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And, it's doubly ironic that those are the places where it's citizens want the least amount of growth. In SF for example, there's a lot of tech hate. I think

And, it's doubly ironic that those are the places where it's citizens want the least amount of growth. In SF for example, there's a lot of tech hate. I think it's time to create incentives for companies to move to cities that actually want to grow. where jobs go, people WILL follow.

C1sc0cat 7y ago
Um no its not that simple in a democracy people have to want to live there or have reasonable public transport.
- tiredyam 7y ago
  that is why you create incentives. grand parent was not implying that you force someone to move or companies to relocate.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    You use incentives to relocate people or encourage companies to support remote work. Can you imagine how much people years are being wasted on workers paying landlords or mortgage bond holders for inflated housing assets just to be in a certain spot? For knowledge work? Where you're just moving bits? It's almost as bad as the collective time spent working to pay for the depreciation of personal vehicles that sit idle 95% of the time. Make Existence Less Expensive. Or, keep paying exorbitant real estate rents and mortgage payments while complaining, and being permanently behind financially unless you strike it rich with RSUs or some sort of liquidity event.
    - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
      Male? This abbreviation doesn't make much sense.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        It's an overarching thesis, not an abbreviation.
      - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        That would be MELE, not MALE.
magduf 7y ago
>I think it's time to create incentives for companies to move to cities that actually want to grow. where jobs go, people WILL follow. Nothing is stopping other cities from creating incentives. Some cities have even tried. Of course, some cities have certain undesirable features that make in infeasible to attract companies without going to ridiculous lengths which local voters would not approve of.
nine_zeros 7y ago
For a lot of us, the only undesirable aspect of SF bay area would be rent and housing costs. Everything else in the area is of the highest quality. SF bay area scores high on weather, food, pollution, average quality of schools, average quality of people, crimelessness, lively cities, international educated people, jobs, vibrant societies, vibrant economies etc. Housing is a major cause of all remaining evils there. Besides that, life is pretty good tbh.
- humanrebar 7y ago
  YMMV, but the local culture is a lot less friendly than some other places. Not that NYC is necessarily better.
- awad 7y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with quite a few of those points when you look at the "SF" part of "SF Bay Area". Sure, Woodside and Moraga are top tier quality of life if you can afford it, but half of SF is essentially Gotham city.
at-fates-hands 7y ago
>> And, it's doubly ironic that those are the places where it's citizens want the least amount of growth. I would add those are some areas where the cost of living is insanely high. Getting a "hi-tech" job in any of those metro areas is one thing, figuring how to live with in your budget is something completely different. I've had a myriad of friends who've gone out west and moved back after a few years because the cost of living is so high, even when they're clearing well over 100K in salary, its not enough.
harimau777 7y ago
I think that the problem is that people don't want to live in many of America's cities and I'm not sure that there's much the cities can do to change that. - They cannot force their population to have more progressive attitudes towards different types of people. - There's not much they can do to make themselves culturally important in the way that cities like SF, LA, and New York are. - It's unlikely that they will be willing to spend what it would cost to build public transportation. The only way I could see cities getting tech workers to want to live there is if they did something that resulted in the workers having significantly higher salaries. Something like having no state or local income tax and paying part of their federal income tax.
- threwawasy1228 7y ago
  I would literally move to nearly anywhere in the midwest, in a heartbeat if they paid real salaries. I see it now, the hundreds of HN comments from years past talking about COL differences.The salaries I've seen in the midwest are what would have been reasonable in 2006, even adjusting for CoL differences. These companies are just not keeping pace with the market. This "oh the CoL differences" line was valid in the past, and still is valid in the few tech cities that have kept pace properly like Austin, but for most places it is a excuse to trick people into accepting lower salaries than people are worth regardless of what local rent costs. Ever notice how everybody here knows Austin even though it is flyover small town? I feel like I repeat myself a hundred thousand times. Almost EVERY city in the midwest, every city, would be as viable a location as Austin is, if the companies there weren't cheapskates and paid people what they were worth.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    As someone who moved out of the Midwest for higher-paying work, this comment is 100.01% accurate. I had to move to Chicago for my first real job--one which went away a little bit after after the early 2000s dot-com crash--and then eventually moved out of Madison, Wisconsin, when an east coast company bought my employer out and fired nearly everyone. That last time around, I was apparently making way more than the local median salary, and really needed to replace all of it and then some. Every time I think about going back, I say "minimum $120k," and they say "ope, that's a bit much for us, dere" and never call me again. It saves time, I'm sure, but very disappointing nonetheless. From Minneapolis-St.Paul to Pittsburgh is the Midwestern megacity, with zero serious geographical limits on densifying, or adding to suburban sprawl. And every company in it would happily offer $70k/year to someone with 20 years of experience, and still believe it to be "extremely generous". At first, I thought they were all lowballing for the purposes of negotiation, but it turns out that they're all uniformly miserly.
cies 7y ago
Or decentivice (is that a word?) places that have had enough growth for now (is that even possible under capitalism?). This could be federally arranged. Sure freedom, but the govt also has an allocation function, and some of these towns are said to suffer under the load of the new jobs.
- VintageLight 7y ago
  I think you meant "disincentivize". I agree that there should be strong incentives to spread prosperity to smaller towns. Japan has an interesting tax program that boosts the small towns in the country: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2018/10/19/japanese-hometown-tax/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2018/10/19/japanese-hometown-tax/
- humanrebar 7y ago
  > ...is that even possible under capitalism? I don't get why people throw around the word "capitalism" like that. The U.S. legal system isn't organized around "capitalism" in any real way. The U.S. historically was a liberal republic, though lately the republicanism had given way to a stronger administrative state on all levels. And it's that that really influences how things are influenced with respect to urban development: regulators, HUD, local zoning boards, transportation planning, transportation energy regulations, etc. Not much of that screams "private control of the means of production" or even "free market".
  - cies 7y ago
    Capitalism is, in my opinion, any system that allows for capitalists to keep their capital. Free market has, in my opinion, very little to do with capitalism; contrary to popular belief.
vkou 7y ago
There's nothing ironic about this. The people who don't want growth are rich techies with a 'screw you, I have mine' attitude, or aren't working tech jobs, and the only growth they are enjoying is of the rent they pay for their shoebox apartments. The former don't want growth in the form of more housing (It devalues theirs), and the latter don't want growth in the form of more jobs (Because that just means more rich people to bid up the cost of their housing.)
- scarejunba 7y ago
  My experience about SF isn't that. All the wealthy startup CEOs want more homes in SF. And it bothers them that they're funneling runway into rent on their newer startups.
zippergz 7y ago
The people who don't want rapid growth are the people who have experienced it. The people who do want growth are the ones who haven't experienced it. This seems unlikely to be a coincidence.
- Apes 7y ago
  If the majority of people in an area experienced the negative effects of rapid growth -- doesn't that imply most of them caused the growth by moving there in the first place? Talk about locking the door behind you on the way in.
- wffurr 7y ago
  Job growth without commensurate growth in housing stock is a recipe for misery. The NIMBYs did it to themselves.

C1sc0cat 7y ago

Um no its not that simple in a democracy people have to want to live there or have reasonable public transport.

tiredyam 7y ago
that is why you create incentives. grand parent was not implying that you force someone to move or companies to relocate.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  You use incentives to relocate people or encourage companies to support remote work. Can you imagine how much people years are being wasted on workers paying landlords or mortgage bond holders for inflated housing assets just to be in a certain spot? For knowledge work? Where you're just moving bits? It's almost as bad as the collective time spent working to pay for the depreciation of personal vehicles that sit idle 95% of the time. Make Existence Less Expensive. Or, keep paying exorbitant real estate rents and mortgage payments while complaining, and being permanently behind financially unless you strike it rich with RSUs or some sort of liquidity event.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    Male? This abbreviation doesn't make much sense.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      It's an overarching thesis, not an abbreviation.
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      That would be MELE, not MALE.

magduf 7y ago

>I think it's time to create incentives for companies to move to cities that actually want to grow. where jobs go, people WILL follow. Nothing is stopping other cities from creating incentives. Some cities have even tried. Of course, some cities have certain undesirable features that make in infeasible to attract companies without going to ridiculous lengths which local voters would not approve of.

nine_zeros 7y ago

For a lot of us, the only undesirable aspect of SF bay area would be rent and housing costs. Everything else in the area is of the highest quality. SF bay area scores high on weather, food, pollution, average quality of schools, average quality of people, crimelessness, lively cities, international educated people, jobs, vibrant societies, vibrant economies etc. Housing is a major cause of all remaining evils there. Besides that, life is pretty good tbh.

humanrebar 7y ago
YMMV, but the local culture is a lot less friendly than some other places. Not that NYC is necessarily better.
awad 7y ago
I'm not sure I agree with quite a few of those points when you look at the "SF" part of "SF Bay Area". Sure, Woodside and Moraga are top tier quality of life if you can afford it, but half of SF is essentially Gotham city.

at-fates-hands 7y ago

>> And, it's doubly ironic that those are the places where it's citizens want the least amount of growth. I would add those are some areas where the cost of living is insanely high. Getting a "hi-tech" job in any of those metro areas is one thing, figuring how to live with in your budget is something completely different. I've had a myriad of friends who've gone out west and moved back after a few years because the cost of living is so high, even when they're clearing well over 100K in salary, its not enough.

harimau777 7y ago

I think that the problem is that people don't want to live in many of America's cities and I'm not sure that there's much the cities can do to change that. - They cannot force their population to have more progressive attitudes towards different types of people. - There's not much they can do to make themselves culturally important in the way that cities like SF, LA, and New York are. - It's unlikely that they will be willing to spend what it would cost to build public transportation. The only way I could see cities getting tech workers to want to live there is if they did something that resulted in the workers having significantly higher salaries. Something like having no state or local income tax and paying part of their federal income tax.

threwawasy1228 7y ago
I would literally move to nearly anywhere in the midwest, in a heartbeat if they paid real salaries. I see it now, the hundreds of HN comments from years past talking about COL differences.The salaries I've seen in the midwest are what would have been reasonable in 2006, even adjusting for CoL differences. These companies are just not keeping pace with the market. This "oh the CoL differences" line was valid in the past, and still is valid in the few tech cities that have kept pace properly like Austin, but for most places it is a excuse to trick people into accepting lower salaries than people are worth regardless of what local rent costs. Ever notice how everybody here knows Austin even though it is flyover small town? I feel like I repeat myself a hundred thousand times. Almost EVERY city in the midwest, every city, would be as viable a location as Austin is, if the companies there weren't cheapskates and paid people what they were worth.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  As someone who moved out of the Midwest for higher-paying work, this comment is 100.01% accurate. I had to move to Chicago for my first real job--one which went away a little bit after after the early 2000s dot-com crash--and then eventually moved out of Madison, Wisconsin, when an east coast company bought my employer out and fired nearly everyone. That last time around, I was apparently making way more than the local median salary, and really needed to replace all of it and then some. Every time I think about going back, I say "minimum $120k," and they say "ope, that's a bit much for us, dere" and never call me again. It saves time, I'm sure, but very disappointing nonetheless. From Minneapolis-St.Paul to Pittsburgh is the Midwestern megacity, with zero serious geographical limits on densifying, or adding to suburban sprawl. And every company in it would happily offer $70k/year to someone with 20 years of experience, and still believe it to be "extremely generous". At first, I thought they were all lowballing for the purposes of negotiation, but it turns out that they're all uniformly miserly.

cies 7y ago

Or decentivice (is that a word?) places that have had enough growth for now (is that even possible under capitalism?). This could be federally arranged. Sure freedom, but the govt also has an allocation function, and some of these towns are said to suffer under the load of the new jobs.

VintageLight 7y ago
I think you meant "disincentivize". I agree that there should be strong incentives to spread prosperity to smaller towns. Japan has an interesting tax program that boosts the small towns in the country: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2018/10/19/japanese-hometown-tax/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2018/10/19/japanese-hometown-tax/
humanrebar 7y ago
> ...is that even possible under capitalism? I don't get why people throw around the word "capitalism" like that. The U.S. legal system isn't organized around "capitalism" in any real way. The U.S. historically was a liberal republic, though lately the republicanism had given way to a stronger administrative state on all levels. And it's that that really influences how things are influenced with respect to urban development: regulators, HUD, local zoning boards, transportation planning, transportation energy regulations, etc. Not much of that screams "private control of the means of production" or even "free market".
- cies 7y ago
  Capitalism is, in my opinion, any system that allows for capitalists to keep their capital. Free market has, in my opinion, very little to do with capitalism; contrary to popular belief.

vkou 7y ago

There's nothing ironic about this. The people who don't want growth are rich techies with a 'screw you, I have mine' attitude, or aren't working tech jobs, and the only growth they are enjoying is of the rent they pay for their shoebox apartments. The former don't want growth in the form of more housing (It devalues theirs), and the latter don't want growth in the form of more jobs (Because that just means more rich people to bid up the cost of their housing.)

scarejunba 7y ago
My experience about SF isn't that. All the wealthy startup CEOs want more homes in SF. And it bothers them that they're funneling runway into rent on their newer startups.

zippergz 7y ago

The people who don't want rapid growth are the people who have experienced it. The people who do want growth are the ones who haven't experienced it. This seems unlikely to be a coincidence.

Apes 7y ago
If the majority of people in an area experienced the negative effects of rapid growth -- doesn't that imply most of them caused the growth by moving there in the first place? Talk about locking the door behind you on the way in.
wffurr 7y ago
Job growth without commensurate growth in housing stock is a recipe for misery. The NIMBYs did it to themselves.