4 ms·
I haven't lived in SF but I work in tech and have been visiting for 10 years. My hot take is that NYC (where I have lived) is better in every way except for th
by cletus 6y ago
I haven't lived in SF but I work in tech and have been visiting for 10 years.
My hot take is that NYC (where I have lived) is better in every way except for the weather. Every time I arrived at SFO and walked outside I was like "why don't I live here?". Then I get to the tent cities, the grime, the open drug use and the hordes of homeless and I'm like "oh yeah, that's why". And that's before you get to the sky-high cost of living.
Given the zoning and building constraints in the Bay Area, IMHO the big tech companies were over-capacity for how many workers that whole area can support. Fixing the zoning and required infrastructure to support more people is not something that will change overnight either (or ever, potentially).
So the pandemic has shepherded in what might be the turning point for this unsustainable growth: and that is permanent remote work.
Let me put it this way: I used to say that everyone (who worked at Google) lives in the Bay Area to work at Google whereas people work at Google everywhere else to live in those places. This isn't strictly true of course but generally I think it is.
I see this move as being a boon for a lot of cities in the US: Atlanta, Dallas, Austin and Denver spring to mind. And this likely has long-term political consequences. Georgia flipped blue (just) in the election just gone largely due to Atlanta's growth. I think Texas will flip blue within 10-15 years.
SF could be a nice place to live but it isn't. That was largely due to there being too many people who had to live there. This won't change overnight either but I see alleviating that "need" to live in the Bay Area as being a net positive.
- drak0n1c 6y agoStudies show that transplants from blue states moving to Texas actually voted red at a higher rate than those born in TX. Keep in mind that there are millions of right-leaning individuals in populated coastal areas (much more than many red states combined) and of the pool of people considering moving they are often the most motivated. The rate may be different for those moving to states other than TX though. https://www.texaspolicy.com/will-texas-flip-because-of-blue-state-migrants-dont-bet-on-it/ https://www.texaspolicy.com/will-texas-flip-because-of-blue-... https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2018/11/09/native-texans-voted-for-native-texan-beto-o-rourke-transplants-went-for-ted-cruz-exit-poll-shows/ https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2018/11/09/native-t... https://www.thecentersquare.com/texas/gov-abbott-new-texas-voters-are-more-conservative-than-natives/article_8a250872-1c5a-11ea-9fc0-4303155b0d9d.html https://www.thecentersquare.com/texas/gov-abbott-new-texas-v...
- cletus 6y agoIn 2000 in a close election, Bush 43 carried Texas by >21 [1]. This year in a pretty comfortable Biden win, Trump carried Texas by a mere ~5.5. In 2018, Ted Cruz as the incumbent retained his Senate seat against Beto O'Rourke by a mere 2 points [2]. You raise a good point about the study of voting patterns of Texas transplants but whatever the cause I think it's clear that in the long term Texas is trending blue. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election_in_Texas#Results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidentia... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/texas-senate https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/texas-senate