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> The most viable way to create affordable housing is to admit that a very small number of Tier 1 US cities are effectively full Density of San Francisco: 18,8

> The most viable way to create affordable housing is to admit that a very small number of Tier 1 US cities are effectively full Density of San Francisco: 18,838/mi^2. Density of Barcelona: 41,000/mi^2. > encourage smart young people to move to Denver and Charlotte and Miami and Raleigh and Indianapolis and Phoenix and Burlington and Madison and This is a failed strategy, and a bit of reflection shows why it is. Think from the perspective of Google. If Google thinks the best engineers are in the Bay Area†, Google needs to be in the Bay Area. Otherwise, the best Bay Area engineers, who have a choice in where they work by virtue of the fact that they're the best engineers, will go work for competitors. Now realize that this dynamic is true for Apple, Facebook, and even Amazon and Microsoft, and you see why the situation is the way it is. Given this, the realistic options are (1) drive everyone but the rich out of the Bay Area; (2) build more housing. So far, rich municipalities like San Francisco are choosing option (1) under the guise of "progressivism". Besides, even if it were possible to force Google to move, it isn't fair for rich people in the Bay Area to gentrify Modesto just because they don't want to build housing. †I'm not arguing that engineers in the Bay Area are actually better than engineers elsewhere. The point is that the big tech companies think that the best concentration of engineering talent is here, and economically, that's what matters.

mwcampbell 7y ago
I find it ironic that leading Internet software companies, of all things, don't go all-remote and start hiring people from all over without requiring them to relocate to a few over-populated hubs. Wouldn't that solve the problem? We know that distributed software teams can indeed work effectively.
- pcwalton 7y ago
  If the market was going to solve the problem that way, then it would have by now. Hoping that Google would hire remotely more often won't fix the housing crisis. Some employees prefer offices, and not all jobs can be remote, such as Apple's hardware work. And there are other benefits of physical proximity: meetups, conferences, venture capital, etc. etc.
zjaffee 7y ago
This is a fundamental problem with our society at large and market economies in general. Companies find it easier to deal with the consequences of a resulting regional housing crisis near their headquarters than they do to invest in second tier cities. You know how you get those smaller cities to be places where tech companies can grow successfully, you start now, by building infrastructure that retains the college graduates from the area, and in 10-20 years, the region has highly competent professionals in the given field.

mwcampbell 7y ago

I find it ironic that leading Internet software companies, of all things, don't go all-remote and start hiring people from all over without requiring them to relocate to a few over-populated hubs. Wouldn't that solve the problem? We know that distributed software teams can indeed work effectively.

pcwalton 7y ago
If the market was going to solve the problem that way, then it would have by now. Hoping that Google would hire remotely more often won't fix the housing crisis. Some employees prefer offices, and not all jobs can be remote, such as Apple's hardware work. And there are other benefits of physical proximity: meetups, conferences, venture capital, etc. etc.

zjaffee 7y ago

This is a fundamental problem with our society at large and market economies in general. Companies find it easier to deal with the consequences of a resulting regional housing crisis near their headquarters than they do to invest in second tier cities. You know how you get those smaller cities to be places where tech companies can grow successfully, you start now, by building infrastructure that retains the college graduates from the area, and in 10-20 years, the region has highly competent professionals in the given field.