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It's hard to say for sure but I think probably yes. It was essentially an accident that the bay area tech scene ever existed at all and other than nerds writing

It's hard to say for sure but I think probably yes. It was essentially an accident that the bay area tech scene ever existed at all and other than nerds writing code and VC's getting rich I don't know how much residents of the area even liked it. The way to make the bay sustainable is to build taller buildings for people to live in. However this isn't especially popular and even if it was, there is enough bureaucratic cover for a minority to stall it off indefinitely. I think if you could do that in the next 20 years the bay could maintain it's hegemony. Seems exceedingly unlikely to me. I suspect it will keep enough momentum to beat out most markets for some time to come, though already by a smaller margin and with a seemingly worse quality of life these days.

nathanyz 5y ago
NIMBY is why you can't have affordable housing in the Bay Area. There are many areas in the US that are essentially a "better deal" for techies if you can work remote.
- baskethead 5y ago
  False. Is supply and demand and income inequality. Ever since the global internet companies became ludicrously rich, more and more engineers with outsized wallets have squeezed everyone else out. It’s always been expensive and there has always been NIMBYs but it’s been crazy since 2010. It takes one or two houses to change the comps in a neighborhood. I sold my house last year. Two married Google engineers came in $250k above everyone else, which was already $500k above list. We found another all-cash offer that was willing to go 50k above the Google engineers so we sold for $800k above list. Ever since then the house prices in that neighborhood are 300k above those prices. So the price in the neighborhood jumped $1M last year. Saying it’s nimbyism is stupid. It’s capitalism.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    They're willing to pay that much because there isn't enough housing in the bay. If the neighborhood was denser prices would be lower. There aren't an unlimited number of people looking to buy multi million dollar homes in silicon valley.
  - nathanyz 5y ago
    You wouldn't have as much supply problem without the NIMBY's -AND- it is capitalism. Capitalism is the market reacting to limited supply and high demand. Limited supply is caused by NIMBY, and high demand is caused by tech company hiring & growth. Both are true.
- et-al 5y ago
  NIMBYism is human reluctance to change manifested. Housing prices in Austin, Raleigh/Durham/Cary, Pittsburgh, Boulder, Bend are becoming unaffordable to folks who were there 10 years prior. And I wouldn't be surprised if existing residents are complaining about the influx of new transplants. It's tough to predict housing demands and tougher to build infrastructure and houses fast enough for these population changes. However to f0e4c2f7's point, I agree that unless the Bay Area mitigates its high rents, the region will stagnate. High CoL and creativity are inversely related.
mikeryan 5y ago
The way to make the bay sustainable is to build taller buildings for people to live in. This doesn’t seem to be the solution to the problem. People don’t want to “buy” and raise families in high rise condos. I live in Berkeley and we have a shit ton of new condo units coming on the market every month and I can’t believe they’re anywhere near capacity and every one has low-income housing units. The greater Bay Area has a shit ton of available land that could fill a need for single family homes. Heck running Bart to Marin would bring a whole new world of commutable homes in range. Turn 92 into a 6-8 lane highway instead of 2 and the whole half moon bay side of San Mateo county comes in range. If the goal is affordable single family homes improving access to these areas from a commute perspective would do more.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > People don’t want to “buy” and raise families in high rise condos There are hundreds of millions if not billions of people happily doing this. Including in the U.S., e.g. New York, San Francisco and Boston. > improving access to these areas from a commute perspective would do more You're describing massive public works to sustain a low-density lifestyle. Those populations couldn't pay for that infrastructure. So it's asking, once again, cities to subsidize suburbs.
  - mikeryan 5y ago
    There are hundreds of millions if not billions of people happily doing this. Let me be clear - I'm responding to a post about "Skyscrapers" in the Bay Area, which is a poorly defined term but if you say its 10 stories how many residential buildings of more that 10 stories do you believe exist in SF? I've lived in the Bay Area my entire life and literally zero people who have raised a family in a "Skyscraper" or high rise. New York is the only city I'm aware of where this is a common occurrence but even in those communities raising a family in a High-Rise is a sign of wealth. There are not hundreds of millions of people raising families in Skyscrapers and high rises, there's likely not even enough inventory in those types of buildings for that statement to event make sense.
    - 5y ago

nathanyz 5y ago

NIMBY is why you can't have affordable housing in the Bay Area. There are many areas in the US that are essentially a "better deal" for techies if you can work remote.

baskethead 5y ago
False. Is supply and demand and income inequality. Ever since the global internet companies became ludicrously rich, more and more engineers with outsized wallets have squeezed everyone else out. It’s always been expensive and there has always been NIMBYs but it’s been crazy since 2010. It takes one or two houses to change the comps in a neighborhood. I sold my house last year. Two married Google engineers came in $250k above everyone else, which was already $500k above list. We found another all-cash offer that was willing to go 50k above the Google engineers so we sold for $800k above list. Ever since then the house prices in that neighborhood are 300k above those prices. So the price in the neighborhood jumped $1M last year. Saying it’s nimbyism is stupid. It’s capitalism.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  They're willing to pay that much because there isn't enough housing in the bay. If the neighborhood was denser prices would be lower. There aren't an unlimited number of people looking to buy multi million dollar homes in silicon valley.
- nathanyz 5y ago
  You wouldn't have as much supply problem without the NIMBY's -AND- it is capitalism. Capitalism is the market reacting to limited supply and high demand. Limited supply is caused by NIMBY, and high demand is caused by tech company hiring & growth. Both are true.
et-al 5y ago
NIMBYism is human reluctance to change manifested. Housing prices in Austin, Raleigh/Durham/Cary, Pittsburgh, Boulder, Bend are becoming unaffordable to folks who were there 10 years prior. And I wouldn't be surprised if existing residents are complaining about the influx of new transplants. It's tough to predict housing demands and tougher to build infrastructure and houses fast enough for these population changes. However to f0e4c2f7's point, I agree that unless the Bay Area mitigates its high rents, the region will stagnate. High CoL and creativity are inversely related.

mikeryan 5y ago

The way to make the bay sustainable is to build taller buildings for people to live in. This doesn’t seem to be the solution to the problem. People don’t want to “buy” and raise families in high rise condos. I live in Berkeley and we have a shit ton of new condo units coming on the market every month and I can’t believe they’re anywhere near capacity and every one has low-income housing units. The greater Bay Area has a shit ton of available land that could fill a need for single family homes. Heck running Bart to Marin would bring a whole new world of commutable homes in range. Turn 92 into a 6-8 lane highway instead of 2 and the whole half moon bay side of San Mateo county comes in range. If the goal is affordable single family homes improving access to these areas from a commute perspective would do more.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> People don’t want to “buy” and raise families in high rise condos There are hundreds of millions if not billions of people happily doing this. Including in the U.S., e.g. New York, San Francisco and Boston. > improving access to these areas from a commute perspective would do more You're describing massive public works to sustain a low-density lifestyle. Those populations couldn't pay for that infrastructure. So it's asking, once again, cities to subsidize suburbs.
- mikeryan 5y ago
  There are hundreds of millions if not billions of people happily doing this. Let me be clear - I'm responding to a post about "Skyscrapers" in the Bay Area, which is a poorly defined term but if you say its 10 stories how many residential buildings of more that 10 stories do you believe exist in SF? I've lived in the Bay Area my entire life and literally zero people who have raised a family in a "Skyscraper" or high rise. New York is the only city I'm aware of where this is a common occurrence but even in those communities raising a family in a High-Rise is a sign of wealth. There are not hundreds of millions of people raising families in Skyscrapers and high rises, there's likely not even enough inventory in those types of buildings for that statement to event make sense.
  - 5y ago