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> There's plenty of "second-rate", cheap cities which are seen as "second-rate" only because people have yet to move there. I think you may have missed a coupl

> There's plenty of "second-rate", cheap cities which are seen as "second-rate" only because people have yet to move there. I think you may have missed a couple of years of the pandemic: 1. First, people have been leaving SF/CA for years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_exodus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_exodus 2. A lot of "second rate" cities experienced an explosion of housing prices during the pandemic as people from bigger/wealthier cities moved into them. 3. But more to the point, moving around is not really the solution. Tons of even large cities have tried to recreate Silicon Valley elsewhere, and they've mostly just succeeded at cheesy names (e.g. "Silicon Alley", "Silicon Prairie", "Silicon Hills"). It's incredibly difficult to reproduce the unique combination of culture, money, educational institutions, legal frameworks, etc. that allowed Silicon Valley to develop. The real solution is simply to build more housing. It nearly always works in places that do it (see Austin over the past ~2 years). But the Boomers, as a matter of preserving their own wealth, have enacted tons of policies to restrict housing and keep prices going ever upward. That's why you've seen a backlash and "YIMBY" movements all over CA.

robwwilliams 2y ago
What distinguishes apparently “enlightened boomers in Austin from the greedy not-in-my-neighborhood boomers in San Francisco? Does it really make sense to set this up as boomers vs millennials? Mark Z is merely 42 and has a decent house or two in the Bay Area. Is he building condos for his millennial employees on his back-lot? This has been a problem for at least 50 years. Junior faculty at Stanford or even Santa Crus could not afford houses in 1975. Was that the era of boomers versus the greatest generation? Did the greatest generation suck capital from their poor boomer hippy children? These simplistic dichotomies lead to nothing as much as unwarranted and misplaced social friction. The fundamental problem is a damaging imbalance in wealth.
- anonym29 2y ago
  You've both got the wrong dichotomy here, it's not about age groups at all, it's about politics - this is a voluntarily-created "problem". California is handicapped in housing construction due to state-level policies implemented by well-meaning progressives, largely focused around reducing negative externalities. Texas isn't handicapped in housing construction, largely due to state-level policies implemented by greedy capitalists. The greedy capitalists are better at serving customers (prospective homebuyers) than they are at managing negative externalities. This is a policy choice reflective of the values of the people who live there. The well-meaning progressives are better at managing negative externalities than they are at serving customers (prospective homebuyers). This is a policy choice reflective of the values of the people who live there. The reality is, there is no housing "problem" in California, there are only the consequences of the values and preferences of the people living there. Texas's values and preferences carry consequences of their own that Texans have to live with (ask me how I know), but housing unaffordability is, compared to California, not one of them.

robwwilliams 2y ago

What distinguishes apparently “enlightened boomers in Austin from the greedy not-in-my-neighborhood boomers in San Francisco? Does it really make sense to set this up as boomers vs millennials? Mark Z is merely 42 and has a decent house or two in the Bay Area. Is he building condos for his millennial employees on his back-lot? This has been a problem for at least 50 years. Junior faculty at Stanford or even Santa Crus could not afford houses in 1975. Was that the era of boomers versus the greatest generation? Did the greatest generation suck capital from their poor boomer hippy children? These simplistic dichotomies lead to nothing as much as unwarranted and misplaced social friction. The fundamental problem is a damaging imbalance in wealth.

anonym29 2y ago
You've both got the wrong dichotomy here, it's not about age groups at all, it's about politics - this is a voluntarily-created "problem". California is handicapped in housing construction due to state-level policies implemented by well-meaning progressives, largely focused around reducing negative externalities. Texas isn't handicapped in housing construction, largely due to state-level policies implemented by greedy capitalists. The greedy capitalists are better at serving customers (prospective homebuyers) than they are at managing negative externalities. This is a policy choice reflective of the values of the people who live there. The well-meaning progressives are better at managing negative externalities than they are at serving customers (prospective homebuyers). This is a policy choice reflective of the values of the people who live there. The reality is, there is no housing "problem" in California, there are only the consequences of the values and preferences of the people living there. Texas's values and preferences carry consequences of their own that Texans have to live with (ask me how I know), but housing unaffordability is, compared to California, not one of them.