8 ms·

A lot of jobs are in high cost of living areas. The reason they're high cost of living is because there are jobs there, the demand to live there is high, and th

A lot of jobs are in high cost of living areas. The reason they're high cost of living is because there are jobs there, the demand to live there is high, and they haven't built nearly enough housing. Some bay area municipalities have essentially not added any housing in the last 50 years. They made it illegal, because incumbent property owners don't want more people to be allowed to live there. And it's not just the bay area. The populations of Cambridge and Boston have gone down since 1950, because a series of laws were passed that put tight restrictions on residential construction that reduced the allowed density and effectively made almost all of the existing housing stock illegal (but it was grandfathered in) and anything more dense than that, like even building a 5 story residential building in a lot zoned for 4 stories, when that lot is surrounded by 4 and 5 story buildings, is an expensive, long process of arguing with the zoning board and going through arbitrarily subjective design review processes.

khazhoux 4y ago
I would rather Google and Facebook and the other mega-hire companies would build up outside the bay area, rather than continuing to pack more people in.
- dayvid 4y ago
  They are. Durham, NC; Pittsburgh, PH; Atlanta. They already have facilities or will grow. Remote will also have an impact. Housing prices will still grow with more tech jobs, though certain areas can absorb that impact better than others. The remote push from COVID also drew a lot of housing increases across the country.
- jdminhbg 4y ago
  The Bay Area isn’t remotely “packed in.” It’s good that the state of California is starting to take steps to prevent its current inhabitants from pulling the ladder up behind them.
  - khazhoux 4y ago
    There’s not an acre of open land between San Jose and SF that doesn’t have a building structure on it. Compare with most other US states where land is plentiful and they could use the economic boost of additional residents.
    - clpm4j 4y ago
      This is not even close to accurate unless you meant to say private open land.
      - khazhoux 4y ago
        As opposed to… public parks and preserves? I guess I don’t follow your point.
        clpm4j 4y ago
        My point was just that the peninsula is not very dense at all - tons of open land and space.
    - jdminhbg 4y ago
      > There’s not an acre of open land between San Jose and SF that doesn’t have a building structure on it. Fortunately we have the technology to tear down crappy post-war single family homes and replace them with multi-unit buildings.
      - tekknik 4y ago
        not everybody wants to live in a multi-tenant structure. some of us want miles between us and our neighbors.
        8note 4y ago
        Taxes should generally handle that to make sure people don't stay in such places where lots of people want to live. If you're wanting that much space between neighbors in a high populations spot, that should be like $1M/y in property taxes
- kaashif 4y ago
  If you consider the relatively low density, mostly restrictively zoned Bay Area to be "packed in", I'd hate to hear what you think of e.g. New York.
  - khazhoux 4y ago
    New York has much higher density, but I’m not sure how that’s relevant or interesting.
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    As posted above the Bay Area is second in density only to NYC.
    - jacob171714 4y ago
      They said sf which is strictly different than the bay area as it only has about 1/10th the total population and a significantly smaller fraction of the land. If you want to go from the silicon valley to sf its 45-50 miles.
    - kaashif 4y ago
      Not correct, that post was about San Francisco only. The Bay Area is much, much larger, and has a density of ~1000 per sq mi. If the entire Bay Area were as dense as SF (not even close), that would be a megacity dwarfing NYC and Tokyo several times over.
- lmm 4y ago
  The population keeps growing, everywhere needs to take their fair share of that increase. People who want to live in a more spread-out area have the whole country to choose from; there are only a handful of big cities, we should be letting those who want to build more homes in them.
- chrismcb 4y ago
  Pre COVID Google was doing this. They were trying to spread out and open offices on lower cost of living places.

khazhoux 4y ago

I would rather Google and Facebook and the other mega-hire companies would build up outside the bay area, rather than continuing to pack more people in.

dayvid 4y ago
They are. Durham, NC; Pittsburgh, PH; Atlanta. They already have facilities or will grow. Remote will also have an impact. Housing prices will still grow with more tech jobs, though certain areas can absorb that impact better than others. The remote push from COVID also drew a lot of housing increases across the country.
jdminhbg 4y ago
The Bay Area isn’t remotely “packed in.” It’s good that the state of California is starting to take steps to prevent its current inhabitants from pulling the ladder up behind them.
- khazhoux 4y ago
  There’s not an acre of open land between San Jose and SF that doesn’t have a building structure on it. Compare with most other US states where land is plentiful and they could use the economic boost of additional residents.
  - clpm4j 4y ago
    This is not even close to accurate unless you meant to say private open land.
    - khazhoux 4y ago
      As opposed to… public parks and preserves? I guess I don’t follow your point.
      - clpm4j 4y ago
        My point was just that the peninsula is not very dense at all - tons of open land and space.
  - jdminhbg 4y ago
    > There’s not an acre of open land between San Jose and SF that doesn’t have a building structure on it. Fortunately we have the technology to tear down crappy post-war single family homes and replace them with multi-unit buildings.
    - tekknik 4y ago
      not everybody wants to live in a multi-tenant structure. some of us want miles between us and our neighbors.
      - 8note 4y ago
        Taxes should generally handle that to make sure people don't stay in such places where lots of people want to live. If you're wanting that much space between neighbors in a high populations spot, that should be like $1M/y in property taxes
kaashif 4y ago
If you consider the relatively low density, mostly restrictively zoned Bay Area to be "packed in", I'd hate to hear what you think of e.g. New York.
- khazhoux 4y ago
  New York has much higher density, but I’m not sure how that’s relevant or interesting.
- edgyquant 4y ago
  As posted above the Bay Area is second in density only to NYC.
  - jacob171714 4y ago
    They said sf which is strictly different than the bay area as it only has about 1/10th the total population and a significantly smaller fraction of the land. If you want to go from the silicon valley to sf its 45-50 miles.
  - kaashif 4y ago
    Not correct, that post was about San Francisco only. The Bay Area is much, much larger, and has a density of ~1000 per sq mi. If the entire Bay Area were as dense as SF (not even close), that would be a megacity dwarfing NYC and Tokyo several times over.
lmm 4y ago
The population keeps growing, everywhere needs to take their fair share of that increase. People who want to live in a more spread-out area have the whole country to choose from; there are only a handful of big cities, we should be letting those who want to build more homes in them.
chrismcb 4y ago
Pre COVID Google was doing this. They were trying to spread out and open offices on lower cost of living places.