8 ms·

One Thing Silicon Valley Can’t Seem to Fix

71 points by gk1 9y ago

moxious 9y ago
Car culture forms a positive feedback loop and perpetuates itself just like many other things. Everyone has a car. So you build a lot of parking and don't worry if campus is miles away and not connected to transit. So everyone has to have a car. And so on. As long as it's the predominant style and no one minds the costs it'll go on indefinitely. From other areas of the country (Washington DC, Los Angeles) it can be really bad for a really long time...people will complain but they won't change. This being such an American cultural thing too, the pain threshold is very high. Most people take jobs despite bad commutes and inaccessibility without a car. So people are actively voting their priorities and this isn't one of them. Bad for time, money, and environment, but hey life is busy, most everyone has other fish to fry.
- TillE 9y ago
  Haven't a bunch of companies relocated from Silicon Valley to SF specifically because employees preferred to live in SF and not commute for hours? I think people are "voting" for that as a priority, to the extent they can.
  - tachyonbeam 9y ago
    I left Silicon Valley and went back to my home country because I couldn't stand suburbia, and couldn't stand the idea of commuting from SF either. I now make 1/3 as much money, but live a comfortable lifestyle and commute to work in 25 minutes of public transit.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    Some employees do. While making it totally untenable for many others. Which may be fine depending upon the demographic you're targeting.
    - santaclaus 9y ago
      > While making it totally untenable for many others. Howso?
      - khuey 9y ago
        If you want a large house, a backyard, or good public schools living in SF can be tough.
        kylec 9y ago
        Or a car. Some people like living a car-centric lifestyle, and it's no fun in SF.
        closeparen 9y ago
        One of the things you're paying rent for is the vast amount of nature sites within a few hours' driving. Living in SF and never using a car is a huge waste, though if you go infrequently enough it can make more sense to rent as needed.
        santaclaus 9y ago
        That is what BART is for though, yea? I have friends with nice houses and driveways and all that in Berkeley and it is only a few stops into the city.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    No, it's mainly because the best parts of Silicon Valley ran out of space. If historical norms had been followed, Palantir would have moved away from Palo Alto a long time ago.
- ams6110 9y ago
  The article does point out that the vast number of parking spaces at these offices is dictated by zoning requirements, and the remote locations away from transit are mostly a result of NIMBYism.
- losteric 9y ago
  Effective public transit can kill the auto feedback loop. The problem is BART fell into (poorly managed) maintenance-only mode for too long. Now they're trying to maintain and incrementally expand the system in disparate directions, which doesn't leverage economies of scale. Plus the bay has to deal with multiple inefficient overlapping agencies managing transit. Tech companies should be actively lobbying for pro-density/pro-transit political candidates and vocally encouraging constituent employees to campaign/vote at all levels - a high-density highly connected Bay Area would save the companies millions in salary alone. * Job density near Sunnyvale: http://imgur.com/a/C0Xl9 http://imgur.com/a/C0Xl9 (via https://www.slideshare.net/alevin/sunnyvale-peery-park-presentation https://www.slideshare.net/alevin/sunnyvale-peery-park-prese...) * Bart stations: https://www.bart.gov/stations https://www.bart.gov/stations * Hypothetical "BART 2050" map: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*f5wofXsD8WNqPOZSUPjXFg.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*f5wofXsD8WNqPOZSU... (proposed, planned, and under-construction projects via https://futuretravel.today/bay-area-2050-the-bart-metro-map-ab83b22d3d8b https://futuretravel.today/bay-area-2050-the-bart-metro-map-... - good read) 2050 is an unacceptably long timeline - especially if the biggest issues are purely politics and bureaucracy. The engineering side is not a bottleneck and the political system can be fixed if we just helped the existing pro-density/pro-transit groups get elected.
  - kspaans 9y ago
    And hopefully they will finally finish those empty apartment buildings in Downtown Sunnyvale soon. http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/13/sunnyvale-downtown-to-finally-resume-construction/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/13/sunnyvale-downtown-to-...
  - dnautics 9y ago
    Part of the problem is that pro-transit usually is synonymous with "pro-transit subsidy". That's not a sustainable system. With expensive prices on systems like the BART, even this subsidy is going disproportionately to certain tax brackets and not others. There are certainly for profit public transit operators with higher uptime, higher QOS, better safety record, and dramatically lower prices, one wonders what the hell is wrong with BART.
- oddthink 9y ago
  But even in the US, there are other options. I'm in the Google NYC office, which occupies most of a building that's a full city block and 15 stories high (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111_Eighth_Avenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111_Eighth_Avenue) and that sits on top of a major subway station. We also have floors in a few of the neighboring buildings (Chelsea Market, etc.). It seems to work really well. The density means that it's not that physically far to go to meet with another team, and that you hear what's going on with completely unrelated divisions. I'm a little surprised that Silicon Valley overall has stuck with these relatively low-rise, sprawling campuses.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Manhattan is the one place in the US where urbanism is allowed, and even then, there's a pretty strong instinct towards preserving the parts of it built at lower density. Building Manhattan-like environments even a few miles over in Brooklyn is vehemently opposed, though not very successfully.
    - dionidium 9y ago
      San Francisco would have 1.6 million people at Brooklyn's density. Fears of Manhattanization are a distraction. What San Francisco needs are vast tracts of 5 and 6-story apartment buildings where single-family homes now sit.
      - closeparen 9y ago
        Most of San Francisco's single family homes are further from the city (in public transit minutes) than Oakland and Berkeley. The public transit service from single family homes to downtown is already overcrowded and way too frequent (there is an extreme congestion problem among buses and trains themselves, before considering private cars). I'm skeptical that Muni could even maintain current levels of crowding with so many more riders. I'm certain that Muni service to these areas would not get any faster. So the result of this would be to have vast numbers of people wasting vast amounts of time. We're much more likely to get a livable city with a few dozen to a few hundred skyscrapers in and around each downtown (SF, Oakland, etc). People living in them could walk or bike to work reasonably quickly. Vast tracts of 5-6 story buildings would only work if we could blanket them in subway coverage, and even BRT is pushing the upper limit of our capabilities as a human civilization these days.
- rsj_hn 9y ago
  That's a pretty misanthropic, and frankly, uninformed view. People know their interests. The tradeoff is transportation versus land. You want to stop paying rent, but can't afford to buy your own place so you decide to buy farther out and spend more time traveling. We got a middle class in this country due to the Automobile and the suburbs, which let people get out from under the thumb of the landlord and buy their own land. Cars -- and transportation more generally -- is a produced good. Land is not a produced good. For all the complaints about sprawl, an economy in which we substitute produced goods for non-produced goods that are inherited from wealthy families is a better economy. Now you can argue that we should be using more electric vehicles, or fixed track vehicles, and all of that is worthy of discussion. But you cannot argue against sprawl. We continue to spread out as a society so that each person buys their own plot of land instead of paying endless rent to the landlords who monopolize the land in the city center. We continue to try to improve transportation and communication so that those who own key locations cannot extract the same rents from us as they used to. This is a virtuous feedback loop, and those wanting everyone to live as renters in large urban centers don't understand that this creates a permanent rentier class of landlords with unlimited power of taxation, and a permanent underclass of tenants who don't get to keep the gains of their increasing productivity. That's how you get serfs. That's why landlords have always opposed transportation innovation, whether it be opposition to the creation/subsidy of roads or of rail. It is also why we have a history of diffusion. The built up areas of cities house fewer people per square meter of land than they did 100 years ago, and there it's also fewer than 100 years before that, etc. Sprawl has been happening since Roman Times, and landlords have been screaming against it for all of history.
  - losteric 9y ago
    How do condos fit into your model of what "we" want?
    - rsj_hn 9y ago
      Condos are great, but not really relevant in the big scheme of things. They may be relevant in the future, but so far, the technological gains in the area of building construction have lagged the technological gains in the area of transportation and communication. Alternately, you can ask why does density keep declining even though we have the technology to build taller buildings? E.g. the skyline keeps going up but people/square meter in built up areas keep declining? Why is that? One reason is that building up is really inefficient. It costs a lot more in terms of $/sqft as you add another story, and those extra $ have to paid by the lower stories as well. They aren't just paid by the top floors. So even though tall buildings tend to capture our imagination, we don't really build a lot of tall buildings as a percentage of all buildings built. It's too expensive. Another reason is that space per person keeps increasing. We like to build our houses about 6% bigger each year. That number dwarfs any gains in density from taller buildings. E.g. in the past, you'd have 400 people living in a 4 story building and now you have 300 people living in an 8 story building. The building has gotten taller but density has decreased and the need for spreading out hasn't changed.
- Tiktaalik 9y ago
  Yep! It's the cycle of auto dependency. Shown in this diagram: http://imgur.com/a/beqcY http://imgur.com/a/beqcY Tough to break out of without a serious investments in transportation alternatives such as bike lanes and public transit.
  - Spivak 9y ago
    I really don't know why everyone thinks that the way to break out of the car cycle is transportation alternatives. If your city was planned around cars then everything else is going to be inferior. Public transit is costs more in time than a car does in gas and you have to plan your schedule around when they run and where they go. Bikes are only good over short distances but those aren't representative of common trips in a car oriented city -- many destinations are 25 minutes away by car which is not feasible to reach by bike. If you want people to give up their cars then you have to plan dense. All day-to-day needs need to be within walking distance and tight regulation to prevent incumbent owners from taking advantage of citizens with fewer options. Weekly needs need to be within biking distance and small electric vehicles need to be made available for the elderly, disabled, tired, or lazy to get to them on their schedule. Rare needs need to be available remotely, by delivery, or reachable by public transportation for the patient or hired car for the impatient.
WalterBright 9y ago
The way to build a new business complex (like the saucer) is to build apartment towers next to it. Or a transit station next to it. Otherwise, the traffic going to the saucer will be tremendous. Long ago when I worked at Boeing, so many people would leave at the same time that it would take 15 minutes just to exit the parking lot. This was despite Boeing staggering the shift ends to alleviate it. People would run to their cars in a desperate attempt to get ahead of the wave.
- nightski 9y ago
  Ok that sounds awful (running to your car to beat the traffic). However, so does living in an apartment on the corporate campus.
  - Inconel 9y ago
    I always try to live as close to work as possible so living in an apartment on a corporate campus actually sounds pretty appealing to me but can you expand on why you think it sounds awful? I'm not dismissing your view, I just want to know if there are negatives about it that I haven't considered.
    - nightski 9y ago
      Because if I worked for say Apple and lived on the Apple campus I would feel like my life revolved around Apple. There is more to life than work, and I feel like having your own home away from work is a part of that.
    - halfjoking 9y ago
      My coworkers might gossip about the number of prostitutes I hire to visit my apartment. I would have to explain at the water cooler that I only hire the prostitutes to indulge strange sexual fetishes and I won't be spreading STDs because you can't get STDs from the strange things I do.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
skybrian 9y ago
Perhaps from a large company's point of view, parking lots are land held in reserve that they could build on later? (Building parking garages if needed.)
- intopieces 9y ago
  If they own the land, what prevents them from just putting trees there instead of a parking lot? Surely the cities don't forbid trees.
  - skybrian 9y ago
    They often require parking spaces, though.
valuearb 9y ago
Cars are freedom. Build more freeways, and use tolls to pay for them.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > Cars are freedom I've never understood this. How is being locked into an oft debt-financed mass-manufactured vehicle, whose maintenance is dependant on parts manufacturers and the petrochemical industry, and whose use gives police the right to pull you over for anything, an icon of freedom?
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Cars are freedom, not self-reliance. They represent the pinnacle of a vast international ecosystem of design, engineering, resource extraction, labor, finance, etc. No doubt about that. They represent two of the most important accomplishments of human civilization: decoupling of transportation from physical exertion, and decoupling of human comfort from the weather. As an "engineer," it gives me the warm-fuzzies just thinking about that, in the same way it does that we put a man on the moon. "Cars are freedom" has little to do with their use in commuting to work, though that's probably the vast majority of their actual use. There's some cognitive dissonance here: the gridlocked commute to the 9-5 at the cube farm could not be more strongly opposed to the "cars are freedom" symbolism. It's the fact that you can go anywhere, not just where your body's own power will take you, not just where central planners have seen fit to draw routes. It's the fact that you can do so at any time, not just when central planners see fit to schedule service, during the hours they think people ought to be out and about, or with enough advance notice to get an affordable ticket (i.e. air travel). It's about the weekend jaunt to national park across the state, the cross country road trip, or even the more mundane grocery run after work, the spontaneity of it, not having to plan or spend massive amounts of physical exertion. Sure, you can get that with a walkable neighborhood too, but it's always going to be more limited.
  - dxhdr 9y ago
    > locked into an oft debt-financed mass-manufactured vehicle You can buy a used vehicle for a few thousand dollars. > whose maintenance is dependant on parts manufacturers and the petrochemical industry No different than maintenance of any other consumer good. > whose use gives police the right to pull you over for anything Police can already stop you for any reason. What cars give you is the ability to go anywhere, at any time, on your own schedule, without consulting with anyone or anything. Might not be your definition of freedom but surely it's understandable.
intopieces 9y ago
Zoning laws need to reverse. They need to mandate a maximum number of parking spaces be 60% of head count in 2020, then reduce 5% every 5 years until the maximum is 40% of headcount. I really don't see any other way. You just have to force it.
- 35bge57dtjku 9y ago
  Best company perk ever: you get to take public transportation because despite being the size of many large shopping malls combined and being located in suburbia, we made few enough parking spots that you'll never get to park here.
- closeparen 9y ago
  A suburban office with insufficient parking sounds like a great talent repellant. I pity the poor souls who would have to work there (taking shitty bus service or cycling unreasonable distances), but no vaguely competent software engineer would be among them.
  - intopieces 9y ago
    A business that fails to innovate goes out of business. These kind of zoning restrictions would hit all the businesses equally, and force them to improve their work from home policies (isn't that what software engineers want anyway?) and establish more organized/efficient ride sharing. Besides, the new zoning restrictions would only apply to new campuses being built. And we already have cities like Palo Alto debating whether they even want more jobs in their city, and rightfully so. There are other places to build your campus. Silicon Valley needs housing, not offices.
xj9 9y ago
a̵̡̭̮̤̹̹͔̣̝͎͠͞͝ͅn̛̘̪̬̦̯̫͉̫͚̠̳̗͚̩͚̲͘͟y͡͠͏̸̪̖̘͔̻̯̲̞̞͍̳͓́ͅt̡̛̯̗͎͕͓̳̘͡ͅh̢̞̝̳̪͕̖̦̬̰̀͢͢i̴͘҉͇̟̫̼̞̲̥͡ͅņ̸҉̧̩̦̦͈̥̜̹̩͖̺͚̲̖̰̺͟ǵ̷̛͎̱̞̮̭͎̘͠?͡͏̞͇̯̘͚̖̲̣̭̤͚̖̞͙ ̦͎͈͔̜̤͈͎͚̣̩̲̬̪̕͢c̱͍̺̠̹̝̪̥̻̥̪̻̺͇͜͞͠ͅͅl̶̖̝͈̙͎̻̬̲̭͖̜̜̲̳͍͉͜͝a͎̞͔̲͞s̨̫͇̹̺̭̮͘͜͠s̶̴̝̙̘͉͔ ̸̡͔̫̹̦͍͟p҉̧̛̩̱̘̬͙̟͙͈̭̻̦̘̲̫͔́ę̹̳̳̗͚̘̲͕͓͢͜o͞͏̢͕̟̞͔̻̪͔̬̩̹̠̤͎̺̝̙͉͝ͅp̶̵͙̰͕̝̘̹͉̪͕̯̘͠ͅl̛͟͠҉̷̻͖̰͉̳̠̹͇̣̘̥͎̤̱̙e̸̡̞̳͖͇̠͚̮̜͜ ̡̘̣̳̟̱̩̞̞ͅa͞҉̨̼̝͚̹̟̭̯̯͓̀ṉ̶̵̼̣̬̺͙̦͍͕͇͘͜d̡̢͏̗͎̗̲̞̙̗̘̗̼ ̴̶̖̗͕͇̼̦̬͢͟͜m͞͝͏̟͚͍̝̥̱̩̣̱̰͕̬͎̲̲͈͖à͍̣̱̲̰̭̝̫̱̟͟k̨̧̞̘̦̲͙̥̹̀̕i̟͍̙̦̜̠̝͜͠͠n͈̣̻̹̕͢͟g̶̩̳͖͕̲̦̲͚͖͈̰̤̻̳ ̨̖͕̟͔̰̰̰̕͠u̷̡̞̣̱̼̲͇̠͕͕͚͇͔̹̰̘͙͝ṕ̴̴̬̩̭͘p̴̴͙̻̫̘͞͠e̹̯̯̺̳̟̮̜̖͈̯͕͍̖͟͜͞r̮̥̦͕̰̕͟ ̶̷̴̛̦͔̺̝̯̜̻̹̪͍̹̱͉͎̕c̴̙̯̹̜̣͍̠̰̮̟͇͟͜͠ͅl̢̀͘͏͏̘̫̺̤̜̟̺̹̯ą̬̗̝͉̮̗̝̜̗̞̩̩͖͘s̠͖̘̤̥͇̪̠͇̠̙̙̞͚̼̦̟̀͘͝͡ͅs̩͙̞͕̝̙̗̠̬̰͓̟͕̬͞͞ ̛̲̪̤̺̱͖͉͙̬̺̕͡͠p̭̘͖͔̹̳͎̕͡e̴͎͕̝͙͖̳͟͟͝o̹̫͍̟̱̩͕͟͡͡p̴҉̡̟̥͙͕̠͙͚̤̖̜͎̱̳̬ļ̛̥̻͍̭͜e̱̤̫͎͈͎̰͜͝͞ͅ ̣̹̰͈̖̲̭̗̣̫͙̯̞́͡r̶̵̞͉̟̥͕̞̯͉͇̀͘i̷̡̘̯̪̺̩̣͈͙ͅc͙̘̺̟̲̖̝̬̮͉͚̙̘̻͜͡h̵͚̗̫͕̩̱̞̹̫̥̪̳̘͞e̵͖̻̻̞̼̗̱̣͜r̡͈͚̣̯̱̦̼̗̪͓ ̮̲̼̯̯̥͚̠́t̵͙̦̞͖̭̦͖̳͈̣̻̫͜͢͞͡h̵̵̢̙̰͙̦̀͟e̸̴̶̠͔̯̪̱̤̹̪̟͟͝ͅ ̢́͏̤̜̦̭̱̼͇̙͉̗͕̬̙͎͕͝w̸͈͇̺̯̘͈̳͕̮̫͇̞̦͎̬̦̬̺͝o̢͍̟̲̖̫̙̱̱̻̝͓͙͢r̝̘̭͖͎̦͓̞̖͚̪̀̀l̨̘͙̻͡d̶̝͙̗̟̝͇̘͚̮̺̬̟̤̝ͅ ̷͖̳͓̥̤̻͓͙̰̝̠̣͟͠ͅẃ̧̹̫̖̩̳̳̹̥͖̰̣̭̹̗̗̼̠̣͜͞͝ợ̻̖̩̼͜u̴̧̳̲͕͉̕ḽ̵̢̻͓͓̼͎̦̣̬̩̦̗͎͔̤͓̞͢͝ͅd̺̖̩̩͚͎͈̻͉̻̻̬̫̘͓̖͉͘͜͟ͅ ̸̸̰̥̼̰̫͔̱͕̟̖͖̮͈b̧̢͓̹̫̻̩̹̱̦̮̘̜͈̕͢e̶҉̴̤̤͓͇̤͙̩̲̻͖̹̹͞ͅͅ ̷҉̱̤̝̙̕͜͠b̴̷̴̹͕̦͉̗͘͟e̴̛̤͖͍̜̞̭͟͢͜ͅt̴̴̟͖̳͖̠̪̗̱ͅt̞̩̘̥͚͕̮͓͈̥͚̯̦́̀͟ͅe̕͞҉̮̞͚̗̖̯͙͇̞̫͙̳r̢̛̰͚̮͉̤͈͢ ̶̡̺̥͖̫͉̣͔̩͓͎̪̺̙̯̝̥͜o͏͚͚̟́͘ͅf̼̰̲̦̳̹̻̯͚͘͢͜͢f̶̷̵͎̻͔̫̩̝͉ ̶̡̢̱͇̯̺̠͎̮̮͙̳̩̼̤͙̤̖͇̙́͡ͅw̻͕̹̘̪͟͠ͅ/̸͟҉̹͇͍͔̱̙̖̠̦͚̘̮̪̥̖̙̣o̧̗̩̱̭̪͕̗̮̭̭̘̠͔͟ ̸̟̟̩͇̦̥̩̀͜͞t̢̼̰͈̳̺̘͓̰̙̟̹́͢b̸̨͔̳̱̫̮̬̜̪́q͟͡͏͍͓͇͙̤͚̳͎͡h̷͎͉̦̪̥̖̩̣̯̤͈̜ ̧̛͜͝͏̼̠̯͈̮̪͔͔̰̱̻̝̰͍͙w̗̯͚͙̪̪̖̖̖̮͕̣̭̘̙̝͢i̴̘̪̦̘̕ͅk͏̛͎̰̪̗͓͖͕̣̻̮̗̱̯̫̙͉̺͎̀͞ͅi̕҉̟͙̝͔̬͖̭̦̲͍̠̪̩̺̰p̶̻̱͖͔͖̱͍͓̀e̷̡̺̜͕̳̟͙̮̜̕͢ḑ͕̻̣̘̼̩̳̝̪͟͢͠ì͚͚̜͖̯̹͚͉͉͘a̷̴̺͇͇̫̥͔̪̥͚͖̳̜̺̦̕͡͠ ̢̛̪͈̦̩̲̖̙̫̲̕͜͞ì̷̙͚͕̮̰͍͖̮̜͢s̵̭̣̭͕̙̻̳̣̜͚̲̼̖͈̘̳͈͈̟̕͞ ̷̗͖̩̬̼̫͟͡ͅà̢̦͎̥̳̣̹̪̠͓ͅ ̷̙̙̼̳̞͔͜͢g̡̺̟͎̘̼̹͖͎͕̹̀o͏͎̰̯̬͓͎̗͎̤̕ǫ̴̘͔̹̹̯̜͠d̛̲͕̼̪͎͈ͅ ̨̪̦̳̤̩͕̪̦͙̣̩̜͞t̶̡̠͉̖̞̺͙͟h͜҉̧̡͉̜̪̯̳̻ͅi̢̛̙̗̰͚͙̗͓̦͙̲̗̺͘ͅṇ̷̳̣͚̥͓̝̹̮̮̙̤͓̖̫͚͙͕͝g͍͚̟͎͇̲̯͕̬̯̩̘̗͘͘͢͜,̸̵̢̠̯̦͔̮͇̲͔̯̖̕͠ ̸̧̪̬͚̦̘̭̱͈͕̘̀͜͡b̸͍̩̱̙͔̠͙̞̜̰̬̟̟́͟͞ͅu͘͝͡͏̱͖̖̳͈̗̖̫͙͈̠̖t̛̩͍̲̺͈̮͔̩̰̳͕̠̲͖̤̙͎̀̀͠ͅ ̴̛̛͕̪̳͍͇͕̻̟͇͎̘͙͖̯͈̭̺͟ͅi̶̡҉̟̭̫͎͍̪͈̘͚̻̼̜̜̭̲̱̹̣͇t̫̫̭̼̺̦̯̙͎̯̞͜͡ͅ ͏̷̢̮͙̱͙̟̭͈̻͇̖̟̀i̧҉̞̥̭͉̘̜̦͈͈͙͎͚͙̳s̛҉̦̞̼͇̘̩̫̻ ̧̟͙̗͈̹̠͝a̵̴̡̜̫̠͓͇̘͔̥͔̤̗̰͓̭̥̞̤͙ ̵̮̘̳͖̝͎̱̭̥̱͍͇̳̻̖̫̯̪̲͢͞ṉ̡̝͎̭̫̮̭͍͚̘͉̪͉͍͍͞ͅo̴̷͍͕̲̝̩̭̜̬̙̯̮̺͓̯͔̪̕͢n̴̸̘̰̹̯͙̱̬̮̫̣̜̫͈̕͟-̶̧̨̡̟̜̘̦͠p̺̞͎̻͖̯͍̘̼͉̥̙͖͙̟͉͍͢ṟ̶̝̺̤͖̟͖̀o̶̥̫̰͖̤̹͖̪͇̩̟̪͉̬͡ͅf҉̧̧͎̙͕̭͔̠͚͕́̕ͅͅi͏̭̤̟̦̩̣̫̹͖͝t̸̸̯̜͇̲̀,̧̼̗̫̺͔̹̱̬̦̼̲̻͕̟́͢ ̵̕͢͠҉͚̩̟͉̩̲̮̹͕̙̥̰n҉̶̨̩̹̩̬͓̰̱̠̠̞͉̰͉̟͓̠͞ó̶̺̩͈̺͖̤̯͇͖͍̺̗̻̟̘͜t̴̵̮̯̘̻̲̩̤̣ ̨̧͕̜̖̦á̶͖̪̗̖̰͡ ͏͙̦͇̩̼̭̠̦͔̩͎̀͜s̱͉̘̲͔̩̦̩̕̕͜͝ų̸͇̥̦̮͙͢͡p҉̵̢̝̲̹̩͖̖̙̻̘͙͉̖̣̙͢ȩ̵̹̖͕͍̖͖͕̟̳̖̤͖͉͓͔͔ͅͅr̸̢̟̣̞̯͍̞͕̼̜͉͙̱̭͠-̨̡̞͓̜͔͚͈̝̻̖̰̳̼͉͖p̷̨̰̠̳͖̟͙̗̫̟̼̬̫͈͕̼̙r̴̨͓͎̺̯̀͠ó̦̝̲̬͙̤͍͢͜͞f̵̩̩̯̫̞͖͇̜͚̬̕͡i͘͠͠҉͇̙̳̰̞̫̩̞̞̜̭͇̪̠t̴̺̻͎̜̬̙̗̕à͢҉̝͙̫͓̹̰̤͉͙̜̱̠͔͖̯̜̜̹̀̀b̸̨̩͍̤̹͉̖͍̹̜̣̤̘̼̭̮͟͠l̶̡̯̰͚̙̥̭͎̹̠̳͍̪͘e̵̸̞̻͍̰̰͍̰̹͖͉͙͜͠ ̵̶̶̞̣̣s̸̷̡̢̝͇̥̫̟̱̫̻͙̥̘̙̣̕t̷̛̲̦̼̞̪͔͚̫̩͚́̕a̢̡̞̺̱̻̣̥̱̲͇̗̣̜͉͘͡r̸̶̨̰̩̣̫̜̫̣͓̤̻͕̰͇̜̼̞̭̕͠ͅţ̵̷̟͚̮͖͇̮͎͍̝͉͟͜u͏̤͓͓̱̗͘̕͞ͅp̸̛̀͏̫͔̖̜͍̥͙̰͇͉̭͕̤̟͖ ̧̭̠͇̼̺̖̝̱̜̫̯̹͟͡ṿ̶̵̶̤̪̪̘̹̞̹͘͜į̗̲͙͚͕r̶҉̧͇̱̝̰̲́͞t̨͚̬̫̣̠͚̟̥̘̘̰̫͚̪̩̕ͅͅú̢̠̩͍͇̰̻̙͚̜̤̹a̷̫̲͇͚̻͕̭͎͉̥̼̖̳͜͢͞l̶҉̷͙̻͈͙͈̯͍͝ ̶̶̝̘͖̱͙̙̲̻͘͜͟d̷̰͍̲̜͜͞͞r̶̸̫̖̥̠̘̪̺̻͞u̡͏̨̘͈͚̼͉͔͇́̕ͅg̵̶̛̦̜̰̟̟͍͇͇͜͝ ̱̯̱̘̣̙̞̦̱͍̩̟̲́͞ͅs̴̲͕̣̞̗̺̦̳͜͡͡͝p̵̷̹̣͖̤̤͙̟̯̙͇̰̪̰̩̞͝à̫̤͕͖̲̪̰̼̰͙c͏̬͖̘͇̗̹̭̱̱̥̹̣͉̪͙̠͝ͅè͙̩̠͕̜͕̹͍͓̹̠̲̻̣̯̖͍͔͉͞x̡̡̙̥͙̦͔͉̙̺͚̖͚͇͖̥̣͢ͅ/̢̥̳̜̞̞͙͚͓̟̬̼́t̛͇̮̩̲̙̥͍̕͢͟͞ȩ̨̭̳̜͎͈̣̲̝͕̙̀͟s̵̶͎͍̜͚͇͎̯̝̝̫̯͔̖̰̀ͅl̵̛̜̮̜͕̬̦̣̥̱̜̠̤̯̰͇̺̞͔̙á̛͢͏͖̭̼̺̹̻̩̪͙͙̗͎ ͖̠̜͖͓̖͚͟͡Ḿ͠͏̴̺̘̼̝̠̱̺̟̤͍̞̱̀À̵͈̩̮͎̺͕̲̘̖̖̕͞ͅY̵̸͈̟̯͉͡B̴͔͍͔̺̬͕͉̞͙̬͓̼̭̼̭͕͇͚͎͠Ę̛̼̫̥͙̟͓̣̗̯̦͕̱̬̥̤̀͟ ̧̤̝͓̠̬̻͓̘͘b̢̛̬̟̞͎̺̘̠̙͕͎̖͕̜͝ͅù̸̷̴̬̣̩͎̯͢t̴̼̣̗̟̳̬̫̦̪̀ ̷̭̖̟̼͚͓̩̥͖̜̟͓̻́͟f̷̭̝̣̘̬̱̹̟͎͔̞̰̯͔̞ͅa̤̖̦̼̖̜̰͎̼̝̼̤̻̗̻̘͜͢ͅç̷͔̺͉̟̭͚͉̺̗̦̯̫͢e̡̡̨̟̯͕͔̲̬͍̰̖̪̩͍̯̺͈͜b͢͟͏̱̟̠͓͉̱͝ờ̵̛͎̫͍͎͈̪̹̟͈͙̘͉̤͚̹̜̬͠ͅo̷̶̹̦͔̘͍̟͕̲̯̘̪̣͘k̴̡̻̜̬̜̭͙͝͞ͅ,̷̧̩̤͕͚̬̲͍̙̭͕̬̰̯̹ ̡̡̠̞̜̤̱͓͉̺̟̜͘f̧͚̫͕̥͔͔͖̠͖̗̱͢͞͡a̡̢͢҉̣͉̩̦͖͉̪c̵͇̘̣̪͍̩̳̹̮͎̕͠͞e҉̷̗̬̜͇̺͠b̷̴̨̛̲̞̤̬̯̤͍̱͉́ò̧̻͎͚̤̀͝o͏҉҉̨̙̣̖̠̺͚̱́k̡͚̦̥̠̮̮̝͎̳͚͕̘̯͓̪͎̕ͅ ̴̢̢̪͓͖̳͍͢i̠̬̝͖̫͖̙̠̰̦̫͞ͅs̶̶̢̤̳͓͔͍̯̮͢͜ ̭̻̲͇͓̪̗̹̟̗͟͜͠͞a̰̭̜̮̲̭̺̖͇̫͎͚̩̟̦̝̹͉͉̕͞ ̸̴̼̼͉̤̻͕̜̩͚̩̞͍͍͚͚̦̪̮̖͡͝ş̴̜̦̼̞͔̩̯̖̮̩̘͎͜͝͝h̴̵͕̙̹̯̹̞̞͜i̷̘͇͚͇̣̺͙̩̟̬̻̗͔͘͟t͇̹̬̳͕͎̕͠t͇̠̪͈̯̪͔͙̬͔̕̕͝y̸͈̰̯̼̪͜͟͜͝ ̷͜҉͎̙͍̣̬̩̼̟̦͕͍͉̱͙͓͍̰̞̕ͅ ̸̷̴̶̗̯̼̘̣͕͎̖̘͇̜s̱͚̰̖̰͙̪̻͓͓̻̳̝̀͟͠ͅi̷̵̪̩̱̻̩̲̜̺͖̹͓̩͉͙̪͘͡͝l̡͏̷̡͓͍͕͢i̧̨̳͚̜̣̣̬͇̯͜͢ͅç̷͉̗̗̰̞̰̫̩̖͘͢ǫ̸̬̭̝̜͍̱͍̜͕͎̙̻͕̱̤̳̬̠̖ņ͙̳̟͇́̀̕ ̛̞̩̝̥̮̬̻̣̲̫̜̼͜͝ͅv͏͎̣̝͚̖͇͖̺̭̻̻á̸͜͟҉̭͎͍̤l̷̨͢͏͏͍̠͕͎͍̬̯̼̯̙̹̜̠ͅl̷̺͎͙̪̫̰̞͍̹̫̗̯̯̖̟̳̙͜ę̸̗̤̟̙̫̳͕̺̭̰͕̝̗͔̰͉͘͞ͅỳ̛̟̣͔͍̪͓̠̝̮͇͟͠ ͡͏̷̹̹͔̮̱̖̪͔̯̪͓̝̻̲͎̬i̧͎͉̖̩͇͉̮̠͈̯͓͟ͅs͢͞͏̛̟͚̲̹͔̘̪̮̥́ ̧̹͎̭͓̟̖̩̩̝̜̮͓͈̻̥͈̠̠͔̀̀ŗ̶̖̱̖̠̠̲̯͚̪͕̟͎͔͇͈̩̹̞̝é̸̵̙̳̪̻͓̣̭̱͍͚̹̟͔̬̰͜͝à̴̢̧̱͖̪̩̫̮̠̯̺̗̭̥̯̮̝̩͇l̵͏̱̖̼̤̬̠̪̬̜l̴̻̥̖̟̻͎̝̥̱̙̰̻̩͈̲͟͜y̵͓͍̻͉̘͚̹͓ͅ ̴̡͠҉̴̹͔̖̬g̛̥͉͎̤̯͉͍̳̼͡o̢͏̴̟͉̹̙͈͓͙͚̝̫̰̘͙͖ͅớ̱̳͉͚͔̮̼̦̮͈̠̞̥̳͢͠͞ͅḓ̴̞̗̥̦͝͡͠ ̸̺̟̦̣̟̻̻̰̤̥͙̺̙̟̼̯̼͔͟͝͠a̶̸̹̱͎̭̤͖̘̦͔͖̝͈̻̙͡t̶̢҉͏̫̤̜̱͙̰̠͚̳͉͇̬̬͔ ̜͚̜̗̱̜̥̺͚̺̥͇͓͚̖̬̀s̹͚̹͎͎̪͘͟͝͠o̶͕̞͇͓̻̞̙̕͟ļ͏̳̱̫͓̠ͅv̵̸̢̢̠͎̱̳͈̺̞̠̤͍͓͙̻͞i̴̵̟̺̝̫͚̞̥͚̦͇̬̪̼̝̕n͖̰͔̘̰̻̗͇͘͘͠g̶̰̲̗̼̻̲̼͎̪̣̝͜ ̢͖̦̮͔͇̫́͡ͅń̵̟̼͈̦͎͕̩̲̣͙̼̠̟̞̣̪o̷̵̥͔̰͕̘͉n͏̪̼̖̜̞̣͎̭̯̮͕̪͔̼͇̳̕͞͠-̧̛̛̺̫̬͚̬̲͜p̴͏̛͖͓̳̹͙̼̱̹̗̻r̵̹̟̣̝̭̝̪̦̰̱̠͞o͢҉̪̤̳̞̥̀ͅb̨́͡҉͎̝̰̞̩͕͎̗ͅl̷̶͇͓͙̤̺̞͢͞ͅͅe̛͈̮͎̞̪͉̳͈̼̞̲̬͍͓̩̩̤̯͡͠͠ͅm̶̫̣̙̗̕s̡͚͓̹̝͍̭̮̳̫͈̝̣̟̀͝͝ ̴̛͖̲̝̥̬̲͉̫̮̠̠̦̰̞̫͓͎͢͠f̡̢̲̻̹̳̟̠͔̭̬̘̣͓͎̣͉̬ò͢͏̥͓͚̥̰̰̠͍͖̠̭̩͇͍͍͔̫́ͅr̴͇͈͈̠͖͇͔̮̣̦̞͉̗̠͢ ͓̟̮͙̤̖̪͇̪͢͞ḿ̸̛̜̭̦̠͙͙̟͓͎̙̬̗͓̼̘͔i̶̷̤̩͕͍̼̻̲̞͓̹̭d͕͔̯̤͙̙͟d̸̗̬͓͈͙͎̬͝l͜҉̛̟͓̮̞̻̝̜̘̲͍e̶̩̻̥̹̪̰͝ ͏̻͕͍͈̯̤̝̟̝͎̙̖̘̜̭͇͙a̡̛̲̩͚̻̤̦̫̖̱͔͉̥̗ͅn͢҉̝̟͔̫̬̮̘̟̜͚͉̯̖̦̗͉͚͇̺̀͟d̥̤̣̺͙̺͍͍̙̺͟ ̷̨̢̫͎͈̬̜̕ù̴̧̠̗̤͍̙̞̩̠̻̞̀ͅp̢̧̨͉̤͎̘̮̗͚͎̦̞̝̬͢ͅͅṕ̵̨̺̖͕̪̼̙͚̪̺̝̺͢͝e̛̖̝̮̙̣̮͞r̮͖̤͔͉͓͉̞̩̤̙̱̪͔͈̫̺̞͞-̟̺̭̀̕͘͜m̴͝͏̲͓̰̬̬̰̼̜ì҉̩̠̮̮̥̳͇̮͇̩̦͉̼̤͖̻͖d̵̡̬͍̯̞̳͎̲͙̭̫̜͙̞͇̟̻̱̀̀͠ͅḑ̵̲͎͕͉͖̲̣̤̟̠̙͚̯͕̱͟l҉̸̷̨̬̖͖̗͓͈̟̟͈e̷͘͏̳̻̮͍͙̘̱̹͚̜̝ ̜̜̪̼̙͖͚̜̜̫̝̫͉̮͉̮͘͠͝͠
Decade 9y ago
The common complaint among the politicians is that tech companies are skinflint. The bad laws are maintained (Marin County just exempted itself from dense housing laws for the next 10 years[0]) because the people who care about urbanism are not the people who give the many local campaign donations. One major problem is, until recently, there has been no noticeable movement in local government[1] to create good urban policies. I suggest joining the YIMBY Party.[2] [0] http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Marin-bill-SB106-shows-how-housing-crisis-was-11243458.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Marin-bill-SB106-... [1] http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/07/07/housing-crisis-shortage-no-fix-000472 http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/07/07/housing-cris... [2] http://www.sfyimby.org http://www.sfyimby.org
- fiter 9y ago
  I think Marin County is an example of self-sorting. People who want to live there do want to live in suburban developments. I don't think a YIMBY Party would have as good of a chance of capturing much of the vote. (Additionally, the streets are not built on a grid and there is poor public transit investment.) I think we have plenty of areas we can densify in San Francisco and the East Bay which would want it with sufficient promotion of the YIMBY Party.
- Zarath 9y ago
  Why is that a bad law? Not everyone wants to live in a concrete jungle. Nature is good for your health.
  - panic 9y ago
    Yes, that's why there's a distinction made between "suburban" and "metropolitan" areas.
  - nerfhammer 9y ago
    > concrete jungle This is the sort of hyperbole that blocks reasonable policies
    - 9y ago
francisofascii 9y ago
I fear America's car dependent infrastructure will be its greatest folly. It is disappointing. If Silicon Valley can't get this right, what chance the does the rest of America have?
- Decade 9y ago
  I think the great success of Silicon Valley was that government didn’t know how to regulate it, so by default was pretty hands-off. Except for promoting the welfare of laborers in general, like how non-compete clauses are illegal. Governments have been regulating the built environment with zoning for 100 years, so that part is not as successful.
Smaug123 9y ago
I think the title is a bit more clickbaity than HN really deserves. Perhaps "Isolated Campuses: One Thing Silicon Valley Can't Seem to Fix"?
pg_bot 9y ago
There is no guarantee that Silicon Valley will be the center of tech innovation in America forever. There are a couple of economic trends that put California at a disadvantage in the near future. 1.) You can build a great product with fewer Engineers than ever before. A single highly skilled engineer can run a company that reaches millions of customers. 2.) California's Prop 13[0] hinders new entrants to California by so much that it becomes uneconomical for new talent to locate there. 3.) You need less capital to run an online business than 5-10 years ago. If you know how to manage your own servers it is pretty cheap to run a website. (even with high availability constraints) 4.) Open source software and online education have improved greatly in the last 5 years. Anyone can truly learn anything given time and motivation. I think it is highly likely that newer successful technology companies become more evenly distributed across the country due to these factors. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  Devils advocate time :) 1) This leads to increased competition like the one we have seen with multiple companies competing in the same growing market. The one(s) with venture backing can often muscle out companies with a more compelling product, which will maintain the importance of being proximal to capital (i.e. SV). An example of this is Balanced Payments vs Stripe, imo. 2) My parents moved to SV in the 70's and were shocked at how expensive apartments were and how high the cost of living was (they moved from the Northeast). I had a converstation with my dad about prohibitive housing costs here in 2005. It's not readily apparent to me if things really will ever come to a true breaking point. (also population dynamics wise, many baby boomers are going to perish within the next 20 years) 3) Related to #1, when many teams can build competing products for cheap, what will separate them will frequently be their sales and marketing muscle. This in turn is often backed by capital in a short-term-unsustainable manner than drives out competition. 4) Building is often the easy part, other than the small number of truly exceptional viral consumer products. Having written all this, I don't really disagree with any of your points, though I think that you exhibit egalitarian idealism often found in hacker types :)
Animats 9y ago
Why are cars a problem? The US hit "peak car" a few years ago. The US population is leveling off. Millennials aren't buying cars in a big way. Electric cars are gaining market share and dropping in price. Self-driving cars are getting close. The US already has a mostly adequate highway system. What's broken?
- throwanem 9y ago
  Our highway system might reasonably be considered less "mostly adequate" and more "grossly hypertrophic". I don't think it is at all unreasonable to want to see us move away from the consequences of the cars-first-at-all-costs culture we've had for a few generations now. Much land of value will find more worthy use in so doing, and much less precious human life be wasted.
- Decade 9y ago
  The “peak car” was a temporary dip associated with the Great Recession and crippling student loan payments. Since the recovery, once they get a good job, almost every millennial I know has a car. Even my brother, who advocates for dense car-free communities, owns and uses a car. It has become a real pain, here where there aren’t enough parking spaces for all those cars. Electric cars don’t eliminate the central maladies of private car ownership. Self-driving cars are an excuse to justify maintaining unhealthy built environments, and like the Hyperloop I don’t trust in it until it is actually usable. The highway system is clogged and cannot be expanded in the destinations where people need to go. There are many things that are broken. http://www.autonews.com/article/20170227/RETAIL/302279963/the-millennials-are-coming http://www.autonews.com/article/20170227/RETAIL/302279963/th... https://www.citylab.com/life/2011/10/suburban-sprawl-ponzi-scheme/242/ https://www.citylab.com/life/2011/10/suburban-sprawl-ponzi-s...
conorcleary 9y ago
Guys... Bell Labs is designed to look like a football. Not a mystery, nor should it be part of this article as 'weird'.
njarboe 9y ago
"In 2015, for example, the amount of time San Franciscans spent commuting amounted to more than $5.3 million in lost productivity, a 55 percent increase over 2011." Editing, even at the New York Times, is becoming a lost art. I'm sure there are many high net worth individual San Franciscans who personally lose $5.3 million in productivity commuting each year. Even $5.3 billion would seem low to me. Clicking on the link over the "more than $5.3 million" phrase does lead one to a very beautiful report that contains the above quote, but I would not say that makes it true. Maybe we are heading to a Wikipedia like world where quoting something published makes a fact a valid reference rather than if it is true or not. Quick estimate: 400000 people * 50 weeks/year * 5 days/week * 1 hour/day * 25 dollars/hour = $2.5 billion/year
myrandomcomment 9y ago
Apple was forced by local law to have the amount of parking the campus has. Steve did not want it and did not want the ugly above ground garage. Maybe if the cities involved approved high desntiy housing and more effect public transport then things would get better. I live 50km from my office and it can take 2+ hours. On the other hand last week I started my morning meeting in Tokyo, then had a meeting in Osaka, dinner with friends in Nagoya and back to my hotel in Tokyo for bed.
- DrScump 9y ago
  Steve did not want it and did not want the ugly above ground garage. So he chose to build in the midst of a mostly residential area far from any mass transit (even bus service is minimal, with one line going up Wolfe and another along Homestead) and with one freeway that is already a parking lot during rush hours. Winning!
  - myrandomcomment 9y ago
    Right. So he should have done what? Moved the campus someplace how far from his employee base? Please let me know where in the Bay Area there is enough land for an Apple size campus and working mass transit? My last startup - we send out a survey of where everyone lived before we moved. Guess what, screwed everywhere for all locations. Ending up paying each employee for Bart/Caltrain pass. Did not cover more then 30%. The system of transit is the issue and the government and politics around it. Unless you are FB or Google that pays for private buses. That works so well for the haves vs have nots. It just makes it worse. In the USA public transit is a joke for 99% of the country and is likely not to change. We are a car nation.
    - DrScump 9y ago
      There were large, sparse commercial parcels between 101 and the Bay with light rail right there. Heck, the Sunnyvale Lockheed campus along Mathilda and Java used to employ 20,000 by itself. That's one example. At the time the spaceship site was chosen, there was a LOT of vacant commercial space along the Central/Caltrain corridor, mostly single-story on large parcels (with huge parking areas). Much is still mostly vacant -- ride Caltrain on a weekday and watch the empty lots roll by. North Santa Clara is even more sparse, with access to two freeways. A new development is being discussed for the former dump site North of Levi's stadium. But it doesn't have a Cupertino address like Jobs apparently wanted.

71 points by gk1 9y ago

Car culture forms a positive feedback loop and perpetuates itself just like many other things. Everyone has a car. So you build a lot of parking and don't worry if campus is miles away and not connected to transit. So everyone has to have a car. And so on. As long as it's the predominant style and no one minds the costs it'll go on indefinitely. From other areas of the country (Washington DC, Los Angeles) it can be really bad for a really long time...people will complain but they won't change. This being such an American cultural thing too, the pain threshold is very high. Most people take jobs despite bad commutes and inaccessibility without a car. So people are actively voting their priorities and this isn't one of them. Bad for time, money, and environment, but hey life is busy, most everyone has other fish to fry.

TillE 9y ago
Haven't a bunch of companies relocated from Silicon Valley to SF specifically because employees preferred to live in SF and not commute for hours? I think people are "voting" for that as a priority, to the extent they can.
- tachyonbeam 9y ago
  I left Silicon Valley and went back to my home country because I couldn't stand suburbia, and couldn't stand the idea of commuting from SF either. I now make 1/3 as much money, but live a comfortable lifestyle and commute to work in 25 minutes of public transit.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Some employees do. While making it totally untenable for many others. Which may be fine depending upon the demographic you're targeting.
  - santaclaus 9y ago
    > While making it totally untenable for many others. Howso?
    - khuey 9y ago
      If you want a large house, a backyard, or good public schools living in SF can be tough.
      - kylec 9y ago
        Or a car. Some people like living a car-centric lifestyle, and it's no fun in SF.
        closeparen 9y ago
        One of the things you're paying rent for is the vast amount of nature sites within a few hours' driving. Living in SF and never using a car is a huge waste, though if you go infrequently enough it can make more sense to rent as needed.
      - santaclaus 9y ago
        That is what BART is for though, yea? I have friends with nice houses and driveways and all that in Berkeley and it is only a few stops into the city.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  No, it's mainly because the best parts of Silicon Valley ran out of space. If historical norms had been followed, Palantir would have moved away from Palo Alto a long time ago.
ams6110 9y ago
The article does point out that the vast number of parking spaces at these offices is dictated by zoning requirements, and the remote locations away from transit are mostly a result of NIMBYism.
losteric 9y ago
Effective public transit can kill the auto feedback loop. The problem is BART fell into (poorly managed) maintenance-only mode for too long. Now they're trying to maintain and incrementally expand the system in disparate directions, which doesn't leverage economies of scale. Plus the bay has to deal with multiple inefficient overlapping agencies managing transit. Tech companies should be actively lobbying for pro-density/pro-transit political candidates and vocally encouraging constituent employees to campaign/vote at all levels - a high-density highly connected Bay Area would save the companies millions in salary alone. * Job density near Sunnyvale: http://imgur.com/a/C0Xl9 http://imgur.com/a/C0Xl9 (via https://www.slideshare.net/alevin/sunnyvale-peery-park-presentation https://www.slideshare.net/alevin/sunnyvale-peery-park-prese...) * Bart stations: https://www.bart.gov/stations https://www.bart.gov/stations * Hypothetical "BART 2050" map: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*f5wofXsD8WNqPOZSUPjXFg.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*f5wofXsD8WNqPOZSU... (proposed, planned, and under-construction projects via https://futuretravel.today/bay-area-2050-the-bart-metro-map-ab83b22d3d8b https://futuretravel.today/bay-area-2050-the-bart-metro-map-... - good read) 2050 is an unacceptably long timeline - especially if the biggest issues are purely politics and bureaucracy. The engineering side is not a bottleneck and the political system can be fixed if we just helped the existing pro-density/pro-transit groups get elected.
- kspaans 9y ago
  And hopefully they will finally finish those empty apartment buildings in Downtown Sunnyvale soon. http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/13/sunnyvale-downtown-to-finally-resume-construction/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/13/sunnyvale-downtown-to-...
- dnautics 9y ago
  Part of the problem is that pro-transit usually is synonymous with "pro-transit subsidy". That's not a sustainable system. With expensive prices on systems like the BART, even this subsidy is going disproportionately to certain tax brackets and not others. There are certainly for profit public transit operators with higher uptime, higher QOS, better safety record, and dramatically lower prices, one wonders what the hell is wrong with BART.
oddthink 9y ago
But even in the US, there are other options. I'm in the Google NYC office, which occupies most of a building that's a full city block and 15 stories high (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111_Eighth_Avenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111_Eighth_Avenue) and that sits on top of a major subway station. We also have floors in a few of the neighboring buildings (Chelsea Market, etc.). It seems to work really well. The density means that it's not that physically far to go to meet with another team, and that you hear what's going on with completely unrelated divisions. I'm a little surprised that Silicon Valley overall has stuck with these relatively low-rise, sprawling campuses.
- closeparen 9y ago
  Manhattan is the one place in the US where urbanism is allowed, and even then, there's a pretty strong instinct towards preserving the parts of it built at lower density. Building Manhattan-like environments even a few miles over in Brooklyn is vehemently opposed, though not very successfully.
  - dionidium 9y ago
    San Francisco would have 1.6 million people at Brooklyn's density. Fears of Manhattanization are a distraction. What San Francisco needs are vast tracts of 5 and 6-story apartment buildings where single-family homes now sit.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      Most of San Francisco's single family homes are further from the city (in public transit minutes) than Oakland and Berkeley. The public transit service from single family homes to downtown is already overcrowded and way too frequent (there is an extreme congestion problem among buses and trains themselves, before considering private cars). I'm skeptical that Muni could even maintain current levels of crowding with so many more riders. I'm certain that Muni service to these areas would not get any faster. So the result of this would be to have vast numbers of people wasting vast amounts of time. We're much more likely to get a livable city with a few dozen to a few hundred skyscrapers in and around each downtown (SF, Oakland, etc). People living in them could walk or bike to work reasonably quickly. Vast tracts of 5-6 story buildings would only work if we could blanket them in subway coverage, and even BRT is pushing the upper limit of our capabilities as a human civilization these days.
rsj_hn 9y ago
That's a pretty misanthropic, and frankly, uninformed view. People know their interests. The tradeoff is transportation versus land. You want to stop paying rent, but can't afford to buy your own place so you decide to buy farther out and spend more time traveling. We got a middle class in this country due to the Automobile and the suburbs, which let people get out from under the thumb of the landlord and buy their own land. Cars -- and transportation more generally -- is a produced good. Land is not a produced good. For all the complaints about sprawl, an economy in which we substitute produced goods for non-produced goods that are inherited from wealthy families is a better economy. Now you can argue that we should be using more electric vehicles, or fixed track vehicles, and all of that is worthy of discussion. But you cannot argue against sprawl. We continue to spread out as a society so that each person buys their own plot of land instead of paying endless rent to the landlords who monopolize the land in the city center. We continue to try to improve transportation and communication so that those who own key locations cannot extract the same rents from us as they used to. This is a virtuous feedback loop, and those wanting everyone to live as renters in large urban centers don't understand that this creates a permanent rentier class of landlords with unlimited power of taxation, and a permanent underclass of tenants who don't get to keep the gains of their increasing productivity. That's how you get serfs. That's why landlords have always opposed transportation innovation, whether it be opposition to the creation/subsidy of roads or of rail. It is also why we have a history of diffusion. The built up areas of cities house fewer people per square meter of land than they did 100 years ago, and there it's also fewer than 100 years before that, etc. Sprawl has been happening since Roman Times, and landlords have been screaming against it for all of history.
- losteric 9y ago
  How do condos fit into your model of what "we" want?
  - rsj_hn 9y ago
    Condos are great, but not really relevant in the big scheme of things. They may be relevant in the future, but so far, the technological gains in the area of building construction have lagged the technological gains in the area of transportation and communication. Alternately, you can ask why does density keep declining even though we have the technology to build taller buildings? E.g. the skyline keeps going up but people/square meter in built up areas keep declining? Why is that? One reason is that building up is really inefficient. It costs a lot more in terms of $/sqft as you add another story, and those extra $ have to paid by the lower stories as well. They aren't just paid by the top floors. So even though tall buildings tend to capture our imagination, we don't really build a lot of tall buildings as a percentage of all buildings built. It's too expensive. Another reason is that space per person keeps increasing. We like to build our houses about 6% bigger each year. That number dwarfs any gains in density from taller buildings. E.g. in the past, you'd have 400 people living in a 4 story building and now you have 300 people living in an 8 story building. The building has gotten taller but density has decreased and the need for spreading out hasn't changed.
Tiktaalik 9y ago
Yep! It's the cycle of auto dependency. Shown in this diagram: http://imgur.com/a/beqcY http://imgur.com/a/beqcY Tough to break out of without a serious investments in transportation alternatives such as bike lanes and public transit.
- Spivak 9y ago
  I really don't know why everyone thinks that the way to break out of the car cycle is transportation alternatives. If your city was planned around cars then everything else is going to be inferior. Public transit is costs more in time than a car does in gas and you have to plan your schedule around when they run and where they go. Bikes are only good over short distances but those aren't representative of common trips in a car oriented city -- many destinations are 25 minutes away by car which is not feasible to reach by bike. If you want people to give up their cars then you have to plan dense. All day-to-day needs need to be within walking distance and tight regulation to prevent incumbent owners from taking advantage of citizens with fewer options. Weekly needs need to be within biking distance and small electric vehicles need to be made available for the elderly, disabled, tired, or lazy to get to them on their schedule. Rare needs need to be available remotely, by delivery, or reachable by public transportation for the patient or hired car for the impatient.

WalterBright 9y ago

The way to build a new business complex (like the saucer) is to build apartment towers next to it. Or a transit station next to it. Otherwise, the traffic going to the saucer will be tremendous. Long ago when I worked at Boeing, so many people would leave at the same time that it would take 15 minutes just to exit the parking lot. This was despite Boeing staggering the shift ends to alleviate it. People would run to their cars in a desperate attempt to get ahead of the wave.

nightski 9y ago
Ok that sounds awful (running to your car to beat the traffic). However, so does living in an apartment on the corporate campus.
- Inconel 9y ago
  I always try to live as close to work as possible so living in an apartment on a corporate campus actually sounds pretty appealing to me but can you expand on why you think it sounds awful? I'm not dismissing your view, I just want to know if there are negatives about it that I haven't considered.
  - nightski 9y ago
    Because if I worked for say Apple and lived on the Apple campus I would feel like my life revolved around Apple. There is more to life than work, and I feel like having your own home away from work is a part of that.
  - halfjoking 9y ago
    My coworkers might gossip about the number of prostitutes I hire to visit my apartment. I would have to explain at the water cooler that I only hire the prostitutes to indulge strange sexual fetishes and I won't be spreading STDs because you can't get STDs from the strange things I do.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

skybrian 9y ago

Perhaps from a large company's point of view, parking lots are land held in reserve that they could build on later? (Building parking garages if needed.)

intopieces 9y ago
If they own the land, what prevents them from just putting trees there instead of a parking lot? Surely the cities don't forbid trees.
- skybrian 9y ago
  They often require parking spaces, though.

valuearb 9y ago

Cars are freedom. Build more freeways, and use tolls to pay for them.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> Cars are freedom I've never understood this. How is being locked into an oft debt-financed mass-manufactured vehicle, whose maintenance is dependant on parts manufacturers and the petrochemical industry, and whose use gives police the right to pull you over for anything, an icon of freedom?
- closeparen 9y ago
  Cars are freedom, not self-reliance. They represent the pinnacle of a vast international ecosystem of design, engineering, resource extraction, labor, finance, etc. No doubt about that. They represent two of the most important accomplishments of human civilization: decoupling of transportation from physical exertion, and decoupling of human comfort from the weather. As an "engineer," it gives me the warm-fuzzies just thinking about that, in the same way it does that we put a man on the moon. "Cars are freedom" has little to do with their use in commuting to work, though that's probably the vast majority of their actual use. There's some cognitive dissonance here: the gridlocked commute to the 9-5 at the cube farm could not be more strongly opposed to the "cars are freedom" symbolism. It's the fact that you can go anywhere, not just where your body's own power will take you, not just where central planners have seen fit to draw routes. It's the fact that you can do so at any time, not just when central planners see fit to schedule service, during the hours they think people ought to be out and about, or with enough advance notice to get an affordable ticket (i.e. air travel). It's about the weekend jaunt to national park across the state, the cross country road trip, or even the more mundane grocery run after work, the spontaneity of it, not having to plan or spend massive amounts of physical exertion. Sure, you can get that with a walkable neighborhood too, but it's always going to be more limited.
- dxhdr 9y ago
  > locked into an oft debt-financed mass-manufactured vehicle You can buy a used vehicle for a few thousand dollars. > whose maintenance is dependant on parts manufacturers and the petrochemical industry No different than maintenance of any other consumer good. > whose use gives police the right to pull you over for anything Police can already stop you for any reason. What cars give you is the ability to go anywhere, at any time, on your own schedule, without consulting with anyone or anything. Might not be your definition of freedom but surely it's understandable.

intopieces 9y ago

Zoning laws need to reverse. They need to mandate a maximum number of parking spaces be 60% of head count in 2020, then reduce 5% every 5 years until the maximum is 40% of headcount. I really don't see any other way. You just have to force it.

35bge57dtjku 9y ago
Best company perk ever: you get to take public transportation because despite being the size of many large shopping malls combined and being located in suburbia, we made few enough parking spots that you'll never get to park here.
closeparen 9y ago
A suburban office with insufficient parking sounds like a great talent repellant. I pity the poor souls who would have to work there (taking shitty bus service or cycling unreasonable distances), but no vaguely competent software engineer would be among them.
- intopieces 9y ago
  A business that fails to innovate goes out of business. These kind of zoning restrictions would hit all the businesses equally, and force them to improve their work from home policies (isn't that what software engineers want anyway?) and establish more organized/efficient ride sharing. Besides, the new zoning restrictions would only apply to new campuses being built. And we already have cities like Palo Alto debating whether they even want more jobs in their city, and rightfully so. There are other places to build your campus. Silicon Valley needs housing, not offices.

xj9 9y ago

a̵̡̭̮̤̹̹͔̣̝͎͠͞͝ͅn̛̘̪̬̦̯̫͉̫͚̠̳̗͚̩͚̲͘͟y͡͠͏̸̪̖̘͔̻̯̲̞̞͍̳͓́ͅt̡̛̯̗͎͕͓̳̘͡ͅh̢̞̝̳̪͕̖̦̬̰̀͢͢i̴͘҉͇̟̫̼̞̲̥͡ͅņ̸҉̧̩̦̦͈̥̜̹̩͖̺͚̲̖̰̺͟ǵ̷̛͎̱̞̮̭͎̘͠?͡͏̞͇̯̘͚̖̲̣̭̤͚̖̞͙ ̦͎͈͔̜̤͈͎͚̣̩̲̬̪̕͢c̱͍̺̠̹̝̪̥̻̥̪̻̺͇͜͞͠ͅͅl̶̖̝͈̙͎̻̬̲̭͖̜̜̲̳͍͉͜͝a͎̞͔̲͞s̨̫͇̹̺̭̮͘͜͠s̶̴̝̙̘͉͔ ̸̡͔̫̹̦͍͟p҉̧̛̩̱̘̬͙̟͙͈̭̻̦̘̲̫͔́ę̹̳̳̗͚̘̲͕͓͢͜o͞͏̢͕̟̞͔̻̪͔̬̩̹̠̤͎̺̝̙͉͝ͅp̶̵͙̰͕̝̘̹͉̪͕̯̘͠ͅl̛͟͠҉̷̻͖̰͉̳̠̹͇̣̘̥͎̤̱̙e̸̡̞̳͖͇̠͚̮̜͜ ̡̘̣̳̟̱̩̞̞ͅa͞҉̨̼̝͚̹̟̭̯̯͓̀ṉ̶̵̼̣̬̺͙̦͍͕͇͘͜d̡̢͏̗͎̗̲̞̙̗̘̗̼ ̴̶̖̗͕͇̼̦̬͢͟͜m͞͝͏̟͚͍̝̥̱̩̣̱̰͕̬͎̲̲͈͖à͍̣̱̲̰̭̝̫̱̟͟k̨̧̞̘̦̲͙̥̹̀̕i̟͍̙̦̜̠̝͜͠͠n͈̣̻̹̕͢͟g̶̩̳͖͕̲̦̲͚͖͈̰̤̻̳ ̨̖͕̟͔̰̰̰̕͠u̷̡̞̣̱̼̲͇̠͕͕͚͇͔̹̰̘͙͝ṕ̴̴̬̩̭͘p̴̴͙̻̫̘͞͠e̹̯̯̺̳̟̮̜̖͈̯͕͍̖͟͜͞r̮̥̦͕̰̕͟ ̶̷̴̛̦͔̺̝̯̜̻̹̪͍̹̱͉͎̕c̴̙̯̹̜̣͍̠̰̮̟͇͟͜͠ͅl̢̀͘͏͏̘̫̺̤̜̟̺̹̯ą̬̗̝͉̮̗̝̜̗̞̩̩͖͘s̠͖̘̤̥͇̪̠͇̠̙̙̞͚̼̦̟̀͘͝͡ͅs̩͙̞͕̝̙̗̠̬̰͓̟͕̬͞͞ ̛̲̪̤̺̱͖͉͙̬̺̕͡͠p̭̘͖͔̹̳͎̕͡e̴͎͕̝͙͖̳͟͟͝o̹̫͍̟̱̩͕͟͡͡p̴҉̡̟̥͙͕̠͙͚̤̖̜͎̱̳̬ļ̛̥̻͍̭͜e̱̤̫͎͈͎̰͜͝͞ͅ ̣̹̰͈̖̲̭̗̣̫͙̯̞́͡r̶̵̞͉̟̥͕̞̯͉͇̀͘i̷̡̘̯̪̺̩̣͈͙ͅc͙̘̺̟̲̖̝̬̮͉͚̙̘̻͜͡h̵͚̗̫͕̩̱̞̹̫̥̪̳̘͞e̵͖̻̻̞̼̗̱̣͜r̡͈͚̣̯̱̦̼̗̪͓ ̮̲̼̯̯̥͚̠́t̵͙̦̞͖̭̦͖̳͈̣̻̫͜͢͞͡h̵̵̢̙̰͙̦̀͟e̸̴̶̠͔̯̪̱̤̹̪̟͟͝ͅ ̢́͏̤̜̦̭̱̼͇̙͉̗͕̬̙͎͕͝w̸͈͇̺̯̘͈̳͕̮̫͇̞̦͎̬̦̬̺͝o̢͍̟̲̖̫̙̱̱̻̝͓͙͢r̝̘̭͖͎̦͓̞̖͚̪̀̀l̨̘͙̻͡d̶̝͙̗̟̝͇̘͚̮̺̬̟̤̝ͅ ̷͖̳͓̥̤̻͓͙̰̝̠̣͟͠ͅẃ̧̹̫̖̩̳̳̹̥͖̰̣̭̹̗̗̼̠̣͜͞͝ợ̻̖̩̼͜u̴̧̳̲͕͉̕ḽ̵̢̻͓͓̼͎̦̣̬̩̦̗͎͔̤͓̞͢͝ͅd̺̖̩̩͚͎͈̻͉̻̻̬̫̘͓̖͉͘͜͟ͅ ̸̸̰̥̼̰̫͔̱͕̟̖͖̮͈b̧̢͓̹̫̻̩̹̱̦̮̘̜͈̕͢e̶҉̴̤̤͓͇̤͙̩̲̻͖̹̹͞ͅͅ ̷҉̱̤̝̙̕͜͠b̴̷̴̹͕̦͉̗͘͟e̴̛̤͖͍̜̞̭͟͢͜ͅt̴̴̟͖̳͖̠̪̗̱ͅt̞̩̘̥͚͕̮͓͈̥͚̯̦́̀͟ͅe̕͞҉̮̞͚̗̖̯͙͇̞̫͙̳r̢̛̰͚̮͉̤͈͢ ̶̡̺̥͖̫͉̣͔̩͓͎̪̺̙̯̝̥͜o͏͚͚̟́͘ͅf̼̰̲̦̳̹̻̯͚͘͢͜͢f̶̷̵͎̻͔̫̩̝͉ ̶̡̢̱͇̯̺̠͎̮̮͙̳̩̼̤͙̤̖͇̙́͡ͅw̻͕̹̘̪͟͠ͅ/̸͟҉̹͇͍͔̱̙̖̠̦͚̘̮̪̥̖̙̣o̧̗̩̱̭̪͕̗̮̭̭̘̠͔͟ ̸̟̟̩͇̦̥̩̀͜͞t̢̼̰͈̳̺̘͓̰̙̟̹́͢b̸̨͔̳̱̫̮̬̜̪́q͟͡͏͍͓͇͙̤͚̳͎͡h̷͎͉̦̪̥̖̩̣̯̤͈̜ ̧̛͜͝͏̼̠̯͈̮̪͔͔̰̱̻̝̰͍͙w̗̯͚͙̪̪̖̖̖̮͕̣̭̘̙̝͢i̴̘̪̦̘̕ͅk͏̛͎̰̪̗͓͖͕̣̻̮̗̱̯̫̙͉̺͎̀͞ͅi̕҉̟͙̝͔̬͖̭̦̲͍̠̪̩̺̰p̶̻̱͖͔͖̱͍͓̀e̷̡̺̜͕̳̟͙̮̜̕͢ḑ͕̻̣̘̼̩̳̝̪͟͢͠ì͚͚̜͖̯̹͚͉͉͘a̷̴̺͇͇̫̥͔̪̥͚͖̳̜̺̦̕͡͠ ̢̛̪͈̦̩̲̖̙̫̲̕͜͞ì̷̙͚͕̮̰͍͖̮̜͢s̵̭̣̭͕̙̻̳̣̜͚̲̼̖͈̘̳͈͈̟̕͞ ̷̗͖̩̬̼̫͟͡ͅà̢̦͎̥̳̣̹̪̠͓ͅ ̷̙̙̼̳̞͔͜͢g̡̺̟͎̘̼̹͖͎͕̹̀o͏͎̰̯̬͓͎̗͎̤̕ǫ̴̘͔̹̹̯̜͠d̛̲͕̼̪͎͈ͅ ̨̪̦̳̤̩͕̪̦͙̣̩̜͞t̶̡̠͉̖̞̺͙͟h͜҉̧̡͉̜̪̯̳̻ͅi̢̛̙̗̰͚͙̗͓̦͙̲̗̺͘ͅṇ̷̳̣͚̥͓̝̹̮̮̙̤͓̖̫͚͙͕͝g͍͚̟͎͇̲̯͕̬̯̩̘̗͘͘͢͜,̸̵̢̠̯̦͔̮͇̲͔̯̖̕͠ ̸̧̪̬͚̦̘̭̱͈͕̘̀͜͡b̸͍̩̱̙͔̠͙̞̜̰̬̟̟́͟͞ͅu͘͝͡͏̱͖̖̳͈̗̖̫͙͈̠̖t̛̩͍̲̺͈̮͔̩̰̳͕̠̲͖̤̙͎̀̀͠ͅ ̴̛̛͕̪̳͍͇͕̻̟͇͎̘͙͖̯͈̭̺͟ͅi̶̡҉̟̭̫͎͍̪͈̘͚̻̼̜̜̭̲̱̹̣͇t̫̫̭̼̺̦̯̙͎̯̞͜͡ͅ ͏̷̢̮͙̱͙̟̭͈̻͇̖̟̀i̧҉̞̥̭͉̘̜̦͈͈͙͎͚͙̳s̛҉̦̞̼͇̘̩̫̻ ̧̟͙̗͈̹̠͝a̵̴̡̜̫̠͓͇̘͔̥͔̤̗̰͓̭̥̞̤͙ ̵̮̘̳͖̝͎̱̭̥̱͍͇̳̻̖̫̯̪̲͢͞ṉ̡̝͎̭̫̮̭͍͚̘͉̪͉͍͍͞ͅo̴̷͍͕̲̝̩̭̜̬̙̯̮̺͓̯͔̪̕͢n̴̸̘̰̹̯͙̱̬̮̫̣̜̫͈̕͟-̶̧̨̡̟̜̘̦͠p̺̞͎̻͖̯͍̘̼͉̥̙͖͙̟͉͍͢ṟ̶̝̺̤͖̟͖̀o̶̥̫̰͖̤̹͖̪͇̩̟̪͉̬͡ͅf҉̧̧͎̙͕̭͔̠͚͕́̕ͅͅi͏̭̤̟̦̩̣̫̹͖͝t̸̸̯̜͇̲̀,̧̼̗̫̺͔̹̱̬̦̼̲̻͕̟́͢ ̵̕͢͠҉͚̩̟͉̩̲̮̹͕̙̥̰n҉̶̨̩̹̩̬͓̰̱̠̠̞͉̰͉̟͓̠͞ó̶̺̩͈̺͖̤̯͇͖͍̺̗̻̟̘͜t̴̵̮̯̘̻̲̩̤̣ ̨̧͕̜̖̦á̶͖̪̗̖̰͡ ͏͙̦͇̩̼̭̠̦͔̩͎̀͜s̱͉̘̲͔̩̦̩̕̕͜͝ų̸͇̥̦̮͙͢͡p҉̵̢̝̲̹̩͖̖̙̻̘͙͉̖̣̙͢ȩ̵̹̖͕͍̖͖͕̟̳̖̤͖͉͓͔͔ͅͅr̸̢̟̣̞̯͍̞͕̼̜͉͙̱̭͠-̨̡̞͓̜͔͚͈̝̻̖̰̳̼͉͖p̷̨̰̠̳͖̟͙̗̫̟̼̬̫͈͕̼̙r̴̨͓͎̺̯̀͠ó̦̝̲̬͙̤͍͢͜͞f̵̩̩̯̫̞͖͇̜͚̬̕͡i͘͠͠҉͇̙̳̰̞̫̩̞̞̜̭͇̪̠t̴̺̻͎̜̬̙̗̕à͢҉̝͙̫͓̹̰̤͉͙̜̱̠͔͖̯̜̜̹̀̀b̸̨̩͍̤̹͉̖͍̹̜̣̤̘̼̭̮͟͠l̶̡̯̰͚̙̥̭͎̹̠̳͍̪͘e̵̸̞̻͍̰̰͍̰̹͖͉͙͜͠ ̵̶̶̞̣̣s̸̷̡̢̝͇̥̫̟̱̫̻͙̥̘̙̣̕t̷̛̲̦̼̞̪͔͚̫̩͚́̕a̢̡̞̺̱̻̣̥̱̲͇̗̣̜͉͘͡r̸̶̨̰̩̣̫̜̫̣͓̤̻͕̰͇̜̼̞̭̕͠ͅţ̵̷̟͚̮͖͇̮͎͍̝͉͟͜u͏̤͓͓̱̗͘̕͞ͅp̸̛̀͏̫͔̖̜͍̥͙̰͇͉̭͕̤̟͖ ̧̭̠͇̼̺̖̝̱̜̫̯̹͟͡ṿ̶̵̶̤̪̪̘̹̞̹͘͜į̗̲͙͚͕r̶҉̧͇̱̝̰̲́͞t̨͚̬̫̣̠͚̟̥̘̘̰̫͚̪̩̕ͅͅú̢̠̩͍͇̰̻̙͚̜̤̹a̷̫̲͇͚̻͕̭͎͉̥̼̖̳͜͢͞l̶҉̷͙̻͈͙͈̯͍͝ ̶̶̝̘͖̱͙̙̲̻͘͜͟d̷̰͍̲̜͜͞͞r̶̸̫̖̥̠̘̪̺̻͞u̡͏̨̘͈͚̼͉͔͇́̕ͅg̵̶̛̦̜̰̟̟͍͇͇͜͝ ̱̯̱̘̣̙̞̦̱͍̩̟̲́͞ͅs̴̲͕̣̞̗̺̦̳͜͡͡͝p̵̷̹̣͖̤̤͙̟̯̙͇̰̪̰̩̞͝à̫̤͕͖̲̪̰̼̰͙c͏̬͖̘͇̗̹̭̱̱̥̹̣͉̪͙̠͝ͅè͙̩̠͕̜͕̹͍͓̹̠̲̻̣̯̖͍͔͉͞x̡̡̙̥͙̦͔͉̙̺͚̖͚͇͖̥̣͢ͅ/̢̥̳̜̞̞͙͚͓̟̬̼́t̛͇̮̩̲̙̥͍̕͢͟͞ȩ̨̭̳̜͎͈̣̲̝͕̙̀͟s̵̶͎͍̜͚͇͎̯̝̝̫̯͔̖̰̀ͅl̵̛̜̮̜͕̬̦̣̥̱̜̠̤̯̰͇̺̞͔̙á̛͢͏͖̭̼̺̹̻̩̪͙͙̗͎ ͖̠̜͖͓̖͚͟͡Ḿ͠͏̴̺̘̼̝̠̱̺̟̤͍̞̱̀À̵͈̩̮͎̺͕̲̘̖̖̕͞ͅY̵̸͈̟̯͉͡B̴͔͍͔̺̬͕͉̞͙̬͓̼̭̼̭͕͇͚͎͠Ę̛̼̫̥͙̟͓̣̗̯̦͕̱̬̥̤̀͟ ̧̤̝͓̠̬̻͓̘͘b̢̛̬̟̞͎̺̘̠̙͕͎̖͕̜͝ͅù̸̷̴̬̣̩͎̯͢t̴̼̣̗̟̳̬̫̦̪̀ ̷̭̖̟̼͚͓̩̥͖̜̟͓̻́͟f̷̭̝̣̘̬̱̹̟͎͔̞̰̯͔̞ͅa̤̖̦̼̖̜̰͎̼̝̼̤̻̗̻̘͜͢ͅç̷͔̺͉̟̭͚͉̺̗̦̯̫͢e̡̡̨̟̯͕͔̲̬͍̰̖̪̩͍̯̺͈͜b͢͟͏̱̟̠͓͉̱͝ờ̵̛͎̫͍͎͈̪̹̟͈͙̘͉̤͚̹̜̬͠ͅo̷̶̹̦͔̘͍̟͕̲̯̘̪̣͘k̴̡̻̜̬̜̭͙͝͞ͅ,̷̧̩̤͕͚̬̲͍̙̭͕̬̰̯̹ ̡̡̠̞̜̤̱͓͉̺̟̜͘f̧͚̫͕̥͔͔͖̠͖̗̱͢͞͡a̡̢͢҉̣͉̩̦͖͉̪c̵͇̘̣̪͍̩̳̹̮͎̕͠͞e҉̷̗̬̜͇̺͠b̷̴̨̛̲̞̤̬̯̤͍̱͉́ò̧̻͎͚̤̀͝o͏҉҉̨̙̣̖̠̺͚̱́k̡͚̦̥̠̮̮̝͎̳͚͕̘̯͓̪͎̕ͅ ̴̢̢̪͓͖̳͍͢i̠̬̝͖̫͖̙̠̰̦̫͞ͅs̶̶̢̤̳͓͔͍̯̮͢͜ ̭̻̲͇͓̪̗̹̟̗͟͜͠͞a̰̭̜̮̲̭̺̖͇̫͎͚̩̟̦̝̹͉͉̕͞ ̸̴̼̼͉̤̻͕̜̩͚̩̞͍͍͚͚̦̪̮̖͡͝ş̴̜̦̼̞͔̩̯̖̮̩̘͎͜͝͝h̴̵͕̙̹̯̹̞̞͜i̷̘͇͚͇̣̺͙̩̟̬̻̗͔͘͟t͇̹̬̳͕͎̕͠t͇̠̪͈̯̪͔͙̬͔̕̕͝y̸͈̰̯̼̪͜͟͜͝ ̷͜҉͎̙͍̣̬̩̼̟̦͕͍͉̱͙͓͍̰̞̕ͅ ̸̷̴̶̗̯̼̘̣͕͎̖̘͇̜s̱͚̰̖̰͙̪̻͓͓̻̳̝̀͟͠ͅi̷̵̪̩̱̻̩̲̜̺͖̹͓̩͉͙̪͘͡͝l̡͏̷̡͓͍͕͢i̧̨̳͚̜̣̣̬͇̯͜͢ͅç̷͉̗̗̰̞̰̫̩̖͘͢ǫ̸̬̭̝̜͍̱͍̜͕͎̙̻͕̱̤̳̬̠̖ņ͙̳̟͇́̀̕ ̛̞̩̝̥̮̬̻̣̲̫̜̼͜͝ͅv͏͎̣̝͚̖͇͖̺̭̻̻á̸͜͟҉̭͎͍̤l̷̨͢͏͏͍̠͕͎͍̬̯̼̯̙̹̜̠ͅl̷̺͎͙̪̫̰̞͍̹̫̗̯̯̖̟̳̙͜ę̸̗̤̟̙̫̳͕̺̭̰͕̝̗͔̰͉͘͞ͅỳ̛̟̣͔͍̪͓̠̝̮͇͟͠ ͡͏̷̹̹͔̮̱̖̪͔̯̪͓̝̻̲͎̬i̧͎͉̖̩͇͉̮̠͈̯͓͟ͅs͢͞͏̛̟͚̲̹͔̘̪̮̥́ ̧̹͎̭͓̟̖̩̩̝̜̮͓͈̻̥͈̠̠͔̀̀ŗ̶̖̱̖̠̠̲̯͚̪͕̟͎͔͇͈̩̹̞̝é̸̵̙̳̪̻͓̣̭̱͍͚̹̟͔̬̰͜͝à̴̢̧̱͖̪̩̫̮̠̯̺̗̭̥̯̮̝̩͇l̵͏̱̖̼̤̬̠̪̬̜l̴̻̥̖̟̻͎̝̥̱̙̰̻̩͈̲͟͜y̵͓͍̻͉̘͚̹͓ͅ ̴̡͠҉̴̹͔̖̬g̛̥͉͎̤̯͉͍̳̼͡o̢͏̴̟͉̹̙͈͓͙͚̝̫̰̘͙͖ͅớ̱̳͉͚͔̮̼̦̮͈̠̞̥̳͢͠͞ͅḓ̴̞̗̥̦͝͡͠ ̸̺̟̦̣̟̻̻̰̤̥͙̺̙̟̼̯̼͔͟͝͠a̶̸̹̱͎̭̤͖̘̦͔͖̝͈̻̙͡t̶̢҉͏̫̤̜̱͙̰̠͚̳͉͇̬̬͔ ̜͚̜̗̱̜̥̺͚̺̥͇͓͚̖̬̀s̹͚̹͎͎̪͘͟͝͠o̶͕̞͇͓̻̞̙̕͟ļ͏̳̱̫͓̠ͅv̵̸̢̢̠͎̱̳͈̺̞̠̤͍͓͙̻͞i̴̵̟̺̝̫͚̞̥͚̦͇̬̪̼̝̕n͖̰͔̘̰̻̗͇͘͘͠g̶̰̲̗̼̻̲̼͎̪̣̝͜ ̢͖̦̮͔͇̫́͡ͅń̵̟̼͈̦͎͕̩̲̣͙̼̠̟̞̣̪o̷̵̥͔̰͕̘͉n͏̪̼̖̜̞̣͎̭̯̮͕̪͔̼͇̳̕͞͠-̧̛̛̺̫̬͚̬̲͜p̴͏̛͖͓̳̹͙̼̱̹̗̻r̵̹̟̣̝̭̝̪̦̰̱̠͞o͢҉̪̤̳̞̥̀ͅb̨́͡҉͎̝̰̞̩͕͎̗ͅl̷̶͇͓͙̤̺̞͢͞ͅͅe̛͈̮͎̞̪͉̳͈̼̞̲̬͍͓̩̩̤̯͡͠͠ͅm̶̫̣̙̗̕s̡͚͓̹̝͍̭̮̳̫͈̝̣̟̀͝͝ ̴̛͖̲̝̥̬̲͉̫̮̠̠̦̰̞̫͓͎͢͠f̡̢̲̻̹̳̟̠͔̭̬̘̣͓͎̣͉̬ò͢͏̥͓͚̥̰̰̠͍͖̠̭̩͇͍͍͔̫́ͅr̴͇͈͈̠͖͇͔̮̣̦̞͉̗̠͢ ͓̟̮͙̤̖̪͇̪͢͞ḿ̸̛̜̭̦̠͙͙̟͓͎̙̬̗͓̼̘͔i̶̷̤̩͕͍̼̻̲̞͓̹̭d͕͔̯̤͙̙͟d̸̗̬͓͈͙͎̬͝l͜҉̛̟͓̮̞̻̝̜̘̲͍e̶̩̻̥̹̪̰͝ ͏̻͕͍͈̯̤̝̟̝͎̙̖̘̜̭͇͙a̡̛̲̩͚̻̤̦̫̖̱͔͉̥̗ͅn͢҉̝̟͔̫̬̮̘̟̜͚͉̯̖̦̗͉͚͇̺̀͟d̥̤̣̺͙̺͍͍̙̺͟ ̷̨̢̫͎͈̬̜̕ù̴̧̠̗̤͍̙̞̩̠̻̞̀ͅp̢̧̨͉̤͎̘̮̗͚͎̦̞̝̬͢ͅͅṕ̵̨̺̖͕̪̼̙͚̪̺̝̺͢͝e̛̖̝̮̙̣̮͞r̮͖̤͔͉͓͉̞̩̤̙̱̪͔͈̫̺̞͞-̟̺̭̀̕͘͜m̴͝͏̲͓̰̬̬̰̼̜ì҉̩̠̮̮̥̳͇̮͇̩̦͉̼̤͖̻͖d̵̡̬͍̯̞̳͎̲͙̭̫̜͙̞͇̟̻̱̀̀͠ͅḑ̵̲͎͕͉͖̲̣̤̟̠̙͚̯͕̱͟l҉̸̷̨̬̖͖̗͓͈̟̟͈e̷͘͏̳̻̮͍͙̘̱̹͚̜̝ ̜̜̪̼̙͖͚̜̜̫̝̫͉̮͉̮͘͠͝͠

Decade 9y ago

The common complaint among the politicians is that tech companies are skinflint. The bad laws are maintained (Marin County just exempted itself from dense housing laws for the next 10 years[0]) because the people who care about urbanism are not the people who give the many local campaign donations. One major problem is, until recently, there has been no noticeable movement in local government[1] to create good urban policies. I suggest joining the YIMBY Party.[2] [0] http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Marin-bill-SB106-shows-how-housing-crisis-was-11243458.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Marin-bill-SB106-... [1] http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/07/07/housing-crisis-shortage-no-fix-000472 http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/07/07/housing-cris... [2] http://www.sfyimby.org http://www.sfyimby.org

fiter 9y ago
I think Marin County is an example of self-sorting. People who want to live there do want to live in suburban developments. I don't think a YIMBY Party would have as good of a chance of capturing much of the vote. (Additionally, the streets are not built on a grid and there is poor public transit investment.) I think we have plenty of areas we can densify in San Francisco and the East Bay which would want it with sufficient promotion of the YIMBY Party.
Zarath 9y ago
Why is that a bad law? Not everyone wants to live in a concrete jungle. Nature is good for your health.
- panic 9y ago
  Yes, that's why there's a distinction made between "suburban" and "metropolitan" areas.
- nerfhammer 9y ago
  > concrete jungle This is the sort of hyperbole that blocks reasonable policies
  - 9y ago

francisofascii 9y ago

I fear America's car dependent infrastructure will be its greatest folly. It is disappointing. If Silicon Valley can't get this right, what chance the does the rest of America have?

Decade 9y ago
I think the great success of Silicon Valley was that government didn’t know how to regulate it, so by default was pretty hands-off. Except for promoting the welfare of laborers in general, like how non-compete clauses are illegal. Governments have been regulating the built environment with zoning for 100 years, so that part is not as successful.

Smaug123 9y ago

I think the title is a bit more clickbaity than HN really deserves. Perhaps "Isolated Campuses: One Thing Silicon Valley Can't Seem to Fix"?

pg_bot 9y ago

There is no guarantee that Silicon Valley will be the center of tech innovation in America forever. There are a couple of economic trends that put California at a disadvantage in the near future. 1.) You can build a great product with fewer Engineers than ever before. A single highly skilled engineer can run a company that reaches millions of customers. 2.) California's Prop 13[0] hinders new entrants to California by so much that it becomes uneconomical for new talent to locate there. 3.) You need less capital to run an online business than 5-10 years ago. If you know how to manage your own servers it is pretty cheap to run a website. (even with high availability constraints) 4.) Open source software and online education have improved greatly in the last 5 years. Anyone can truly learn anything given time and motivation. I think it is highly likely that newer successful technology companies become more evenly distributed across the country due to these factors. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
hkmurakami 9y ago
Devils advocate time :) 1) This leads to increased competition like the one we have seen with multiple companies competing in the same growing market. The one(s) with venture backing can often muscle out companies with a more compelling product, which will maintain the importance of being proximal to capital (i.e. SV). An example of this is Balanced Payments vs Stripe, imo. 2) My parents moved to SV in the 70's and were shocked at how expensive apartments were and how high the cost of living was (they moved from the Northeast). I had a converstation with my dad about prohibitive housing costs here in 2005. It's not readily apparent to me if things really will ever come to a true breaking point. (also population dynamics wise, many baby boomers are going to perish within the next 20 years) 3) Related to #1, when many teams can build competing products for cheap, what will separate them will frequently be their sales and marketing muscle. This in turn is often backed by capital in a short-term-unsustainable manner than drives out competition. 4) Building is often the easy part, other than the small number of truly exceptional viral consumer products. Having written all this, I don't really disagree with any of your points, though I think that you exhibit egalitarian idealism often found in hacker types :)

Animats 9y ago

Why are cars a problem? The US hit "peak car" a few years ago. The US population is leveling off. Millennials aren't buying cars in a big way. Electric cars are gaining market share and dropping in price. Self-driving cars are getting close. The US already has a mostly adequate highway system. What's broken?

throwanem 9y ago
Our highway system might reasonably be considered less "mostly adequate" and more "grossly hypertrophic". I don't think it is at all unreasonable to want to see us move away from the consequences of the cars-first-at-all-costs culture we've had for a few generations now. Much land of value will find more worthy use in so doing, and much less precious human life be wasted.
Decade 9y ago
The “peak car” was a temporary dip associated with the Great Recession and crippling student loan payments. Since the recovery, once they get a good job, almost every millennial I know has a car. Even my brother, who advocates for dense car-free communities, owns and uses a car. It has become a real pain, here where there aren’t enough parking spaces for all those cars. Electric cars don’t eliminate the central maladies of private car ownership. Self-driving cars are an excuse to justify maintaining unhealthy built environments, and like the Hyperloop I don’t trust in it until it is actually usable. The highway system is clogged and cannot be expanded in the destinations where people need to go. There are many things that are broken. http://www.autonews.com/article/20170227/RETAIL/302279963/the-millennials-are-coming http://www.autonews.com/article/20170227/RETAIL/302279963/th... https://www.citylab.com/life/2011/10/suburban-sprawl-ponzi-scheme/242/ https://www.citylab.com/life/2011/10/suburban-sprawl-ponzi-s...

conorcleary 9y ago

Guys... Bell Labs is designed to look like a football. Not a mystery, nor should it be part of this article as 'weird'.

njarboe 9y ago

"In 2015, for example, the amount of time San Franciscans spent commuting amounted to more than $5.3 million in lost productivity, a 55 percent increase over 2011." Editing, even at the New York Times, is becoming a lost art. I'm sure there are many high net worth individual San Franciscans who personally lose $5.3 million in productivity commuting each year. Even $5.3 billion would seem low to me. Clicking on the link over the "more than $5.3 million" phrase does lead one to a very beautiful report that contains the above quote, but I would not say that makes it true. Maybe we are heading to a Wikipedia like world where quoting something published makes a fact a valid reference rather than if it is true or not. Quick estimate: 400000 people * 50 weeks/year * 5 days/week * 1 hour/day * 25 dollars/hour = $2.5 billion/year

myrandomcomment 9y ago

Apple was forced by local law to have the amount of parking the campus has. Steve did not want it and did not want the ugly above ground garage. Maybe if the cities involved approved high desntiy housing and more effect public transport then things would get better. I live 50km from my office and it can take 2+ hours. On the other hand last week I started my morning meeting in Tokyo, then had a meeting in Osaka, dinner with friends in Nagoya and back to my hotel in Tokyo for bed.

DrScump 9y ago
Steve did not want it and did not want the ugly above ground garage. So he chose to build in the midst of a mostly residential area far from any mass transit (even bus service is minimal, with one line going up Wolfe and another along Homestead) and with one freeway that is already a parking lot during rush hours. Winning!
- myrandomcomment 9y ago
  Right. So he should have done what? Moved the campus someplace how far from his employee base? Please let me know where in the Bay Area there is enough land for an Apple size campus and working mass transit? My last startup - we send out a survey of where everyone lived before we moved. Guess what, screwed everywhere for all locations. Ending up paying each employee for Bart/Caltrain pass. Did not cover more then 30%. The system of transit is the issue and the government and politics around it. Unless you are FB or Google that pays for private buses. That works so well for the haves vs have nots. It just makes it worse. In the USA public transit is a joke for 99% of the country and is likely not to change. We are a car nation.
  - DrScump 9y ago
    There were large, sparse commercial parcels between 101 and the Bay with light rail right there. Heck, the Sunnyvale Lockheed campus along Mathilda and Java used to employ 20,000 by itself. That's one example. At the time the spaceship site was chosen, there was a LOT of vacant commercial space along the Central/Caltrain corridor, mostly single-story on large parcels (with huge parking areas). Much is still mostly vacant -- ride Caltrain on a weekday and watch the empty lots roll by. North Santa Clara is even more sparse, with access to two freeways. A new development is being discussed for the former dump site North of Levi's stadium. But it doesn't have a Cupertino address like Jobs apparently wanted.