17 ms·
Nearly half of Bay Area residents say they want to leave
- kelukelugames 8y agoPeople complaining and people actually leaving are two very different things.
- arkades 8y agoThe article led with direct measures of net population decrease and indirect measures such as the extreme asymmetry in the cost of moving trucks into/out of the Bay Area.
- aphextron 8y agoIt’s a miserable hell hole where I make twice as much money as would be possible anywhere else on earth. So long as that’s the case, I can’t logically move anywhere else or do anything for fear of regret, missing opportunity, and going broke. I think that’s what keeps a lot of people here.
- tw1010 8y ago"logically"
- pedrocr 8y agoHow much of that doubling in pay gets gobbled up by the insane prices?
- voltagex_ 8y agoHow much have you got left after paying your bills though? When I ran the numbers, it wasn't worth me moving to the US.
- travbrack 8y agoWhat makes it so miserable?
- ggregoire 8y agoWhat do you plan to do with all this money? I’m probably making 4-8 times less than you, but still living very well. Paying $700 for a 50m2 flat with pool and gym. I eat out several times a week and can travel anywhere in the world once a year. And still saving half of my income.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- themagician 8y agoWhat everyone in the Bay Area with a decent income does: live a life of complete luxury but pretend like you are middle class because somone else makes more than you. Eat out for every meal. Never do manual labor of any kind—press a few buttons for laundry, food, handyman services, or transportation. Have “the best” TV, stereo, and home appliances. Or have children drive them around in strollers that cost more than an old used car. Subscribe to services for everything: diapers, vinyl, beauty products, clothing. Go out drinking and spend more money than a median income family spends on groceries in week.
- googlemike 8y agoIs this a joke?
- user5994461 8y agoI don't think so. That seems consistent with London too.
- googlemike 8y agoI've been in the bay area 18 years now. I am a software engineer for a major company. My life is far simpler than this. I almost never eat meals out, I do all my own grocery shopping and cooking. I don't own a car because my needs are simple (public transit / walk to grocery store, company shuttle, and Uber for weekends) so I guess the comment OP got that right. I live in a one bedroom apartment that I clean myself. Is this unusual? All my friends seem to be in similar situations.
- chrissnell 8y agoHave you looked into remote work? If you are sufficiently senior and produce top-notch work, there are plenty of places that will let you work remotely at SFBA pay. For the cost of living in the Bay Area, you could have a condo in Telluride, or a nice house in a state like Montana or Idaho. Where I live (small-ish town Kansas), you would have a really tough time finding a house with a house payment as high as the typical rent on a San Francisco 2BR. You could have a beautiful, huge spread with a kitchen full of commercial-grade gear and a spa for a bathroom for that money out here.
- ajmurmann 8y agoThe problem with remote work is that you are incredibly dependent on your current employer. If your job disappears for some reason you will have a pretty hard time finding comparable work again. If you live in the Bay area or probably about major tech hub chances are you might find another job by just walking down the street and drinking coffee in the right place.
- kowdermeister 8y ago> you will have a pretty hard time finding comparable work again Why is that? The web is full of remote job offers.
- maskedSlacker 8y agoAnd full of people applying for them.
- kowdermeister 8y agoLike all other jobs?
- maskedSlacker 8y agoThere are a lot fewer people applying for jobs local to me than there applying to jobs that will let me work remote. By a factor of over 100.
- runamok 8y agoI may be wrong but twice seems a stretch. I have heard of companies for instance supposedly paying a 25% premium compared to somewhere like Denver. So say 100k in Denver is 125k in redwood City. Of that 25k you get to keep about 18k... So if rent is $1500 different that accounts for the delta. I just did a long bike ride through the redwoods and along the ocean. Doesn't meet my definition of hellhole... I probably will leave if I ever want to buy a house but besides that the area has a lot to offer me at least. I do have a problem that everyone not making 6 figures is being pushed out which is another reason I would go.
- umanwizard 8y ago[deleted]
- dman 8y agoDid not know that individual contributors in F/A/N/G were making this much. Are we talking Jeff Dean level outliers or does this apply in a wider setting?
- friedman23 8y ago$1 million is definitely an outlier but more than $300k (total compensation) is not.
- yulaow 8y agoWe need data to claim even something like this, especially for a dev position.
- friedman23 8y agoI don't have data to show you, I'm speaking from personal experience and I talk about salaries with my coworkers.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jandrewrogers 8y agoAt least for software, Seattle pays just as well and with a much lower cost of living, giving tech workers the highest discretionary income in the country[0]. Per the study, it is $1500-2000/month higher than San Francisco. Anecdotally, this matches my experience. [0] https://seattle.curbed.com/2017/3/16/14942904/seattle-tech-workers-disposable-income https://seattle.curbed.com/2017/3/16/14942904/seattle-tech-w...
- foota 8y agoShhh, don't let them in on it :) But yes, the math is heavily weighted in the favor of places like Seattle with still bearable costs of living but with competitive software labor markets. edit: unfortunately we also have a very regressive tax system which makes it easier for developers.
- riantogo 8y agoIt is no secret. Just that most folks in the bay area don’t want live with the dreary weather there. I know several folks from here who couldn’t last one full year.
- usaar333 8y agoAgreed; I've seen many engineers in my company moving to Seattle for this reason. While it lacks the Bay Area's startup scene, you still have very good options with large companies. Other costs some may consider are weather and culture. I suspect the vast majority of the income gain is due to Washington lacking a state income tax. e.g. a single eng pulling $200k is paying $15k/year ($1300/month) in CA state income taxes and $0 for WA State. The tax code changes for this year only make it more true.
- starpilot 8y agoWhen you factor in cost of living, you'd be making far more in Austin: https://hired.com/blog/candidates/where-engineer-salaries-pay-highest-standard-living/ https://hired.com/blog/candidates/where-engineer-salaries-pa...
- aphextron 8y ago>When you factor in cost of living, you'd be making far more in Austin I was stationed at Fort Hood in Killeen, TX another lifetime ago as an army infantry recruit in the late 2000's. I know all about living in central Texas as a person of color. Unfortunately red states have become a complete no go zone for me to even consider living in 2018.
- throwaway080383 8y agoExactly why I've never seriously considered Texas. I'm white, but I still don't want neighbors who fly the confederate flag.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- uncoder0 8y agoFrom VA, Live in Austin for nearly a decade... have never seen a confederate flag on a house in TX... VA on the other hand..
- stevenwoo 8y agoI grew up and lived in Texas for 25 years in urban and rural areas. The confederate flag flies on cars, houses, college dorms/fraternity houses, inside of people's houses, moreso in rural but still everywhere in some measure. East Texas was probably the worst in terms of overt racism so it would be easy to miss unless the outdoor recreational opportunities there or driving to New Orleans was on your agenda.
- echelon 8y agoI make $250k total compensation in Atlanta, and the mortgage on my 2,000 sqft 2bd/ba condo in the city (and on the Beltline) is $2000/mo. I can run or bike to work, or, if I need to drive, it only takes 15 minutes. I work on exciting tech, and I'm not at all stressed. Atlanta has great food, amazing music, and is in the middle of a forest. (Google "Atlanta forest"!) There are so many places to hike and swim, it's glorious. The culture is so diverse here. We're a music capital, the new Hollywood, and major finance hub. We have a lot of really cool non-engineers to hang out with and date. (Nothing wrong with engineers! But there are a lot of different types here to mingle with.) Also, we have real barbecue. You can't get that outside the Southeast. :P Move here and help change our electorate. :) Cons: - Though we have four full seasons, no one knows how to drive in the snow in the rare event we get any. Our summers are hot and humid (only a problem if you don't like that), and our springs have a ton of pollen - seriously, more than you can imagine (Atlanta is a forest). - We lack decent public transit. But living within the city makes most commutes negligible. The Beltline (Google it) helps a lot too. The city is ramping up to spend more on transit, though.
- driverdan 8y agoHow are you making $250k in Atlanta?
- echelon 8y agoI work for a company based in SF. We have a remote office. My salary is $130k, but RSU grants bring that up to about $250k total comp a year.
- fjsolwmv 8y agoThat's a hugely unbalanced split. Is that your grant value or your best value after a year(s) of fantastic growth?
- refurb 8y agoMy question as well. If it’s “I got $50k worth of RSUs last year and now they are worth $150k”, that not earning $250k per year, that $150k plus a good bonus year.
- drdrey 8y ago"a miserable hell hole", really? Apart from the commute and cost of living, I happen to think the quality of life here is great.
- welder 8y agoI've lived in SF for a while... I would say it's better than every other city in the US... definitely not miserable: 1. Best weather, never too cold or too hot. 2. Can walk everywhere in the city, never need to own a car. Transportation here does suck, but it's still better than every other US city except NYC. 3. Have all the services, restaurants, trendy stuff to do if you want. 4. ~$250k base salaries prevent stress with buffer/retirement savings. 5. People who want to accomplish something move here. I haven't found another city with as many driven people as SF. That's exciting for me, but can also be exhausting sometimes. Every time I try moving away I always move back. Missed out on buying a house here, but the salary and life quality make up for it for now.
- cameronlpmoore 8y agoAgreed on all of your points. I've lived primarily in Miami and Atlanta. After being in SF for a couple of years I only wish I had moved here sooner. The weather is a huge factor for me, and the geographical beauty of the west coast is unparalleled in my opinion. I would possibly consider other cities such as Denver/Boulder, or Portland, but I'll definitely never move back to the southeast.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- s17n 8y ago"Nobody lives there anymore, it's too crowded"
- hn_throwaway_99 8y agoThat oversimplifies the issue. If you live in the Bay Area, and you're rich (one possibility being you bought your home 10+ years ago), it can be a great place to live. If you're not rich, or you don't own your own home, your quality of life probably sucks. You likely have a horrible commute and still end up paying the bulk of your income to your housing.
- SirensOfTitan 8y agoIf you're rich practically anywhere can be great to live.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y agoThe point, though, is that if you aren't rich, SF is a pretty bad place to be, and there are a lot of other places where those on a middle/lower-middle income can have a great quality of life.
- scurvy 8y agoEh I bought my place 8 years ago, and I wasn't rich when I did it. I lived in a not-crazy expensive apartment on the edge of the Tenderloin (good side of California but close enough to keep the rent cheap). I was in that apartment for 8 years before buying a place. I got paid OK, but not baller. I worked for some startups that paid very low and sometimes missed paychecks. I guess my point is that yeah, it can be done (buying a place in San Francisco and doing well). The problem is that newcomers (and especially younger people) see a job offer from FlashyCo (Uber, Twitter, Salesforce, etc) as a meal ticket good for living the ultra good life (fancy car, fancy new apartment, etc). When they look at what it costs, they get upset and dejected. Many people today feel that they should be well on the path to Easy Street by their mid to late 20's. Traditionally that hasn't been the case at all. Wage earning really doesn't pick up until your late 30's to early 40's. But tech screws with all of that. Huge acquisitions, instant wealth, engineers over 40 age discrimination, etc. So in some sense people do feel helpless when they're living with 8 people at age 30 (protip folks: get a 1-2BR in a less hip area).
- SirensOfTitan 8y agoI lived in the Bay Area for five years, and I'm so glad I got out. On paper, the area should operate very similarly to New York City: good public transit, relatively active building, and a variety of neighborhoods and places to live that are relatively safe. In reality, it's effectively impossible to get around in the bay area deprived of housing with no new building, no solution to public transit (good luck getting the peninsula towns to allow for BART to expand there), and from what I've read the property crime rates are higher than NYC in the 90s. Of course, New York has its own problems, and the Subway is rapidly degrading. With that, local politics in the Bay Area are out of control, and it seems there's no real easy solution to the political clusterfuck of the various towns. Individuals can only really vote with their feet: move out. There are plenty of other attractive towns for tech.
- ajmurmann 8y agoAnother option is to heavily support the YIMBY party. I don't live there anymore but would be interested in moving back if the NIMBY crap could finally be turned around.
- ropeadopepope 8y agoThe political issues of the Bay Area extend far, far beyond the YIMBY/NIMBY split.
- _cs2017_ 8y agoHmm a room in a shared house in mountain view, 10-15 min bike to work along a forest trail, can be rented for $1200-1500. Restaurants are about 30% more expensive than elsewhere, but that's still a tiny amount in absolute terms. Most other expenses here are not that different from other cities. And the jobs pay a little better, and there's more choice of good companies. I really don't understand why SV is considered over priced - unless you want your own house of course.
- RandallBrown 8y agoA room in a shared house for $1500 is pretty insane for a suburb.
- marauf 8y agoyea I am curious ... what do the numbers (salary, take home, taxes, expenses etc.) look like, for say US vs. Canadian Residents ... are you actually better off working in the US?
- friedman23 8y agoThe salary is large enough in Silicon Valley that you save significantly more. Of course those savings would not be enough to live and retire in the Bay Area unless you hit the jackpot with your stock options but they are more than enough to retire somewhere else and live very well.
- ramen-san 8y agoIt’s true, for people earning tech level salaries, the Bay Area is actually ‘affordable’ - see a comparison of earning and cost of living between SF and Kansas City here: https://ramenretirement.com/2018/05/14/cost-of-living/ https://ramenretirement.com/2018/05/14/cost-of-living/ You’ll save a higher percent and absolute amount of money working in the bay. Of course, the issue is that not everyone earns $300K+ per year. Unless you make it into a senior role at a tech company by the time you want to have kids, living a ‘normal’ life in the Bay will be hard. Even doctors and dentists will struggle. I completely understand why people would want to leave. I expect they will. The Bay Area is great, but America is an amazing, beautiful place, and fine food / coffee / culture has spread far beyond the streets of SF these days.
- friedman23 8y agoThere is good food and culture in almost any major metropolitan city in the US. Will you find a variety of Asian and Indian foods in other American cities? Probably not but the food is still good. Seattle, Atlanta, Austin, Miami, etc. You really cannot got wrong with any of these cities.
- kitsunesoba 8y agoEspecially if your skills are both kind of a niche yet in demand and you’re good at what you do, your salary can jump surprisingly quickly here — enough that even while living well you’ll still come out on top compared to working in a midwestern city. That’s not to mention job security. With some exceptions, in many low CoL areas you’re looking at a sizable gap between jobs simply because the market isn’t as big, and worse, you might end up having to settle for a less than great option or find yourself locked in somewhere for far longer than you’d prefer. Out here, if you’re decent at all this is not an issue... many of us here can easily walk from one job straight into the next, should that be necessary. I might move somewhere more cheap and quiet eventually, but it’ll be once I’ve saved up enough that I’m not beholden to any particular company and I’ve found something that it wouldn’t bother me to be doing for many years. For now, the demand and pace of the SF Bay Area is just too much to give up.
- alsetmusic 8y agoWhen one of my favorite bands did a reunion world tour they only played five shows in the states. Three were in SF, two in NY. I love the access to music and art that I have in the bay. My tastes are often far from mainstream and I was suffocating in various parts of the Midwest and upper south. The bay isn’t for everyone, but it’s definitely for me.
- joelrunyon 8y agoThis is my current favorite statistic on the SF/Bay Area http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-how-much-cost-to-move-out-of-san-francisco-california-20180306-htmlstory.html http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation...
- patrickaljord 8y agoThis what I see https://i.imgur.com/VYryFhi.png https://i.imgur.com/VYryFhi.png gdi GDPR.
- saagarjha 8y agoBlame the website, not GDPR.
- tropo 8y agoI have to wonder if all the blocking might be an intended outcome. You have created something like the Great Firewall of China, except that you outsourced it via a vague law with serious legal danger.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoI'm sure the fact that we can no longer access websites that solely exist to harvest and sell our personal data will be a great loss to society.
- patrickaljord 8y agoStill looks a lot like censorship in effect to me.
- joking 8y agoWTF, not available in european countries? one of those gdpr wall of shame sites?
- 8y ago
- lpolovets 8y agoThe salaries here are higher, but the housing prices are much, much higher. I live in Redwood City, which is a decent-but-not-amazing part of the Bay Area. A 1500-sq ft home is about $1.7m here. In Palo Alto, it would be closer to $2.5m-$3m. In a place like Portland, that same home would be $400k. The problem is that salaries here are 100% higher, but house prices are 300%-600% higher. And housing is most people's biggest expense. It's very tempting to move to a place like Portland, and either take a lower paying job, work remotely for an SF job, or even fly in for an SF job for a few days every week. All of this feels completely untenable and unsustainable, and yet it sustains because there are enough affluent people that want to live here that their demand outstrips supply, and local city governments are criminally conservative when it comes to building more housing.
- lr4444lr 8y agoSame problem in NYC. Fortunately, we have relatively cheaper and desirable suburbs within 60 - 90 minutes upstate, on Long Island, northern NJ, and southern CT. (Hence the expression "tri-state area"). People commuting to higher paying jobs in the city are a significant - probably crucial - part of the economy of those places, and what keeps the housing prices rising, even though they are affordable for people making a commute time / space trade-off. I'm not familiar with the Bay Area. You don't have some equivalent communities?
- surfmike 8y agoThe housing prices are increasing all throughout the bay area of course. Unlike NY however there are not great train connections to Silicon Valley; there is BART to SF and nice areas around Bart stations have also seen substantial appreciation.
- samcheng 8y agoThere is a perfectly feasible train connection to Silicon Valley (at least the western part of it). Trains are standing-room-only daily. The area around almost every Caltrain stop has already seen significant appreciation, of course.
- Cofike 8y agoFrom my reading on Hacker News, I may be the only person in tech who enjoys living in San Francisco.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ww520 8y agoSame here. Not exactly SF but I enjoy living in the Bay Area overall.
- dang 8y agoIt's the contrarian dynamic: people are motivated to post objections to what they disagree with or dislike. Then other people are motivated by those comments to comment the reverse way, i.e. to object to the objections.
- overeater 8y agoIt's the same for many other things on Hacker News. Where it seems like everyone is dissatisfied with higher education, or the federal government, or the evil large tech companies.
- dang 8y agoIt's unfortunate because it leads to the impression of a "strong negativity bias", which is true in a Cunningham's law sense but gets complicated because people also negate the negativity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16677130 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16677130. It's quite typical for top comments to be objections of the form "I can't believe the comments here are so negative!" The contrarian dynamic is particularly visible in political threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15701584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15701584.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- vinayak147 8y ago
- mychael 8y agoPSA: If salary is the reason you live in the Bay Area, then you should be earning at least $200K.
- VectorLock 8y agoSF Bay Area in the late 90s, early 2000s was much more tolerable.
- usaar333 8y ago> Bay Area home prices have been climbing for six years, setting another record in April, when the median sale price hit $850,000 — up 13 percent from a year ago, according to real estate data firm CoreLogic. Rents are soaring too, and workers are forced to move farther away to find affordable housing and commute on already crowded Bay Area roads and freeways to get to their jobs. Citation is provided for purchase prices, but not rents. I can't find any market where inflation-adjusted rents are not at most flat-lined, if not lower over the last 2 years: https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/ https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/ (down) https://www.zillow.com/oakland-ca/home-values/ https://www.zillow.com/oakland-ca/home-values/ (no change inflation adjusted) https://www.zillow.com/san-jose-ca/home-values/ https://www.zillow.com/san-jose-ca/home-values/ (down inflation adjusted) https://www.zillow.com/santa-clara-ca/home-values/ https://www.zillow.com/santa-clara-ca/home-values/ (roughly in line with inflation)
- rajeshpant 8y agoBay area companies need to increase the salaries. It is becoming a struggle for even highly paid engineers to survive. If you are single income family with kids then you are barely surviving.
- user5994461 8y agoNo point in increasing wages. Any increase will immediately be captured by the landlord.
- googlemike 8y agoI live in SF. I am very, very tired of the homeless tents everywhere, dirty needles everywhere, and suspicious feces everywhere. The amount of bums living outside is unacceptable - this is perhaps the dirtiest city I have ever been to.
- knuththetruth 8y agoUnacceptable in what terms? I imagine the people living in those conditions are more exhausted by then than you are by your observing them.
- randycupertino 8y agoNot really... the homeless by choice types are tweakers who move to SF to intentionally live on the streets and have easy access to cheap and plentiful drugs. SF basically created hamsterdam, and addicts from all over the country flock here so they can get high and enjoy life on the streets with impunity. The street denizens in SF building encampments, shitting on the sidewalk, breaking into cars to get their fix and blatantly operating chop shops aren't hard up people who are just down on their luck and between jobs... these types move here to specifically live on the streets and get high all the time.
- knuththetruth 8y agoIt’s amazing that in a such a demonstrably corrupt and unequal society as America in 2018, that people cling to these insane narratives about the most vulnerable people in society. I guess if you’re going to side with the rich in this ongoing class war, this is the kind of stuff you have to tell yourself to sleep at night.
- googlemike 8y agoDo you live in San Francisco? His narrative is far closer to reality than yours.
- sixQuarks 8y agoback in the late 90s, I started a web site in my dorm room in NC and sold it less than a year later to a dotcom in SF. I moved out there in 1999. Lived through the first market crash, web 2.0, and the 2008 recession. The bay area was so much fun during those years. The excitement of web startups, and the creative types of people it attracted. And it felt like everyone was in it together. I don't know exactly when the Bay area started becoming "techbro", but basically what it's become is the new "NYC". The bros who would normally go into finance, have gone into startups. You have the investment banking mentality in the bay area now, and it doesn't feel like everyone is in it together anymore. It feels like one big competition. Anyways, I left 4 years ago, and everytime I visit, I'm so glad I don't live there anymore.
- selestify 8y agoAs someone who has never lived in the bay, what is the "investment banking mentality" you refer to?
- sixQuarks 8y agoBasically, it's a place that attracts the very smart people who are only wanting to make lots of money. It used to be these people would go into investment banking when finance/oil companies ruled the world, now it's tech companies.
- hkmurakami 8y agoAlso the “we’re better than everyone else because X” mentality, including the vacuous “changing the world” rallying cry. I don’t recall feeling that sense of superiority in past decades nearly as much as today.
- jihoon796 8y agoIt's not only money that drives these people, but also ego/prestige. I did my undergrad in finance - during that time, most of my peers looked down on my interest in technology. At one point, one of my friends (who is an investment banker now) even told me to stop having a "poor person's mentality". Of course, many of these same people jumped into the tech industry (if such a thing exists) as soon as it became "prestigious". Although they have only a very shallow interest in actual tech, they've brought that same superiority complex with them. I've legitimately overheard someone say in a SF cafe: "I couldn't be a doctor...it doesn't change the world enough and you don't actually earn that much." facepalm
- DannyBee 8y agoComing from a lawyer background, It's really interesting to me how similar a viewpoint i've started to see between bay area residents and my friends who worked at large law firms (no matter where they were). (IE i just want to work here to make enough money to be able to comfortably go do what i want and get out).
- megaman22 8y agoWell no shit, who in their right mind would want to live in the bay area, under any prices, let alone what the market rate is?
- beatpanda 8y agoI get downvotes every time I say this but I'm going to keep doing it anyway: If the only reason you're in the Bay Area is for work, if you have no other attachment to the culture or history or land here, do yourself and everyone else a favor and get out. You'll be happier and so will everyone else.
- eddieplan9 8y agoNot trying to detract from the criticism of cost of living, but the source of survey is interesting: > This study was completed among a random sample of registered voters who responded to an email invitation to complete the survey. Also, 58% of the respondents have been in the bay area for over 20 years. 75% of the respondents have been in the area for more than 10 years. Yet 71% of the respondents do not have children living in the household. So the majority of the respondents are not young newcomers to the area. I suspect there is an overweight of people ready to retire and move out of the area. I have a neighbor who's just ready to do that. With more baby boomers retiring, I am not surprised to see more retirees looking to move out of the bay area in the sample population.
- jhowell 8y agoMaybe this means some relief for people from here who have family here and don't work in tech. It was an awesome area before tech and can be again. It's OK if the spotlight wants to move to Austin or NYC or Seattle, but I don't see that happening no matter how much people articles say people say they want to move.
- nitwit005 8y ago"Nearly half" being 46%, which seems high, but is a fairly normal rate. Consider this past Gallup poll about people wanting to leave their state, where the lowest rates were 23%: http://news.gallup.com/poll/168770/half-illinois-connecticut-move-elsewhere.aspx http://news.gallup.com/poll/168770/half-illinois-connecticut...
- raldi 8y agoWant to see more housing built in San Francisco, at all levels of the income spectrum, but you don't know which candidates and ballot measures are in line with that philosophy? See the YIMBY Action slate card: https://yimbyaction.org/endorsements/ https://yimbyaction.org/endorsements/
- krishicks 8y agoThe San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters has things to say about London Breed (http://www.theleaguesf.org/#london http://www.theleaguesf.org/#london) and Jeff Sheehy (same page, scroll down).
- raldi 8y agoThere will always be organizations out there criticizing any candidate, but at the end of the day, Jane Kim doesn't believe the laws of supply and demand apply to San Francisco housing[1][2], while London Breed is the only candidate who supported SB-827[3]. [1] "It's not supply.": https://twitter.com/JaneKim/status/573509389342019584 https://twitter.com/JaneKim/status/573509389342019584 [2] "Data shows housing price go up & down with average wage not demand.": https://twitter.com/janekim/status/573510846233640960 https://twitter.com/janekim/status/573510846233640960 [3] https://www.vox.com/cities-and-urbanism/2018/2/23/17011154/sb827-california-housing-crisis https://www.vox.com/cities-and-urbanism/2018/2/23/17011154/s...
- bproven 8y agoThe undercurrent to this in my mind is that more of the middle class (and possibly upper middle) will move out. It actually already happening. The rich and uber rich will always continue to move in. If you have the means it is a great place to live. It was always more expensive place to live but not at the level it is now. In 10-20 years (pick a timeframe..) it will be all (or mostly) the rich and the diversity of this area will suffer. Coastal / bay area CA will always be desirable - it will just be unattainable as a permanent residence for those of normal means at the rate we are going. Most people here are in the tech sector and probably(most here or many) are at the upper echelon of the industry in skill and salary. In that bubble I think it is harder to see what the average person here struggles with on a daily basis and why they are leaving... Or even what the average "techie" not making 250K+ experiences.
- ihsw2 8y agoOf course, it's a dump.
- ttul 8y agoI look forward to reviewing this thread after the next recession sets in, and the Bay Area looks empty.
- jacobmoe 8y agoIs there a plan, or is this just never going to get fixed? The NYC subway reached a crisis point, so the MTA just put together a massive 10 year plan to fix it. Maybe it'll pan out, maybe it won't, but there's a plan and people recognize the problem. I haven't heard of anything like that for the Bay Area housing crisis. A booming economy and not enough housing should call for a massive infrastructure plan. Is there one?
- endlessvoid94 8y agoI just moved from SF to South Lake Tahoe. There is a (very) nascent awesome group of people attempting to stabilize the economy, bring (and keep) talent and economic growth local, and they're nice people with integrity as a value. And it's considerably less expensive. If you're a software engineer who loves the outdoors, dogs, good beer, and amazing weather, check it out. DM me if you'd like to learn more.
- seehafer 8y agoI thought SLT would be a great place for a SW ecosystem due to rising Bay Area costs back in the seemingly-quaint time of 2012. Glad to see some folks are making it happen.
- masonic 8y agoCA side or NV side?
- endlessvoid94 8y agoCA for now
- dmode 8y agoI feel deja Vu after reading this headline. I have been hearing how people will leave Bay Area and CA and we will collapse for the last 10 years, only for the opposite to happen.
- rdiddly 8y agoKind of revealing that when the survey asked what the Bay Area's worst problem is, 42% said housing prices, but another... ...18% said traffic congestion (which, like high housing prices, is an effect of overcrowding) ...14% said poverty/homelessness (which is partly an effect of high housing prices) ...12% said the cost of living (of which, housing costs are a big component). So in a way, it's kind of like 86% of those surveyed cited housing prices.
- forapurpose 8y agoIs there any data or research we can apply to this issue? For an HN thread, it's filled with a lot of unfounded claims and speculation. The last thing this kind of discussion needs is more speculation, which exposes us to rumors and to our own prejudices, and which diverts resources from the real problems (whatever they are).
- wolco 8y agoIf half of them did leave all would want to stay.
- starchild_3001 8y agoTwo thoughts come to mind: * Is the population dropping given all this negativity? My guess: No! Else, property prices and/or rent would've dropped as well. => This survey is just plain "complaining". Not actual action. OR the number of people who move in outnumber those who move out. * Yeah, been there done that. I moved to Austin for 2-3 years only to realize how much better Bay Area is regarding engineering talent, jobs you can find, outdoor activities you can do, school options for kids etc. Back in Bay Area now. Happy owner of a home since '13.
- khazhoux 8y agoCan someone please explain why it is so controversial to suggest that the Big Co's should slow down or stop their massive growth in the Bay Area? It's (relatively) easy for G/Amzn/etc to acquire and construct more buildings that employ tens of thousands, but there's no way (even with YIMBYism) to keep up with that influx.
- echan00 8y agoMany US residents also said they would leave to Canada if Trump gets elected. I didn't see that happen..
- techsin101 8y agoHonest question? Why won't Cali govt just build 700 or so 40 floor buildings and rent them on zero profit. Something similar to Singapore. I think California's housing problem is bottleneck for its economic growth, an emergency. Why is government being complacent if it was China you'd have skyscrapers going up like there is no tomorrow