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As a white-collar professional and a software developer, what's something that we can do to lessen our effect on this phenomenon? I don't current live in a larg

As a white-collar professional and a software developer, what's something that we can do to lessen our effect on this phenomenon? I don't current live in a large city, but I've considered moving to one if I need to find work in the future. I've been lucky to work remote for most of my career, so living in a metro area with fewer tech jobs hasn't been an issue. However, if I were to move to one of the big tech cities, obviously I would be contributing to the pricing problems that already exist.

KeenFox 7y ago
Systemic issues require systemic solutions. The only thing an individual can do is advocate and vote. Even that might not be enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem
- TomMarius 7y ago
  How exactly should we vote supply and demand out of existence? You propose a left-ish solution but the same left-ish people that would enact it also support housing regulation, and due to supply and demand, your goal simply can't be met. This is not a systemic issue in most places where the program exists, it's an issue of current regulation (and the people that created it).
  - nikomen 7y ago
    I assume this would mean trying to vote for politicians that would remove the artificial supply and demand in somewhere like San Francisco where, if stories are correct, the local population doesn't allow for dense development. I'm not sure what you do in locales like New York where development is already dense in many areas.
    - TulliusCicero 7y ago
      NYC has some similar problems, albeit not as severe. IIRC much of the existing housing in NYC is 'illegal' in the sense that current zoning would prevent it from being built today due to density restrictions. For a counter example, you can look at Tokyo as a place that's more of a free for all, and indeed while it's still fairly expensive, it's much less so than the bay area or NYC.
      - jtuente 7y ago
        Rent alone accounts for the majority of the difference in CoL, but that may also depend on your expectations for the living space. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Japan&city1=Tokyo&country2=United+States&city2=New+York%2C+NY&amount=3700&displayCurrency=USD https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
        TulliusCicero 7y ago
        Even if you compared studios in NYC to 1br's in Tokyo, Tokyo would still have a huge rent price advantage.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    > How exactly should we vote supply and demand out of existence? You can't, but there are things that can be done to compensate or mitigate: - Anti-union regulations like "right to work" laws are an anti-market intrusion that weakens the power of labor. Vote against them. - Support works councils (they've worked well in Germany) for more democratic governance, which right now I believe are illegal in the US (read this in a Bloomberg article earlier, though haven't verified). - Support things that make bad jobs less bad. For example, there are benefits offered by 'better' companies, like good health insurance or paid parental leave, that could be provided by the state or mandated by the state. - Support land use and transportation changes that would allow more people to participate in the economies of 'superstar' cities without ruinous housing costs. Note that two of these things are even market-oriented, not all the positive changes have to be about more/bigger government.
    - vonmoltke 7y ago
      > - Anti-union regulations like "right to work" laws are an anti-market intrusion that weakens the power of labor. Vote against them. How is forcing me to join a particular union pro-market? Also, how am I supposed to vote on this or any of the other things you mentioned? I get one vote per legislative body every 2 || 6 years and that one vote has to cover dozens of issues like this that come up in the interim.
      - TulliusCicero 7y ago
        > How is forcing me to join a particular union pro-market? A contract stipulating joining a union for a job is no more anti-market than a contract specifying work hours or clothing requirements or how much vacation you get. If that's how the business has decided to run, the free market perspective is that they should be allowed to. It's market forces that can compel a company to agree to such a setup, after all. However, a regulation saying that this type of contractual obligations is illegal is very obviously an intrusion on the market. Not that I think all intrusions are bad, but I don't see a compelling reason to support this one, given that corporations already tend to have the advantage over workers and this reduces workers' collective leverage. Agreed that it's hard to vote narrowly on this topic. But no different from any other political subject, really.
- thrower123 7y ago
  Self-flagellation doesn't help anybody else, either
rmbryan 7y ago
What a great question!
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Stop paying too much for housing because the commute is 15min or the schools are good. Stop buying hipster beer and eating at those stereotypical gentrified restaurants that charge too much for everything. Buy your groceries somewhere other than Whole Paycheck. Basically just live below your means. But that is going to be hard for most people in tech to do because most people in tech were raised upper middle class and they simply don't know how to live below that and a lot of the rest are not from the US and they're mostly just going to do whatever makes them fit in. And unless you can get everyone with money to live like they don't (which you can't) that's not actually going to solve anything. Telling everybody to just change their lifestyle is not a real solution to anything anyway.
- PavlovsCat 7y ago
  > But unless you can get everyone to do that (which you can't) that's not actually going to solve anything. It solves the problem of contributing to it.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    That is true. But how many people actually care to do that? Sure you you can personally not litter but without the massive public awareness campaigns of decades past concerned individuals would never have been able to solve the problem of littering. The public at large needed to be on board. Ditto for "socioeconomic littering". While I'd really like to see some solution that doesn't involve regulation getting the upper classes to not spend their money improving their quality of life doesn't seem like a tractable approach. What's the point of having the money if you can't use it to better your life?
- eeZah7Ux 7y ago
  TL;DR: consumerism is bad for you.
- tathougies 7y ago
  The last thing one should do to solve housing inequality is to intentionally buy a lower priced home that could have formerly been afforded by a family with lesser means (thus forcing them to attempt to afford a higher priced property) in a sanctimonious attempt to avoid doing just that. Ultimately, there is nothing an individual can do to help housing affordability. That is a societal problem. If you really want to help housing equality, buy ana apartment building, not a house, and add more units

KeenFox 7y ago

Systemic issues require systemic solutions. The only thing an individual can do is advocate and vote. Even that might not be enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem

TomMarius 7y ago
How exactly should we vote supply and demand out of existence? You propose a left-ish solution but the same left-ish people that would enact it also support housing regulation, and due to supply and demand, your goal simply can't be met. This is not a systemic issue in most places where the program exists, it's an issue of current regulation (and the people that created it).
- nikomen 7y ago
  I assume this would mean trying to vote for politicians that would remove the artificial supply and demand in somewhere like San Francisco where, if stories are correct, the local population doesn't allow for dense development. I'm not sure what you do in locales like New York where development is already dense in many areas.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    NYC has some similar problems, albeit not as severe. IIRC much of the existing housing in NYC is 'illegal' in the sense that current zoning would prevent it from being built today due to density restrictions. For a counter example, you can look at Tokyo as a place that's more of a free for all, and indeed while it's still fairly expensive, it's much less so than the bay area or NYC.
    - jtuente 7y ago
      Rent alone accounts for the majority of the difference in CoL, but that may also depend on your expectations for the living space. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Japan&city1=Tokyo&country2=United+States&city2=New+York%2C+NY&amount=3700&displayCurrency=USD https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
      - TulliusCicero 7y ago
        Even if you compared studios in NYC to 1br's in Tokyo, Tokyo would still have a huge rent price advantage.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  > How exactly should we vote supply and demand out of existence? You can't, but there are things that can be done to compensate or mitigate: - Anti-union regulations like "right to work" laws are an anti-market intrusion that weakens the power of labor. Vote against them. - Support works councils (they've worked well in Germany) for more democratic governance, which right now I believe are illegal in the US (read this in a Bloomberg article earlier, though haven't verified). - Support things that make bad jobs less bad. For example, there are benefits offered by 'better' companies, like good health insurance or paid parental leave, that could be provided by the state or mandated by the state. - Support land use and transportation changes that would allow more people to participate in the economies of 'superstar' cities without ruinous housing costs. Note that two of these things are even market-oriented, not all the positive changes have to be about more/bigger government.
  - vonmoltke 7y ago
    > - Anti-union regulations like "right to work" laws are an anti-market intrusion that weakens the power of labor. Vote against them. How is forcing me to join a particular union pro-market? Also, how am I supposed to vote on this or any of the other things you mentioned? I get one vote per legislative body every 2 || 6 years and that one vote has to cover dozens of issues like this that come up in the interim.
    - TulliusCicero 7y ago
      > How is forcing me to join a particular union pro-market? A contract stipulating joining a union for a job is no more anti-market than a contract specifying work hours or clothing requirements or how much vacation you get. If that's how the business has decided to run, the free market perspective is that they should be allowed to. It's market forces that can compel a company to agree to such a setup, after all. However, a regulation saying that this type of contractual obligations is illegal is very obviously an intrusion on the market. Not that I think all intrusions are bad, but I don't see a compelling reason to support this one, given that corporations already tend to have the advantage over workers and this reduces workers' collective leverage. Agreed that it's hard to vote narrowly on this topic. But no different from any other political subject, really.
thrower123 7y ago
Self-flagellation doesn't help anybody else, either

rmbryan 7y ago

What a great question!

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

Stop paying too much for housing because the commute is 15min or the schools are good. Stop buying hipster beer and eating at those stereotypical gentrified restaurants that charge too much for everything. Buy your groceries somewhere other than Whole Paycheck. Basically just live below your means. But that is going to be hard for most people in tech to do because most people in tech were raised upper middle class and they simply don't know how to live below that and a lot of the rest are not from the US and they're mostly just going to do whatever makes them fit in. And unless you can get everyone with money to live like they don't (which you can't) that's not actually going to solve anything. Telling everybody to just change their lifestyle is not a real solution to anything anyway.

PavlovsCat 7y ago
> But unless you can get everyone to do that (which you can't) that's not actually going to solve anything. It solves the problem of contributing to it.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  That is true. But how many people actually care to do that? Sure you you can personally not litter but without the massive public awareness campaigns of decades past concerned individuals would never have been able to solve the problem of littering. The public at large needed to be on board. Ditto for "socioeconomic littering". While I'd really like to see some solution that doesn't involve regulation getting the upper classes to not spend their money improving their quality of life doesn't seem like a tractable approach. What's the point of having the money if you can't use it to better your life?
eeZah7Ux 7y ago
TL;DR: consumerism is bad for you.
tathougies 7y ago
The last thing one should do to solve housing inequality is to intentionally buy a lower priced home that could have formerly been afforded by a family with lesser means (thus forcing them to attempt to afford a higher priced property) in a sanctimonious attempt to avoid doing just that. Ultimately, there is nothing an individual can do to help housing affordability. That is a societal problem. If you really want to help housing equality, buy ana apartment building, not a house, and add more units