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> I'm not sure, but it's been a little surprising to me as well. When you have the income to: 1. Rent a comfortable apartment pretty much anywhere in the Bay
by Karrot_Kream 8y ago
> I'm not sure, but it's been a little surprising to me as well.
When you have the income to:
1. Rent a comfortable apartment pretty much anywhere in the Bay Area, without fear of rising rent displacing you. (Keep rent within a third of your income)
2. Pay for a private solution (Rideshare, Private commuter buses, tech company shuttle) to the broken transportation infrastructure, dirty streets, and the homeless problem of the Bay.
3. Have a fiscal safety net in case something happens to your income.
4. Have the insurance needed to withstand the occasional curve-balls of life.
then you've mostly averted the endemic problems of the Bay Area. SF's gov't is incompetent, and private solutions have alleviated most of its systemic issues for its moneyed classes. Of course people in tech won't be as motivated to vote, they're insulated from all of the problems.
There's a growing sentiment (growing being an understatement, Google/Apple buses have been smashed/blocked for years now) that tech's private market solutions are priced to only help their own out. Until this perception changes, they're going to want to vote with their rage.
- closeparen 8y agoThey’re priced to clear markets so that functioning goods and services are actually available at their stated prices. Whereas for some reason populists prefer public transit that’s uniformly abysmal and “affordable housing” that no individual applicant has a reasonable chance of winning.
- Karrot_Kream 8y agoMy comment wasn't meant to be political. I'm just talking about the perspective. I'm not sure about you, but if my housing, transportation, and livelihood were threatened, I'm not going to sit back and say "oh oops looks like I'm on the other side of systemic issues, public failure, and market clearing, that's just the way the world works".
- vkou 8y agoPublic transit in cities that aren't SF is not 'uniformally abysmal.' One of the reasons for it, is that in cities with working transit, both the rich, and the poor, newcomers and decades-established people take the bus/train. When people with influence are using public transit, it stops being shit. Pointing at Muni, and saying: "Look, you fools! Public transit doesn't work!" is a bit like pointing at Somalia, circa 2009, and saying: "Look, you fools! Rule of law doesn't work!"
- closeparen 8y ago>One of the reasons for it Another being that community organizers and concerned citizens were sufficiently disenfranchised and disempowered that greedy developers obtained permission to destroy pre-existing communities, open space, and neighborhood character to create built environments that are dense enough for good public transit to be cost-effective. In some cases, this happened more than 1000 years ago, so no one minds anymore. >When people with influence are using public transit, it stops being shit. Is there any evidence for this? Has a population ever actually forced its leaders to ride shitty public transit, and subsequently seen a turnaround? Most New York professionals rely on the subway, and it's falling apart anyway.
- dvtrn 8y agoEverything you described is why I'm terrified of my hometown Indianapolis (where I plan to move back in a couple of years and set down roots by buying a house) courting Amazon for HQ2. Having lived in one overpriced tech hub I'm not ready to fight that fight again, and I don't necessarily trust a tech giant's presence among the Unigov central Indiana experiment to provide much for anyone but folks who feed the monster. Probably straying close to striking the heads off of poppies by saying this but it's a real concern I have while simultaneously wanting to see my hometown thrive. Weird spot to be in.