
San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down - jcdavis
http://tomdale.net/2013/07/san-francisco-i-love-you-but-youre-bringing-me-down/
======
DanBlake
The reason for San Francisco's high rent/home price is very simple, despite
how others like to complicate it more:

1: Its desirable for most people to live here. Possibly the most desirable
place in the USA, depending on your tastes. As a result, people are willing to
pay more to live here. There are jobs, culture, food, art and much more all in
this great city.

2: Rent Control. I wont get too much into it, but my take as a real estate
investor is that it greatly entices residents to stay put once they have
rented. As a result, there is significantly higher rent (due to less supply)
for new residents. Many apartments are not rented at all because of the owners
fear of rent control. SF needs to get over its "you have a right to live at
your same address forever" attitude.

3: No new housing/construction. SF is a 7x7 plot of land which through both
NIMBY-like behavior and heavy legislation/bureaucracy, has pushed a extremely
anti-developer agenda. Every year, thousands and thousands of people move to
SF. Unfortunately, there is less than 1 new housing unit built for every 25
new residents. The common thread that is thrown around is "We dont want SF to
turn into a mini tokyo with skyscrapers and tiny apartments" so instead we
have 3 floor victorians being used to house 10 roommates at $1500/pop.

~~~
king_jester
The main reason why people don't want new residential development is because
it will feed into gentrification and push people out because they can no
longer afford to live in SF. NYC has been and is going through this problem
right now and it is not pretty.

EDIT: There are a lot of comments about increasing supply as a way to make
housing/apartments cheaper in SF. This is not at all well demonstrated, as in
NYC new real estate development as continually raised prices and priced out
those who had previously resided in those neighborhoods (if they need to move
they can no longer afford the cost of living in said neighborhood, esp. if
they lived in a rent stabilized or controlled place).

New real estate development can make things cheaper, but we are seeing cities
have population influxes and those cities traditionally are land limited for
new construction. Those two factors work together to ensure that properties
are renovated or rebuilt at higher cost to a wealth class that can afford it.
It should be obvious that this is not sustainable, cities that do not provide
a sustainable way to live for all classes will collapse.

~~~
potatolicious
How does not building new residential units help prevent gentrification?

Last I checked a 1BR in the Mission is approaching $3K. It would seem like
gentrification is happening whether SF likes it or not. In fact it seems like
gentrification is _accelerated_ , not slowed or prevented, by this housing
policy.

Having lived in SF, and now live in NYC, IMO NYC is dealing with the problem
of gentrification _far_ better than SF. The transport infrastructure here
means that people can be displaced farther but still maintain economic
viability. You may be 3 stops further further on the train line, but you're
still getting to work.

Compare with SF where, because of just _how insanely horrific_ the
transportation infrastructure is, getting pushed out of SF-proper has a litany
of consequences for the middle and lower classes.

~~~
king_jester
> How does not building new residential units help prevent gentrification?

The new construction makes no guarantee and a reduction in real estate prices.
So long as the demand is very high, prices will continue to rise even with new
construction. This is essentially what NYC is going through now, there isn't
enough construction that could possibly keep pace with demand and its unlikely
that there could be without a collapse in demand.

> Having lived in SF, and now live in NYC, IMO NYC is dealing with the problem
> of gentrification far better than SF. The transport infrastructure here
> means that people can be displaced farther but still maintain economic
> viability. You may be 3 stops further further on the train line, but you're
> still getting to work.

This is changing as we speak. The outermost parts of Brooklyn are gentrifying,
esp. in places that are predominantly black and/or hispanic. Those places are
already on the extreme edge of subway mass transit, so once people living
there are displaced they will have very little recourse. Queens is also
beginning to go through this phase although its still just getting started.

All of this happens while wages remain the same, esp. for low wage or minimum
wage workers. These people won't be able to stay as the prices inflate and I'm
not eager to see more tenement style apt. crowding due to the cost.

------
jseliger
_Even I, who makes a decent salary, have seen the great American dream of home
ownership recede into the distance._

That's a policy choice. I lived in Tucson for for years, and nice houses there
could be bought for $200,000. Sometimes less. SF has made a choice about _not_
allowing people to live there:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/facebook_george_lucas_and_nimbyism_the_idiotic_rules_preventing_silicon_valley_from_building_the_houses_and_offices_we_need_to_power_american_innovation_.html)
, and in this respect it's like many other major cities:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/a-tale-o...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/a-tale-
of-two-town-houses/6334) . The cost-of-living issue is really a political,
regulatory, and legal problem.

There are some people in some places that are trying to solve this problem
(Smart Growth Seattle is one that I know:
[http://www.smartgrowthseattle.org/](http://www.smartgrowthseattle.org/)), but
so far those efforts are pretty small.

~~~
necubi
That's pretty reductionist. San Francisco's housing policies are definitely
responsible for some of the price difference between here and Tucson, but you
can't ignore the geography. SF is a 7x7 mile square surrounded by water on
three sides. Tucson is a sprawling mess that go on for dozens of miles.

Dense, desirable, naturally bound cities are always going to be more expensive
than endless exurbs. Look at housing prices in Hong Kong if you think that
looser zoning is a cure-all for high prices.

~~~
rayiner
San Francisco isn't all that dense. It's boundaries are just drawn so as to
exclude the outer semi-urban areas most cities have. E.g. the sparsely-
populated neighborhoods around Midway and O'Hare are part of Chicago proper,
but SFO is well outside city limits.

See:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ak1exuXV7898dDR...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ak1exuXV7898dDRWUHNlZEZWeDdQdW9ZTW0xdV9ZbGc&usp=sharing).

San Francisco is about 47 square miles of land area. The densest 47 square
miles of Chicago has a population of 1.1 million people and a density of
23,500 people per square mile (versus 825,000 people for San Francisco and
density of 17,600 people per square mile). If you look at the subset of
Chicago neighborhoods that have the same combined average population density
as San Francisco, they have a combined population of about 2.3 million people.

Housing prices are much lower in Chicago than in San Francisco, despite
comparable density over comparable areas of the cities. A big part of that is
lower demand. Chicago has fewer job opportunities and is stable/shrinking in
population while San Francisco is growing. At the same time, supply is also a
huge issue. As of last year, there were seven residential skyscrapers under
construction in the downtown Chicago neighborhoods:
[http://www.domu.com/blog/apartment-projects-under-
constructi...](http://www.domu.com/blog/apartment-projects-under-construction-
update). These projects are adding thousands of new units to a market that is
by all measures growing much more slowly than downtown San Francisco.

~~~
geebee
Is this a continuous 47 square miles, though? San Francisco is always a little
difficult to compare to other cities that are much larger metro regions. If
you were to replace the lower density parts of SF with the dense urban areas
in Oakland and Berkeley, you might end up with something much higher than what
you sectioned off from Chicago - and as a region, that comparison might be
more accurate.

------
alxbrun
SF is great for two categories of people:

\- The wealthy

\- The homeless (yes, social services and tolerance is much better here than
in any other big city in the US)

People caught in the middle who own a house will survive 10 years before
quitting. If they don't own a house they have already left.

I'm doing more than $100K and I had to leave the day I started a family (try
to find a rent below $6K for something suitable for a couple + 2 children). I
think it's sad that the city will progressively become a strange place where
the very rich and the bums stare at each other. If you want to have a preview,
spend one hour on Market and 7th.

~~~
typicalrunt
I feel exactly the same way except that I'm in another city, Vancouver BC.
There is an odd assortment of people in Vancouver consisting of the obscenely
rich, wannabe rich, obscenely poor, and singles/couples with no children. Once
you have children, you are pushed out of the Vancouver area and into the
suburbs due to cost of adequate living conditions [1]. But people say, "oh,
it's just the suburbs, it's not that far to drive" and not realize that we
have the 2nd worst traffic in North America [2].

I really shudder to think what 10-20 years will do to a city where the middle
class (whatever that word means nowadays) has been completely hollowed out.

[1]
[http://www.vancouversun.com/news/East+Families+leave+Vancouv...](http://www.vancouversun.com/news/East+Families+leave+Vancouver+suburbs+Surrey+Coquitlam+Langley+school+enrolments+rise+while+more+expensive+areas+decline/8614517/story.html)

[2] [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-
columbia/story/2013/01...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-
columbia/story/2013/01/08/bc-vancouver-traffic-congestion.html)

~~~
ionforce
How can middle class not mean anything? Doesn't it refer to the fat section of
the income curve, where there are supposed to be the most number of people?

~~~
malyk
Sure, except that the perception of the middle class is significantly screwed
(at least in the US, but probably similar up north).

In the US, the median household income is $51,404[1]. So, the middle class
should probably be centered around that number. Say, $35000 to $75000 or so. I
bet your looking at that number and saying "No way! I'm middle class and my
household income is $150k!" Well, turns out that basically everyone thinks the
same way regardless of what their incomes are.[2]

So it becomes pretty hard to nail down exactly what defines the various
classes in the USA. Especially with the cost of living differences across the
country.

Take a look at Rich Blocks, Poor Blocks[3] and spend a little time clicking
around the map. The zip code I live in has a median household income of
$38,646 and the site suggests the middle class income range for the state is
$53,264 to $68,300.

Anyway, middle class is a loaded term.

1 -
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/29/c...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/29/chart-
median-household-incomes-have-collapsed-during-the-recession/)

2 - [http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/everyone-is-
mid...](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/everyone-is-middle-class-
right/)

3 -
[http://www.richblockspoorblocks.com/](http://www.richblockspoorblocks.com/)

~~~
ScottBurson
I think the middle class is defined to be those people who have enough income
that mere survival is not a daily concern, but do not have so much money they
don't have to work.

That is, indeed, most people, which is why further divisions are useful, and
so we talk of "lower-middle" and "upper-middle".

------
patio11
At the risk of unsolicited dating advice: is the reason one is embarassed to
mention one's occupation to a woman at the bar caused by tech salaries being
too high, or by years of social conditioning telling you that geeks are low
status? (Or by learning that the way one signals high status is by
constructing a low status outgroup and then explaining how you're unlike
them?)

An alternative: just pretend society really likes rich people who make things,
and start talking about something more interesting than your work.

~~~
potatolicious
Can't speak for OP, but for me it's much more of the former than the latter.

When I lived in Seattle, and later SF, I loathed to tell someone my job.
Firstly because in that city it automatically paints a "has a truckload of
cash" target on one's head, regardless of whether or not it's true.

Secondly because the tech folks in the city are blamed for basically all of
the city's woes (this is true in both Seattle and SF). It has little to do
with how "low status" software work is (because in those places, it's not
really).

Now that I'm in NYC I feel much more free about telling people my job. For one
thing, the response is generally "oh that's cool, tell me more" instead of
"[eyeroll] yet another one", and secondly I'm not the biggest species in the
pond anymore. The response to "I'm a software engineer" isn't automatically
"you must make a lot of money".

~~~
patio11
Being blamed for things they self-evidently do not control? _Eye rolls?_ These
are classic markers of low status.

~~~
potatolicious
It's tricky I think. There are really two orthogonal statuses at play. There's
the status conferred by being _far_ wealthier than typical for the area.
There's also the status conferred by having a respected/liked job.

In Seattle/SF your wealth status is high, but your interestingness status is
low. Dirt low even.

In NYC your wealth status is middling, but your interestingness status is
relatively high. I prefer this setup far, far more.

But I'm also not a sociologist - maybe we're defining status differently.

------
jaysonelliot
I don't understand why the author would move to Portland when we've got our
own affordable, culturally rich, tech-friendly cities in the East Bay. Come to
Oakland. It's beautiful here.

The weather is better than San Francisco, you can ride your bicycle anywhere,
public transit is good, and it's easy to get to SF as well as Silicon Valley
(which I do regularly).

There's no need to leave the entire Bay Area just because San Francisco is an
overpriced and overcrowded city. I recently came back to the Bay Area after a
decade+ in NYC, and my wife and I decided we'd be returning for the East Bay,
not SF. For us, it's the best of all possible worlds.

~~~
greghinch
I don't mean this to play into stereotypes etc, but just as a matter of
experience, every single person I know who's lived in Oakland for any
significant amount of time (say 1 year or more), over the past 5 years, has
been robbed at gunpoint at least once, usually while walking within a few
blocks of their home. It's not a huge sample, I probably know half a dozen
people/couples who live/have lived there. But the fact that all of them (or in
the case of couples, at least 1 of the 2) have had it happen makes me say "no
way" to the East Bay.

~~~
liveinoakland
where did they live? probably some sketchy part of west oakland where out-of-
towners like to move because it's so grungy. you won't get robbed in piedmont,
rockridge, montclair, temescal, grand lake usually, or JLS ever. but please
keep upvoting this to the top! our rents are already going up because of SF
spillover, feel free to avoid it and those of us in the know will keep
enjoying our lives in the east bay with no complaints.

~~~
cpeterso
Rockridge and Piedmont have crime, too. I live in Rockridge and follow the
crime watch mailing lists. People get mugged in broad daylight at the BART
station and just a couple years ago was a rash of restaurant "take-over"
robberies. Crime follows the money.

~~~
liveinoakland
Mugged in broad daylight at Rockridge BART? I'm sorry I just don't believe
this.

~~~
cpeterso
Here's a list of recent Rockridge crimes, including a 5:15 PM robbery in front
of Cactus Taqueria:

[http://spotcrime.com/ca/oakland/rockridge](http://spotcrime.com/ca/oakland/rockridge)

------
bifrost
As an actual native to San Francisco, I think I can put a few things into
perspective.

Its always been expensive to live here, it doesn't have much to do with tech,
it has more to do with SF being a center for finance AND technology. That
said, having a mortgage lower than your rent is true for many people who
bought at "the right time" rather than at the peak of demand. Demand is
outstripping supply due to the insane people who get elected to the city
government, which is largely driven by fresh but naive stream of tech workers
and the radicalized longterm residents. The only way to fix this is to oust
people who do not support fiscal security and personal freedoms (Leeland Yee
is at the top of my list) and replace them with people who eschew cronyism and
support a balanced approach (Sean Elsbernd comes to mind).

The so called BART divide is really more about greed and institutionalized
mediocracy. Station agents should make minimum wage, the people who make BART
actually run are the maintenance staff and the conductors. The conductors
shouldn't be people in trains, they should be people in offices as the
technology for having fully automated trains has existed for decades. The
safety issue is a red herring, as the issue as posed is not for more transit
police, but for more lighting. Management is also not blameless as they should
be putting less money towards bureaucratic salaries and returning it to the
ridership in the form of lower fares and upgrades to cars.

If you feel guilt about living and working in SF, stop it. Spending money is
what keeps the economy of SF moving, and what keeps people who don't work in
the tech industry employed.

------
methehack
Well come on down, Tom Dale! Portland, on behalf of me, welcomes you.

With regard to the tech scene here, a few things. First, it's a little sleepy,
sure -- but it's not groggy, more waking up. I'm sure it will appreciate
whatever leadership you can contribute.

Second, as you'll soon be demonstrating, living in Portland and working for a
company in SFO should be a pretty good combination. The flight down is
frequent, quick, and cheap. I would think that given remote working
capabilities now and being able to visit SFO for f2f right now! if needed
should make things pretty smooth.

I've seen some warnings in some of the comments about the Portland job
scene... I'm sure it's not the bay area, but nowhere is. My experience with
finding tech jobs here has been excellent. And now that remote work is more
and more viable, it's all the better. This is so personal and depends on so
many factors that I don't think you can generalize except at the extremes, but
I thought it was worth a word from someone who has had zero (knock on wood)
trouble.

I know, some haters may hate on me for pointing out how great Portland is for
fear that its preciousness will be peed on. But I'd like to think portland's
welcoming arms are more generous than that. At least for the foreseeable
future.

Two more things: portlandia (the show) is mostly true, and wait until you
arrive to buy a bike :)

See you soon!

~~~
njonsson
I have to admit that the “OVER!” scene from “Portlandia” came to mind as I
read Tom’s post. [http://youtu.be/YlGqN3AKOsA](http://youtu.be/YlGqN3AKOsA)

------
gms
The wealthy tech people aren't the ones ruining San Francisco. You have to ask
yourself: in what universe would constant increases in tax revenues and
wealthy consumers be bad for a city?

The answer, sadly, is a universe where said city has an utterly incompetent
government.

~~~
king_jester
> The wealthy tech people aren't the ones ruining San Francisco.

Start here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentrification](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentrification)

~~~
DannyBee
You didn't actually address any of his points, except to point out that some
folks view gentrification as a problem in SF.

I actually agree with the comment you replied to. Severe governmental
incompetence in SF has been worse for the city than gentrification.

~~~
king_jester
Both of those things are bad in general for cities. However, OP expressed
doubt that increased presence of wealthy residents couldn't be anything but
good for a city when clearly it is not so obvious.

~~~
DannyBee
Except that when it related to san francisco, some of the things on that
wikipedia page are directly contradictory to the point i think parent was
trying to make:

IE "When wealthy people move into low-income working-class neighborhoods, the
resulting class conflict sometimes involves vandalism and arson targeting the
property of the gentrifiers. During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, the
gentrification of San Francisco's predominantly working class Mission District
led some long-term neighborhood residents to create what they called the
"Mission Yuppie Eradication Project.(image)" This group allegedly destroyed
property and called for property destruction as part of a strategy to oppose
gentrification. Their activities drew hostile responses from the San Francisco
Police Department, real estate interests, and "work-within-the-system" housing
activists.[37]"

This is not a problem with the wealthy people!

Now you could argue this is still "not good", but there was no real argument
made at all, just an implication of "you should read this wikipedia page since
it comprehensively responds to your ideas", and it really doesn't.

Basically, i'm trying to understand whether he actually wanted to participate
in the discussion and had substantive points, or just thought it was obvious
and covered by this wikipedia page.

~~~
king_jester
The wiki article on gentrification goes over some of the basic causes and
effects that can occur, to that end the movement of wealthy people into places
that were affordable to those with less causes displacement. To that end,
wealthy people play a part in the systemic issues that cause class disparities
and change and ultimately harm the makeup of existing communities.

------
api
I've got a possibly great job offer on the table from SF/SV, but may turn it
down. I'd love the city I'm sure, but after glancing around I've come to the
conclusion that home ownership is _unthinkable_ to anyone who hasn't had a
cash-out event. The real estate market is certifiably, utterly bat-dookie
insane.

NYC is often considered more expensive, and _Manhattan_ is certainly...
well... Manhattan. But taken collectively the NYC metro area is actually much
more affordable. You _can_ find places to live that are nice, friendly to
someone older than 25-30, and at least sanely priced. They might not be in the
closest or most fashionable neighborhoods, but they'll be reachable by NYC's
excellent transit system.

In SF you have nowhere good to go unless you want an absurd commute, and its
transit is horrible compared to NYC. So you're either rich or you're in a
crummy apartment or with roommates. That doesn't work for people who aren't
kids in their 20s.

My suspicion is that it's part policy choice -- a lot of protectionism from
existing property owners who want to keep riding the property bubble and a lot
of NIMBYism -- and part irresponsibility on the part of homebuyers. I suspect
that many homebuyers in SF are doing the irresponsible thing of _squeezing
into a home_ by spending upwards of 40%, even 50+% of their income on mortgage
payments instead of the usually fiscally responsible number of ~30%. And this
is punishing everyone and sucking the soul from the city.

In the long term, Silicon Valley and SF is eating its young. It's a city built
on young entrepreneurs coming there and doing new stuff, but if nobody who
hasn't already _made it_ can afford to live there what happens then? The other
problem is that these high costs soak up everyone's spare time and money,
leaving them with the requirement to work like crazy for other people to
afford to live instead of on their own innovative projects. It sucks away the
marginal "play time" when innovation really happens.

If this isn't remedied, SF/SV will become an echo chamber of already-made-its
and already-know-it-alls. Then it will stagnate and be left behind.

Edit: real estate hyperinflation in general is a social ill that deserves to
be tackled directly as such. It seems as if real estate has mutated into this
hungry sponge that sucks up all surplus economic vitality from any region that
experiences success. Imagine what all that money in SV could be doing if it
weren't all sucked up by real estate.

It's like beyond a certain point, people no longer get wealthier. Their houses
do. The home -- the "American dream" \-- has become a tool of indentured
servitude and bank fiefdom.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>I'd love the city I'm sure, but after glancing around I've come to the
conclusion that home ownership is unthinkable to anyone who hasn't had a cash-
out event.

I've never understood this crazy, if not outright insane obsession with home
ownership. Why does everyone want to tie significant amounts of their lifetime
earnings into physical property that historically has had very low
appreciation in value? It's like people have forgotten about the housing
bubble popping just five years ago, causing large portions of the population
to take big hits financially. (And what is the current real estate craziness
in SF, if not another bubble that will inevitably pop?)

Even seemingly rational reasons for home ownership, such as being able to
raise a family in good school districts, fail to stand up to critical
scrutiny. There are many stable renter neighborhoods with great schools.

~~~
gknoy
As someone who recently (this past year) went from being a renter to a
homeowner, and had previously been a home owner for several years, it's not
all rational... but here are some of the reasons.

I don't have to worry about the rent going up every year / six-months. If I
plan to own the house for multiple years, a large chunk of my money goes to
equity: I'm banking away value for later that you will get back when you sell
the house. (Assuming the market doesn't go pear-shape: a big assumption.) In
contrast, money you spend on rent is a pure cost, and irrevocably lost.

There are several "rent vs buy" calculators that can visualize (based on
interest rates and rent vs mortgage costs) the crossover point where it's
cheaper than it is to rent for X years, and what it does for your net worth.
For me, it appears that about 2-3 years of owning will be a break-even point,
and less if my rent would have increased.

In my case, the mortgage on a house (3 bedroom) + yard + garage, with a nice
kitchen, was about $100 more per month than a cramped, 2 bedroom apartment
with a miniscule (and poorly designed) kitchen, no space for the kids to run
around, and not enough space to even unpack our stuff.

I OWN IT. Until you've owned one, it's possible you might not fully comprehend
this double-edged sword.

I can paint the walls, break the walls, rip up the floor, put in a new
mailbox, take out the trees I don't like. There's nearly nothing that keeps me
from renting out a bedroom to a friend, or letting the in-laws stay for a
week. If I want to mount a swamp cooler outside my window, I can, or turn my
garage into an archery range.

There are downsides, too. As an owner, you risk that the market will fall out
from under you. It's harder to move, as you have this limbo of not being able
to buy a house until you've sold the previous one. (I haven't figured out how
to make this not suck. Same goes from transitioning from a lease to
ownership.) I have to mow the lawn, make sure the garden is watered. The
utilities are a bit more expensive.

Also, as a homeowner, you tend to accumulate More Crap, since you have more
space to fill.

All of this is worth it, though, as I do not worry about whether it's OK to
paint my kids' rooms, or tear out a ceiling fan that I hate, or stain the deck
a different color, or completely redo the landscaping. When someone (me, or
the kids) busts a hole in a wall by accident, I think "Dangit, I have to fix
that..." rather than "well, there goes my security deposit".

I'm sure that a big part of the appeal of home ownership is that our parents
valued it, but I feel like there's a real intrinsic value to it as well.
Consider surveying your friends who have owned + also rented, and ask them
about the things they like or dislike about it.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>If I plan to own the house for multiple years, a large chunk of my money
goes to equity: I'm banking away value for later that you will get back when
you sell the house. (Assuming the market doesn't go pear-shape: a big
assumption.) In contrast, money you spend on rent is a pure cost, and
irrevocably lost.

This logic is fundamentally flawed. Contrary to the popular conventional
wisdom (repeated by our Baby Boomer parents), renting is not "throwing away"
money. You are getting something for that payment, which is a place to live.

Conventional wisdom says that with a mortgage, you are building equity instead
of paying the money to someone else and that makes more sense financially. But
this is not true. You should read this piece to understand why, specifically
the Epilogue part:
[http://messymatters.com/buyrent/](http://messymatters.com/buyrent/)

~~~
nawitus
Well, it's throwing away money _compared_ to home ownership, which _also_
gives you a place to live. I don't know about hypothetical ultra-liquid
markets, but in practise rent is usually higher than interest+maintenance fees
over a longer period of time. Real estate investors need to make a profit, and
so do banks, but the banks tend to have slimmer margins.

~~~
dllthomas
Also, banks are often still making a profit with rental properties.

Which isn't to say you should buy a home blindly - you shouldn't do anything
so major blindly. It seems to me the appropriate way to view it is: if your
cost of owning a home sans payment of principle is less than renting, then you
are "throwing away" money _but_ the alternative is investing that piece you're
throwing away plus quite probably more in the real estate market, with the
corresponding potential upside and risk. In the extreme case where costs
_including_ principle are less than rent, then you should probably purchase.
An additional thing to watch, though, is that people often under-estimate
things like repairs.

All of which is to say, there is no obviously right answer.

------
dmix
_> The recent BART strikes are just a single data point in a larger trend:
we’re alienating everyone who isn’t in technology._

I'm not from SF but from an outside perspective: Taxes have increased 33% in
the bay area since 2008 [1] and BART is "running at a surplus"...but BART
transit workers have _not_ had a pay raise since 2008?

Can someone explain to me why the SF tech community are the bad guys here?
...Besides a few smug tech workers who get sound bites in the news.

Also notably, rent/housing is usually around 25-30% of cost of living and SF
regulators are famous for not building affordable high-rise buildings.

[1]
[http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/07/00/72/1838722/9/628x471.jpg](http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/07/00/72/1838722/9/628x471.jpg)

~~~
gkop
Specifically on the subject of transportation, many wealthy tech companies
have deployed private buses that benefit only their employees and not the
community. I don't think it's evil by any means, merely rational (at least in
the short-term), but also still a missed opportunity to strengthen the
community by covering employees' public transit passes, encouraging employees
to live closer to work, or moving work closer to where employees want to live
(some companies have done this, but the big, well-known ones have not). The
net effect is private buses for tech, and crappy public transit for the rest,
breeding resentment toward tech.

~~~
ionforce
Well there must have been an underlying reason why companies would go out of
their way to invest in their own transportation system than invest in the one
that already exists. Maybe they were met with resistance? What is this
resistance?

~~~
doktrin
This sounds a bit like asking why anyone buys a Brita pitcher instead of
investing in water & sewage sanitation.

The cost and effort involved in chartering a few buses is pretty minor next to
re-tooling the Muni, BART & Caltrain systems. The results are also
instantaneous. They need to attract employees now, and not in 5-10 years time.

It's worth noting that a public transit commute between SF and SV can involve
up to 3 distinct transportation systems. For instance, when I worked for a
startup based in Menlo Park I contended with a trifecta fail-fest of Muni
(bus) -> Caltrain -> local shuttle, totaling 2 hours each way.

------
RyanZAG
Doesn't seem like a great solution. If the tech guys leave SF, it would be
like Detroit. SF and tech are now linked in the way Detroit and cars were. If
you try pull the tech out, you'll be left with a husk fighting over crumbs.

I don't even live in SF and this is clear to me. Or maybe it's clear to me
because I don't live in SF?

~~~
rdl
I think even sans the tech industry, SF would still be a desirable enough
place for people to live that it wouldn't have much of a problem. Even clearer
if tech just remained in Silicon Valley; plenty of people would live in SF and
commute.

Even just finance is probably strong enough to support SF. Or, like Vancouver,
lots of people from Asia. The tolerant/hippie/gay/etc. angle might be enough
as well.

~~~
mc32
SF in '89, before tech started hitting, was not a pretty place. The Dirty
Harry movies of the 70s, I think, were inspired to some extent by the decaying
city. Technology breathed life into the Bay Area (San Jose was not much better
back then either).

~~~
nickv
You have to understand that nearly all cities were shitholes in 1989 until the
Urban Revitalization of the late 90s. This wasn't an SF specific thing. NYC,
for example, had over 1200 murders in 1992 (!!!) compared to last year's 414.

SF's revitalization has more to do with that than with "tech" jobs. I know in
the Hacker News echo-chamber its hard to think there's anything but Internet
Tech in SF but it's got ALOT more business than that -- It's the largest
banking center on the west coast, got a massive bio-tech footprint, has some
major apparel companies (Levi and Gap and a bunch of smaller ones), etc, etc.
It's pretty diversified.

~~~
rdl
What caused the "urban revitalization"? Was it just that people who hadn't
been around during the 1968-~1980 urban hell were finally in a position to be
buying their first homes?

~~~
nickv
Honestly, I don't know so I'm going to speculate based on experiences. I think
it's a generational thing. The younger generations seem to want density, to be
around things, to not own a car. I think growing up in large suburban homes,
there's been a genuine desire by younger people to move to cities and away
from that lifestyle.

You can see this happen in many ways aside from city's becoming safer: Real
estate cost increases in cities, The whole bike-movement is an element of it,
NYU getting 44k applications, the growth of the Brooklyn "brand".

I think, generally, there's a real desire for an urban community with culture
and shared experiences. I know I don't have anything more 'concrete' to back
this up, but this is the general sentiment of my friends (in their late 20s to
early 30s.)

------
woah
The really interesting thing about SF is that it's not 7x7 as people claim-
it's actually more like 3x3. The "City" is confined to a tiny area downtown
and in the Mission and SOMA. The entire southern and western parts of SF are
low-density suburban sprawl. This is a result of terrible planning in the 50's
and shortsighted opposition to new housing and transit ever since.

~~~
RickHull
> it's actually more like 3x3. The "City" is confined to a tiny area downtown
> and in the Mission and SOMA.

What about Nob Hill, Russian Hill, and North Beach? Pacific Heights, Marina,
Haight? These aren't examples low-density suburban sprawl.

~~~
woah
Good point, I guess I was lumping them in with downtown. But still, it's
basically just the northeast.

------
rayiner
San Francisco is dealing with the same problem that New York had with finance.
New York seems to have gotten over it, mostly: everyone realizes that finance
pays the bills in New York, and finance people are mostly content with paying
their taxes and leaving it at that. I wonder if San Francisco will come to
terms with its reality before it's too late.

As for moving to Portland, it's a great idea. Wonderful city if you can find
work there. I'd love to live there if it had more of an economy.

~~~
michael_miller
One caveat I'd add is that in NY, finance might pay the bills, but it doesn't
dominate the city. There are plenty of other industries which play significant
roles in the city: fashion, publishing, filmmaking, etc. In SF, tech dominates
the culture of the city. Countless times, I've gone to bars and heard pitches
about startups, or discussions about some new technology. In NY, I've seldom
heard people talk about i-banking, or anything finance related. It just feels
way less like a monoculture.

------
grbalaffa
This weekend I spent some time walking around SF and was astounded at how many
new apartments are under construction. Even more interesting were the old run-
down buildings which were apparently being shuttered in preparation for even
more new places to live.

There will be a lot of hand-wringing about the city's loss of character, but
in the end the new construction will probably ease things.

The city in essence put a moratorium on new housing after the real estate
bubble burst in 2008. For several years afterwards there were virtually no new
housing units added to the city _at all_.[1] Now that the de-facto ban has
been lifted, there can actually be some new units to help give all the
newcomers and old residents places to live.[2]

[1] Go here and scroll down to "Previous releases": [http://www.sf-
planning.org/index.aspx?page=1691](http://www.sf-
planning.org/index.aspx?page=1691) Note the difference between 2009-2011 and
now.

[2] Of course there will some who claim that no amount of new housing will fix
things, or that new construction will only make things worse. It remains to be
seen what the longer-term outcome will be. Rents in the Bay Area actually went
down after the last two bubbles burst (the original dot-com boom in 2000 and
the real estate boom in the mid-2000s), so it is clearly not impossible for
the housing market to change direction.

------
drstewart
There's a certain amount of irony in someone complaining about how rich
techies ruined SF, and then gloat about how you move to another city to do the
very same thing. In 10 years, people will be complaining about how people like
the author "ruined" Portland (and Austin). Actually, this already happens.

~~~
jaggederest
As a Portland resident, I agree, rents are rising rapidly.

I think people will find it a bit harder than they imagine - there's a huge
level of alienation. Obviously the original writer has a job nailed down, but
if you don't, trying to find work for a good company here, or remotely into
SF, is quite a bit harder than being wine-and-dined by 20 people in the SF
area.

------
jrochkind1
You feel bad about helping to gentrify San Francisco... so you're going to
move to Portland and help gentrify Portland instead.... because girls at bars
won't judge you as harshly in Portland?

I don't think you are wrong to be self-analytical and self-critical about the
economic role you play in your city, and possible harm you can cause.

But moving to a new city isn't a solution to anything except possibly your
ego.

------
zzzeek
Move to New York City. Your uppity tech salary will again be paltry peanuts
compared to the all the hedge fund guys that "turn the market upside down"
here.

~~~
johnward
I imagine wall street conversations being something like "Coder: I make 200k.
Trader: Oh me too. Per day"

~~~
abat
No, just comments about wasting 1K on alcohol in a single night.

------
johnward
I wouldn't underestimate the effects a lack of sunlight will have on you. This
coming from a part of the country that receives a little bit less sunlight
that Seattle (Pittsburgh area). Seasonal depression can really make life suck.
I'm also probably a little bit upset because it's been raining for something
like 12 days straight.

~~~
davidw
I'm a native Oregonian - born and raised in the Willamette valley.

The weather made me want to get the hell out, though. It's not that it rains
that much, it's just that it's gray and bleak so often. During the winter,
it's usually around 5C or maybe up to 10C (that's about 40-50F). The cold and
drizzly weather is absolutely miserable if you like the outdoors, because you
can't really do much. Too warm for snow and "winter" activities, but too cold
to do much without a lot of expensive gear that, at best keeps you "not cold"
in a clammy, squishy, sodden sort of way.

Here's a bit of street view that feels very "Western Oregon" to me:

[https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Eugene,+Oregon&hl=en&ll=43.91...](https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Eugene,+Oregon&hl=en&ll=43.917155,-123.449206&spn=0.026122,0.066047&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=57.684464,135.263672&hnear=Eugene,+Lane,+Oregon&t=p&z=15&layer=c&cbll=43.917106,-123.449759&panoid=tSr3EKPTwRZhlz9KAnFZtA&cbp=12,85.38,,0,5.5)

Nothing so extreme as to be _exciting_ , just that solid, slate gray sky.

~~~
cbosch
ha! that's wolf creek road in eugene. an awesome road for cycling. I live in
san francisco but I visit my friends in eugene in july. luckily, in july, the
weather in eugene is typically superb.

I think it'd be pretty tough for me to handle all the grey during the rest of
the year.

the bay area has a lot of paradise weather - I grew up in marin - and when I
went to the east coast for school I had trouble with the grey and interminable
springs. it just sucked in comparison.

~~~
davidw
> ha! that's wolf creek road in eugene. an awesome road for cycling.

Yep, I've ridden and raced up that climb a number of times. It's beautiful in
the summer. There are some really great rides out there in the coast range, a
lot of them really remote.

------
yid
Sorry to see you leave San Francisco. I've had a similar introduction to the
city and don't intend to leave. One subtext that I'm reading into your article
(incorrectly, perhaps), and seeing lots of elsewhere, is a subtle guilt among
tech works for the salaries they make in the Bay Area. I understand that as
techies we're inclined towards a sort of egalitarianism, but perhaps there's
an inherent conflict somewhere between that and the exits and acqui-hires and
searches for small fortunes.

------
davidf18
The reason for the high cost of living in SF, Manhattan (where I live) and
other cities is caused by politically induced market scarcity (also called
_economic rent_ by economists) through land use regulations in zoning that
artificially regulates housing density to favor wealthy landlords so that
rents and housing costs increase.

To make housing more affording, deregulate the zoning ordinances which
artificially constrain housing supply.

This article in today's NY Times is about finding the only apartment less than
$600K in the West Village ($595K for 408 sq feet)
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/nyregion/amid-housing-
scar...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/nyregion/amid-housing-scarcity-
many-buyers-are-going-home-empty-handed.html?hp&pagewanted=all)

The issue is simply politics and nothing more.

------
caniszczyk
This blog post sums up why I choose to live in Austin these days... and
commute to SF a couple times a month for work. I just find SF overrated,
crazy, dirty and unbalanced.

This also reminds me a bit of al3x's post about San Francisco awhile ago...
[http://al3x.net/2009/10/04/so-youre-moving-to-san-
francisco....](http://al3x.net/2009/10/04/so-youre-moving-to-san-
francisco.html)

------
ececconi
One of the things that I love about living in Tampa while doing technology
consulting traveling around the country is the cost of living. The cost of
living is so low that I can afford to do anything that I want to do while
still having a lot left over for savings.

~~~
jdminhbg
Yeah, I don't entirely understand why people are so fixated on California uber
alles for tech jobs. It's so easy to do development from anywhere, especially
a US timezone, that it boggles my mind that people will pay $3k for a one
bedroom in SF to make low six figures at a startup and act as if that's the
only choice available.

Rent is high in SF because more people want to live there than there is room
for. If you want to spend that much of your salary for that privilege, then
feel free. Personally, visiting is good enough for me, and I have plenty left
over to visit the rest of the world as well.

~~~
coolsunglasses
I'm here for the startups and investment money. I don't want to consult
anymore.

------
jusben1369
I think this is exactly how to do San Francisco. Go live there as a "young"
person. Learn from the best, make great business contacts in life and enjoy it
all! Don't sweat the fact you're renting a small place and paying a lot.
You're young and it's a trivial point in the big picture of things. After 5 -
10 years your priorities will change. As you start to think about a
partner/children etc you'll reassess how great it is to be there. You'll be
better able to go somewhere else and be successful due to what you've learned
and who you know.

For 100+ years young people have gone to NY/Manhattan with the same dream of
making a lot of money. Very few had their heart set on living in Manhattan
though forever. SF is just struggling because it's morphing into that place
too now. I suspect, though don't know, that there was some point in NY's
history where people wrung their hands about how it was becoming impossible to
be middle class and buy a home and raise a family there due to rising
costs/education etc.

~~~
JRobertson
Or you could live in one of the more affordable tech hubs like Austin or SLC,
work just as hard, and still grow a successful start-up at a fraction of the
cost.

~~~
jusben1369
If you're going to do the heat and traffic of Austin might as well pay 20%
more in life and have the extra bang of SF/Bay Area. SLC - now that is a much
smaller market and has much better outdoor options than Austin.

------
dreamdu5t
Cry me a river.

San Francisco is expensive. It's not the tech workers fault.

Nobody owes you a home in San Francisco. The American dream is _not_ home
ownership. Where'd you hear that? A countrywide home loan commercial?

~~~
johnward
As an Ohio home owner who is thinking about moving to California and renting I
agree. The dream of home ownership often overlooks the costs and insane amount
of work involved in owning home and keeping it nice. I love having a 4 acre
yard, but it takes me 7 hours to cut grass.

~~~
jusben1369
Well CA will certainly take care of that 4 acre yard problem for you :-) And
the climate is sooo mild you'll be shocked by how little house work you need
to do vs the rest of the country. No hard freezes or high humidity, no real
bugs of infestations. A good exterior paint job will get you 10 - 15 years not
5 - 10.

~~~
johnward
I'm cool with just a few days of sunshine :). Even in the summer that's a rare
occurrence here.

------
ltcoleman
I have never understood the fascination with San Francisco for tech. I am a
senior developer in Arkansas, and cannot imagine having to deal with any of
that B.S. I have a mortgage of <$2000 for a 3,600sq ft house on an acre of
land with an in-ground pool. My commute is 40 minutes of relaxing country-side
when I go into the main office, and about 4 minutes when I work at the remote
office. A tech salary of 90k in San Fran ~= 36k in Arkansas when looking at
cost of living, plus you can buy a starter home (~1100sq ft) for about ~100k.
Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and the list keeps going. Tech professionals
should really look outside the normal huge tech city box. I personally believe
that is where most will find happiness.

------
fingerprinter
My wife and I made a very conscious decision to NOT move to SF when we were
looking to move back to the US from Australia. Frankly, SF and the whole
valley were not where we wanted to raise our three kids (6, 2.5 and newborn).
Doing cost comparisons, quality of life and education we just couldn't justify
SF over other places.

This is, by all accounts, a career limiting move for me (I'm in tech, but I
work remote right now), but it is the right decision for our family.

Perhaps in 10-15 years when the kids are older, though right now, !SF feels
like the right decision for our family.

My big hope for the next 10-15 years is that remote work becomes more and more
common.

~~~
jedmeyers
It will be nice to see your comparison of the cost of living between Bay Area
and, let's say, Sydney. Can you please provide one? Starting with the
assumption that AUD 80k salary in IT in Sydney for the software engineer
position will be equal to around $100k in SF.

~~~
timcederman
Cost of living in Sydney is just as high, if not higher than the Bay Area.

I moved my family to the Bay Area from Australia and am very happy with the
decision.

------
ryanobjc
Congrats on the big move! Hopefully it works out well for you.

I used to live in Seattle. And there was much griping about people from
California (usually half-whispered) ruining everything. Between the influx of
California-types running up the housing market, to just general growth it was
a background thread up there.

Portland is a pretty small city with a moderate cost of living. With your new
salary and income, aren't you distorting the market in the same way as in San
Francisco? Only even more so, due to the small market size?

------
area51org
Say it with me: San Francisco is NOT the same as the Bay Area. No, most of us
wouldn't be able to afford a decent home in SF proper. But SF is just one city
in a large metro area, with plenty of places you would and could want to own a
home. Those of you who are 20-something: the day is coming, sooner than you'd
imagine, when you're going to want to raise kids. And unless you've knocked
the ball out of the park and are worth $20 million, you're not going to want
to raise your kids in SF anyway.

 _if nobody who hasn 't already made it can afford to live there what happens
then?_

You can afford it. It's an expensive area for sure, but there is much more to
the Bay Area than "Silicon Valley" (whatever that means nowdays) and SF. I see
this attitude a lot among recent "immigrants": this myopic view, apparently
based on experience in other, very different metro areas, that there is One
Big City and a few "suburbs." Things aren't like that here, and the reason you
feel so frustrated is that you don't (yet) understand the place you live.

------
ChrisNorstrom
Don't worry the housing prices will drop off a cliff after the up and coming
massive earthquake finally hits San Francisco. It's guaranteed to happen, it's
just a matter of when. You'll have a whole new set of problems but a lot of
people are going to haul ass out of there and rent will drop. And the
subsequent effects will fix a lot of the real estate problems. First, whatever
the earthquake doesn't destroy, the fires or building demolitions will. In the
ashes or rubble where the old low-rise "historic" buildings stood, new
buildings will finally be built and you can bet your money that they're going
to be high density. NIMBY (not in my back yard) residents will have so many
other matters to attend to that they won't be so strict about keeping San
Francisco looking the same as they remember it as kids so progress will be
easier.

With destruction and death, comes renewal and new life. Fitting for the
startup capital of the world actually.

I wish everyone the best of luck surviving and may the death toll be as
minimal as possible.

------
dr_
Honestly, it is the tech mecca of the world, so what would one expect? If you
move elsewhere, like Portland, and if you hope the tech community continues to
grow there - then eventually wouldn't you be hearing about series A rounds in
the coffee shops there as well? And about home ownership being the "American
Dream"....the jury is still out on that one. It seems more like the "American
Debt". Unless you have a family with children, and want a place for them to
grow in to with good school systems and all, there's really no need to jump in
to home ownership. The first several years you are mostly paying interest, so
you're not building equity. Not too much mention all the money you've put down
already. So unless you plan on living there for the long haul, just rent.
Having a reasonably priced roof over your head should be part of the American
Dream, not necessarily home ownership.

------
gregd
_I 'm moving to Portland_

Except the bourgeois cannot afford to live in Portland anymore either. Rentals
are ungodly expensive, water is expensive (in the PNW no less), garbage is
expensive, electricity is expensive and last but not least, parking is
expensive.

Please don't bring your San Francisco salary to Portland.

~~~
jaggederest
I'm pretty bourgeois and it's entirely affordable to me. Rent is 50% less.

My total monthly bills for utilities are $245 for a house, with AC.

Electricity is half the price it is in the bay area. Parking is a quarter of
the price.

~~~
gregd
Do you have children? The problems OP complains about with San Fran, won't be
made any better if he brings his SF salary here. That's the problem. It's
pricing locals out of affordable housing. Rentals here in
Sellwood/Westmoreland start at $2000/mo. When we got to Portland two years
ago, rentals here started at $1100/mo.

Portland is THE most expensive place we've lived in in Oregon. A family of
four pays between 150-200/mo for electric/natural gas and water. We've lived
in Salem and Eugene for comparisons sake. Our electric bill in Eugene, with
central AC (that ran from pretty much March - September) would max out at
$75/mo.

~~~
larrykubin
Our apartment is 900/month near the 28th St. and E Burnside restaurants. Great
area and we find it very affordable. No kids though. Last I looked, if you can
put 10-20% down, you can get a nice house in the area for 1500-1750 a month
mortgage payment.

------
tn13
I moved to SFBay area from India and despite an above american average salary
find it hard to get a decent apartment to live in with say 30% of my income.
This is ridiculous. I was much better off in India. I paid only 1/10th of my
salary to get a twice bigger apartment.

------
kenster07
1) Leaving sf in any part, due to your perception of the reaction of random
women at bars, to your profession, blows me away. There are plenty of people
in the city who also admire your profession, including many single women. And
quite frankly, there are more important things in life anyway.

2) People who feel 'guilty' about getting decent salaries are missing the big
picture. You are now an allocator of wealth. You can help that mom and pop
shop pay its rent, if you are so inclined. Abandoning that privelege and
responsibility is also a baffling reaction.

~~~
enneff
Who are you to decide what is important in the author's life?

~~~
kenster07
A commenter on a blog that has been posted on the internet for public
consumption?

------
capulcu
What I'm curious about is how the low-income class is living in/around SF. I
mean, there are waiters, cashiers, plumbers, assistants... where do they find
affordable housing?

~~~
felisGoodman
living in tenderloin/bayview/hunters point, furiously searching craigslist for
gems, living in the east bay, being a live-in boyfriend/girlfriend

------
kokey
I have a similar relationship with London. Not because of the tech scene
though some of my most challenging but rewarding jobs has been in London, but
purely because nothing beats being at the heart of a lot of things, especially
culture. After a few years I leave London to go somewhere where my quality of
life increases massively, but then London draws me back again. I've moved
there three times already and I won't be surprised if I end up back there
again one day.

------
larsonf
I think there might be an interesting point underneath this. If everyone who
feels like the author actually stayed then SF might not have the high
rents/excitement/cultural contact that you get with large amounts of young,
single, employed, relatively unstable individuals. Part of the reason SF is
probably so desirable in the first place is that the type of people who live
there are the types that actually think the cultural experience is _worth_ the
money.

------
frankcaron
This is a sobering read as I prepare to move down to the Valley for work after
years of talking about, and to a lesser extent dreaming about, it. One would
hope that the experience for those of us who haven't had our stint there yet
would still be worth it.

What say you, veterans? And what of San Mateo? That's where my new work is,
and I wonder if I'd be better off living there than San Fran proper.

~~~
mesh
I live in Burlingame which is in San Mateo county, and about 5 minutes north
of San Mateo city (I work in SF and from home). We absolutely love it. We
moved down here from San Francisco about 6 years ago when we had kids.

San Mateo is very convenient to San Francisco on both US 101 and Caltrane
(there are stops in both Burlingame and San Mateo) and is about 5 minutes from
the airport. Burlingame and San Mateo both have central downtown districts
that are both very pedestrian friendly, with a ton of great restaurants.
Burlingame restaurants are a tad more upscale family oriented, and San Mateo
has more affordable ethnic food (especially Japanese, as there is a large
Japanese community in the area).

Burlingame public schools are considered very good (I don't know about San
Mateo).

Feel free to ping me directly if you have any questions.

------
felisGoodman
"San Francisco, I love you But I'm Bringing You Down"

FTFY

------
JeremySchneider
"Useless liberal arts degree"? The recipient of said degree seems to have done
OK, perhaps in part due to his broad education.

------
seivan
I'll be doing the same thing, just doing remote work and leaving Stockholm.
Not only expensive as fuck but close to impossible to actually get a place.

Rent control is a problem in Sweden as well, not to mention limited supply and
queueing system. It's not the price that's the problem to be honest.

------
caycep
OK, so if someone had to point out where the "new SV/SF" is these days, where
would you point?

Portland (maybe too obvious...not as much diversity?) Seattle? Austin? LA
somewhere? (too many entrenched interests?) Boston? (too much blight in areas
that are not Boston/Cambridge?)

------
xradionut
If it's an big issue, don't move there! And stop bitching about it. You made
the choice. There's thousands of jobs/careers/ventures/opportunities
elsewhere. Plus you can work remotely or in a office share/incubator in
hundreds of cities.

------
LandoCalrissian
You could live in a Liquor Store!

[http://www.trulia.com/property/3119137334-301-A-Church-St-
Sa...](http://www.trulia.com/property/3119137334-301-A-Church-St-San-
Francisco-CA-94114)

------
EternalFury
Bring on the exodus.

Based on the Dharma Initiative, let's have The Coda Initiative: Let's build a
new Silicon Valley where there is plenty of space to grow and where startups
will flourish.

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ianstallings
Hey if everyone in the tech scene wants to make Portland the place to be count
me in. I'm in NYC right now but I could really use some fresh air. I mean that
quite literally.

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sivanmz
If everyone in your tech-skewed job market is making comparable salaries,
nominal values are far less important when competing for the same resources.

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yankoff
He said he was a complete noob in 2009, and in 2011 he cofounded a company
with two very famous people in Ruby community. How?

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doseofreality
One word: bubble. This mobile/cloud/social dream will end soon.

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jmcatani
I appreciated the LCD Soundsystem reference, Tom.

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VladRussian2
was SF better during the Gold Rush? I mean the Rush of 160 years ago, not that
of today.

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hayward2
I don't understand why tech workers in the Bay Area feel guilty about
receiving 'high' salaries of $100 - $200k/year. This is not a lot of money...
People on Wall street laugh at these amounts. So do specialized doctors,
corporate lawyers, investment bankers, etc.

Software engineering is unfortunately a very middle class occupation at this
point. I'd love to see it get up into the ranks of the upper class (at least
for very experienced engineers!), but it has a long way to go...

~~~
king_jester
Software engineering is not a very middle class occupation, as you can easily
earn amounts more than the average middle class family as a single worker,
even in areas that are not tech hubs.

> I don't understand why tech workers in the Bay Area feel guilty about
> receiving 'high' salaries of $100 - $200k/year. This is not a lot of
> money... People on Wall street laugh at these amounts.

100-200k a year is a lot of money. That amount easily puts you in the upper
quartile of income earners in the US. Comparing yourself as an economic class
to the people on Wall Street, who are consistently some of the highest earners
in the US, is silly and doesn't make any sense since the vast majority of
people do not have income like that.

~~~
hayward2
I'd agree with you if I was referencing some mysterious elite who lucked into
their positions or had ivy league connections. I'm talking about my friends
from college who had average grades at a top 30 small private school on the
East Coast. Several of the ones who went into finance make more than I do, and
some a LOT more. I have friends who frequently clear $300k with bonuses in
very average wall street jobs. They are in their late 20s... how many enginers
can make that much? They are also still early in their careers. Some I imagine
will go on to make 7 figure incomes at their peak, whereas we can agree that
engineers will top out at 250-300k with bonuses working at the best companies
in the world.

Now, I'm not saying I'm struggling to buy food or anything on my healthy
engineering salary, I'm just saying that I don't feel guilty AT ALL about how
much I make, nor do I feel that I am overpaid in anyway. I do tend to think my
contribution to society is at least as much as my finance friends, so perhaps
either I am underpaid or they are overpaid.

~~~
scilro
As someone who went to a small northeastern private school as well... I find
it strange that it isn't abundantly clear to you that even our educations were
a privilege that the vast majority of the country can't afford.

------
michaelochurch
Whatever large numbers of talented people get into seems to have a Clump Phase
and a Chump Phase.

Clump Phase comes out of highly intelligent peoples' natural desire to be
around each other (clumping) even at economic cost. This goes back to the
medieval universities, but now is seen in technology companies where people
would rather be a average fish in a huge pond than be the big fish elsewhere.

Now you have a lot of big fish in a school, or "clump". Then the spearfishers,
usually rich, fat white men, spot it, then come along and start getting their
take. Those are the MBAs who swept into Silicon Valley and are now the most
powerful players, despite most of them having not written a line of code since
college.

When there are more spearfishers than fish, the ecosystem gets to a point
where decline is obvious and rent-seeking/musical-chairs behavior sets in.
That's the Chump Phase.

That's where the Silicon Valley ecosystem, with its high rents and VC
supercapitalists, is now.

~~~
arh68
And the spearfishers will maintain SV is still in 'clump' phase as long as
plausible to attract more chumps, right? So as someone who's interested in
finding his own clump, I've got to filter out the suits from the shirts
myself. This seems non-trivial, and frustrating..

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ahoyhere
How the Internet Ruined San Francisco.

[http://www.salon.com/1999/10/28/internet_2/](http://www.salon.com/1999/10/28/internet_2/)

Check the date! Ha.

------
cmccabe
Man spends 20s in SF, moves out later. Film at 11.

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moron4hire
I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who want to work in a faddy industry
for faddy companies in a faddy town. If you want to do real work and make a
real difference in the world, get out of the coffee shop.

------
pkananen
Basic Economics ([http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Common-Sense-
Economy/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Common-Sense-
Economy/dp/0465022529/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373312433&sr=8-1&keywords=basic+economics)).
It's a thing.

