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> This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists I don't think you quite grasp the effects of a massive influx of hundreds to thousands of new i

• TulliusCicero 8y ago
  > I don't think you quite grasp the effects of a massive influx of hundreds to thousands of new individuals making $150k-250k. I'm from the bay area and pay close attention to land use/zoning issues, so yeah, I think I do. The bay area has had particularly extreme series of decades of rent increases precisely because of anti-housing policies. If the market was allowed to respond, rents would still rise, to be sure, but not nearly as much. > Sure, it might create a few new jobs for baristas and shopkeepers, a few bartenders and waitresses. But ultimately it just leads to gentrification and prices people out of the market. Anchor industries succeeding in a metro also raises wages for others in that metro. But, the catch is that the wage rise may not necessarily be enough to match the increase in cost of living. The bay area (and really all coastal California) is a good example of this. Wages for a lot of random job types are higher than normal, but housing is still too expensive. > You wonder why people are angry? It's because of tonedeaf responses from big companies pushing their agendas. Companies have a basic duty to run themselves ethically and obey laws and regulations. "You created too many high-paying jobs" is a silly thing to get upset at them for, when the problem is clearly a governmental failure. Liberal US cities are neither permitting the market to create new housing, nor are they creating large amounts of public housing themselves. Their attitude amounts to, "We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas!" You want a solution? Look at Singapore or Vienna.
  • evanlivingston 8y ago
    Or conversely, look at Portland for an example a place where keeping up with housing demand has not translated into preserving a quantity of affordable housing. Abstracted supply and demand alone does not result in ensuring housing at various price points
    • TulliusCicero 8y ago
      Portland still greatly restricts where denser housing may be built. When you concentrate most of the new stock in huge towers, it's harder to get anything affordable since huge towers are inherently expensive to build. The point isn't that fewer restricts means housing prices won't climb at all, but that they won't climb as quickly. For the truly affordable segment, they're either served with old housing (like with cars), or with public housing.
    • seucs 8y ago
      Or Vancouver. Singapore and Vienna is really a counter argument more than anything else. These are places were the government have significant control over, and are essentially undermining, the housing market. This isn't changing zoning a little bit. In Singapore the government acquired most of the land. And Austria is spending the equivalent of a defense budget each year on housing subsidies alone.
      • TulliusCicero 8y ago
        Personally I'm fine with either the market or the government providing new housing, and ideally I think we'd have a lot of both. > This isn't changing zoning a little bit. It's true, fairly radical zoning changes are warranted. Or at least, radical by US standards. Although you probably wouldn't have to go quite as far as Singapore, since obviously US cities aren't as land restricted.
      • mosdl 8y ago
        Except Vienna housing keeps getting more expensive as there isn't much stock available.
    • 8y ago
• guiomie 8y ago
  Genuinely asking, what can big companies do? Lobby for laws to not pay people 150-250k?
  • Apocryphon 8y ago
    Two cyberpunk ideas: 1. Build new communities entirely (see Night City) 2. No politically viable solutions to income inequality? Do it yourself! Implement your own local basic income program for non-employee residents. Would at least help with PR. Gives a new spin on the phrase corporate welfare.
• geezerjay 8y ago
  > I don't think you quite grasp the effects of a massive influx of hundreds to thousands of new individuals making $150k-250k. It also drives up demand for new housing and thus urban renewal projects become viable, which contribute to create higher-quality housing suitable to modern needs, not to mention contributions to ancillary services like public transportation. > It increases rent across the board, which impacts all the people in an area. No it doesn't. It impacts those who don't live there but want to, and due to increased demand need to compete with more people for that privilege. > Sure, it might create a few new jobs for baristas and shopkeepers, a few bartenders and waitresses. Ah yes, because those who didn't had opportunities to enroll in an engineering degree deserve to have their occupations ridiculed, and shouldn't even have the right to a respectable job.
• ajross 8y ago
  Honest question: where would you prefer to put those thousands of individuals making $150-250k? I mean, they have to work somewhere, right? And they want to live in big, vibrant metropolitain areas for the same reason that YOU want to live in those areas (which is why you're upset about the rent in the first place). Is there really a solution in your head where high-paid geeks are going to move to Boise or Zagreb or Perth[1] and be happy there vs. SF or Berlin or Sydney? [1] Pause while residents of those places tell me how great they are.
  • Apocryphon 8y ago
    Many Californians have been moving to Boise.
    • TulliusCicero 8y ago
      This is like those "heatmaps" that are really just population density maps. California is the most populous state, on average there's going to be more people moving from there to elsewhere than other states.
  • azinman2 8y ago
    Sometimes there aren’t good answers. Prosperity for some displaces. You can’t be surprised that those who aren’t rich, and we’re already here, are angry at the situation.
    • ajross 8y ago
      There are good answers. But they're ones of housing policy and urban planning, not "#FuckOffGoogle", which serves literally no one.
      • Apocryphon 8y ago
        Telling angry people that they're irrational and not entitled to their anger is not a good answer, either.
• mc32 8y ago
  What are they supposed to do? 1. Not create good jobs 2. Collude to pay lower wages to ensure they align with regional prevailing wages. 3. Build out their own employee-only housing complexes? 4. Do the govts job and plan and build housing and set building and planning policies which align with the economics? I understand people want their cake and eat it, but they have to be reasonable. Tax appropriately, govern apptopriately.
  • Apocryphon 8y ago
    They could try working with local governments to get more housing built. They already are involved in politics on matters like net neutrality and immigration. They can clearly pay for more lobbyists and lawyers.
    • mc32 8y ago
      I’m not sure about the sitch in Berlin, but here in the SF Bsy Area they do try to push for policies and development, they are seldom successful. They get lots of pushback.
      • Apocryphon 8y ago
        I'm wondering how hard they try relative to their other lobbying efforts. You don't see major news stories about tech execs appealing for more housing for their workers. Usually it's about building a new HQ, such as Jobs in Cupertino or Dorsey for the Market St. office.
        • summerlight 8y ago
          Google have tried almost 10 years to provide housing for their workers in Mountain View. AFAIK, the city has consistently rejected its plan until a new pro-development mayor gets elected, presumably due to the current significant presence of Googlers. Now they have an approval for 9,100 units of housing in North Bayshore, but I guess it will take another 10 years for the actual planning and development.
• deminature 8y ago
  Where are large tech companies supposed to put their offices? If they're in areas where the workers want to live and can reasonably commute to, they're accused of gentrification. If they're in areas where they're not upsetting the existing housing situation, they can't attract any talent to fill positions. These companies can't win.
  • Apocryphon 8y ago
    Embrace remote work and try harder to attract talent in secondary cities. They've got the money and the influence to make that happen, see Amazon's HQ2 bid.
• matchbok 8y ago
  Companies have no legal or moral obligation to fix the housing crisis. Gentrification is, as a whole, a good thing. Nobody has a right to live in a specific neighborhood cheaply. Such social planning/engineering is destined to have countless side effects.
• erentz 8y ago
  Berlin was having this problem before Google’s campus showed up. The fact is the war ended. Berlin became the capital of a very large and wealthy country. If Berliners wanted to avoid displacing people they needed to start building lots of houses. And they needed to start a while ago because building houses takes time. But they NIMBY’d against the perceived “gentrification” of new houses so now they’re behind. Avoiding the problem for longer by blaming tech companies isn’t going to somehow put the genie back in the bottle. Accept Berlin has changed and build houses.