6 ms·

Yes, but it creates huge economic positive impacts 1. You can live in a less expensive area, (i.e. miles away), and work in a major center. This makes both po

Yes, but it creates huge economic positive impacts 1. You can live in a less expensive area, (i.e. miles away), and work in a major center. This makes both possible of talent being able to live cheaper, and be able to work where they want (less geographical restrictions), which unlocks greater efficiency of the work place. 2. The alternative? Most people living with few tens of miles of workplaces, prices of living raise up of these hubs, you end up with both more expensive workforce, and less flexibility, and some people just decide to leave. The only winners in this scenario are current landlords. Right now SF is experiencing scenario #2. Basically once you have super fast transportation, it relieves pressure to housing prices on the work hubs/city centers, and the values of homes where the high speed train/hyperloop/whatever stops increase to match the new accessibility. Real Scenarios: You can comfortably live in Baltimore or Philadelphia (2hrs of driving currently) and be able to work in NYC if this commute was cut to 40mins or less. It is a win win scenario, as all these cities become part of one single hub.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dalbasal 9y ago
..in theory. In practice, SF, can probably grow it's commuting catchment area (supply) by quite a lot before housing prices start to give. I would predict that you'd just end up with a bigger SF.
schiffern 9y ago
That's a very rosy view, only looking at the positive side of the coin and ignoring the negative side. >1. You can live in a less expensive area, (i.e. miles away), and work in a major center. ...causing property values to rise in the "less expensive area" to match those in the urban center minus the cost of transport. Ultimately you're gentrifying the current residents out of their homes, causing more urban sprawl, and increasing land use pressure on agricultural land and wilderness. >Basically once you have super fast transportation, it relieves pressure to housing prices on the work hubs/city centers ...shifting that pressure to surrounding rural areas. TANSTAAFL. You talk about "huge economic positive impacts," but it sounds awfully like wealth transfer from rural people (which we're apparently ignoring?) to urban people. Given the audience on HN this bias is unsurprising, but still disappointingly common.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Invictus0 9y ago
  > ...causing property values to rise in the "less expensive area" to match those in the urban center minus the cost of transport. This is a valid concern made invalid by the speed of the Hyperloop. If we estimate very conservatively that the Hyperloop can cut the average commute time 4x, then the radius that a city worker can live increases 4x. However, while the radius increases 4x, the area increases 16x (A=pi*r^2: area increases exponentially as a function of r). Thus, the rise in property values in surrounding areas would be distributed over a large area so as not to make life unsustainable for those already there.
  - IanCal 9y ago
    Quickly, that's not exponential, it's quadratic. More importantly though, it doesn't fix the travel time issue that well. It only speeds up a particular section of the journey and only between two specific points. You would need vast amounts spreading out with lots of stops to get close to a squaring.
gutnor 9y ago
Why commute ? Remote working is a thing and everything the topic comes up, something that a significant part of HN is already enjoying. No need to pour billions in public transport. Also companies have proven that they are more than willing to outsource everywhere, hiring people anywhere. There are reason they still hire in very expensive place like SF. You bet that it is a problem that will go away at some point, and very likely a significant part of HN readership is working hard solving it. You need to realise that moving commuter to the city centre is a race to the bottom. Stuff like hyperloop are a perfectly fine way to spend private investment money, but as far as public money is concerned, that would be better to invest it in area that look beyond a world where physical location is an employee primary competitive advantage.
- dalbasal 9y ago
  Well... observable trends atm is that physical location still matters. Remote work is more common, but at the same time major centres for tech industries (SF famously, but also others around the world) are pulling in more residents who are going there for work Getting people to workplaces is a thing we need in 2017, and I expect in 2027. Beyond that, who knows.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    > observable trends atm is that physical location still matters Sure, we're still in the shallow part of the disruption curve. The real world (established player) has two features that Skype/Hangouts/Slack/VR (disruptive player) can't do yet: - eye contact - a semi-conscious background channel Group video calls are confusing without eye contact. You can't really pay half attention to Slack. You read, or you don't read. But within 5 years or so you should be able to buy a $400 VR headset which lets you make eye contact with someone, and place a semi-interesting conversation between coworkers in the background behind your virtual desk. And of course the VR workplace has many benefits which will never be replicated by a real world workplace. It's a classic disruptive technology. Small market now. Will eat almost all of office space within 20 years.
- starbuxman 9y ago
pasta 9y ago
#1 most of the time isn't true because public transportation is very poor in those areas.
maxerickson 9y ago
The housing pressure from San Francisco looks like it currently extends at least as far as Gilroy to me (houses going for 1/2 million dollars). That's without it being a viable commute to the peninsula. http://www.caltrain.com/schedules/weekdaytimetable.html http://www.caltrain.com/schedules/weekdaytimetable.html
- logir 9y ago
  It's presumably a viable commute to the south bay?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

dalbasal 9y ago

..in theory. In practice, SF, can probably grow it's commuting catchment area (supply) by quite a lot before housing prices start to give. I would predict that you'd just end up with a bigger SF.

schiffern 9y ago

That's a very rosy view, only looking at the positive side of the coin and ignoring the negative side. >1. You can live in a less expensive area, (i.e. miles away), and work in a major center. ...causing property values to rise in the "less expensive area" to match those in the urban center minus the cost of transport. Ultimately you're gentrifying the current residents out of their homes, causing more urban sprawl, and increasing land use pressure on agricultural land and wilderness. >Basically once you have super fast transportation, it relieves pressure to housing prices on the work hubs/city centers ...shifting that pressure to surrounding rural areas. TANSTAAFL. You talk about "huge economic positive impacts," but it sounds awfully like wealth transfer from rural people (which we're apparently ignoring?) to urban people. Given the audience on HN this bias is unsurprising, but still disappointingly common.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Invictus0 9y ago
> ...causing property values to rise in the "less expensive area" to match those in the urban center minus the cost of transport. This is a valid concern made invalid by the speed of the Hyperloop. If we estimate very conservatively that the Hyperloop can cut the average commute time 4x, then the radius that a city worker can live increases 4x. However, while the radius increases 4x, the area increases 16x (A=pi*r^2: area increases exponentially as a function of r). Thus, the rise in property values in surrounding areas would be distributed over a large area so as not to make life unsustainable for those already there.
- IanCal 9y ago
  Quickly, that's not exponential, it's quadratic. More importantly though, it doesn't fix the travel time issue that well. It only speeds up a particular section of the journey and only between two specific points. You would need vast amounts spreading out with lots of stops to get close to a squaring.

gutnor 9y ago

Why commute ? Remote working is a thing and everything the topic comes up, something that a significant part of HN is already enjoying. No need to pour billions in public transport. Also companies have proven that they are more than willing to outsource everywhere, hiring people anywhere. There are reason they still hire in very expensive place like SF. You bet that it is a problem that will go away at some point, and very likely a significant part of HN readership is working hard solving it. You need to realise that moving commuter to the city centre is a race to the bottom. Stuff like hyperloop are a perfectly fine way to spend private investment money, but as far as public money is concerned, that would be better to invest it in area that look beyond a world where physical location is an employee primary competitive advantage.

dalbasal 9y ago
Well... observable trends atm is that physical location still matters. Remote work is more common, but at the same time major centres for tech industries (SF famously, but also others around the world) are pulling in more residents who are going there for work Getting people to workplaces is a thing we need in 2017, and I expect in 2027. Beyond that, who knows.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  > observable trends atm is that physical location still matters Sure, we're still in the shallow part of the disruption curve. The real world (established player) has two features that Skype/Hangouts/Slack/VR (disruptive player) can't do yet: - eye contact - a semi-conscious background channel Group video calls are confusing without eye contact. You can't really pay half attention to Slack. You read, or you don't read. But within 5 years or so you should be able to buy a $400 VR headset which lets you make eye contact with someone, and place a semi-interesting conversation between coworkers in the background behind your virtual desk. And of course the VR workplace has many benefits which will never be replicated by a real world workplace. It's a classic disruptive technology. Small market now. Will eat almost all of office space within 20 years.
starbuxman 9y ago

pasta 9y ago

#1 most of the time isn't true because public transportation is very poor in those areas.

maxerickson 9y ago

The housing pressure from San Francisco looks like it currently extends at least as far as Gilroy to me (houses going for 1/2 million dollars). That's without it being a viable commute to the peninsula. http://www.caltrain.com/schedules/weekdaytimetable.html http://www.caltrain.com/schedules/weekdaytimetable.html

logir 9y ago
It's presumably a viable commute to the south bay?