10 ms·

San Francisco split by Silicon Valley's wealth

88 points by dmckeon 13y ago

scoofy 13y ago
Gentrification happens, people get bitter when they don't own their homes. This is normal economics that happens in every major city (e.g. Williamsburg, Brooklyn, East Side, Austin, Mississippi District, Portland, Mission, SF, etc., etc., etc.). Much of this has to do with the end of white flight, which should probably be considered a good thing. The laws in SF are as renter friendly as you can get in this country. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.
- bitwize 13y ago
  Well, it kind of sucks that your options in the US are gentrification or Detroitification. It's part of the price we pay for not having the social safety nets and public investment in infrastructure that other countries have.
  - btrautsc 13y ago
    I'm curious to what you think the other options are? Gentrification doesn't mean pushing all residents and culture out of a place - but it typically flows to areas with the least resistance (and location/ proximity). So if you have an economically desolate area, and gentrification is at one end of the scale with 'detroitification' at the other - what is in the middle?
    - auctiontheory 13y ago
      The whole point of this (and a hundred other) articles is that the US is losing its "middle." Increasingly, you are either rich or poor. A have or a have not. Most HN readers are haves or (because you are still young) think you will be haves. But life doesn't always turn out according to plan.
      - sebkomianos 13y ago
        I can't express how much I agree to this - but with a small addition: The "middle" is disappearing in Europe also. The most worrying thing is that if you put 95% of the people on a ship's back, it's going to sink; together with its front.
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
        moheeb 13y ago
        Not so with an iceberg, unfortunately.
  - sirkneeland 13y ago
    And yet, the riots and looting sprees happen not in San Francisco, but in European countries like the UK, France, and Sweden. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Stockholm_riots http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Stockholm_riots Sweden. Not exactly a bastion of savage Randian individualism. Not to say that generous welfare states are of no value, but the available data suggest they are far from a panacea
    - newnewnew 13y ago
      That's an inconvenient fact for the standard liberal wisdom to explain. Here's links to information about the French riots: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_France and London riots/flash mobs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots
      - bitwize 13y ago
        Here's an inconvenient fact: Headline-making civil unrest in Europe is "Tuesday" in the American inner city. The European riots are only significant because they're unusual against such comparatively low levels of background violence.
        sirkneeland 13y ago
        That's a gross exaggeration. Until you show me a number of burned out hulks of cars from a "Tuesday" in a US city, it's your stereotypes against my actual examples.
    - Irishsteve 13y ago
      I'd imagine the police having guns in America are a great deterrent for rioters
      - chrisdevereux 13y ago
        Although interestingly, both the London and Stockholm riots were caused by police shootings.
  - dmix 13y ago
    In Canada, similar gentrification is also happening rapidly in Toronto/Vancouver. Detroitification happened on the Canadian east coast (when the fishing industry died). And we have better "social safety nets". I don't think social programs manage to keep cities alive or the same as they were, nor would the overall country benefit from trying harder to do so. The main difference w/ Toronto vs SF is that Toronto has a liberal condo building policy so more affordable housing is being built by a (relatively) booming real estate industry. Whereas SF's property development growth has nowhere near reflected its population/income boom.
    - vecinu 13y ago
      I can confirm this fact in Toronto. I can still see some seniors living in older neighbourhoods in Toronto but most of them have moved to the suburbs.
    - ImprovedSilence 13y ago
      I could be wrong here, but I thought much of SF is considered "historic district" or something, therefore new, more dense housing is not being build, thus rents rise like crazy?
      - muzz 13y ago
        You indeed are wrong. Thousands of units of high density housing is being constructed currently.
        wutbrodo 13y ago
        I don't think he's wrong. All of the new development seems to be along Market (hell in a one mile stretch of Market near my house, there are THREE huge residential developments going up); i.e., you don't see any new high-rise developments going up in the Mission district (which I believe is designated "historic").
    - alxp 13y ago
      And Atlantic Canadian cities are still great places to live because Canada has invested in social safety nets, sane urban development, and not abandoning entire cities. 'Detroitification' is a not-even-wrong way to describe how any population centre in Atlantic Canada has fared.
- sses 13y ago
  I'm a Googler living in SF, and my landlord recently tried to drive me out of my apartment, so I think I have an informed perspective on this. It's not as simple as you make it out to be. The laws being renter friendly are helpful but they don't solve anything. If I hadn't had the time and money to try to fight this I would probably be looking for a new place right now.
  - scoofy 13y ago
    My point is that i used to live in Austin, where "trying to kick you out of the apartment" involves not offering you a lease for the following year, because, say, they don't like your haircut. That is, any reason as long as it's not because you are a protected class or for retaliation for requesting repairs. If that doesn't work, they could just double, or triple, your rent. The idea that you actually get to perpetually live in an apartment even if the owner doesn't want you there is quite generous. The idea that it's socially deemed "the right thing to do" is rather progressive.
    - sses 13y ago
      I was responding to this, specifically: "The laws in SF are as renter friendly as you can get in this country. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about." If those tenant friendly laws are de facto easy to work around - and they are, particularly for poorer tenants - then they are significantly weaker than they seem. That's what the fuss is about. Poorer people get driven out because they don't have the time and money to fight their landlords trying to double their rent, whether legal or not. Richer people like me are able to fight it and win. I don't think you understand California or San Francisco rental laws. They do not say you get to perpetually live in an apartment even if the owner doesn't want you there. They control how much a landlord can raise rent, and limit some forms of eviction. But they also have many exceptions, and the burden can be on the tenant to prove the landlord is wrong.
      - pyoung 13y ago
        I am in a rent controlled building in SF. Our building recently got sold and the new owner evicted the lowest paying tenant. She (the new owner) has to live in the unit for two years before she can re-rent the unit, but considering the previous tenant had been there for 15-20 years, the increased rent she will get after those two years will more than make up for the lost rent (assuming that is her intention). Additionally, she is starting to repair/update the building. I was initially excited about this (the building is a bit old/outdated), but after reading the rent control laws, found out that she is allowed to pass on 100% of the cost to the tenants (through a 5% annual increase until the costs are paid off), and additionally, can deduct 100% of the cost from her taxes. Also, I found out what the sale price of the building was, and after doing a little back of the napkin calculations, realized that her mortgage is probably going to be less than what she collects in rent from the remaining two tenants. So for the cost of the down payment, the landlord is getting a place to live, all of the building upgrades paid for by the tenants, the mortgage paid for by the tenants, and a small income from what is left over from the rent as well as any capital gains on the building. This sounds like a pretty good deal (and I was actually upset that I didn't move on it myself). I agree with the sentiment that rent control can result in an increase in market prices. But it's not as if the landlords are getting completely screwed, they still have avenues in which they can evict tenants, profitably upgrade the building, and achieve close to market rents. Additionally, a major factor that gets overlooked in the rent control debate is that the 'secondary market' (rooms for rent in rent controlled units) provides fairly affordable housing for young newcomers. Almost everybody I know who lives in SF does so by renting a room in a rent controlled unit that they found through friends or through craigslist. These rooms are significantly cheaper than market rates (rent control by-laws actually require that any rooms in a rent controlled unit must be re-rented at an evenly split price, or normalized price based on square footage, not that everyone abides by those rules), and probably the only reason people with marginal means can afford to live here. So, while rent control may result in an increase in market prices, it also creates a secondary market that allows for economic diversity to continue to exist in SF. I am somewhat split on rent control, but my gut feeling tells me it is the right thing to do. Allowing landlords to arbitrarily raise rent or randomly evict tenants is unfair and disruptive to people's lives. Rent control allows for a secondary market that lets young and lower income folks get a foot in the door. I think the 'lazy rent controlled tenant who pays nothing because they lived there for 30 years' is largely a myth (or such a rarity that they have only minimal impact on the macro trends) because rent control still allows for evictions, just with a bit more red tape. Also, another factor that doesn't get discussed is the effect of rent control on a downward market. Because rents aren't ruthlessly increased to market rates during the boom times, it means people who get laid off in the bad times can actually afford to stick around and look for a new job for a while, rather than having to lift anchor and move somewhere cheaper. From what I recall, the vacancy rate in SF rose a little bit during the great recession, but no where near as bad as other places.
- baddox 13y ago
  > The laws in SF are as renter friendly as you can get in this country. That depends what you mean. Rent control, for example, can be viewed as extremely friendly to the current renters but extremely unfriendly to would-be renters and the rental market as a whole.
  - hackula1 13y ago
    I would love to work there, but the rents look completely ridiculous compared to the rest of the country. I live in the heart of a wealthy urban area, and still pay close to a third what I would pay in SF. I am an engineer, so I could afford to live there, but saving would be impossible. It is a bit worrying that the tech community seems to be so irresponsible with where they choose to set up shop. Sure, an office in downtown Manhattan would be awesome, but is it really necessary for a non profitable startup?
    - baddox 13y ago
      I wouldn't say that saving is impossible on an engineer's salary, but I suppose it's all relative on how much you want to save and what your "lifestyle expenses" are outside of rent.
    - potatolicious 13y ago
      I lived in SF 2011-2012, and have lived in NYC since then. Let me tell ya, my cost of living now in Manhattan is substantially lower than what it was in SF. NYC isn't cheap, but it isn't quite the level of insanity as San Francisco.
- bronbron 13y ago
  > I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. I think everyone's just trying to make sense of the SF real estate market, tech industry workers included. The average rental unit price in SF is now higher than Manhattan, last time I checked. Hopefully, talking about the craziness of the SF real estate market will lead to more solutions, e.g. public pressure to make commuting from the East bay more feasible ala Brooklyn and Manhattan.
woah 13y ago
This is due to not enough housing being built over the past 30 years
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  Supply of housing kept artificially low (SF gov resisting building up for decades). Demand for housing rising, as it should in any desirable city. People seem surprised by this. As long as we are adding CS to school curricula, maybe we should add some Econ 101 as well...
  - strlen 13y ago
    My high school (in Cupertino, CA -- 45 miles south of SF) did require an economics course and the one I took (AP Micro Econ for part of the course, regular macro econ for remainder) used rent control as an example of policies with unintended consequences. I don't think ignorance is the problem here, this is textbook stuff. I think the real issues are these: 1) Economics is a science, it helps you build a mathematical model of ``what happens if''. It doesn't immediately follow that even if rent control has drawbacks (lowered mobility, gradual conversion of units from apartments to TiCs or condos, higher rent and lower ability for those who move into the city) that they aren't socially acceptable due to perceived benefits. I am not making this argument myself here, by the way (I don't think social benefits of rent control justify the costs); I am merely stating that it isn't as straightforward (going from "rent control has unintended consequences" to "rent control is a wrong policy" is an example of Hume's is-ought fallacy). 2) There are other legal/economics issues besides rent control. There are certain tenant right laws that currently making it very difficult for one-property landlords to rent their property out. In other words if you're moving to South Bay/Fremont or Pleasanton for the next 12 years to better schools (more on this later...) or to New York/London for 5 years to work in finance sector it may be more monetarily advantageous to you to sell or AirBnB the place. If you're an individual with a single investment property it makes all the sense to sell now (or again, to AirBnB) as opposed to continue renting out. Tenant’s rights is a great concept and undoubtedly tenants should be protected from unsafe conditions, predatory practices, eviction without any notice, harassment, etc... However, some of the laws (e.g., difficulty of eviction for legitimate reasons, bizzare laws that can require a property to wait for 10 years before being rented or sold again after an eviction in some cases, etc...) clearly make things easier for slumlords (individuals/families with more than a single property), large property management companies, and apartment complexes. 3) Non-rent related political/economic issues: namely schools, transportation, and safety. First, there is whole Western half of SF (Sunset, Richmond) that's simply an amazing town: walkable mixed-use neighbourhoods, slightly larger homes, lower rent, less crime. "Small" problem: it takes as long to get to SOMA or FiDi from Inner Richmond as it does from Mountain View or Palo Alto. Sunset is slightly better when muni is on-time (that's like saying "JVM is fast when you're not having a full GC" -- at-grade transportation will enviable suffer delays), but it's still a longer (and more exhausting) commute than driving from, e.g., Daly City. Second, schools are (literally) a lottery ticket. The known-good public schools (e.g., Lowell) are magnets that are extremely competitive admissions wise. Private schools would be fine, but become unaffordable when there's also rent/mortgage to pay in SF. Child friendly neighbourhoods (likes one I describe above) are generally removed from work areas. Essentially this leaves only one option: if you're a family, due to safety/space reasons you'll probably have to commute[1] anyway to get to work; since you can commute from somewhere with either cheaper housing (East Bay) or great public schools (South Bay, Fremont area, Pleasanton, etc...), or take a job in one of these areas and have a shorter commuter, the costs of living in SF proper outweigh the benefits... 4) Non-political factors: SF is at the end of Peninsula, with mountains in the middle, and on its south side. It's also highly in demand. You can build up as in Manhattan (and SF should) but even though SF is now cheaper than Manhattan, Manhattan real estate is still unaffordable for most Americans. In other words, imagine you've an NP-complete algorithm. You can apply every optimization possible, but in the end you either have to throw a core with more transistors at it (where you're limited by physics), throw more parallel cores/distributed CPUs at it (_if_ it happens to be easily parallelizable), or find a heuristic that doesn't give you a complete answer but is good enough (like Miller-Rabin primarily test). Ultimately I think (but may as well be proven wrong) that a combination of these is what will happen here: reform of housing laws ("optimization") and smaller housing in SF proper ("more transistors on a core"), more SF-like dense urban cores in Bay Area, e.g., more jobs in Oakland/Berkeley, revival of Downtown SJ ("more cores"), and "densification" with a move towards mixed use residential/light commercial in suburbs/exurbs coupled with better public and private transportation options ("heuristical solutions"). [1] To out of towners, here are some numbers from personal experience/experience of friends: Mid-Richmond to SOMA by bus -- 40 minutes Inner Sunset to SOMA by Muni without delays ~20 minutes Menlo Park to SOMA -- 35 minutes Daly City to SOMA -- 20 minutes at most Saratoga to FiDi - 1 hour 5 minutes Saratoga to Palo Alto California ave area -- 20 minutes Saratoga to Menlo Park - 30 minutes Mountain View to Menlo Park -- 15 minutes Mountain View to Sunnyvale/Santa Clara - 5-15 minutes Driving commute in SF proper is not a good option. First, you lose out majorly on the savings of living in the city by having a car (the car itself, insurance, gas, parking, maintenance. Second, there's very little freeway in SF proper, but major job centers (SOMA, downtown) happen to be near freeway exits -- driving on SF surface streets is simply not worth it in terms of gas costs from idling/stop-and-go traffic, damage that happens to your car (with a manual car it means having to replace a clutch more often; with an automatic I can't imagine the stress put on the torque converter), and most importantly the stress/discomfort.
Tiktaalik 13y ago
I've read a few articles noting the tension between private bus services and public space. I don't live in Silicon Valley, but it sounds like these private buses are really taking advantage of public space and I think the city needs to step in, write up some rules for fair use and generate revenue from this private system.
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  Generate revenue from these? (that is, make up and levy a new tax) Were it not for these buses, there would be more cars on the road (and jostling for parking spots, and more pollution) and more people piling into Muni, Caltrain and BART during rush hour. These buses, like the bathrooms in Starbucks, are a private company providing a public good. I work for a company that doesn't give me these buses. I wish they did. I'm plenty envious. But I am under no illusion that these private bus systems owe me anything more than the lightened traffic burden they already gave me.
  - malyk 13y ago
    Or the people wouldn't live so far away from where they work thus freeing up more housing and lessening (at least for a time) the skyrocketing rental situation in the city.
    - sirkneeland 13y ago
      I don't think that is necessarily the case. I live in SF and work in Sunnyvale and would ever even consider leaving SF as long as I'm single. Even if the shuttle is convenient, it is still 2-3 hours of your day gone, every day.
  - dlitwak 13y ago
    Not necessarily. I hate these articles just as much as the next techie, but there is no denying that Google is solving a problem they are creating: if they didn't offer these buses then people wouldn't live in SF anywhere NEAR as frequently and there wouldn't be as much traffic: so they offer the buses. I do think they should be paying some sort of fees to use public bus stops etc., but everything else I disagree with in the article and think it's bullshit.
donretag 13y ago
This article is not the first on the subject, and it probably won't be the last. I should just save them and forwarded them to the Google recruiters that contact me 1-2 times a year. Not going to work in the bay area. I like living in a place where my neighbors do not work in tech. I like SF, but what made the city truly extraordinary is gone.
- throwit1979 13y ago
  I like living in a place where my neighbors do not work in tech. Out of curiosity, why? Where I live, finding real life interactions with people in tech is quite rare, and I wish it were different. Grass is greener.
  - donretag 13y ago
    Perhaps I should have phrased it as "I like living in a place where MOST my neighbors do not work in tech". I am in agreement that having some interaction with others in the tech industry is important. There should be a happy medium somewhere since living next to nothing but tech workers and lawyers is boring. My current neighbors are teachers, photographers, small business owners, but I wish there was a techie in the mix.
    - johnward 13y ago
      I wish one of my neighbors worked in tech.
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    I've lived both, and honestly, for me personally at least, getting away from tech people is the greener side. Meeting a lot of people who share your field and passions is really cool. For a little while. Then you realize you can't get away from it - everyone works in tech. You go to a party and end up talking about tech esoterica. You go to a bar and end up talking about tech esoterica. You sit down for a cup of coffee and end up talking about tech esoterica. It's exhausting after a while. Personally I'm much happier now in a city where there is a substantial tech presence I can seek out, but I can just as easily get away from.
revelation 13y ago
Yes, lets put up a divider between the relatively wealthy tech people and the poor, so that the third parties (property owners, government) stay unharmed. Tech people also don't want to pay 40% of their net income to some rent seeker for a studio appartment. This level of prices will ultimately be toxic to the economy.
tolmasky 13y ago
Are there any actual critiques to be had against Google busses other than some vague misplaced anger? Here we have private companies using their own capital to provide a more environmentally friendly way of getting their employees to the South Bay. What exactly is the problem here? Would they prefer if things were more like LA and everyone of these tech employees had their own high priced car? Would that make the wealth disparity less apparent? Then after a few anecdotes of assholes acting like assholes (as if that's representative of anything), Uber is of course targeted. I find this particularly hilarious because I would argue that ride-share companies are exactly the tech companies who are working on real problems. Go ride in a Lyft or Uber X and ask the driver how they feel about the company. Lyft is providing real jobs and making use of resources that would otherwise be notoriously redundant and misused (cars).
- eegilbert 13y ago
  There is the critique that if that energy and money were instead directed toward Muni and BART, everyone would benefit.
  - tolmasky 13y ago
    This is at best an unfair critique. For example, I used to work for Apple and the BART does not get that far. That is because Cupertino decided they didn't want the BART getting there. The reasons for this are varied and complex. The fact of the matter is that buying 10 busses to shuttle your employees is easy, and getting involved in a possibly 20 year boondoggle to extend the BART is hard, probably requires approval from the voters (who will probably yet again vote against it), and even if it does get done it doesn't consider the potential downsides to the communities it brings the BART to. At the end of the day it is completely unfair and unrealistic to essentially assign the responsibility of transportation management to companies simply because they are successful and because government is incompetent (look at SF's budget and you'll see they really shouldn't need anyones help to be making transportation better). The reality is that SF is a completely mismanaged city, where we are spending 5 years extending the light rail from china town to downtown not because anyone actually needs it but because of politics, instead of focusing on the actual transportation issues people face every day. That's where the anger should be focused. Google, et al are doing their best with what they're given and I think they've done pretty well so far.
duwease 13y ago
What can be done? Build more housing I guess, but who's to say the most desirable still won't be bought by those looking to pay the most? Not to be dismissive of the impact to those who have up to this point been able to afford it and now must change their lives.. but I don't know if there's any 'cure' for people wanting to sell a scarce resource to the highest bidder.
dclowd9901 13y ago
Pf, Silicon Valley is split by Silicon Valley's wealth. There are a huge amount of people here who have $1m+ net worth, and an even larger number who have moved in since to clean up their code (making far less). That's not even mentioning the even greater number of support staff who make less than the transit workers and cops. The amount of money the top tier people are making around here should be illegal.
- sebkomianos 13y ago
  On what principle should "making huge amounts of money because you are top tier" be illegal? And with what filters?
  - dclowd9901 13y ago
    I was being provocative, but as a tech worker in the valley, even I have a hard time coping with the cost of living in the area.
  - onebaddude 13y ago
    >And with what filters? From my years of spending time on HN: being involved in banking or finance means your wealth is undeserved and ill-gotten. When your business fails, you should go to jail. But the excesses of the technology world are lauded. Because, you know, Napster. It's some interesting hypocrisy.
    - sebkomianos 13y ago
      First of all, I wouldn't call it "hypocrisy". I would call it "not very clear point of view". I doubt they/we do it by intention; they/we just don't get the whole picture. And I write "they/we" because I sometimes have the same "hate" towards the banking/finance industry. But sometimes it's well-fed by its methods. Of course I wouldn't demand a clerk to go to jail but I would like to see a few bank bosses that always get away by bribing (or blackmailing) politicians treated the same way a small store boss would be treated.
ionforce 13y ago
Whose "problem" is economic equality? It doesn't sound like it should be the responsibility of the companies that happen to reside in/near the Valley. Google's mission statement is to index the Internet, not to bolster the Valley, so they optimize accordingly. The companies and its residents don't owe their cities anything. Living there is merely an implementation detail. Granted, I think it would be nice if San Francisco wasn't left in the dust so to speak... But I can't think of how keeping the city propped up in a certain way aligns with people's and corporations' natural inclinations. It doesn't add up any other way, I don't think. What is happening is perfectly logical. Maybe unfortunate. But logical.
- voodoo123 13y ago
  Google's mission is to control all of computing. Indexing the internet is only part of that.
vecinu 13y ago
It amazes me how the examples given in the article as displays of wealth don't resonate with me at all. In the Middle East, you have Sheiks creating gigantic palaces that rival wonders of the world, all for their display of wealth and power. In the Balkans, you have rich gypsies throwing money on women at their weddings and carrying more bling on them than you will ever have in your lifetime. I just left SF for a bit after living in SoMa for a year. People should understand that spending YOUR money on YOUR wedding to make it special is not an exorbitant display of wealth. Neither is having a corporate jet area at an airport or a charter of private buses for that matter. It could be worse; much worse.
- mkessy 13y ago
  I'm sorry but what the hell kind of reasoning is this? "It could be worse in other countries, so how it is here isn't really bad" We could have a full on police state like in some other countries so what the NSA does isn't really bad at all. It is the huge wealth disparity in SV, the complete apathy towards public policy/politics, and a mind sight like yours that evades all responsibility. Here are the facts: record numbers of poor people, staggeringly high amount of homelessness, public schools that are essentially privatized by wealthy parents. Then look at the campuses of Facebook and Google, you practically don't even need to leave, everything you want is at your job so why venture out and see the problems of the unwashed masses? All of this isolation creates a sort of cognitive dissonance, where everyone thinks they are solving the worlds problems by creating a new social app, when some major problems affecting real people are sitting right in front of them. I'm not saying SV is inherently wrong, but a dose of reality and some acceptance of responsibility would go a long way.
- marcusf 13y ago
  > In the Balkans, you have rich gypsies throwing money on women at their weddings and carrying more bling on them than you will ever have in your lifetime. From my understanding, the throwing of money during a wedding is a tradition in some cultures. It's either used to pay for the wedding, or the money goes around and is used in another wedding. I've given money at weddings, in an envelope instead of throwing it, but I wouldn't call that a display of wealth. Not if spending YOUR money on YOUR wedding isn't, at least.
jongold 13y ago
Totally misplaced anger by non-techies - the housing problem in SF is down to the planning restrictions.
- calbear81 13y ago
  Agreed, that article totally missed the point here on the NIMBY-ism all over SF. Look at cities like Vancouver (often voted best city to live in the world) and their core is filled with dense skyrises that also ensure vibrant and busy street level activity which leads to lower crime and safer streets.
coenhyde 13y ago
The problem is the SF City gov. They are destroying everything they want to protect about the city by restricting housing developments.
jseliger 13y ago
Her son, like most young people, wants to be able to move out and live on his own even as the city gets more and more expensive. These articles frustrate me because they rarely manage to mention obvious factors like, say, supply and demand—a problem that I wrote more about here: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/connecting-the-dots-between-beliefs-an-example-from-density-and-housing-policy http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/connecting-the-dots... . If you're unhappy about rapidly rising housing prices, the simple solution is to build more of it. We have the technology to do so and have for a hundred years. One can argue that high prices are a reasonable cost for low density, but to do so at least requires some basic knowledge of how supply and demand work. On a separate note, articles like this also show why newspapers are having so many problems: if a random commenter like me knows more introductory-level econ than the reporter writing about such issues, the reporter has no business writing about business.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- Sheepshow 13y ago
  SV tech giants creates artificial demand in SF by providing premium buses, without motivating any sort of supply. Developers can't choose to say, build more housing near the place of employment in SF because there isn't one. The closest would be to build near a bus stop -- which is completely ephemeral real estate. And that's the point of the article. How can developers possibly respond to this demand?
  - pslam 13y ago
    Why is this "artificial"? Living in a big city and long commuting in/out is perfectly normal.
  - malandrew 13y ago
    There's a lack of real estate for businesses in the city as well. Getting an office for your tech startup isn't trivial nor cheap. A lot more of these companies in the south bay along the Caltrain could be in SF if there was more commercial real estate available.
DanBlake 13y ago
Either build more housing, remove rent control or have SF no longer be appealing. Those are the only options to stop rental increases. Anything else is artificial and doomed to fail by introducing flawed mechanisms to try and subvert the most natural process there is (Supply/Demand) SF seems like one of the only places on earth where the general mindset is "I have a absolute human right to live in San Francisco". Good luck trying that attitude in Aspen or Greenwich. The bottom line is that so long as SF is one of the most desirable places in the US to live, people are going to flock here and capitalism will take over (SURPRISE) Its really just simple supply and demand. There is a lot of people wanting to live in SF (demand) and lots of low paying tenants who dont move causing little vacancies (supply). The end result is astronomical prices.
- johnward 13y ago
  and one of the reason everyone wants to move to the bay area is that there are so many damn jobs. Sure housing is cheap is hell where I live in Ohio but you can't get a job to pay for it.
- ganeumann 13y ago
  Well come on, it's a little more complicated than that. Where you live is not just a simple commodity to you, it's your home. Having lived through the complete gentrification (Disneyfication) of Manhattan I found that, despite being of the Liberal bent, it was hard to see old neighborhoods disappear, look around at nice neighborhoods and realize a good percentage of the apartments are owned by people who are in them only a few days a year, and watch as the interesting fringe stuff (i.e. The Hat) was replaced by the interesting mega-expensive stuff (i.e. Per Se.) It feels bad to become an outcast in your own land, even though that kind of thing does not come into play in Liberal thought. I don't think that some people asking for some other solution than pure supply-and-demand is untoward. Understanding how they feel: that their home (meaning both the place they live in and their neighborhood) might be more important to them than most other things. There's a certain amount of suffering we cause them with our exercise of simple capitalism. While we can't measure pain in dollars and cents, that doesn't mean we shouldn't care about it. Not everything should be measured in dollars and capitalism is not the only moral system, nor is it inevitable. I don't have answers (well, actually, I have plenty of opinions on answers but none that are radically different than any other answers already given) but I also don't think that the brou-ha-ha is useless: it's always useful to have these discussions. The end result of this kind of public pressure is often compromise.
aet 13y ago
It's funny how the article doesn't consider technologists to be intellectuals.
- theo91 13y ago
  Sally the project manager, Ben the QA guy, and Amit the Rails hacker, who make up 99% of the SV workforce, are decidedly not intellectuals.
  - aet 13y ago
    True, I just thought it was amusing.
  - geebee 13y ago
    Do you know any interesting people who you would consider to be intellectuals who work in technology? If so, are their intellectual interests separate from technology (ie., they have a second life as a musician/artist/writer), or do they have technical interests that you would consider "intellectual".
  - dasil003 13y ago
    You can't be sure of that unless you attend the same cocktail parties as Sally, Ben and Amit.
  - malandrew 13y ago
    99% is hyperbole. There is a lot more going on in SF than just rails shops. You may only hear about the rails shops, but I know plenty of people in the area working on serious tech that improves life. Plus, who is to decide who is and is not an intellectual. You're characterization probably applies to a greater percentage of the non-techie population than the techie population.
dmckeon 13y ago
The buses are a convenient and visible symbol for SF activists to use as a shorthand for the influx of tech workers and housing demand. While buses clearly reduce roadway commuting loads, and are convenient for those inside them, they are also highly visible at pick-up/drop-off points in the City, and in HOV lanes on the freeway - especially visible to people who are waiting for a Muni bus, or who are in heavy traffic watching buses go past in an HOV lane. Activists who understand this keep talking about buses rather than about people, or about the failures of the City to provide more competitive working environments for tech companies and their workers.
GoNB 13y ago
> Most young technology workers order food and supplies online, so she doesn't run into them at the corner store. They keep their noses buried in their smartphones when they walk on the streets and don't volunteer in the community, Flandrich said. This is true even outside Silicon Valley. A techies community is the Internet. GitHub, Reddit, Hacker News, forums, etc. This trend will only get more prolific as the Internet becomes more immerse.
cletus 13y ago
I guess it's that time of the month again: class warfare and the effect of the tech industry on SF. > Fueling the growing rift is a common belief that the vast wealth being amassed by the tech industry is not spilling over into the community. This is a deliberately naive view of economics. Unless tech workers spend nothing they consume local goods and services and money flows through the economy that way. If you profile tech workers who live in SF you'll tend to find they're young (20s) and tend to spend a lot of their money on "entertainment" (bars, restaurants, etc). How exactly does this not benefit the SF economy? > Instead, activists say, the high-tech invasion is driving up the cost of living to levels that more San Franciscans cannot afford. No, ignorance of supply and demand, archaic zoning laws and other artificial constraints on supply drive up the cost of living in SF and the rest of the Bay area. If, for example, you had high density housing along the Caltrain corridor you'd probably find that a lot less people would feel the need to live in SF. > She has seen a sharp uptick in evictions under the Ellis Act, the state law that allows a landlord to evict all tenants of a building if it is being taken off the rental market. And now she and the other tenants in her building This is inevitable when you create artificially low rental prices. If you want to avoid this sort of thing the only way to do it is either a) have a government authority own the buildings or b) subsidize the rent paid on the private market. Rent control is always going to leave owners looking for a way to get out of it. > So he's hunting for a job as a recruiter in the tech industry. And who said this isn't benefiting the SF economy? As for the private buses, I don't recall the cost per worker for the system but I believe it's actually pretty low. BART/Muni/Caltrain/VTA/etc is actually pretty expensive and government subsidized. The real problem here is that public transit in the Bay Area is appallingly organized and run so companies have no real choice but to go private. But I bet the politicians love all this finger-pointing at tech companies. It certainly takes the heat off them.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  If, for example, you had high density housing along the Caltrain corridor you'd probably find that a lot less people would feel the need to live in SF. What are you talking about? There's plenty of housing by Caltrain. I myself live within bed-shaking distance of Caltrain. A shortage of residences near Caltrain isn't the problem. The problem is ... all these cities SUCK. They are homogeneous culturally barren wastelands. THAT'S why people want to live in SF. But by moving to SF in such large numbers, with tech millions burning a hole in their pockets, they are driving up rents and home prices to such a degree that non-techies cannot afford to live there. As this continues, SF itself will turn into a homogeneous culturally barren wasteland - more like San Jose. And the yuppie bars and overpriced restaurants that remain will be staffed by workers bussed in from somewhere else. The art and music and quirkiness will be long gone.
GoNB 13y ago
I don't live in SF but question about the techie bus stops: Do panhandlers congregate there?
- wooster 13y ago
  They've had some problems with muggings, but I haven't seen more panhandling than usual near them.
pslam 13y ago
Just so the article is clear on which group it's trying to scapegoat: they fail to mention any of the big biotech companies who also run commuter coaches out of San Francisco. There are so many reasons for SF's growing wealth gap and housing costs. This is just an article with all the same hate-speech as one blaming a minority.

88 points by dmckeon 13y ago

Gentrification happens, people get bitter when they don't own their homes. This is normal economics that happens in every major city (e.g. Williamsburg, Brooklyn, East Side, Austin, Mississippi District, Portland, Mission, SF, etc., etc., etc.). Much of this has to do with the end of white flight, which should probably be considered a good thing. The laws in SF are as renter friendly as you can get in this country. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.

bitwize 13y ago
Well, it kind of sucks that your options in the US are gentrification or Detroitification. It's part of the price we pay for not having the social safety nets and public investment in infrastructure that other countries have.
- btrautsc 13y ago
  I'm curious to what you think the other options are? Gentrification doesn't mean pushing all residents and culture out of a place - but it typically flows to areas with the least resistance (and location/ proximity). So if you have an economically desolate area, and gentrification is at one end of the scale with 'detroitification' at the other - what is in the middle?
  - auctiontheory 13y ago
    The whole point of this (and a hundred other) articles is that the US is losing its "middle." Increasingly, you are either rich or poor. A have or a have not. Most HN readers are haves or (because you are still young) think you will be haves. But life doesn't always turn out according to plan.
    - sebkomianos 13y ago
      I can't express how much I agree to this - but with a small addition: The "middle" is disappearing in Europe also. The most worrying thing is that if you put 95% of the people on a ship's back, it's going to sink; together with its front.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - moheeb 13y ago
        Not so with an iceberg, unfortunately.
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  And yet, the riots and looting sprees happen not in San Francisco, but in European countries like the UK, France, and Sweden. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Stockholm_riots http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Stockholm_riots Sweden. Not exactly a bastion of savage Randian individualism. Not to say that generous welfare states are of no value, but the available data suggest they are far from a panacea
  - newnewnew 13y ago
    That's an inconvenient fact for the standard liberal wisdom to explain. Here's links to information about the French riots: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_France and London riots/flash mobs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots
    - bitwize 13y ago
      Here's an inconvenient fact: Headline-making civil unrest in Europe is "Tuesday" in the American inner city. The European riots are only significant because they're unusual against such comparatively low levels of background violence.
      - sirkneeland 13y ago
        That's a gross exaggeration. Until you show me a number of burned out hulks of cars from a "Tuesday" in a US city, it's your stereotypes against my actual examples.
  - Irishsteve 13y ago
    I'd imagine the police having guns in America are a great deterrent for rioters
    - chrisdevereux 13y ago
      Although interestingly, both the London and Stockholm riots were caused by police shootings.
- dmix 13y ago
  In Canada, similar gentrification is also happening rapidly in Toronto/Vancouver. Detroitification happened on the Canadian east coast (when the fishing industry died). And we have better "social safety nets". I don't think social programs manage to keep cities alive or the same as they were, nor would the overall country benefit from trying harder to do so. The main difference w/ Toronto vs SF is that Toronto has a liberal condo building policy so more affordable housing is being built by a (relatively) booming real estate industry. Whereas SF's property development growth has nowhere near reflected its population/income boom.
  - vecinu 13y ago
    I can confirm this fact in Toronto. I can still see some seniors living in older neighbourhoods in Toronto but most of them have moved to the suburbs.
  - ImprovedSilence 13y ago
    I could be wrong here, but I thought much of SF is considered "historic district" or something, therefore new, more dense housing is not being build, thus rents rise like crazy?
    - muzz 13y ago
      You indeed are wrong. Thousands of units of high density housing is being constructed currently.
      - wutbrodo 13y ago
        I don't think he's wrong. All of the new development seems to be along Market (hell in a one mile stretch of Market near my house, there are THREE huge residential developments going up); i.e., you don't see any new high-rise developments going up in the Mission district (which I believe is designated "historic").
  - alxp 13y ago
    And Atlantic Canadian cities are still great places to live because Canada has invested in social safety nets, sane urban development, and not abandoning entire cities. 'Detroitification' is a not-even-wrong way to describe how any population centre in Atlantic Canada has fared.
sses 13y ago
I'm a Googler living in SF, and my landlord recently tried to drive me out of my apartment, so I think I have an informed perspective on this. It's not as simple as you make it out to be. The laws being renter friendly are helpful but they don't solve anything. If I hadn't had the time and money to try to fight this I would probably be looking for a new place right now.
- scoofy 13y ago
  My point is that i used to live in Austin, where "trying to kick you out of the apartment" involves not offering you a lease for the following year, because, say, they don't like your haircut. That is, any reason as long as it's not because you are a protected class or for retaliation for requesting repairs. If that doesn't work, they could just double, or triple, your rent. The idea that you actually get to perpetually live in an apartment even if the owner doesn't want you there is quite generous. The idea that it's socially deemed "the right thing to do" is rather progressive.
  - sses 13y ago
    I was responding to this, specifically: "The laws in SF are as renter friendly as you can get in this country. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about." If those tenant friendly laws are de facto easy to work around - and they are, particularly for poorer tenants - then they are significantly weaker than they seem. That's what the fuss is about. Poorer people get driven out because they don't have the time and money to fight their landlords trying to double their rent, whether legal or not. Richer people like me are able to fight it and win. I don't think you understand California or San Francisco rental laws. They do not say you get to perpetually live in an apartment even if the owner doesn't want you there. They control how much a landlord can raise rent, and limit some forms of eviction. But they also have many exceptions, and the burden can be on the tenant to prove the landlord is wrong.
    - pyoung 13y ago
      I am in a rent controlled building in SF. Our building recently got sold and the new owner evicted the lowest paying tenant. She (the new owner) has to live in the unit for two years before she can re-rent the unit, but considering the previous tenant had been there for 15-20 years, the increased rent she will get after those two years will more than make up for the lost rent (assuming that is her intention). Additionally, she is starting to repair/update the building. I was initially excited about this (the building is a bit old/outdated), but after reading the rent control laws, found out that she is allowed to pass on 100% of the cost to the tenants (through a 5% annual increase until the costs are paid off), and additionally, can deduct 100% of the cost from her taxes. Also, I found out what the sale price of the building was, and after doing a little back of the napkin calculations, realized that her mortgage is probably going to be less than what she collects in rent from the remaining two tenants. So for the cost of the down payment, the landlord is getting a place to live, all of the building upgrades paid for by the tenants, the mortgage paid for by the tenants, and a small income from what is left over from the rent as well as any capital gains on the building. This sounds like a pretty good deal (and I was actually upset that I didn't move on it myself). I agree with the sentiment that rent control can result in an increase in market prices. But it's not as if the landlords are getting completely screwed, they still have avenues in which they can evict tenants, profitably upgrade the building, and achieve close to market rents. Additionally, a major factor that gets overlooked in the rent control debate is that the 'secondary market' (rooms for rent in rent controlled units) provides fairly affordable housing for young newcomers. Almost everybody I know who lives in SF does so by renting a room in a rent controlled unit that they found through friends or through craigslist. These rooms are significantly cheaper than market rates (rent control by-laws actually require that any rooms in a rent controlled unit must be re-rented at an evenly split price, or normalized price based on square footage, not that everyone abides by those rules), and probably the only reason people with marginal means can afford to live here. So, while rent control may result in an increase in market prices, it also creates a secondary market that allows for economic diversity to continue to exist in SF. I am somewhat split on rent control, but my gut feeling tells me it is the right thing to do. Allowing landlords to arbitrarily raise rent or randomly evict tenants is unfair and disruptive to people's lives. Rent control allows for a secondary market that lets young and lower income folks get a foot in the door. I think the 'lazy rent controlled tenant who pays nothing because they lived there for 30 years' is largely a myth (or such a rarity that they have only minimal impact on the macro trends) because rent control still allows for evictions, just with a bit more red tape. Also, another factor that doesn't get discussed is the effect of rent control on a downward market. Because rents aren't ruthlessly increased to market rates during the boom times, it means people who get laid off in the bad times can actually afford to stick around and look for a new job for a while, rather than having to lift anchor and move somewhere cheaper. From what I recall, the vacancy rate in SF rose a little bit during the great recession, but no where near as bad as other places.
baddox 13y ago
> The laws in SF are as renter friendly as you can get in this country. That depends what you mean. Rent control, for example, can be viewed as extremely friendly to the current renters but extremely unfriendly to would-be renters and the rental market as a whole.
- hackula1 13y ago
  I would love to work there, but the rents look completely ridiculous compared to the rest of the country. I live in the heart of a wealthy urban area, and still pay close to a third what I would pay in SF. I am an engineer, so I could afford to live there, but saving would be impossible. It is a bit worrying that the tech community seems to be so irresponsible with where they choose to set up shop. Sure, an office in downtown Manhattan would be awesome, but is it really necessary for a non profitable startup?
  - baddox 13y ago
    I wouldn't say that saving is impossible on an engineer's salary, but I suppose it's all relative on how much you want to save and what your "lifestyle expenses" are outside of rent.
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    I lived in SF 2011-2012, and have lived in NYC since then. Let me tell ya, my cost of living now in Manhattan is substantially lower than what it was in SF. NYC isn't cheap, but it isn't quite the level of insanity as San Francisco.
bronbron 13y ago
> I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. I think everyone's just trying to make sense of the SF real estate market, tech industry workers included. The average rental unit price in SF is now higher than Manhattan, last time I checked. Hopefully, talking about the craziness of the SF real estate market will lead to more solutions, e.g. public pressure to make commuting from the East bay more feasible ala Brooklyn and Manhattan.

woah 13y ago

This is due to not enough housing being built over the past 30 years

sirkneeland 13y ago
Supply of housing kept artificially low (SF gov resisting building up for decades). Demand for housing rising, as it should in any desirable city. People seem surprised by this. As long as we are adding CS to school curricula, maybe we should add some Econ 101 as well...
- strlen 13y ago
  My high school (in Cupertino, CA -- 45 miles south of SF) did require an economics course and the one I took (AP Micro Econ for part of the course, regular macro econ for remainder) used rent control as an example of policies with unintended consequences. I don't think ignorance is the problem here, this is textbook stuff. I think the real issues are these: 1) Economics is a science, it helps you build a mathematical model of ``what happens if''. It doesn't immediately follow that even if rent control has drawbacks (lowered mobility, gradual conversion of units from apartments to TiCs or condos, higher rent and lower ability for those who move into the city) that they aren't socially acceptable due to perceived benefits. I am not making this argument myself here, by the way (I don't think social benefits of rent control justify the costs); I am merely stating that it isn't as straightforward (going from "rent control has unintended consequences" to "rent control is a wrong policy" is an example of Hume's is-ought fallacy). 2) There are other legal/economics issues besides rent control. There are certain tenant right laws that currently making it very difficult for one-property landlords to rent their property out. In other words if you're moving to South Bay/Fremont or Pleasanton for the next 12 years to better schools (more on this later...) or to New York/London for 5 years to work in finance sector it may be more monetarily advantageous to you to sell or AirBnB the place. If you're an individual with a single investment property it makes all the sense to sell now (or again, to AirBnB) as opposed to continue renting out. Tenant’s rights is a great concept and undoubtedly tenants should be protected from unsafe conditions, predatory practices, eviction without any notice, harassment, etc... However, some of the laws (e.g., difficulty of eviction for legitimate reasons, bizzare laws that can require a property to wait for 10 years before being rented or sold again after an eviction in some cases, etc...) clearly make things easier for slumlords (individuals/families with more than a single property), large property management companies, and apartment complexes. 3) Non-rent related political/economic issues: namely schools, transportation, and safety. First, there is whole Western half of SF (Sunset, Richmond) that's simply an amazing town: walkable mixed-use neighbourhoods, slightly larger homes, lower rent, less crime. "Small" problem: it takes as long to get to SOMA or FiDi from Inner Richmond as it does from Mountain View or Palo Alto. Sunset is slightly better when muni is on-time (that's like saying "JVM is fast when you're not having a full GC" -- at-grade transportation will enviable suffer delays), but it's still a longer (and more exhausting) commute than driving from, e.g., Daly City. Second, schools are (literally) a lottery ticket. The known-good public schools (e.g., Lowell) are magnets that are extremely competitive admissions wise. Private schools would be fine, but become unaffordable when there's also rent/mortgage to pay in SF. Child friendly neighbourhoods (likes one I describe above) are generally removed from work areas. Essentially this leaves only one option: if you're a family, due to safety/space reasons you'll probably have to commute[1] anyway to get to work; since you can commute from somewhere with either cheaper housing (East Bay) or great public schools (South Bay, Fremont area, Pleasanton, etc...), or take a job in one of these areas and have a shorter commuter, the costs of living in SF proper outweigh the benefits... 4) Non-political factors: SF is at the end of Peninsula, with mountains in the middle, and on its south side. It's also highly in demand. You can build up as in Manhattan (and SF should) but even though SF is now cheaper than Manhattan, Manhattan real estate is still unaffordable for most Americans. In other words, imagine you've an NP-complete algorithm. You can apply every optimization possible, but in the end you either have to throw a core with more transistors at it (where you're limited by physics), throw more parallel cores/distributed CPUs at it (_if_ it happens to be easily parallelizable), or find a heuristic that doesn't give you a complete answer but is good enough (like Miller-Rabin primarily test). Ultimately I think (but may as well be proven wrong) that a combination of these is what will happen here: reform of housing laws ("optimization") and smaller housing in SF proper ("more transistors on a core"), more SF-like dense urban cores in Bay Area, e.g., more jobs in Oakland/Berkeley, revival of Downtown SJ ("more cores"), and "densification" with a move towards mixed use residential/light commercial in suburbs/exurbs coupled with better public and private transportation options ("heuristical solutions"). [1] To out of towners, here are some numbers from personal experience/experience of friends: Mid-Richmond to SOMA by bus -- 40 minutes Inner Sunset to SOMA by Muni without delays ~20 minutes Menlo Park to SOMA -- 35 minutes Daly City to SOMA -- 20 minutes at most Saratoga to FiDi - 1 hour 5 minutes Saratoga to Palo Alto California ave area -- 20 minutes Saratoga to Menlo Park - 30 minutes Mountain View to Menlo Park -- 15 minutes Mountain View to Sunnyvale/Santa Clara - 5-15 minutes Driving commute in SF proper is not a good option. First, you lose out majorly on the savings of living in the city by having a car (the car itself, insurance, gas, parking, maintenance. Second, there's very little freeway in SF proper, but major job centers (SOMA, downtown) happen to be near freeway exits -- driving on SF surface streets is simply not worth it in terms of gas costs from idling/stop-and-go traffic, damage that happens to your car (with a manual car it means having to replace a clutch more often; with an automatic I can't imagine the stress put on the torque converter), and most importantly the stress/discomfort.

Tiktaalik 13y ago

I've read a few articles noting the tension between private bus services and public space. I don't live in Silicon Valley, but it sounds like these private buses are really taking advantage of public space and I think the city needs to step in, write up some rules for fair use and generate revenue from this private system.

sirkneeland 13y ago
Generate revenue from these? (that is, make up and levy a new tax) Were it not for these buses, there would be more cars on the road (and jostling for parking spots, and more pollution) and more people piling into Muni, Caltrain and BART during rush hour. These buses, like the bathrooms in Starbucks, are a private company providing a public good. I work for a company that doesn't give me these buses. I wish they did. I'm plenty envious. But I am under no illusion that these private bus systems owe me anything more than the lightened traffic burden they already gave me.
- malyk 13y ago
  Or the people wouldn't live so far away from where they work thus freeing up more housing and lessening (at least for a time) the skyrocketing rental situation in the city.
  - sirkneeland 13y ago
    I don't think that is necessarily the case. I live in SF and work in Sunnyvale and would ever even consider leaving SF as long as I'm single. Even if the shuttle is convenient, it is still 2-3 hours of your day gone, every day.
- dlitwak 13y ago
  Not necessarily. I hate these articles just as much as the next techie, but there is no denying that Google is solving a problem they are creating: if they didn't offer these buses then people wouldn't live in SF anywhere NEAR as frequently and there wouldn't be as much traffic: so they offer the buses. I do think they should be paying some sort of fees to use public bus stops etc., but everything else I disagree with in the article and think it's bullshit.

donretag 13y ago

This article is not the first on the subject, and it probably won't be the last. I should just save them and forwarded them to the Google recruiters that contact me 1-2 times a year. Not going to work in the bay area. I like living in a place where my neighbors do not work in tech. I like SF, but what made the city truly extraordinary is gone.

throwit1979 13y ago
I like living in a place where my neighbors do not work in tech. Out of curiosity, why? Where I live, finding real life interactions with people in tech is quite rare, and I wish it were different. Grass is greener.
- donretag 13y ago
  Perhaps I should have phrased it as "I like living in a place where MOST my neighbors do not work in tech". I am in agreement that having some interaction with others in the tech industry is important. There should be a happy medium somewhere since living next to nothing but tech workers and lawyers is boring. My current neighbors are teachers, photographers, small business owners, but I wish there was a techie in the mix.
  - johnward 13y ago
    I wish one of my neighbors worked in tech.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  I've lived both, and honestly, for me personally at least, getting away from tech people is the greener side. Meeting a lot of people who share your field and passions is really cool. For a little while. Then you realize you can't get away from it - everyone works in tech. You go to a party and end up talking about tech esoterica. You go to a bar and end up talking about tech esoterica. You sit down for a cup of coffee and end up talking about tech esoterica. It's exhausting after a while. Personally I'm much happier now in a city where there is a substantial tech presence I can seek out, but I can just as easily get away from.

revelation 13y ago

Yes, lets put up a divider between the relatively wealthy tech people and the poor, so that the third parties (property owners, government) stay unharmed. Tech people also don't want to pay 40% of their net income to some rent seeker for a studio appartment. This level of prices will ultimately be toxic to the economy.

tolmasky 13y ago

Are there any actual critiques to be had against Google busses other than some vague misplaced anger? Here we have private companies using their own capital to provide a more environmentally friendly way of getting their employees to the South Bay. What exactly is the problem here? Would they prefer if things were more like LA and everyone of these tech employees had their own high priced car? Would that make the wealth disparity less apparent? Then after a few anecdotes of assholes acting like assholes (as if that's representative of anything), Uber is of course targeted. I find this particularly hilarious because I would argue that ride-share companies are exactly the tech companies who are working on real problems. Go ride in a Lyft or Uber X and ask the driver how they feel about the company. Lyft is providing real jobs and making use of resources that would otherwise be notoriously redundant and misused (cars).

eegilbert 13y ago
There is the critique that if that energy and money were instead directed toward Muni and BART, everyone would benefit.
- tolmasky 13y ago
  This is at best an unfair critique. For example, I used to work for Apple and the BART does not get that far. That is because Cupertino decided they didn't want the BART getting there. The reasons for this are varied and complex. The fact of the matter is that buying 10 busses to shuttle your employees is easy, and getting involved in a possibly 20 year boondoggle to extend the BART is hard, probably requires approval from the voters (who will probably yet again vote against it), and even if it does get done it doesn't consider the potential downsides to the communities it brings the BART to. At the end of the day it is completely unfair and unrealistic to essentially assign the responsibility of transportation management to companies simply because they are successful and because government is incompetent (look at SF's budget and you'll see they really shouldn't need anyones help to be making transportation better). The reality is that SF is a completely mismanaged city, where we are spending 5 years extending the light rail from china town to downtown not because anyone actually needs it but because of politics, instead of focusing on the actual transportation issues people face every day. That's where the anger should be focused. Google, et al are doing their best with what they're given and I think they've done pretty well so far.

duwease 13y ago

What can be done? Build more housing I guess, but who's to say the most desirable still won't be bought by those looking to pay the most? Not to be dismissive of the impact to those who have up to this point been able to afford it and now must change their lives.. but I don't know if there's any 'cure' for people wanting to sell a scarce resource to the highest bidder.

dclowd9901 13y ago

Pf, Silicon Valley is split by Silicon Valley's wealth. There are a huge amount of people here who have $1m+ net worth, and an even larger number who have moved in since to clean up their code (making far less). That's not even mentioning the even greater number of support staff who make less than the transit workers and cops. The amount of money the top tier people are making around here should be illegal.

sebkomianos 13y ago
On what principle should "making huge amounts of money because you are top tier" be illegal? And with what filters?
- dclowd9901 13y ago
  I was being provocative, but as a tech worker in the valley, even I have a hard time coping with the cost of living in the area.
- onebaddude 13y ago
  >And with what filters? From my years of spending time on HN: being involved in banking or finance means your wealth is undeserved and ill-gotten. When your business fails, you should go to jail. But the excesses of the technology world are lauded. Because, you know, Napster. It's some interesting hypocrisy.
  - sebkomianos 13y ago
    First of all, I wouldn't call it "hypocrisy". I would call it "not very clear point of view". I doubt they/we do it by intention; they/we just don't get the whole picture. And I write "they/we" because I sometimes have the same "hate" towards the banking/finance industry. But sometimes it's well-fed by its methods. Of course I wouldn't demand a clerk to go to jail but I would like to see a few bank bosses that always get away by bribing (or blackmailing) politicians treated the same way a small store boss would be treated.

ionforce 13y ago

Whose "problem" is economic equality? It doesn't sound like it should be the responsibility of the companies that happen to reside in/near the Valley. Google's mission statement is to index the Internet, not to bolster the Valley, so they optimize accordingly. The companies and its residents don't owe their cities anything. Living there is merely an implementation detail. Granted, I think it would be nice if San Francisco wasn't left in the dust so to speak... But I can't think of how keeping the city propped up in a certain way aligns with people's and corporations' natural inclinations. It doesn't add up any other way, I don't think. What is happening is perfectly logical. Maybe unfortunate. But logical.

voodoo123 13y ago
Google's mission is to control all of computing. Indexing the internet is only part of that.

vecinu 13y ago

It amazes me how the examples given in the article as displays of wealth don't resonate with me at all. In the Middle East, you have Sheiks creating gigantic palaces that rival wonders of the world, all for their display of wealth and power. In the Balkans, you have rich gypsies throwing money on women at their weddings and carrying more bling on them than you will ever have in your lifetime. I just left SF for a bit after living in SoMa for a year. People should understand that spending YOUR money on YOUR wedding to make it special is not an exorbitant display of wealth. Neither is having a corporate jet area at an airport or a charter of private buses for that matter. It could be worse; much worse.

mkessy 13y ago
I'm sorry but what the hell kind of reasoning is this? "It could be worse in other countries, so how it is here isn't really bad" We could have a full on police state like in some other countries so what the NSA does isn't really bad at all. It is the huge wealth disparity in SV, the complete apathy towards public policy/politics, and a mind sight like yours that evades all responsibility. Here are the facts: record numbers of poor people, staggeringly high amount of homelessness, public schools that are essentially privatized by wealthy parents. Then look at the campuses of Facebook and Google, you practically don't even need to leave, everything you want is at your job so why venture out and see the problems of the unwashed masses? All of this isolation creates a sort of cognitive dissonance, where everyone thinks they are solving the worlds problems by creating a new social app, when some major problems affecting real people are sitting right in front of them. I'm not saying SV is inherently wrong, but a dose of reality and some acceptance of responsibility would go a long way.
marcusf 13y ago
> In the Balkans, you have rich gypsies throwing money on women at their weddings and carrying more bling on them than you will ever have in your lifetime. From my understanding, the throwing of money during a wedding is a tradition in some cultures. It's either used to pay for the wedding, or the money goes around and is used in another wedding. I've given money at weddings, in an envelope instead of throwing it, but I wouldn't call that a display of wealth. Not if spending YOUR money on YOUR wedding isn't, at least.

jongold 13y ago

Totally misplaced anger by non-techies - the housing problem in SF is down to the planning restrictions.

calbear81 13y ago
Agreed, that article totally missed the point here on the NIMBY-ism all over SF. Look at cities like Vancouver (often voted best city to live in the world) and their core is filled with dense skyrises that also ensure vibrant and busy street level activity which leads to lower crime and safer streets.

coenhyde 13y ago

The problem is the SF City gov. They are destroying everything they want to protect about the city by restricting housing developments.

jseliger 13y ago

Her son, like most young people, wants to be able to move out and live on his own even as the city gets more and more expensive. These articles frustrate me because they rarely manage to mention obvious factors like, say, supply and demand—a problem that I wrote more about here: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/connecting-the-dots-between-beliefs-an-example-from-density-and-housing-policy http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/connecting-the-dots... . If you're unhappy about rapidly rising housing prices, the simple solution is to build more of it. We have the technology to do so and have for a hundred years. One can argue that high prices are a reasonable cost for low density, but to do so at least requires some basic knowledge of how supply and demand work. On a separate note, articles like this also show why newspapers are having so many problems: if a random commenter like me knows more introductory-level econ than the reporter writing about such issues, the reporter has no business writing about business.

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Sheepshow 13y ago
SV tech giants creates artificial demand in SF by providing premium buses, without motivating any sort of supply. Developers can't choose to say, build more housing near the place of employment in SF because there isn't one. The closest would be to build near a bus stop -- which is completely ephemeral real estate. And that's the point of the article. How can developers possibly respond to this demand?
- pslam 13y ago
  Why is this "artificial"? Living in a big city and long commuting in/out is perfectly normal.
- malandrew 13y ago
  There's a lack of real estate for businesses in the city as well. Getting an office for your tech startup isn't trivial nor cheap. A lot more of these companies in the south bay along the Caltrain could be in SF if there was more commercial real estate available.

DanBlake 13y ago

Either build more housing, remove rent control or have SF no longer be appealing. Those are the only options to stop rental increases. Anything else is artificial and doomed to fail by introducing flawed mechanisms to try and subvert the most natural process there is (Supply/Demand) SF seems like one of the only places on earth where the general mindset is "I have a absolute human right to live in San Francisco". Good luck trying that attitude in Aspen or Greenwich. The bottom line is that so long as SF is one of the most desirable places in the US to live, people are going to flock here and capitalism will take over (SURPRISE) Its really just simple supply and demand. There is a lot of people wanting to live in SF (demand) and lots of low paying tenants who dont move causing little vacancies (supply). The end result is astronomical prices.

johnward 13y ago
and one of the reason everyone wants to move to the bay area is that there are so many damn jobs. Sure housing is cheap is hell where I live in Ohio but you can't get a job to pay for it.
ganeumann 13y ago
Well come on, it's a little more complicated than that. Where you live is not just a simple commodity to you, it's your home. Having lived through the complete gentrification (Disneyfication) of Manhattan I found that, despite being of the Liberal bent, it was hard to see old neighborhoods disappear, look around at nice neighborhoods and realize a good percentage of the apartments are owned by people who are in them only a few days a year, and watch as the interesting fringe stuff (i.e. The Hat) was replaced by the interesting mega-expensive stuff (i.e. Per Se.) It feels bad to become an outcast in your own land, even though that kind of thing does not come into play in Liberal thought. I don't think that some people asking for some other solution than pure supply-and-demand is untoward. Understanding how they feel: that their home (meaning both the place they live in and their neighborhood) might be more important to them than most other things. There's a certain amount of suffering we cause them with our exercise of simple capitalism. While we can't measure pain in dollars and cents, that doesn't mean we shouldn't care about it. Not everything should be measured in dollars and capitalism is not the only moral system, nor is it inevitable. I don't have answers (well, actually, I have plenty of opinions on answers but none that are radically different than any other answers already given) but I also don't think that the brou-ha-ha is useless: it's always useful to have these discussions. The end result of this kind of public pressure is often compromise.

aet 13y ago

It's funny how the article doesn't consider technologists to be intellectuals.

theo91 13y ago
Sally the project manager, Ben the QA guy, and Amit the Rails hacker, who make up 99% of the SV workforce, are decidedly not intellectuals.
- aet 13y ago
  True, I just thought it was amusing.
- geebee 13y ago
  Do you know any interesting people who you would consider to be intellectuals who work in technology? If so, are their intellectual interests separate from technology (ie., they have a second life as a musician/artist/writer), or do they have technical interests that you would consider "intellectual".
- dasil003 13y ago
  You can't be sure of that unless you attend the same cocktail parties as Sally, Ben and Amit.
- malandrew 13y ago
  99% is hyperbole. There is a lot more going on in SF than just rails shops. You may only hear about the rails shops, but I know plenty of people in the area working on serious tech that improves life. Plus, who is to decide who is and is not an intellectual. You're characterization probably applies to a greater percentage of the non-techie population than the techie population.

dmckeon 13y ago

The buses are a convenient and visible symbol for SF activists to use as a shorthand for the influx of tech workers and housing demand. While buses clearly reduce roadway commuting loads, and are convenient for those inside them, they are also highly visible at pick-up/drop-off points in the City, and in HOV lanes on the freeway - especially visible to people who are waiting for a Muni bus, or who are in heavy traffic watching buses go past in an HOV lane. Activists who understand this keep talking about buses rather than about people, or about the failures of the City to provide more competitive working environments for tech companies and their workers.

GoNB 13y ago

> Most young technology workers order food and supplies online, so she doesn't run into them at the corner store. They keep their noses buried in their smartphones when they walk on the streets and don't volunteer in the community, Flandrich said. This is true even outside Silicon Valley. A techies community is the Internet. GitHub, Reddit, Hacker News, forums, etc. This trend will only get more prolific as the Internet becomes more immerse.

cletus 13y ago

I guess it's that time of the month again: class warfare and the effect of the tech industry on SF. > Fueling the growing rift is a common belief that the vast wealth being amassed by the tech industry is not spilling over into the community. This is a deliberately naive view of economics. Unless tech workers spend nothing they consume local goods and services and money flows through the economy that way. If you profile tech workers who live in SF you'll tend to find they're young (20s) and tend to spend a lot of their money on "entertainment" (bars, restaurants, etc). How exactly does this not benefit the SF economy? > Instead, activists say, the high-tech invasion is driving up the cost of living to levels that more San Franciscans cannot afford. No, ignorance of supply and demand, archaic zoning laws and other artificial constraints on supply drive up the cost of living in SF and the rest of the Bay area. If, for example, you had high density housing along the Caltrain corridor you'd probably find that a lot less people would feel the need to live in SF. > She has seen a sharp uptick in evictions under the Ellis Act, the state law that allows a landlord to evict all tenants of a building if it is being taken off the rental market. And now she and the other tenants in her building This is inevitable when you create artificially low rental prices. If you want to avoid this sort of thing the only way to do it is either a) have a government authority own the buildings or b) subsidize the rent paid on the private market. Rent control is always going to leave owners looking for a way to get out of it. > So he's hunting for a job as a recruiter in the tech industry. And who said this isn't benefiting the SF economy? As for the private buses, I don't recall the cost per worker for the system but I believe it's actually pretty low. BART/Muni/Caltrain/VTA/etc is actually pretty expensive and government subsidized. The real problem here is that public transit in the Bay Area is appallingly organized and run so companies have no real choice but to go private. But I bet the politicians love all this finger-pointing at tech companies. It certainly takes the heat off them.

auctiontheory 13y ago
If, for example, you had high density housing along the Caltrain corridor you'd probably find that a lot less people would feel the need to live in SF. What are you talking about? There's plenty of housing by Caltrain. I myself live within bed-shaking distance of Caltrain. A shortage of residences near Caltrain isn't the problem. The problem is ... all these cities SUCK. They are homogeneous culturally barren wastelands. THAT'S why people want to live in SF. But by moving to SF in such large numbers, with tech millions burning a hole in their pockets, they are driving up rents and home prices to such a degree that non-techies cannot afford to live there. As this continues, SF itself will turn into a homogeneous culturally barren wasteland - more like San Jose. And the yuppie bars and overpriced restaurants that remain will be staffed by workers bussed in from somewhere else. The art and music and quirkiness will be long gone.

GoNB 13y ago

I don't live in SF but question about the techie bus stops: Do panhandlers congregate there?

wooster 13y ago
They've had some problems with muggings, but I haven't seen more panhandling than usual near them.

pslam 13y ago

Just so the article is clear on which group it's trying to scapegoat: they fail to mention any of the big biotech companies who also run commuter coaches out of San Francisco. There are so many reasons for SF's growing wealth gap and housing costs. This is just an article with all the same hate-speech as one blaming a minority.