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I’ve made the argument before that it’s not a lack of housing we have, it’s a lack of livable communities. We have a housing glut in this country, most of it i

I’ve made the argument before that it’s not a lack of housing we have, it’s a lack of livable communities. We have a housing glut in this country, most of it is just in places that are far from jobs, services, transit, and community amenities. If we created more moderately sized, walkable, transit friendly cities this problem wouldn’t be so bad. Everyone wants to cram into SF, NY, and a handful of other places because of the access to economic opportunity and urbanist lifestyle. If they could get some measure of that elsewhere, even a not as good but okay enough version, many would gladly move and alleviate the pressure. But because of how we do our built environments these dense cities are islands of urbanism in an ocean of sprawl.

IkmoIkmo 9y ago
Agreed. I'd almost be inclined to say that SF shouldn't spend its money on SF, but on other smaller places in California. Creating SF-outposts, hubs. At the end of the day, population distribution is the issue, and the only way you can meaningfully distribute populations is by creating reasons for them to do so voluntarily. That means investing not all in one spot. You're only making these spikes bigger: http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/us-gdp-by-city-3d.jpg http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-c... Municipalities should lead the charge, but together with companies. Proximity to jobs is incredibly important. If anything, it could be good for companies too. You don't need to compensate a software engineer to the extent that he can afford >$1k per square foot prices. What we don't really bluntly talk about is this: tech companies are spending more on real estate via their HR budgets than on actual talent. After all, we compensate similar talent very differently depending on the local cost of living which is a variable mostly dominated by housing costs. That means HR budgets are in large part dominated by housing costs. Obviously this is not uncontroversial. Many in the 'receiving' community will hate to see cost of living rise when SF Jr. and its Tech Jr. companies move in, particularly those who aren't the owner class but the labourer class. It reeks of gentrification. But there has to be a way to make that work better than it does now, which is investing everything in a small radius, attracting all companies and all people, and making it wholly unaffordable while the rest of the country is drained of talent, jobs, economic activity and becomes extremely affordable in terms of land but unable to support any population. There has to be a middle-ground between the two positions.
- naravara 9y ago
  How much more can you “gentrify” places like Fremont or Dublin though? They’re already plenty rich, they just went with a sprawly, car-dependent development pattern instead? That seems like a place to start.

IkmoIkmo 9y ago

Agreed. I'd almost be inclined to say that SF shouldn't spend its money on SF, but on other smaller places in California. Creating SF-outposts, hubs. At the end of the day, population distribution is the issue, and the only way you can meaningfully distribute populations is by creating reasons for them to do so voluntarily. That means investing not all in one spot. You're only making these spikes bigger: http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/us-gdp-by-city-3d.jpg http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-c... Municipalities should lead the charge, but together with companies. Proximity to jobs is incredibly important. If anything, it could be good for companies too. You don't need to compensate a software engineer to the extent that he can afford >$1k per square foot prices. What we don't really bluntly talk about is this: tech companies are spending more on real estate via their HR budgets than on actual talent. After all, we compensate similar talent very differently depending on the local cost of living which is a variable mostly dominated by housing costs. That means HR budgets are in large part dominated by housing costs. Obviously this is not uncontroversial. Many in the 'receiving' community will hate to see cost of living rise when SF Jr. and its Tech Jr. companies move in, particularly those who aren't the owner class but the labourer class. It reeks of gentrification. But there has to be a way to make that work better than it does now, which is investing everything in a small radius, attracting all companies and all people, and making it wholly unaffordable while the rest of the country is drained of talent, jobs, economic activity and becomes extremely affordable in terms of land but unable to support any population. There has to be a middle-ground between the two positions.

naravara 9y ago
How much more can you “gentrify” places like Fremont or Dublin though? They’re already plenty rich, they just went with a sprawly, car-dependent development pattern instead? That seems like a place to start.