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For the urban development minded HNers out there, would it make sense to build a dedicated tech hub next to the city so that rent and cost of life is less sensi

For the urban development minded HNers out there, would it make sense to build a dedicated tech hub next to the city so that rent and cost of life is less sensitive to it or is gentrification unavoidable?

WJW 3y ago
How would you prevent non-techies living in the tech hub and vice versa? If the cost-of-living differential is larger than the cost of commuting back and forth you can bet that people will notice and act accordingly.
- charlie0 3y ago
  Balaji's Network State. If we can all get together in advance and co-ordinate, techies can likely set up their own communities.
  - WJW 3y ago
    > If we can all get together in advance and co-ordinate Haha yes. If you can get humans to do that, solving housing prices is one of the less interesting things you can do. World peace and solving child hunger are just some starter projects if you could finally solve the coordination problems of large groups. Techies can barely get together and decide which editor is the best, let alone decide on housing allocation or decide which types of schooling to allow in "their" neighborhood. Also an enforced tech-only community sounds super dystopian. Would you get kicked out of your house if you lose your job or change careers?
yardie 3y ago
Historically, most tech hubs have been outside the city. Commercial real estate was cheaper and a mature tech company would choose a family friendly location for its administration and engineers.
dangerwill 3y ago
This happens to be the exact situation in Seattle. Bellevue is technically a different city from Seattle, across the lake and is where most of the tech is. But its rather low density, because the people that got in before the tech boom don't want their property values to go down, so there is opposition to allowing dense (5-8 story apartment buildings) development. This low density means that the median house price in the area is like 1-2 million dollars and only tech employees can even afford to rent in the area. And because its so low density, (and because people like living in the city proper instead of a soulless series of office parks) there are a TON of tech employees that end up living in Seattle proper. Which then leads to gentrification in Cap Hill, the University district, Ballard, etc. It also leads to nearly LA style traffic crunches during commuting hours. In my opinion, you can't micro-target your way out of gentrification and sky high urban rents/prices. The only thing you can do is to take away the ability of local communities to oppose high density, build a lot of dense housing where you outpace the population growth and build out in basically every direction, and then build commuter rail lines to connect areas as you build out. Finally though, the city/state has to be the one to actually pay the builders for the housing to go up, not a developer which is where YIMBY experiments have failed. A developer that both contracts for the construction and then sells the finished product has all of the incentives to add artificial costs and delays when a municipality pays them to generate new housing on the market, because every additional building they add marginally lowers the value of every other building they have on the market.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Developers are not a major source of delays, and benefit from getting their money back faster. We’re so far behind in housing waiting isn’t going to help prices significantly. Also many unnecessary costs, such as parking minimums are govt requirements.
deleted 3y ago
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WJW 3y ago

How would you prevent non-techies living in the tech hub and vice versa? If the cost-of-living differential is larger than the cost of commuting back and forth you can bet that people will notice and act accordingly.

charlie0 3y ago
Balaji's Network State. If we can all get together in advance and co-ordinate, techies can likely set up their own communities.
- WJW 3y ago
  > If we can all get together in advance and co-ordinate Haha yes. If you can get humans to do that, solving housing prices is one of the less interesting things you can do. World peace and solving child hunger are just some starter projects if you could finally solve the coordination problems of large groups. Techies can barely get together and decide which editor is the best, let alone decide on housing allocation or decide which types of schooling to allow in "their" neighborhood. Also an enforced tech-only community sounds super dystopian. Would you get kicked out of your house if you lose your job or change careers?

yardie 3y ago

Historically, most tech hubs have been outside the city. Commercial real estate was cheaper and a mature tech company would choose a family friendly location for its administration and engineers.

dangerwill 3y ago

This happens to be the exact situation in Seattle. Bellevue is technically a different city from Seattle, across the lake and is where most of the tech is. But its rather low density, because the people that got in before the tech boom don't want their property values to go down, so there is opposition to allowing dense (5-8 story apartment buildings) development. This low density means that the median house price in the area is like 1-2 million dollars and only tech employees can even afford to rent in the area. And because its so low density, (and because people like living in the city proper instead of a soulless series of office parks) there are a TON of tech employees that end up living in Seattle proper. Which then leads to gentrification in Cap Hill, the University district, Ballard, etc. It also leads to nearly LA style traffic crunches during commuting hours. In my opinion, you can't micro-target your way out of gentrification and sky high urban rents/prices. The only thing you can do is to take away the ability of local communities to oppose high density, build a lot of dense housing where you outpace the population growth and build out in basically every direction, and then build commuter rail lines to connect areas as you build out. Finally though, the city/state has to be the one to actually pay the builders for the housing to go up, not a developer which is where YIMBY experiments have failed. A developer that both contracts for the construction and then sells the finished product has all of the incentives to add artificial costs and delays when a municipality pays them to generate new housing on the market, because every additional building they add marginally lowers the value of every other building they have on the market.

mixmastamyk 3y ago
Developers are not a major source of delays, and benefit from getting their money back faster. We’re so far behind in housing waiting isn’t going to help prices significantly. Also many unnecessary costs, such as parking minimums are govt requirements.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]