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>Young Berkeley professors can't afford to live where they work. Young teachers can't afford to live where they work. This sort of thing is a societal recipe fo

by magduf 8y ago

>Young Berkeley professors can't afford to live where they work. Young teachers can't afford to live where they work. This sort of thing is a societal recipe for disaster. How so? It's surely a local recipe for disaster. But there's nothing preventing young professors and teachers from leaving the area (or the state) and finding jobs elsewhere where housing is cheaper.

jelliclesfarm 8y ago
Google employs thousands of people. Do they all live in the same town as where their offices are...many mid range companies and public agencies and Starbucks baristas commute to work too. What is so special about teachers that they have an expectation of walking across the street to their place of work? Everyone commutes. Everyone. This expectation of living next to where you work is exactly why we have a housing density problem. Instead of focusing on public transport to make commute painless ..we are stuffing people like sardines in a can with talking points crafted by housing activists who are mostly grant funded non profits and public agencies. More homes in expensive areas serve tax coffers in Sacramento. Not the public.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Google employs thousands of people. And can afford special busses. What is so special about teachers that they have an expectation of walking across the street to their place of work? Nothing is special about teachers. Many things would be tons better if everyone could work where they live. I used to live in a community next to a university where lots of professors lived. My best friends lived upstairs from the shops we frequented. Some of them worked in those shops. It was a walkable community, the kind where your friend might call out to you on the sidewalk from their balcony to come up and have dinner. Such things weren't luxuries but were once the province of everyman and everywoman. There is something really gracious about that kind of living. Society is poorer for it going away. Granted, increasing density is likely to squash some of those things out. However, it might well create new opportunities for such communities to exist, especially if combined with better public transportation. Instead of focusing on public transport to make commute painless Public transport has a history of making cities more vibrant. No disagreement there. This expectation of living next to where you work is exactly why we have a housing density problem. You are misunderstanding my position. People don't absolutely need to live exactly where they work. They just need to be able to afford someplace to live with a modicum of dignity -- based on perceptions of relative status. A society that prices-out certain vital segments of itself entirely -- based on market distoring laws and regulations -- is doing something wrong. I mention the young teachers and young professors specifically, because it strikes me as a misguided way of ensuring one's youth are radicalized and ideologically disconnected from their own society. we are stuffing people like sardines in a can We in CA are deliberately a few steps removed from densities the market would naturally settle at. crafted by housing activists who are mostly grant funded non profits and public agencies Are there actually activists who want more housing density? Most of what I hear about are NIMBYs and people with misguided goals of "preserving the original character" of the neighborhood by just saying no. Perhaps you are aware of a different side of this than I am.
  - jelliclesfarm 8y ago
    What is wrong with ‘special buses’ by google? Isn’t that sustainable? It removes so many cars from the freeways and commuter roads. Of course there are activists who disrupt city council meetings to increase Bay Area density. Who do you think came up with the term NIMBY? It is meant to shame people. It took me about three months to start introducing myself as NIMBY. ‘Hi, my name is ___. I am a NIMBY. So now that it’s out of the way..next?’ Housing advocates come in from other cities and threaten to sue cities if they don’t build more housing. If you are a developer and you are required by law to build 80 high end apartments only if you set aside 20 units as affordable units...what would anyone who has learnt to count with 10 fingers do? They’d either pass on the cost to the upper 60 or build 120 units and make a profit. As far as Sacramento is concerned, this is fine because they get more property taxes of highly inflated high end housing PLUS affordable housing taxes. But the schools now have to absorb 120 households worth of children instead of 80 households worth. There are 240 cars on the road where normal density would have put 160. Gas, power, utilities, trash, water...all public agencies make money. The state and county collect more taxes. Local governance suffers while state captures most of the tax monies that it redistributes to areas that are typically lower income, higher welfare, lower tax producing and lower housing density. Meanwhile urban high density towns where productivity and income is high are vilified as NIMBYs, pay high taxes, get less community benefits and tax disbursements, have high density and crumbling infrastructure..commute short distance for longer due to lack of public transport and traffic jams. All the while the rest of the state spits on your face because you are one of the worst .. ‘tech bros’ and Silicon Valley millionaire while all the time you have a mortgage and kids and higher cost of living like anyone else in California. It’s a tier difference but it’s not a real difference. Only in California will one be disowned and shamed for desiring a higher quality of life and for upward mobility. It is filled with people hungry for upward mobility coming from countries where the promise of a better life is in America. These are not folks who take a gap year to travel around Europe or grandma leaves a trust fund. To claim that we MUST be altruistic is itself a sign of privilege. You can’t go to a hungry person who has been starving for days and has finally found a way to eat well...to share all he has worked hard to obtain. Maybe once he is satiated, he might share. But great things come out of raw passion and desire. It may not seem virtuous to some but who are they to judge? Californians understand this. Immigrants understand this. Americans from other states who don’t understand the California state of mind don’t get it. From the gold rush days, ca has always been in a frenzied state of creation and creative destruction. That’s our default state of mind and that’s why California is different from the rest of America and that’s why everyone wants to come here and precisely why we are overcrowded. But now if we make California unCalifornia, we will be taking away the very identity that makes California what it is..it’s not just creation. It’s also creative destruction. I would rather live in France than in Soviet Russia. I would rather live in California than in France.

by magduf 8y ago

jelliclesfarm 8y ago

Google employs thousands of people. Do they all live in the same town as where their offices are...many mid range companies and public agencies and Starbucks baristas commute to work too. What is so special about teachers that they have an expectation of walking across the street to their place of work? Everyone commutes. Everyone. This expectation of living next to where you work is exactly why we have a housing density problem. Instead of focusing on public transport to make commute painless ..we are stuffing people like sardines in a can with talking points crafted by housing activists who are mostly grant funded non profits and public agencies. More homes in expensive areas serve tax coffers in Sacramento. Not the public.

stcredzero 8y ago
Google employs thousands of people. And can afford special busses. What is so special about teachers that they have an expectation of walking across the street to their place of work? Nothing is special about teachers. Many things would be tons better if everyone could work where they live. I used to live in a community next to a university where lots of professors lived. My best friends lived upstairs from the shops we frequented. Some of them worked in those shops. It was a walkable community, the kind where your friend might call out to you on the sidewalk from their balcony to come up and have dinner. Such things weren't luxuries but were once the province of everyman and everywoman. There is something really gracious about that kind of living. Society is poorer for it going away. Granted, increasing density is likely to squash some of those things out. However, it might well create new opportunities for such communities to exist, especially if combined with better public transportation. Instead of focusing on public transport to make commute painless Public transport has a history of making cities more vibrant. No disagreement there. This expectation of living next to where you work is exactly why we have a housing density problem. You are misunderstanding my position. People don't absolutely need to live exactly where they work. They just need to be able to afford someplace to live with a modicum of dignity -- based on perceptions of relative status. A society that prices-out certain vital segments of itself entirely -- based on market distoring laws and regulations -- is doing something wrong. I mention the young teachers and young professors specifically, because it strikes me as a misguided way of ensuring one's youth are radicalized and ideologically disconnected from their own society. we are stuffing people like sardines in a can We in CA are deliberately a few steps removed from densities the market would naturally settle at. crafted by housing activists who are mostly grant funded non profits and public agencies Are there actually activists who want more housing density? Most of what I hear about are NIMBYs and people with misguided goals of "preserving the original character" of the neighborhood by just saying no. Perhaps you are aware of a different side of this than I am.
- jelliclesfarm 8y ago
  What is wrong with ‘special buses’ by google? Isn’t that sustainable? It removes so many cars from the freeways and commuter roads. Of course there are activists who disrupt city council meetings to increase Bay Area density. Who do you think came up with the term NIMBY? It is meant to shame people. It took me about three months to start introducing myself as NIMBY. ‘Hi, my name is ___. I am a NIMBY. So now that it’s out of the way..next?’ Housing advocates come in from other cities and threaten to sue cities if they don’t build more housing. If you are a developer and you are required by law to build 80 high end apartments only if you set aside 20 units as affordable units...what would anyone who has learnt to count with 10 fingers do? They’d either pass on the cost to the upper 60 or build 120 units and make a profit. As far as Sacramento is concerned, this is fine because they get more property taxes of highly inflated high end housing PLUS affordable housing taxes. But the schools now have to absorb 120 households worth of children instead of 80 households worth. There are 240 cars on the road where normal density would have put 160. Gas, power, utilities, trash, water...all public agencies make money. The state and county collect more taxes. Local governance suffers while state captures most of the tax monies that it redistributes to areas that are typically lower income, higher welfare, lower tax producing and lower housing density. Meanwhile urban high density towns where productivity and income is high are vilified as NIMBYs, pay high taxes, get less community benefits and tax disbursements, have high density and crumbling infrastructure..commute short distance for longer due to lack of public transport and traffic jams. All the while the rest of the state spits on your face because you are one of the worst .. ‘tech bros’ and Silicon Valley millionaire while all the time you have a mortgage and kids and higher cost of living like anyone else in California. It’s a tier difference but it’s not a real difference. Only in California will one be disowned and shamed for desiring a higher quality of life and for upward mobility. It is filled with people hungry for upward mobility coming from countries where the promise of a better life is in America. These are not folks who take a gap year to travel around Europe or grandma leaves a trust fund. To claim that we MUST be altruistic is itself a sign of privilege. You can’t go to a hungry person who has been starving for days and has finally found a way to eat well...to share all he has worked hard to obtain. Maybe once he is satiated, he might share. But great things come out of raw passion and desire. It may not seem virtuous to some but who are they to judge? Californians understand this. Immigrants understand this. Americans from other states who don’t understand the California state of mind don’t get it. From the gold rush days, ca has always been in a frenzied state of creation and creative destruction. That’s our default state of mind and that’s why California is different from the rest of America and that’s why everyone wants to come here and precisely why we are overcrowded. But now if we make California unCalifornia, we will be taking away the very identity that makes California what it is..it’s not just creation. It’s also creative destruction. I would rather live in France than in Soviet Russia. I would rather live in California than in France.