9 ms·

Sad to watch SF and SEA be the cause of their own slow-motion downfall.

by pteredactyl 8y ago

akhilcacharya 8y ago
Where exactly do you expect business to go?
- matte_black 8y ago
  Away
- robrenaud 8y ago
  Somewhere that they get subsidies rather than taxes.
  - beguiledfoil 8y ago
    Mega cap tech companies need subsidies?
    - maxerickson 8y ago
      It's not a matter of need, it's a matter of them being able to get them.
  - taurath 8y ago
    But they have to stay in the bay/Seattle for the talent pool, by their own admission. I think the local government has a lot more power than they think. Which is wrong - the liberal livable areas attract talent, so companies flock to them, or the bottom line is more important so they should do it in a cheaper city? Seems like the former is winning by a mile in the past decade.
- darkengine 8y ago
  In the case of Seattle, Kirkland and Bellevue are host to quite a few small and large tech companies already. The office space is plentiful and cheap on this side of Lake Washington, and there is less of a worry of being hit with poorly planned taxes and regulations that Seattle is, at this point, infamous for enacting. With the way the housing market is going, and the upcoming King County property tax hike, I wouldn't be surprised if tech workers started creeping out into Snohomish County and favoring jobs on the Eastside instead of Seattle due to traffic.
  - taurath 8y ago
    Traffic from Snoqualmie isn’t great either, nor are the homes a lot less expensive. The east side is as expensive as Seattle.
  - mrep 8y ago
    90% agree (homes don't look to cheap on the east side). I was recently team matching with google for the seattle area and my girlfriend and I were more interested in the kirkland office over fremont/soon to be SLU because of this.
    - NotSammyHagar 8y ago
      you don't want to work in downtown seattle for google because of a 275 dollar tax? that's ridiculous. google probably doesn't even have any software engineers working for less than a 100k, and you think about $25 / month?
      - mrep 8y ago
        Not at all. I'm against taxes that cost me more money on the homeless problem while disproportionally effect me more than others. Spending more money locally on the homeless giving them handouts is only going to attract more worsening the problem. My girlfriend was recently assaulted downtown by a homeless person which is why we liked kirkland when we checked it out because there seemed to be less of them in kirkland. I think the homeless problem should be tackled on a federal level since it is easy for them to move states but not countries. Thus, any non-federal government that spends tax revenue to help the homeless will likely just attract more homeless people from other areas worsening the local populations lives through the negative externalities and the costs which only reduce other local areas homeless externalities/expenses. Seattle seems to be growing strong with this methodology which is why I am against taxes like this that incentivize the homeless to move here.
        taurath 8y ago
        The lack of empathy for those being displaced by huge tech companies moving in and eclipsing everyone else's salary in this thread is incredibly stunning. Not to say that homelessness is entirely caused by this, but its definitely a factor. 91% of the homeless in Seattle are from the greater Seattle region. Home prices have doubled in 10 years, and tripled if you count the bottom of the great recession. Renters have had to move further and further away. Saying there's no effect on people falling into homelessness is both silly and dangerous. That's not to say Seattle doesn't have some of the blame - they are not great at solving actual problems with their tax money, they're slow, and they don't tend to enforce a lot of quality of life things like panhandlers or break-ins. But for heavens sake, if you suddenly drop a huge amount of upper class people that buy up all the housing in an area you should have to be at least partially responsible for cleaning up the consequences.
- AmericanChopper 8y ago
  To escape the lunacy of The Seattle City Council? How about Bellevue, Kirkland or Redmond? The industry in Vancouver is also steadily growing. The council quite openly sees economic growth as the source of all it's problems, which they have mostly created for themselves. As they have no idea how to manage these problems, and as most of their attempts to do so have in fact made them worse, the only thing they can do to further shirk responsibility is to implement more taxes. It's hard to see why a business today would plan to base itself in Seattle, or expand on operations there. If Amazon hadn't already completed so much of the construction on its latest building there, I can't imagine they'd be committing to finishing it. Which will all in turn make Seattle's problems even worse.
  - taurath 8y ago
    Going to Vancouver with its far higher taxes to protest a $20m tax on a $xxxbillion company seems like a poor idea to me. Local government need not grovel to those that take advantage of its amenities to attract talent.
    - AmericanChopper 8y ago
      The cost of living is less in Vancouver than Seattle, and by extension salaries are lower. This is what has been moving tech companies further up the west coast, so yes it does make perfect business sense. You also have things perfectly backwards. These companies are what is driving growth in Seattle, not the other way around. These companies are responsible for more than doubling local government revenue in the past decade. The companies create the growth, not the ‘amenities’ of Seattle city. If you don’t like or don’t know how to manage economic growth, then by all means, make the environment as hostile as you can for businesses. You only need to look at Detroit to see how beneficial it can be when an entire industry leaves town.
      - NotSammyHagar 8y ago
        except housing is about the same as seattle, with much much lower salaries. moving to vancouver doesn't make sense in terms of finances.
- moultano 8y ago
  If I knew I'd be moving there. The only thing keeping my friends and I in the bay area are each other and the lack of a clear alternative. If another locations starts to get serious traction I'd expect a phase transition.
  - NotSammyHagar 8y ago
    in my experience, 90+% of software companies with 100 people have an office in seattle, every job i've looked for for years has an office here.
bsder 8y ago
Your whining rings hollow. In spite of all the bitching about California, more people come in than go out. And, do those areas really care about the kind of jobs that actually could move?
- loeg 8y ago
  > In spite of all the bitching about California, more people come in than go out. The truth is the direct opposite[0]: > California continues to see more folks moving elsewhere in the nation rather than relocating here > Last year, California had 142,932 more residents exit to live in other states than arrive > California’s net outmigration has been ongoing for two-decades-plus. [0]: https://www.ocregister.com/2017/11/16/census-142932-more-people-left-california-than-moved-here-in-2016/ https://www.ocregister.com/2017/11/16/census-142932-more-peo...
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > > In spite of all the bitching about California, more people come in than go out. This is correct. > The truth is the direct opposite[0]: No, even your source doesn't support this. You have confused what your source says about domestic migration with total migration. More people are coming in to California than leaving (the state has positive net total migration) even though more people are leaving California for other states than are coming from other states (negative net domestic migration.)
    - bsder 8y ago
      And also births. The big issue with the migration differential is that it is expensive to move into California while it is relatively cheap to move out. So, you need a job and you have to save money to eat the differential (rent increase, security deposits, car registration) if you want to move into the state. Selling your house in most other states barely gets you a down payment on a house in California. On the other hand, Californians selling their houses and then paying cash to buy another house in Texas, Oregon, etc. is sufficiently common that most of such places have derogatory terms for it.
maxharris 8y ago
I moved out of Seattle a couple of months ago. One of the reasons I left was because I knew this was coming.

Sad to watch SF and SEA be the cause of their own slow-motion downfall.

akhilcacharya 8y ago

Where exactly do you expect business to go?

matte_black 8y ago
Away
robrenaud 8y ago
Somewhere that they get subsidies rather than taxes.
- beguiledfoil 8y ago
  Mega cap tech companies need subsidies?
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    It's not a matter of need, it's a matter of them being able to get them.
- taurath 8y ago
  But they have to stay in the bay/Seattle for the talent pool, by their own admission. I think the local government has a lot more power than they think. Which is wrong - the liberal livable areas attract talent, so companies flock to them, or the bottom line is more important so they should do it in a cheaper city? Seems like the former is winning by a mile in the past decade.
darkengine 8y ago
In the case of Seattle, Kirkland and Bellevue are host to quite a few small and large tech companies already. The office space is plentiful and cheap on this side of Lake Washington, and there is less of a worry of being hit with poorly planned taxes and regulations that Seattle is, at this point, infamous for enacting. With the way the housing market is going, and the upcoming King County property tax hike, I wouldn't be surprised if tech workers started creeping out into Snohomish County and favoring jobs on the Eastside instead of Seattle due to traffic.
- taurath 8y ago
  Traffic from Snoqualmie isn’t great either, nor are the homes a lot less expensive. The east side is as expensive as Seattle.
- mrep 8y ago
  90% agree (homes don't look to cheap on the east side). I was recently team matching with google for the seattle area and my girlfriend and I were more interested in the kirkland office over fremont/soon to be SLU because of this.
  - NotSammyHagar 8y ago
    you don't want to work in downtown seattle for google because of a 275 dollar tax? that's ridiculous. google probably doesn't even have any software engineers working for less than a 100k, and you think about $25 / month?
    - mrep 8y ago
      Not at all. I'm against taxes that cost me more money on the homeless problem while disproportionally effect me more than others. Spending more money locally on the homeless giving them handouts is only going to attract more worsening the problem. My girlfriend was recently assaulted downtown by a homeless person which is why we liked kirkland when we checked it out because there seemed to be less of them in kirkland. I think the homeless problem should be tackled on a federal level since it is easy for them to move states but not countries. Thus, any non-federal government that spends tax revenue to help the homeless will likely just attract more homeless people from other areas worsening the local populations lives through the negative externalities and the costs which only reduce other local areas homeless externalities/expenses. Seattle seems to be growing strong with this methodology which is why I am against taxes like this that incentivize the homeless to move here.
      - taurath 8y ago
        The lack of empathy for those being displaced by huge tech companies moving in and eclipsing everyone else's salary in this thread is incredibly stunning. Not to say that homelessness is entirely caused by this, but its definitely a factor. 91% of the homeless in Seattle are from the greater Seattle region. Home prices have doubled in 10 years, and tripled if you count the bottom of the great recession. Renters have had to move further and further away. Saying there's no effect on people falling into homelessness is both silly and dangerous. That's not to say Seattle doesn't have some of the blame - they are not great at solving actual problems with their tax money, they're slow, and they don't tend to enforce a lot of quality of life things like panhandlers or break-ins. But for heavens sake, if you suddenly drop a huge amount of upper class people that buy up all the housing in an area you should have to be at least partially responsible for cleaning up the consequences.
AmericanChopper 8y ago
To escape the lunacy of The Seattle City Council? How about Bellevue, Kirkland or Redmond? The industry in Vancouver is also steadily growing. The council quite openly sees economic growth as the source of all it's problems, which they have mostly created for themselves. As they have no idea how to manage these problems, and as most of their attempts to do so have in fact made them worse, the only thing they can do to further shirk responsibility is to implement more taxes. It's hard to see why a business today would plan to base itself in Seattle, or expand on operations there. If Amazon hadn't already completed so much of the construction on its latest building there, I can't imagine they'd be committing to finishing it. Which will all in turn make Seattle's problems even worse.
- taurath 8y ago
  Going to Vancouver with its far higher taxes to protest a $20m tax on a $xxxbillion company seems like a poor idea to me. Local government need not grovel to those that take advantage of its amenities to attract talent.
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    The cost of living is less in Vancouver than Seattle, and by extension salaries are lower. This is what has been moving tech companies further up the west coast, so yes it does make perfect business sense. You also have things perfectly backwards. These companies are what is driving growth in Seattle, not the other way around. These companies are responsible for more than doubling local government revenue in the past decade. The companies create the growth, not the ‘amenities’ of Seattle city. If you don’t like or don’t know how to manage economic growth, then by all means, make the environment as hostile as you can for businesses. You only need to look at Detroit to see how beneficial it can be when an entire industry leaves town.
    - NotSammyHagar 8y ago
      except housing is about the same as seattle, with much much lower salaries. moving to vancouver doesn't make sense in terms of finances.
moultano 8y ago
If I knew I'd be moving there. The only thing keeping my friends and I in the bay area are each other and the lack of a clear alternative. If another locations starts to get serious traction I'd expect a phase transition.
- NotSammyHagar 8y ago
  in my experience, 90+% of software companies with 100 people have an office in seattle, every job i've looked for for years has an office here.

bsder 8y ago

Your whining rings hollow. In spite of all the bitching about California, more people come in than go out. And, do those areas really care about the kind of jobs that actually could move?

loeg 8y ago
> In spite of all the bitching about California, more people come in than go out. The truth is the direct opposite[0]: > California continues to see more folks moving elsewhere in the nation rather than relocating here > Last year, California had 142,932 more residents exit to live in other states than arrive > California’s net outmigration has been ongoing for two-decades-plus. [0]: https://www.ocregister.com/2017/11/16/census-142932-more-people-left-california-than-moved-here-in-2016/ https://www.ocregister.com/2017/11/16/census-142932-more-peo...
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > > In spite of all the bitching about California, more people come in than go out. This is correct. > The truth is the direct opposite[0]: No, even your source doesn't support this. You have confused what your source says about domestic migration with total migration. More people are coming in to California than leaving (the state has positive net total migration) even though more people are leaving California for other states than are coming from other states (negative net domestic migration.)
  - bsder 8y ago
    And also births. The big issue with the migration differential is that it is expensive to move into California while it is relatively cheap to move out. So, you need a job and you have to save money to eat the differential (rent increase, security deposits, car registration) if you want to move into the state. Selling your house in most other states barely gets you a down payment on a house in California. On the other hand, Californians selling their houses and then paying cash to buy another house in Texas, Oregon, etc. is sufficiently common that most of such places have derogatory terms for it.

maxharris 8y ago

I moved out of Seattle a couple of months ago. One of the reasons I left was because I knew this was coming.