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I think it's easy to come down on either side of the argument around this (I have no stake in it as I don't live in the US). Things progress and move forward an

I think it's easy to come down on either side of the argument around this (I have no stake in it as I don't live in the US). Things progress and move forward and if rents are high and you can't afford them you need to move. A small number of apartments with lots of people wanting them drives the price high. On the other hand it does suck for people who have lived there their entire lives and now can't afford it anymore. It also seems quite unfair. One thing I find strange is why tech companies set up in an area which is limited in growth opportunities because of it's location. It's not like SF can grow out in all directions. It seems like this is only going to get worse. It means that if you setup a company in SF you'll have to pay your employees more so they can afford to live there. You'll also have to raise their salaries more every year to combat growing rent prices. It seems in the interest of companies to start moving out of SF. Once they do engineers will hopefully follow. It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem though. If you setup outside SF now talent will be difficult to get and until some companies start setting up outside SF talent will stay in SF.

bmelton 13y ago
> It means that if you setup a company in SF you'll have to pay your employees more so they can afford to live there. According to the detractors, that's exactly the problem. The engineers at Google can afford to live, roughly, wherever they want, while the waiters, waitresses, security guards, janitors, etc., that have lived in San Francisco all their life are being "driven out" by those Google employees, which are the ones driving up rent prices for the rest. Note, Google is a placeholder for 'tech company' in this scenario. Clearly, Google isn't the only high-paying company in the area.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  True, it's also interesting to note that for the city to function "the waiters, waitresses, security guards, janitors, etc" are required. The tech employees aren't. We could end up in a situation where 'aspiring entrepreneurs' work those jobs while they try to get their startup off the ground (a bit like people trying to get into acting in Hollywood).
  - bmelton 13y ago
    Agreed. Another irony is that what has happened to SF is basically what every city would like to happen. Just like every startup, they've met their goal -- they're hip, and have traction, and now, basically, they're having problems scaling their success. If you squint hard enough, you could draw parallels to Twitter's early success -- lots of users, and not enough infrastructure to support it. San Francisco is now looking at a number of fail whales, but, at the same time, housing regulations prevent them from scaling. They've made that as a deliberate choice, and a pretty baffling one. As I stated elsewhere (so won't bother repeating at length), I believe the market would ultimately correct for this except for the artificially constrained supply being imposed by the building regulations. As an east-coast dweller that only works in SF, it's interesting to watch from afar. I mean, the idea of a class war ensuing as a result is obviously not a great one -- I'd hate to have to navigate SF like I would some war-torn country when I'm there for work, but one assumes the issue will resolve itself, some way or another, well before it ever gets to that.

bmelton 13y ago

> It means that if you setup a company in SF you'll have to pay your employees more so they can afford to live there. According to the detractors, that's exactly the problem. The engineers at Google can afford to live, roughly, wherever they want, while the waiters, waitresses, security guards, janitors, etc., that have lived in San Francisco all their life are being "driven out" by those Google employees, which are the ones driving up rent prices for the rest. Note, Google is a placeholder for 'tech company' in this scenario. Clearly, Google isn't the only high-paying company in the area.

k-mcgrady 13y ago
True, it's also interesting to note that for the city to function "the waiters, waitresses, security guards, janitors, etc" are required. The tech employees aren't. We could end up in a situation where 'aspiring entrepreneurs' work those jobs while they try to get their startup off the ground (a bit like people trying to get into acting in Hollywood).
- bmelton 13y ago
  Agreed. Another irony is that what has happened to SF is basically what every city would like to happen. Just like every startup, they've met their goal -- they're hip, and have traction, and now, basically, they're having problems scaling their success. If you squint hard enough, you could draw parallels to Twitter's early success -- lots of users, and not enough infrastructure to support it. San Francisco is now looking at a number of fail whales, but, at the same time, housing regulations prevent them from scaling. They've made that as a deliberate choice, and a pretty baffling one. As I stated elsewhere (so won't bother repeating at length), I believe the market would ultimately correct for this except for the artificially constrained supply being imposed by the building regulations. As an east-coast dweller that only works in SF, it's interesting to watch from afar. I mean, the idea of a class war ensuing as a result is obviously not a great one -- I'd hate to have to navigate SF like I would some war-torn country when I'm there for work, but one assumes the issue will resolve itself, some way or another, well before it ever gets to that.