
San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents - raus22
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-05/san-francisco-tech-firms-see-workers-flee-from-4-500-rents
======
whack
It's hard to overstate the impact this is going to have on San Francisco,
long-term. As Technology becomes the most important industry in America, a
well-governed San Francisco could have positioned itself as the next NYC. The
hub where all of tech gathers, the same way all of finance gathered in Wall
St. Replace the 70 year old 2-storey homes with Manhattan style apartment
buildings, and rent in San Francisco would have remained very reasonable,
despite the rapid economic growth. This would have prevented exactly this
problem where tech workers are forced to disperse to other mini-hubs, due to
lack of capacity in San Francisco.

20 years on, San Francisco could have become what New York City is today. One
of the top 5 cities in the world, and the undisputed hub where all of
technology resides. Instead, it's on track to be just another major city, in
the same league as countless others like Chicago/Seattle/Boston.

~~~
timr
_" a well-governed San Francisco could have positioned itself as the next NYC.
The hub where all of tech gathers, the same way all of finance gathered in
Wall St. Replace the 70 year old 2-storey homes with Manhattan style apartment
buildings, and rent in San Francisco would have remained very reasonable,
despite the rapid economic growth. This would have prevented exactly this
problem where tech workers are forced to disperse to other mini-hubs, due to
lack of capacity in San Francisco."_

...or we could move to a _sensible_ model, where software delivers on its
promise and allows people to work _anywhere_. The cost of living here is the
invisible hand of the market showing you that you're making a mistake by
locating your company in the bay area. Yet the dominant techno-nerd narrative
continues to be that the bay area has somehow made a mistake in not
anticipating the bizarre fetish that global wealth has developed for local
real estate since the early 1990s.

It's insane that an industry of otherwise-intelligent people insists on
cramming itself onto a tiny peninsula with seismic development challenges, and
I chuckle every time someone draws the comparison to New York, which has
_seven times_ the land area, a capable and efficient transit system that has
been developed over more than a century...and one of the highest costs of
living in the world. Development is not a panacea.

I live in SF, but I wouldn't make the choice to move here today. It simply
isn't worth Manhattan prices to live in a city full of tech bros, where you
can't get a good meal after 9:30. Increasingly, the choice not to locate your
company in SF is a sign of competitive intelligence.

~~~
jimminy
The fact that everything closed so early blew me away, when I moved there.
Compared to the middle of nowhere WV it made zero sense. Even the grocery
stores closed by midnight in SF.

In WV, you can find food at most places until 12-1am 7 days a week. And the
major local grocery is a Walmart, which is open 24 hours.

Last Easter I had no clue nothing would be open, and didn't prepare for that.
So I just had some crap picked up at a gas station to hold me over until the
next day. It's a really bizarre situation compared to most other metros, but
even compared to a bunch of small towns.

~~~
derefr
Everything closing at 9PM is pretty much par for the course here in Vancouver,
another city with the skyrocketing cost-of-living thing going on. I wonder if
there's a correlation. Maybe everyone is rich enough to pay delivery services
or maids or something to get their shopping done while they're at work, so
there's no demand for 24-hour businesses?

Then again, another thing with Vancouver (that I think I've heard said a bit
about SF, but less-so) is that there's no night life. The _bars_ close at
midnight. (Actually, you can't even get a license to operate a "bar" here; you
have to build a sit-down restaurant in order to serve alcohol.) I wonder if
the correlation is actually between this sort of Victorian-era teetotaling
"healthy living" sensibility, and the sort of generalized NIMBYism that
prevents highrises from deflating housing pressure.

~~~
nosuchthing
Vancouver anecdote; bars are not night life. I visited for two weeks and
discovered a local music festival (music waste), befriended random folks at
parks (parks were everywhere, and people actually used them!). East Van seemed
to have a lively night life on par with SF/LA, people hosting live bands in
their loft, avant-garde burlesque theater, house parties etc. It sounded like
there was a lively festival scene in BC too, and not just electronic, stuff
like the Peppermill Festival
[http://www.peppermillrecords.com/](http://www.peppermillrecords.com/).
Quantity of cultural hubs in Van might not be as expansive as other major
cities, but the quality certainly sprouts up. That city seems more suited for
people who enjoy nature though.

Really sad to hear that Vancouver and San Francisco are plagued by real estate
siphoning out all the potential of what those cities could be. Feudalism seems
to be a trend everywhere though.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-14/millennial...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-14/millennials-
flee-vancouver-for-cities-with-more-affordable-homes)

~~~
b0p1x
They have the parties at home in east van because it is impossible to get a
permit and/or a suitable venue for most events. There are very few venues for
hosting parties and virtually no practice areas for bands. I've been to a
number of events that were held in death-trap condemned buildings. I've even
been locked in one illegally because someone called an ambulance and they
didn't want to "blow their cover" so nobody could enter or exit for 30min
while my friend waited outside in a back alley. Much prefer other cities where
I can just go to a normal bar and not deal with entrapment issues.

------
sfotoatx
Lots of naysayers on HN, but I left SF last year and moved to Austin. I have
zero regrets.

In SF, my 1 bedroom, 650 square foot apartment in SOMA went from $2,600 to
$3,200 over 3 years.

In Austin, my salary went down $10k to $120k/yr. My 2 bedroom, 1,100 square
foot apartment is $1,150/mo.

The tech scene here isn't as vibrant as SF, but there's still plenty of great
meet ups.

All in all, yes there are some things I miss about SF, but the benefit of
having way more cash month to month outweigh the negatives.

Edit: Clarity.

~~~
qntty
Sorry if this is off-topic (and maybe a bit personal), but as a recent
graduate, I'm not sure what I would do with all that extra money. What do you
(or most people) generally spend it on? I make less than that, but if I didn't
have student loans, I wouldn't know what to do with it besides leave it in the
bank.

~~~
vinceguidry
If you're not already married, you should be using it to date. College is
hands-down the best place to find a significant other. Once you've graduated,
the social life you took for granted quickly fades away and finding people to
spend time with and then actually spending time with them becomes vastly more
difficult. If you're a cisgendered male, it can be absolutely brutal.
Cisgendered female, much less so but still a problem. One of the few things
that makes it easier is the willingness to be generous.

Leaving it in the bank is an excellent option. You've got two main things to
save for, a down payment for a house and your wedding. Better still is a
balanced and sane investment portfolio, but leaving it in the bank is better
than a bad portfolio, so take some time to learn how investing works if you
choose to go that route.

~~~
zavi
What are some smart dating strategies for a straight white male new grad in
the Bay Area with 6 digits of disposable income? Dating market seems extremely
competitive here.

~~~
ryandrake
> What are some smart dating strategies for a straight white male new grad in
> the Bay Area with 6 digits of disposable income?

Spend the money on a plane ticket to somewhere with women?

~~~
jseliger
This is a funny comment, but it's also better advice than it might seem, for
reasons Jon Birger describes in _Date-onomics_ :
[http://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/19/briefly-noted-date-
onomics...](http://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/19/briefly-noted-date-onomics-how-
dating-became-a-lopsided-numbers-game-jon-birger/)

------
msoad
I live in a high rise in SF and pay $4400 for a one bedroom. Although it
sounds expensive but it's like $800 more than the least expensive place we
could find near this place but it's a well built apartment with lots of
amenities.

I thought about moving out of SF but I don't have any social connection
outside of San Francisco. Plus weather is very nice here and there are lots of
diverse cultural events happening in San Francisco. Add very thick job market
on top of it. I was able to interview 50 companies when I was looking for a
new job.

I'm saying I, as a case study is paying this rent because of reasons and I'm
well aware how much more it is compared to other cities. There are 600
apartments in this high rise and out unit is one of cheapest ones. Most of
units are having residents, so there are people who pay those rents.

~~~
msoad
I don't know why I'm getting downvoted! Don't you want to hear WHY people
paying those rents or you want to believe everybody paying those rents are
just plain stupid?!

Markets are smart!

~~~
whitenoice
Up-voted, Are average SF rents that high? Boston is probably less than half
that cost, with salaries comparable to the west coast and similar cultural
events and excellent public and private schools. Weather is not that great
though. Genuinely asking - So what makes SF so worth it, that it justifies its
high cost of living? in comparison to other top class states, is it just the
weather?

~~~
x0x0
jobs. You can be a half-assed engineer here and be employed; if you're good,
you have dozens of choices of place to work. Whenever I ponder leaving (and
I'm a data scientist, so more specialized) I look around at cities like Salt
Lake or Denver or other places close to good skiing and see like 3 employers.
Total. What happens if I don't like my job / my boss changes / whatever? I'd
probably have to move. It's just a ton of risk for the employee.

And not just jobs, but other people who do the same thing that you can learn
from. And full stack: from the people building javascript libs to new
programming languages (swift, rust) to chips (Apple, Intel, hardware
startups), etc.

Proximity to the outdoors. If you want great surfing, hiking, skiing (well, ex
the drought years), climbing, camping, etc -- it's here. And the state is dry,
so no mosquitos or flies. ie it's _much_ more enjoyable to be outside than in
the midwest. It's fun to be outside 340+ days/year.

Non-competes are invalid by state law. And this isn't a theoretical problem; I
had a job offer withdrawn in NY because the new employer's counsel determined
they were covered by then-current employers non-compete contract and they
didn't want the hassle.

People who view quitting their jobs and starting companies as merely modestly
crazy/risky, instead of something only a lunatic would do.

Oh, and as for your average rents: yes. You can get cheaper rents, but at the
price of shitty public transport, a terrible commute, and a lack of local
services where you live. Which is particularly punishing if you don't own a
car. sf as a city is run by worthless idiots who decided to play city, so big
pieces of it have terrible (unreliable, slow, unsafe, etc) public transport
(yet it manages to be some of the most expensive transit in the nation as the
cherry on top). Plus there are 3 public transport systems that essentially
were built independently and operate without any coordination, two of which
only serve pieces of the city (muni, bart, caltrain). And until the age of
uber a taxi system that specialized in shitting on their customers. Because
where, besides sf, would a taxi _that actually comes_ be worth paying a 50%
premium ala uber when it debuted? So yeah, wildly incompetent city government.

~~~
whitenoice
thanks but I find none of those unique to SF, you can get the same in other
top cities. I don't know about Denver but in Boston/NY you have tons of good
job opportunities, excellent engineering and scientific community with top
firms/startups and excellent eng, business, and med schools. Close proximity
to outdoors (New Hamshire, Maine).

No doubt there are more startups/jobs in SF but at the same time it seems that
its very exaggerated.

~~~
x0x0
I don't know about Boston, but Maine is not in any sense close to nyc. I think
the difference is distance. In sf, world class skiing is 3 hours away; the
beach is 20 minutes in much of the city; great hiking is across the bridge in
Marin or south along 1, well under an hour away. It's not a trip; enjoying the
outdoors takes an afternoon. I have an acquaintance who works near the
presidio and surfs over lunch. When I lived in Manhattan, you could definitely
get to the outdoors, but it wasn't anything like this close.

As for jobs, I disagree. see eg:

machine learning, nyc: 1 responsive ad (plus ads for jobs in sfbay,
nonresponsive android stuff)
[http://newyork.craigslist.org/search/sof?query=machine+learn...](http://newyork.craigslist.org/search/sof?query=machine+learning)

same search, sf: 10-15?
[http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sof?query=machine+learnin...](http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sof?query=machine+learning)

indeed has similar ratios.

As for jobs in general, if you're a good js or rails engineer with a
reasonable network of friends / former coworkers, starting now at 6pm Tuesday
night you could have interviews on Friday, maybe even on Thursday. And start a
new job next week. I believe there's a qualitative difference.

~~~
quicklyfrozen
How many jobs if I'm getting close to 50? :-)

~~~
x0x0
on the peninsula, plenty; in sf, work for a larger company or at least not for
yc-aged / early 20s founders and you'll do ok

my oldest coworker, and this was at a < 10 person startup, was not a founder
and was a line level search engineer and over 65.

------
Gratsby
I pay about that for rent - it's the most I've ever paid for housing by a long
shot, and it regularly freaks me out. I just can't get used to it. The thing
that gets me is that I'm barely paying the property taxes on the place I rent.
The landlord isn't gouging me.

It's just the way it is here. Housing is so expensive because everyone wants
to be here, and for good reason. This is the most thriving technical community
in the entire world. We live different lifestyles as a result. It's not better
or worse, just different.

It seems like there are a fair amount of people who come for 2-3 years and
then go back to wherever it is that they came from, but I think the amount of
people who actually leave the bay area for tech jobs in Seattle/Portland/LA is
pretty slim. I'm sure it happens, but if there's an exodus happening I for one
am completely unaware of it.

~~~
bogomipz
Really - "This is the most thriving technical community in the entire world"?
I'm calling BS. Have you been to New York City recently? Rents for a 1 bedroom
are nowhere near that. Lets talk about that community - there are meetups?
Wow. You can go to a meetup on any night of the week in New York or Austin.
Besides that explain "the community"? Oh you go out and drink craft beers
after work? You can do that anywhere.

Whats this different lifestyle of which you speak? Dodging panhandlers on
Market Street? Stepping over human excrement? Using Uber b/c the city in which
you have chosen to piss away your money doesn't provide decent mass transit
for most?

People like you perpetuate some myth that you have to pay $4500 a month if you
want to work in tech. Nonsense.

~~~
TranquilMarmot
I don't agree with the amount of vitriol in your comment, but I agree with the
overall sentiment.

I feel like tech workers in San Francisco are fully bought-in to the "this is
the best and only place to be if you're in tech" idea. So much so that they
can't quite see that the grass is just as green on the other side, so to
speak. You _have_ to be fully bought-in to it, there's no other way you would
be able to justify the cost of living there.

I'm curious about the different lifestyles- I live in Seattle and there's
startups and meetups and hacker spaces all over the damn place, with decent
public transportation, awesome coffee and beer and restaurants and anything
else you could want. Maybe not as many conferences, but they're a quick flight
away if you really want to go.

~~~
nostrademons
I'm curious if you've lived in the Bay Area for any length of time.

I used to live in Boston (which at the time was the #2 tech scene in the
country, but has probably been eclipsed by Seattle/NYC/Austin by now). There
were startups and meetups and hacker spaces as well, including a number of
famous ones.

The Bay Area is a huge difference in degree. The difference is that you had to
find the "tech scene" in Boston, while in Silicon Valley, _tech is the scene_.
If you go out for coffee, nearly everybody in the coffeeshop will be working
on some tech startup. If you sit down at a restaurant, there's a good chance
that the table next to you will have a group of engineers from some large tech
company, or an investor being pitched by an entrepreneur, or a group of
friends planning a startup. If you go to a random party - even ones thrown by
non-techies - half the people there will work in tech.

~~~
wott
> If you go out for coffee, nearly everybody in the coffeeshop will be working
> on some tech startup. If you sit down at a restaurant, there's a good chance
> that the table next to you will have a group of engineers from some large
> tech company, or an investor being pitched by an entrepreneur, or a group of
> friends planning a startup. If you go to a random party - even ones thrown
> by non-techies - half the people there will work in tech.

What you describe is an unbearable nightmare.

~~~
nostrademons
Depends who you are and what you want, like most things in life.

It was great for my first couple years here, when I really wanted to go deep
into the field and learn all I could. I had my "become a well-rounded person"
phase in college, so by my 20s I was happy to specialize deeply. It was less
great for years 3-5, when I ended up meeting and marrying a non-techie. It's
been good again for me now, founding a startup, because of the huge number of
potential customers everywhere. There's a huge difference between an abundance
mentality vs. a scarcity mentality that having a large number of
customers/employees/investors nearby creates.

------
thegayngler
This is the result of people trying to get rich quick by simply having stuff
rather than producing and maintaining stuff. I don't know what the answer is.
I do think that San Francisco is poorly planned out based on my observations
last year when I visited to see if I could live there. There is no mass
transit system on the scale of NYC or one that's even trying to be. Everything
seems really spread out. I felt like you needed a car to really be able to
adequately take advantage of the area. I'm not really a fan of expensive rents
and car culture. I also noticed people cheering when Twitter announced
layoffs. I didn't leave with the impression the community had adequately
benefited from the tech industry being in the area. The people I spoke with
felt that the tech industry takes away but doesn't give back to the community.

~~~
BurningFrog
A car won't help you much in SF. You can get to where you want to go, but not
park there. People end up using Uber.

------
simook
Portland resident here. What this article doesn't cover, is now locals are
victim of gentrification. Rent prices are almost 2x, out of state buyers are
throwing all cash offers on houses, and overall housing supply is low... I'm
sure the commercial market is just as bad.

Interesting times.

~~~
dkopi
It's 2016, and people still think that if someone moves into your
neighborhood, someone else has to move out.

Rising demand is great. It means people want to enjoy your neighborhood. You
can either meet that demand by increasing supply, or you can restrict the
demand, and let certain people be outpriced by the market.

Locals aren't victims of gentrification. They're victims of zoning laws and
nimbyism.

~~~
sliverstorm
So consider a nice, quaint neighborhood. Person A lives there. Person B wants
to live there too, because it is so nice.

Ok, let's say we double supply.

All the houses are now either twice as high, or half as big, or maybe the
trees were cut down and the bushes ripped out to make room. There's twice as
many people & everything therein. Is it still the same nice neighborhood?

~~~
dionidium
You're right, of course, but this sentiment amounts to little more than
stomping your feet and wishing the world were different.

As long as there is high demand, you can either build more or expect higher
prices and more sprawl. I get that people don't _like_ those choices, but
that's what's on the table.

~~~
TylerH
Or you can do neither. It's not like the false dichotomy you're presenting is
true.

~~~
kbenson
Not in a free market. If demand is high, and supply doesn't raise to meet it,
then prices will increase unless artificially suppressed.

Rent control could do that for rent, but has its own problems. As for owners,
how do you tell someone they aren't allowed to sell their house for what
someone else is willing to pay them?

------
binarysolo
I'm a contrarian voice here, but I strongly value my day-to-day encounters and
connections with exceptional individuals who I cross paths with in daily
life... moreso than the exorbitant cost-of-living in the area. The access to
opportunities, collaborations, and community here is unparalleled
(comparisons: Taipei, New York City, Boston, and London, all of which I've
spent prolonged periods due to business).

Spend one weekend hiking in Yosemite, another working on a digital arts
project in Oakland, and you still got plenty of bandwidth to sip your fancy
coffees and swing by Stanford for some lectures and run into competent friends
to solve some business problems for fun and profit... life is pretty damn good
for work and play.

Caveat: Of course, this is coming from a position of privilege: that I spent
both undergrad and grad in the area and have built up a strong base of
connections here within the profession world and academia, and that the
$10k-20k net salary optimization does not meaningfully affect my quality of
life.

------
traskjd
We've just setup a new office for our company
([https://raygun.com](https://raygun.com)) in Seattle. We have a small office
in SF, but going to building a much larger one up here (we're HQ'd in
Wellington, New Zealand)

Seattle locals complain a little about all the cranes across the skyline. I
see it another way - Seattle is absolutely going to eat SF's lunch if it
doesn't change.

You already have Microsoft, Boeing, etc here. Google, Facebook and Space X
have now opened offices too. This city seems to be fully engaged handling that
growth and how to capitalize on it. We've been receiving flyers about
developing the transit system for the next 25 years. A far cry from the sassy
(and painfully accurate) BART twitter account calling out the lack of
investment in it.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but there's some real problems with the inelastic
supply of housing in the SF/Bay Area.

~~~
jseliger
_Seattle locals complain a little about all the cranes across the skyline. I
see it another way - Seattle is absolutely going to eat SF 's lunch if it
doesn't change._

One underestimated part of CA's success, though, is the fact that non-competes
are illegal:
[http://asr.sagepub.com/content/76/5/695.short](http://asr.sagepub.com/content/76/5/695.short).
If Washington State banned non-competes, it would have a really tremendous
long-term advantage.

------
tryitnow
Yes, rents are high, but if you invest even a little bit of time you can find
a fine residence in the Bay Area for a lot less than $4,500.

I rent a two bedroom house in Oakland for $2,200. My commute is not too much
longer than it would be if I live in certain parts of San Francisco.

There's simply little advantage to living right in the heart of a major city.

You have to ask yourself:

"Instead of renting in a high-profile location, what else could I buy with an
extra $24,000 a year?"

Yes, average rents are too high, but nobody says you have to pay the average
rent.

~~~
zzz157
Well you also have a significantly higher probability of getting shot when you
live in Oakland. So there's always that.

~~~
nostrademons
Depends which part of Oakland. Some parts of Oakland (eg. Rockridge, Temescal)
are significantly nicer than SF. They aren't exactly cheap, but your safety :
price ratio is significantly better than in say, the Mission.

~~~
mrgordon
They may appear nicer but when I read Yelp reviews in Rockridge and Temescal
they occasionally mention the bars on the windows or robberies taking place
which I've never seen in San Francisco. Not trying to say the average person
will encounter problems but I do think even those areas have more crime than
you'd think.

As someone who lived in Oakland and now has rent control in the Mission, I
would say that my safety : price ratio is significantly higher here in SF
after a relatively small period of time.

~~~
mrgordon
Wow, very surprised to see I got downvoted for sharing a perfectly valid
anecdote after living in Oakland and San Francisco. I'm sorry if you feel
differently but downvoting comments just because you don't agree with them is
rather immature and only serves to limit discourse by discouraging people from
sharing their opinions, experiences, and facts. I was polite in my response
and even pointed out that the average person is unlikely to encounter
problems.

Here are some further details for those who care about the facts:

1\. This is a representative review for one Thai restaurant that I wanted to
go to in Rockridge where I noticed _many_ reviews mentioned them being robbed
_repeatedly_ and now the restaurant has to buzz customers through the door
because of it (read the first review or search for "robbery"):
[http://www.yelp.com/biz/saysetha-thai-cuisine-
oakland?hrid=u...](http://www.yelp.com/biz/saysetha-thai-cuisine-
oakland?hrid=uI5-SqeMPAZb1pLojXdaPQ&utm_campaign=www_review_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=\(direct\))

2\. Here is a recent article about how middle class residents of many
neighborhoods including Rockridge and Temescal have resorted to hiring private
security forces due to the rampant crime problems:
[http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/30/oakland-
priv...](http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/30/oakland-private-
securitypatrols.html)

3\. Here is an article describing why robbers like Rockridge and other "target
rich" neighborhoods where it is easy to rob rich people and escape:
[http://patch.com/california/rockridge/why-robbers-like-
rockr...](http://patch.com/california/rockridge/why-robbers-like-rockridge-
report-from-the-north-oakland-crime-meeting)

~~~
nostrademons
I wasn't the one who downvoted you.

------
100k
Lots of people want to live in an urban setting. Build more urban
neighborhoods, everywhere.

~~~
davidw
This is the answer. Deregulate housing/small businesse spaces/offices and let
the market do its work. It's crazy the amount of regulation there is that
pretty much dictates single family detached homes for large swaths of the
country. Here in Bend, for instance, you _must_ have a driveway with not one,
but two parking spots. Land of the free indeed...

[http://marketurbanism.com/](http://marketurbanism.com/)

Also, this book, although it's pretty high level:
[http://amzn.to/1qsn2RD](http://amzn.to/1qsn2RD)

I think this is one of _the_ most important issues in this day and age. It's
happening everywhere, and things need to change.

 _Edit_ : downvoters, care to actually state your opinions? I'm hardly a
libertarian, and neither is Matt Yglesias, author of the aforementioned book.
I don't think 'free markets' are the answer to all the world's problems. But I
do think a more liberalized market would help housing a lot. These areas need
more supply, and if you don't want LA style sprawl, the best way to do that is
via density. And the best way to accomplish that is probably by letting the
market work, within reason: I don't suppose I'd be in favor of allowing an
outdoor thrash metal venue in the midst of an otherwise quiet neighborhood,
but there are a lot of things you could add to make places more livable and
walkable without cars.

~~~
moheeb
"Here in Bend, for instance, you must have a driveway with not one, but two
parking spots. Land of the free indeed..."

Where I live people don't leave any room for parking on their own property and
all of the streets are completely jammed with cars, every inch. You don't
hardly dare move your car if you've been able to find a spot.

Is that freer?

~~~
100k
Forcing everyone to build parking makes building more expensive
([http://www.thestranger.com/news/feature/2015/07/29/22612207/...](http://www.thestranger.com/news/feature/2015/07/29/22612207/the-
hidden-reason-behind-seattles-skyrocketing-housing-costs)) and spread out
(google "parking crater" for examples, e.g., [http://www.gcpvd.org/wp-
content/uploads/2012/04/parking-cris...](http://www.gcpvd.org/wp-
content/uploads/2012/04/parking-crisis-illustrated-834px.jpg)) which makes it
harder to walk, bike, and take public transportation, which causes more people
to drive, which causes more need for parking.

Parking your car costs money. People should pay to use it if they need it, but
the rest of us shouldn't have to. Right now, drivers are subsidized.

------
Apocryphon
"They’ve increased 38 percent in Seattle, 12 percent in Austin and 6 percent
in Phoenix."

The article names the usual suspects for engineer emigrants (Austin, Portland,
strangely no mention of NYC or Raleigh RTP), but why are people moving to
Phoenix? Isn't living in the less sexy areas of South Bay (Sunnyvale,
Milpitas, South San Jose) pretty much on par with urban life in Phoenix?

~~~
sov
It's interesting that Seattle's rent has raised 38 percent, but I am left
wondering if some of that is related to their ~37% minimum wage increase in
the last year.

~~~
pessimizer
What possible connection could there be? Does minimum wage now change property
values? Are all housing units in Seattle occupied by minimum wage workers? The
average rent in Seattle for a one bedroom apartment is around $1600, which is
around 100% of what a minimum wage worker made there two years ago -
coincidence or no?

It's all just so interesting, I think?

~~~
sov
No need for the snark, friend. Is it really that much of a stretch to think
that minimum wage increases (more money in the hands of lower-income earners)
semi-proportionately increases localized prices?

Do you truly think it's necessary that all houses in Seattle must be occupied
by minimum wage workers in order for it to affect the cost of living?

~~~
whitegrape
It's a lot easier for people to see this argument with basic income than with
minimum wage, but the signaling on property owners ends up being the same
whether you know for certain all your tenants now have an extra $x in funds or
just some of them might now be getting a raise to the new minimum wage. From
the property manager perspective, suddenly they're getting more demand on
units than they were previously, so they balance that by increasing rents. An
increased minimum wage can play a part in that rise in demand even if no
single person can afford an apartment on their own at minimum wage. For
instance perhaps there's a group of 4 people cramped in one apartment, but now
with all of them getting more money, they can afford to split off into two
groups of 2. Until the landlord raises rents, anyway, because they aren't
enough units for everyone to do that and building new units takes time.

------
Ephori
At least SF still has the jobs and industry to drive the insane housing
prices. Try somewhere like Vancouver where the prices are just as crazy but
minus any connection to an actual economic or technological driver; there's
zero industry left, zero investment, and a pervasive Stockholm syndrome where
the entire city population convinces itself it's the 'best place on Earth.'
It's turning into an epic ghost town of real estate speculators and low-rent
TV post-production sweat shops with all the real tech talent draining to
places like SF and NYC.

~~~
Apocryphon
Yeah, the existence of Vancouver, London, and Hong Kong's housing markets make
me feel grateful that at least SF isn't _that_ bad.

------
CiPHPerCoder
It's worth mentioning: This isn't just causing people to flee. It's actively
repelling people from moving there.

(Personally, I've turned down job offers for ~2x what I make now just so I
don't have to endure today's rent prices, which I anticipate are only going to
increase.)

If you're in SF and you want better access to talent, consider a distributed
team instead of expecting everyone to move to SF.

------
sologoub
Los Angeles got lumped in with other places in this article, but it completely
misses the sprawl problem - you want to pay less? sure! Just sit in traffic!

>$569,500 in Los Angeles, Zillow data show.

If you want a decent quality of life without 1-2 hour one-way commutes and you
work in tech, most likely you need to live either in Sillicon Beach (Santa
Monica/Pacific Palisades to about Redondo) or Pasadena or Irvine areas. None
of these are as cheap as $600k. Rents are catching up quickly as well.

If you are trading traffic for cheaper rent, Bay Area has those options too.

------
dv0rak
Fuck. And I thought paying $1k a month in Toronto was too much. I've been
looking for work in cheaper cities like Hamilton or London literally because
what I make versus what it takes to survive don't sit well with me - and never
have.

~~~
jperras
As someone who lives in Toronto proper, $1k/month is ridiculously cheap unless
you live in a basement apartment with possibly a roommate, depending on
location.

~~~
stuxnet79
What are the typical going rates for basement apartments downtown or close to
downtown? An apartment from what I've seen is at the very least $1200 a month.

~~~
jperras
It varies quite a lot from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, and of course
proximity to major public transport ingress/egress points.

I haven't looked recently, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find anything
below $1000/month that wasn't out in the middle of nowhere.

Also: beware. Some basement apartments aren't actually legal; make sure you
sign a legitimate lease agreement, and get confirmation from the landlord that
the unit is up to code with the housing board. Happened to a friend of mine
not very long ago.

------
Apocryphon
So are there any tech hubs right now that _aren 't_ dealing with issues of
rent increases, gentrifications, and growing pains?

~~~
pklausler
Try North Carolina, which has regrettably chosen to become a former tech hub.

~~~
ghaff
Not what I hear from various co-workers complaining about the prices of buying
or renting condos in downtown Raleigh.

~~~
selimthegrim
He is referring to the anti LBGT antidiscrimination law just passed.

~~~
ghaff
Oh sure. Which I was certainly aware of. Unbelievable.

------
ferenstein
if anyone is interested in solving the problem, im putting together a campaign
for major housing reform through the ballot measure. email me
greg@gregferenstein dot com

~~~
Shebanator
you should probably mention what state/city/whatever your ballot measure is
intended for...

------
mc32
In the immediate sense, this is bad, long term one hopes, this will just
accelerate the diffusion of technology centered companies away from the bay
area and to the valleys and prairies and cities around the country, slowly
transforming the economy as they spread out, or likely just spread out from
these distant outposts.

Once the startups make it, rather than develop large campuses in the bay area
they can expand elsewhere and take advantage of those workforces.

------
rconti
Many problems with this article.

"A software engineer in Austin earning $110,000 would need to make $195,000 in
San Francisco to maintain the same quality of life"

Would they? They point out the median in the bay area is $118k, but there's no
indication that the median in Austin is $110k; maybe they just pulled that
number out of thin air?

They cite slowing tech employment growth in SF, but it seems clear that it's a
result of near-0 tech unemployment.

They talk about the exodus "in the past year" as if it suddenly started
happening; people have been bitching about the most recent cycle for years,
but it's been going on for decades.

"They've become tech hubs in their own right in a way they weren't three to
five years ago"

What?

"We bought a beautiful Craftsman home in an awesome neighborhood and that just
would not have been possible in San Francisco."

I have no problem with people moving and displacing others, but you have to be
clear that the reason you can afford that is bringing the fruits of a higher-
cost-of-living area to a lower-cost-of-living one, not because it's inherently
more affordable for people who actually (already) live there. In this case,
he's .. moving his company? So I guess he's able to keep his pay the same
(??).

~~~
rqebmm
I assume it's based on this report, which has the same numbers:
[http://get.hired.com/rs/348-IPO-044/images/Hired-State-of-
Sa...](http://get.hired.com/rs/348-IPO-044/images/Hired-State-of-Salaries.pdf)

------
exolymph
People who are saying that you should be able to work on software from
anywhere are underestimating the importance of IRL network effects.

------
EricBetts
As a software developer already living in Portland, I'm loving this. I have no
quantitative proof, but it feels like, even as recent as 10 years ago, the
high tech in the Portland area was very hardware oriented. These days it seems
like there are more software startups, and more high profile software
companies (Amazon, Google, Ebay) with offices in the area.

------
umbs
Another angle to this is cost of sending kids to schools (my kids are
elementary school age). I support public schools and frequently volunteer to
teach stress management programs in public high schools. However, few years
back, to cut down on housing costs, I purchased a condo in "very low API score
school district". When my kids were ready for school, we hesitated to send to
public school and choose private school. Now, my wife and I are shocked with
the costs and have been inconclusive on private school vs owning a house in
"good" school district.

I learnt from others that in other parts of US, we get good schools and decent
house at reasonable price in Seattle/Portland/Austin etc. But uprooting entire
family looks extreme at this point and we don't have stomach to do it.

Curious, as to what others in similar situation are doing.

------
supergeek133
I keep saying it, and I'll keep on saying it..

Who is going to be the first to move? The capital or the talent?

One has to drive the other out. VC money isn't going as far as it used to, and
talent has to increasingly eat more ramen just to live and keep the lights on
in their company.

------
tn13
As soon as I have sufficient savings I plan to move to Texas. I will work for
30% less salary than paying 50% of my salary as rent for a completely
worthless apartment that is not even being maintained properly.

------
sjg007
I'm about ready to cry uncle. Maybe now tech companies will consider remote
work. Everyone will be happier.

~~~
ryandrake
Careful what you wish for. If your job can be done from home, it can be done
from India.

~~~
quicklyfrozen
You can collaborate effectively with remote people a couple time zones away.
India is much harder -- also much harder to periodically bring everyone
together for a few days.

