do get more options.
ethbro 9y ago
Parent makes a valid point. The market will (and has been) deciding, as middle-margin, non-cutting edge tech begins relocating R&D across the country. But that happening isn't particularly good for California or the Bay Area.
nandemo 9y ago
On the contrary, the artificial housing scarcity in California (as well as in NYC) contributes to inequality and hinders GDP growth: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.jp/2016/06/how-to-raise-gdp-10-and-reduce.html http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.jp/2016/06/how-to-raise-gdp-10...
saosebastiao 9y ago
Because that doesn't fix the problem of high housing prices, it just pushes it elsewhere.
dang 9y ago
Please don't break the HN guidelines by downvote-baiting. Also, please don't unsubstantive, provocative comments; that's a trollish combination. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14304869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14304869 and marked it off-topic.
- akvadrako 9y ago
  I thought the top-level comment made a good point and your reply is just snarky. Maybe you should follow your own advice.
  - dang 9y ago
    I'll try!
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
frubar 9y ago
There is a very, very simple way to stop the "brain drain" to SV: start paying comparable salaries. Don't come with a bunch of crap about "cost of living". Pay those salaries, or better and you'll start pulling talent away from SV. As long as the other parts can't or won't provide similar opportunities they don't deserve to have the talent. The main thing capitalism is meant to do is prioritize where resources should be focused. And they get focused where they get the most value.
- hocuspocus 9y ago
  It's not that simple. High salaries aren't the only benefit that comes from high concentration, there's also high fluidity in the job market. And it goes both ways. In our industry, employers are picky (what's the on-site to offer conversion rate at your company?), and potential employees are picky (rightly so, in my opinion) given the huge variance in job satisfaction.
matt4077 9y ago
I agree with you in principle. Specifically, having the "coastal elites" spread out a bit could also serve to close the political chasm that is threatening to swallow the US. But, thinking of counterarguments, it appears there is a network effect going on here, i. e. the value (an attractiveness) of a tech hub is proportional to something larger than the sum of its components.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Nav_Panel 9y ago

That's... not really how it works. Or, you could also argue that's what the area has been doing for the past 40 years, and look at the current state of housing. EDIT: I didn't downvote you, but I will elaborate: there's very little you can do to stop people from moving to California, short of forcefully putting them on buses and sending them away (which is what some cities actually do[1][2]). What you can do is figure out a plan before they show up to provide them decent housing for a fair price, or else they'll figure something out, something likely to be illegal/extremely uncomfortable/look a lot like homelessness. Some anecdotes: one friend of mine lived in a house-boat in Berkeley for 2 years while going to college. Another lived out of his van in Los Angeles. These are regular young people, both born in California, trying to make things work. It has been extremely hard to build new buildings in hotspots throughout the state for quite a long time. You could argue that preventing growth to meet demand is, in a sense, what it means to "stop growing" (short of turning folks away at the state line). This is what I meant by my comment. 1: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/nyregion/29oneway.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/nyregion/29oneway.html 2: https://thinkprogress.org/nevada-gets-sued-for-dumping-homeless-patients-with-mental-illnesses-onto-buses-271e5c518016 https://thinkprogress.org/nevada-gets-sued-for-dumping-homel...

muninn_ 9y ago
But how many people are going to move there to live in a bus? I certainly wouldn't. If property values get too high I'll just not move there. I don't understand this mentality where everybody thinks they should be able to afford to live in the best cities in the country, especially in California. It's just simple supply and demand. If housing prices get too high and people can't afford to live there they will live somewhere else. Period. Now that's an oversimplification. There is a lot to be said for mixed income communities and whatnot, but just saying "oh I can't afford to live here this sucks" is not good enough.
- closeparen 9y ago
  I don't understand this mentality where everybody thinks they are entitled to prevent others (from the same country, no less!) from moving in to their community. It's not "supply and demand" until the supply caps come off. It's just policy set by the entrenched.
  - muninn_ 9y ago
    No different than any other prevention, or rule. Why shouldn't they be able to? If you moving to my community and doing whatever causes damage to the value of my property that's no different than doing damage to anything else. It's their community they set the rules. Why have communities or governments, or even countries for that matter? Fundamentally they do the same things. Why should I not be able to just come live in your house or just build a house in your backyard? Oh you have a great view? Let me just build a huge nonsense wall here and live in a small shack or something. Why not?
    - closeparen 9y ago
      We have laws and governments to protect public safety (from hazards such as violence, unsafe driving, unsafe building design, fire, communicable disease, environmental toxicity, etc.), to enforce property rights over what people actually own, to provide essential services such as water, sewer, police, firefighting, and education, and to look after the interests of those who can't get their needs met in the market. There's not much precedent around protecting the scarcity of assets as a job for government. Maybe taxi medallions? >Why should I not be able to just come live in your house or just build a house in your backyard? Because I own my backyard. On the adjacent lots, if you can buy them, knock yourself out. No one owns their view, unless they actually own a view easement. The government has no business enforcing property rights that don't exist. >Oh you have a great view? Are you seriously suggesting that someone else should be prevented from living the life they want, the job they want, affordable rent, enough space to raise children, etc. to protect someone else's view? That's an unbelievably fucked up level of dystopian.
      - 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jdavis703 9y ago
The thing is living in alternative housing is also generally illegal in the state. Someone in a Redwood City tiny house was forced to move because they were blocking the view and creating a public nuisance (besides that most places don't even allow for mobile homes or live-in RVs). Living out of your car/van/truck is also potentially illegal. This is truly becoming a state where only the rich are allowed to live.

pcwalton 9y ago

The obvious counterargument is that the Bay Area has been trying exactly what you propose for years, and the result has been a crisis instead of a shifting of gravity to other locations.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

closeparen 9y ago

Unless you can get a Constitutional amendment to legalize and then implement controls on internal migration, this isn't an option you have. People are already moving here faster than housing is being built, and they have been for a long time. Maintaining a housing shortage doesn't prevent migration, it just means that when migration happens it results in a pressure-cooker of a housing market. We'd need an enormous amount of building just to accommodate the people who are already here. You want to stop growth, put controls on migration or job creation. Controls on housing aren't working.

golemotron 9y ago
You don't stop growth by limiting it, you slow it by creating more attractive alternatives. Consider start-up zones in the interior of the US wired with fiber and zero taxation for 10 years. It is something the federal government could do to start alternative hubs.
- mattnewton 9y ago
  Seriously, if you offered 0-2% tax and high speed internet people would come out of the woodwork. But who is incentivized to do that?
  - golemotron 9y ago
    Asking the question is the first part of finding an answer. We need to decentralize economic growth.
- tracker1 9y ago
  Not that I want the federal govt meddling... I'm surprised other cities haven't pushed for this. I mean, just about any city within a 90 minute flight to SV is probably close enough if one has to do business there, and if you don't, all the better. I'm frankly surprised that there isn't more effort to bring tech business into Denver, Phoenix, Houston and Atlanta... They all have some, but there's plenty of room for growth and the income to cost of living ratio for tech work is pretty nice... No you don't have the relatively great year round weather, but you do get more options.

ethbro 9y ago

Parent makes a valid point. The market will (and has been) deciding, as middle-margin, non-cutting edge tech begins relocating R&D across the country. But that happening isn't particularly good for California or the Bay Area.

nandemo 9y ago

On the contrary, the artificial housing scarcity in California (as well as in NYC) contributes to inequality and hinders GDP growth: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.jp/2016/06/how-to-raise-gdp-10-and-reduce.html http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.jp/2016/06/how-to-raise-gdp-10...

saosebastiao 9y ago

Because that doesn't fix the problem of high housing prices, it just pushes it elsewhere.

dang 9y ago

Please don't break the HN guidelines by downvote-baiting. Also, please don't unsubstantive, provocative comments; that's a trollish combination. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14304869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14304869 and marked it off-topic.

akvadrako 9y ago
I thought the top-level comment made a good point and your reply is just snarky. Maybe you should follow your own advice.
- dang 9y ago
  I'll try!
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

frubar 9y ago

There is a very, very simple way to stop the "brain drain" to SV: start paying comparable salaries. Don't come with a bunch of crap about "cost of living". Pay those salaries, or better and you'll start pulling talent away from SV. As long as the other parts can't or won't provide similar opportunities they don't deserve to have the talent. The main thing capitalism is meant to do is prioritize where resources should be focused. And they get focused where they get the most value.

hocuspocus 9y ago
It's not that simple. High salaries aren't the only benefit that comes from high concentration, there's also high fluidity in the job market. And it goes both ways. In our industry, employers are picky (what's the on-site to offer conversion rate at your company?), and potential employees are picky (rightly so, in my opinion) given the huge variance in job satisfaction.

matt4077 9y ago

I agree with you in principle. Specifically, having the "coastal elites" spread out a bit could also serve to close the political chasm that is threatening to swallow the US. But, thinking of counterarguments, it appears there is a network effect going on here, i. e. the value (an attractiveness) of a tech hub is proportional to something larger than the sum of its components.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]