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Thansk for the comment. I have no problem with multi-generational living. I'm not Asian but I lived with my in-laws for a few years while we were saving up to b

Thansk for the comment. I have no problem with multi-generational living. I'm not Asian but I lived with my in-laws for a few years while we were saving up to buy a home and it was great. The problem I have is when there are more people in a given housing unit than it was designed to accommodate and so you make up for that lack by consuming something in the commons, specifically street parking. The pattern I saw in the Bay Area was not so much multi-generational families as groups of multiple unrelated working adults moving into a single-family home together as roommates, each adult individual having their own car and quickly exceeding the 2 spaces provided by a typical Bay Area driveway. Maybe they could park more in the driveway but nobody wants to block in other vehicles so they park in the street for every car beyond 2. Pretty soon the neighborhood is fully parked up. This is unrelated, but there was also a guy in my Palo Alto neighborhood who hoarded junk cars. He had them parked in his garage, his driveway, yard, and when he ran out of space he started parking them all up and down the street near his house in front of neighbors houses. It was a real nuisance and the police never did anything about it that I could see. Behavior like that shows a real lack of respect for the commons.

decafninja 5y ago
That's an interesting observation! I've noticed from my Instagram feeds that there is a trend of "hackerspace" homes where multiple SWE/tech people will live in a SFH dormitory style. I reckon this might be peculiar to the SFBA and the tech scene?
- jurassic 5y ago
  Yes, I think the hacker house idea and adult roommate living situations more generally are very common in the Bay Area due to housing shortage and high costs. It's the only place I've ever lived where it would not be surprising to find adult professionals making $100k+ living with roommates. These folks could get their own place if they really wanted, but since most people are young and unattached when they come to the Bay Area it makes sense to save money by splitting housing with others. Or, they recognize that by having roommates they can get access to trendier or more convenient areas that would otherwise be unaffordable for them. These observations are pre-pandemic, of course, as I left the Bay Area in 2018. Things could be a lot different now. For lower wage people, like the janitors, cooks, gig economy people, etc needed to serve tech elites, there's really no option except to crowd in with other people. Even if you move to the limits of a practical commute, it's still very very expensive for those not pulling engineering salaries.
jjav 5y ago
> I have no problem with multi-generational living. > groups of multiple unrelated working adults moving into a single-family home together as roommates From the number of cars perspective, it doesn't make any difference if the multiple adults in the house are family or not, it's still one car per adult.

decafninja 5y ago

That's an interesting observation! I've noticed from my Instagram feeds that there is a trend of "hackerspace" homes where multiple SWE/tech people will live in a SFH dormitory style. I reckon this might be peculiar to the SFBA and the tech scene?

jurassic 5y ago
Yes, I think the hacker house idea and adult roommate living situations more generally are very common in the Bay Area due to housing shortage and high costs. It's the only place I've ever lived where it would not be surprising to find adult professionals making $100k+ living with roommates. These folks could get their own place if they really wanted, but since most people are young and unattached when they come to the Bay Area it makes sense to save money by splitting housing with others. Or, they recognize that by having roommates they can get access to trendier or more convenient areas that would otherwise be unaffordable for them. These observations are pre-pandemic, of course, as I left the Bay Area in 2018. Things could be a lot different now. For lower wage people, like the janitors, cooks, gig economy people, etc needed to serve tech elites, there's really no option except to crowd in with other people. Even if you move to the limits of a practical commute, it's still very very expensive for those not pulling engineering salaries.

jjav 5y ago

> I have no problem with multi-generational living. > groups of multiple unrelated working adults moving into a single-family home together as roommates From the number of cars perspective, it doesn't make any difference if the multiple adults in the house are family or not, it's still one car per adult.