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> Far from welcoming experimentation, it has sought to undermine or stamp out home-rental services, food-delivery apps, ride-hailing firms, electric-scooter com
by dahart 6y ago
> Far from welcoming experimentation, it has sought to undermine or stamp out home-rental services, food-delivery apps, ride-hailing firms, electric-scooter companies, facial recognition technology, delivery robots and more, even as the pioneers in each of those fields attempted to set up shop in the city.
This feels pretty hyperbolic and unreasonable to frame it this way. Startups have been trying to "disrupt" markets by doing things that are in gray areas, or sometimes are outright illegal, and they cause all kinds of problems and outsource the management and cleanup of the problems they cause to the communities and cities. Littering scooters on sidewalks everywhere and taking no responsibility for user safety isn't the kind of experimentation we need.
California labor is super expensive, and HPE's stated reason for moving is cost savings. If anything, I might suggest that the Bay Area's friendliness to tech companies is the very reason the salaries there are so high. People in San Francisco have been complaining and protesting for at least a decade about the tech migration there, and the complete pricing out of the blue collar workforce. I think this article might have it completely wrong.
- natalyarostova 6y agoWhy is Tokyo able to support density levels several times higher then SF, without worrying about pricing anyone out?
- ortusdux 6y agozoning laws
- jedberg 6y agoJapan has zoning laws at the country level, and they are much more sane than local zoning laws. Basically, local zoning says "this piece of land can be used for one thing". Japan's laws say "this piece of land can cause a maximum nuisance of X, but it can have all these different things on it". And then it's up to the developers to decide if building a multi-unit building would more profitable than a single family home.
- athms 6y agoIt is very difficult to build anything in SF. The city doesn't have any available land, therefore you need to demolish existing structures and build higher. There is a loud and vocal community of activists that refuse to allow new construction because of gentrification. Additionally, many won't allow retail businesses that are not local. SF prevents retail chains of a certain size in some neighborhoods. Also, the city has a law that allows any resident to challenge a change of use permit or new construction, no matter where they live in the city. These cases ultimately come up before the Board of Supervisors which tend to attach requirements and restrictions for construction leading to expensive delays.