
Saving San Francisco goes deeper than “build more housing” - krausejj
https://medium.com/@justinkrause/how-to-save-san-francisco-89b9609e4650
======
cmontella
I used to live in the dead center of the city, in the Ashbury Heights
neighborhood. It took me literally 1 hour to get to work, down town taking
muni (fastest time recorded is 40 minutes without any delays and essentially
running the "last mile"). This was the longest commute of my life, and I lived
3 miles from work. It would take me just a little more time to walk there.
Biking was faster, but more dangerous -- I got hit once (by another cyclist
running a light) and that was it for me.

That, plus people assaulting my wife on the street, plus $3000 rent for a 1
bedroom, and I had it with the city. I loved it, it was a great experience,
but I just couldn't take it anymore. Now I work from home in the central
valley, where I can afford to rent a 3000 sq. ft. home (not because I'm paid
much, but because housing is so cheap), and my commute is 1 minute. I'm much
happier out here, yet I find when I tell people from SF where I live, some
(not all, most people ask "Where the heck is that?") wrinkle their noses. I
say, if you're tired of the city, give it a shot -- you might be happier.

~~~
tomkarlo
That's great, but it seems kind of orthogonal and non-scalable to the problem
of the Bay Area housing crisis. Are you proposing that everyone in SF move to
places like the Central Valley (driving up price) and start driving around
cars (increasing traffic and pollution)? What about folks who don't have the
luxury of jobs where they can work remotely?

~~~
eip
>What about folks who don't have the luxury of jobs where they can work
remotely?

I would bet >50% of the people working in the bay area who say they can't work
remote are doing jobs that could very easily be done remote.

Do you work on a computer? You can do that remote.

~~~
tomkarlo
The folks who are having the most trouble living in SF - the ones who _don 't_
work in tech - often don't spend all day looking at a computer, and have to be
physically present at a specific location to do their work. They're teachers,
firefighters, nurses, chefs, mechanics, contractors, etc. Generally the tech
crowd is impacted the _least_ by housing prices, because they have higher
incomes and more job mobility.

------
habosa
This article really gets it. It's all about transportation. It will __never
__be possible for everyone who wants to be in San Francisco to live downtown,
or even adjacent to downtown. Just like the article said, Manhattan is much
denser but no more affordable.

But we make it so hard for people to get around. You can take a bus for 45m or
take the BART which is overcrowded, unreliable, and has trains that can be as
much as 20m apart.

Plus using transit around here requires way too much knowledge. There are so
many different major transit agencies that don't make any effort to connect
(Caltrain, Muni bus, Muni metro, BART, etc) and they all have different
pricing schemes (flat rate, monthly passes, pay by distance, etc).

Living 10 miles from your job shouldn't mean you live an hour from your job.
NYC gets that. SF Bay Area does not.

~~~
archagon
Transport in the Bay is so, so hilariously bad. I'm in St. Petersburg, Russia
right now and the subway here doesn't actually have a schedule. Instead,
there's a clock on the wall. If the next train doesn't arrive within 2 minutes
and reset the counter, something's not right. The stations cover basically the
entire city, and as a result, venturing 5 miles across town feels about the
same as going down a set of escalators and then coming right back up on the
other side. This sort of thing is par for the course in Europe. (NY too, for
that matter.)

How did one of the richest areas in the world go so catastrophically wrong in
this regard?

~~~
majormajor
Much of the infrastructure was built when (1) the country was so rich that
most of the people with any influence at all had cars and (2) the country was
less populated so traffic and parking were less severe problems.

Everybody builds the infrastructure that the then-state-of-the-art calls for.
That was roads and freeways for most of the US. It's an accident of history,
not an idiotic mistake. _Not doing anything about it_ for the past ten years
is the possible mistake, but from the perspective of the people who already
live somewhere, and like having relatively lower density, they have just as
much right to doing things how _they_ want as the new tech crowd interlopers
do.

~~~
archagon
I actually sympathize with the NIMBY-ers quite a bit when it comes to housing.
But in terms of transportation, it depresses me to know from first-hand
experience how much better things could be. Better public transit is simply a
win-win for almost everyone: far fewer cars, more pedestrian areas and access,
an increased number of people willing to live outside the city, and streets
that don't feel like DMZs. City life is categorically improved when you no
longer have to shuffle streetcar schedules or chase the bus around. (Or sit in
traffic for 3 hours to go across town.)

~~~
hencq
This is what bothers me whenever I hear people rave about the future that
driverless cars will finally make possible. They basically list your win-win
list: far fewer cars, more pedestrian areas, etc. That might all be true, but
we don't to wait for self-driving cars for that! Just build reliable public
transportation just like countless cities have already done.

~~~
ghaff
>the future that driverless cars will finally make possible

I tend to think these are further away than most people think. But I also have
a lot of trouble seeing how they don't massively increase traffic. _Maybe_ you
need less parking and _maybe_ inter-car communications can make traffic move
more smoothly. But does anyone seriously believe that people will drive _less_
when they effectively have a personal driver at their beck and call?

------
apendleton
Generally great. I live in DC and we suffer from similar troubles because of
lack of regional planning integration (multiple states rather than just
multiple cities, so in some ways it's worse).

That said:

> And we also probably don’t want high rise condos on the edge of Golden Gate
> Park. San Francisco isn’t New York.

Probably going to have to get over this objection for a plan like this to
work. Transit and accessibility are great places to start, but transit-
oriented development requires density to succeed. If people are going to be
getting around via transit lines instead of by car, you need a lot of people
to live within easy walking distance of each residential transit stop, and you
need a lot of the places people are trying to get to (work, leisure, etc.) to
be within easy walking distance of the stop on the other end of their trip.
High transit ridership and neighborhoods comprised of single-family homes
don't work well together, and while part of what makes the Bushwick example
work well is the better transit, the density is a big part of the calculus as
well (again, on both ends).

------
closure
After 8 years in SF I have been seriously considering moving to NYC, largely
over my commute to South Bay, but also for the substantial increase in density
which brings with it a manifold increase in cultural opportunities and
activities.

The weather is a drawback (in probably 200+ days in NYC over 10 years I can
remember a single week of what I would consider nice weather). I have realized
that crappy climate is a poor reason to avoid the move.

My one main concern is finding a job with similar pay and interesting work.
90+% of the job listings I see are for Java enterpise-type work paying a third
of what my (admittedly more than comfortable) current total pay is.

~~~
cmontella
> I have realized that crappy climate is a poor reason to avoid the move.

I'd be interested to hear your reasons. For me, I'm the exact opposite. In the
3 years I've lived in CA, I haven't had bronchitis once, which used to happen
almost every year on the east coast. Not having to deal with 14 degree weather
and snow is one of the main reasons I moved away. For me, so much happiness
flows this simple fact.

~~~
closure
All I really mean is that on balance I think it’s worth the trade-off (due to
the other pluses). I wouldn’t trade SF for say an inexpensive area with no
culture and bad weather, but I think I am willing to put up with the heat &
humidity along with cold & snow given all the rest NYC has to offer.

~~~
airstrike
The secret is to move to Chicago first for a couple years, then come to NY
like I did. You will feel blessed to live in NY weather.

------
jaredcwhite
So much here resonates with me. I’m sitting in a train right now taking me
from a suburb into downtown Portland, OR...an easy commute...only $5 a day
gets you unlimited transportation across all of the regional transit services
(all part of the excellent TriMet system). I moved here from the Bay Area
mainly due to affordability and sane public transit. The Bay Area is an
amazing place but it’s imploding under the weight of its own popularity and
lack of appropriate regional infrastructure response.

~~~
cullenking
"I moved here from the Bay Area..."

At the risk of sounding xenophobic, Portland is going to turn into San
Francisco soon enough if people/companies keep immigrating from California and
New York, and elected officials keep proposing policies modeled after the Bay
Area. I'm not saying "stay away" as I enjoy much of the growth PDX has seen
over the last few years, especially the fact we have a much easier time
finding good developers these days. I'm just concerned that many of our
newcomers had it so bad in regard to traffic and costs of living, that their
tolerance for those things will, generally speaking, lift up the floor here in
Portland.

So, welcome, but please please please push back against freeway expansions,
push for more alternative transit, push for more walkable communities, and all
that jazz. PDX can't stay small and easy going forever, but maybe we can avoid
some of the pitfalls that have befallen other large metro areas.

~~~
cvwright
> At the risk of sounding xenophobic, Portland is going to turn into San
> Francisco soon enough ...

It is already in the process of doing so.

> please please please push back against freeway expansions ...

And this attitude is the reason. I don't know why people think that adopting
the same anti-growth, anti-construction, anti-roads attitude that has made San
Francisco so unaffordable for regular people will have a different outcome
here.

~~~
cullenking
Nothing in my comment was anti growth, the only thing you can point to that's
close was anti freeway expansion. And freeway expansion does not ultimately
solve congestion. Without massive billion dollar road changes, widening
freeways, as is proposed right now in pdx, just shifts the congestion around.
We can look at a dozen large metro areas with 16 lane freeways and commute
times are still insane. Pump that money into dedicated separate bike ways,
increased mass transit, both in the city and to the suburbs. Increase urban
density to avoid car commutes.

Again, I'm not advocating anti growth, I'm saying if it's done slapshod we'll
be having the same conversations about PDX in ten years as we do San Fran now.
1.5 hour commutes for people living 10 miles or less from work.

~~~
cvwright
Nobody is seriously suggesting a 16-lane freeway in PDX. The freeway expansion
that's being proposed is to remove an awful bottleneck on I-5, where it cuts
down to just two lanes in each direction near the Rose Quarter. The entire
rest of that road is three lanes.

This is on the major US West Coast interstate highway, going through the
largest city in the state. I know of 100k person towns in the middle of
nowhere that have better highway infrastructure than this.

On everything else you mention, we are in agreement. The increased density of
the inner East side is hopefully going to play a big role in keeping costs
down and avoiding massive sprawl as the city grows.

------
0xB31B1B
If these things interest you, consider learning more about the yimby party
(sfyimby.com). We’re a group advocating for these policies at a local and
state level. DM me for more details.

~~~
krausejj
I'm definitely interested. The part that I'm curious about though is that your
brand is "SF Yimby." Your content looks Bay Area focused though. Have you
thought of broadening the scope to be more regional?

~~~
epistasis
There's even a Santa Cruz Yimby. Local organizations are necessary to deal
with local issues, and going to local planning meetings, and local city
council meetings.

And on the regional level, the YIMBY movement has been very successful this
year with several state legislative initiatives that hold cities accountable
for meeting their planned housing goals, and for increasing funding for
affordable housing.

------
compiler-guy
"Someone else should make the sacrifice."

There's the problem right there.

From the article:

"Brisbane ... is currently blocking a large housing development for local
reasons."

"And we also probably don’t want high rise condos on the edge of Golden Gate
Park. San Francisco isn’t New York."

I've voted in favor of every housing initiative available to me, but you can't
make your favorite part of the Bay Area sacred and expect everyone else to
give up theirs.

~~~
rsync
"Brisbane ... is currently blocking a large housing development for local
reasons."

Good for them. I mean, probably not, but Brisbane is their town and they
should determine their own values and courses of action.

The solution to San Francisco needs to occur in San Francisco - not CC county
or Marin or Sonoma. There's a lot of very, very distinguished and historic and
noteworthy 1-4 story housing stock in San Francisco that I hope stays around
... but there's a lot of 1-4 story housing stock that is complete shit and
needs to be rebuilt, in-filled, brought up to 2017 sanitation and earthquake
regs and served by new rail lines.

Notice how I didn't say "served by BRT[1]" ? Served by rail.

If you see a bus, they blew it.

[1] Bus Rapid Transit (and related half-assed bullshit)

~~~
lukasb
Except San Francisco is paying the price for Mountain View and Palo Alto being
willing to add jobs but not housing. Arguing "well then those cities should
build housing" is true, but misses the point: given that people can commute,
city boundaries are sort of irrelevant. It's a regional problem.

~~~
compiler-guy
This is true, but incomplete.

Strictly, the entire area is paying the price for the entire area being
willing to add jobs but not add housing.

San Francisco is no different from Palo Alto and Mountain View in that regard.

------
pascalxus
How can he sit there and deny the benefits of larger supply? Obviously, if
supply increases vastly enough the prices will come down. Sure, maybe not in
the first thousand units, but you've gotta build baby build! It'll probably
take 10s of thousand of units or even 100s of thousands of units, but it's
gotta be done. And sure, it won't be as cheap as the suburbs, but if we get
rid of regulations and allow SV to innovate enough, we can automate the
building of these tall buildings and allow the price to come down to levels
never before seen.

Allowing commuters to cover even longer distances is just another bandaid. One
that will just add more environmental damage. The least environmentally
damaging commute is the one that happens on foot.

Increasing supply to reduce costs to where EVERYONE can afford the city is the
ultimate solution we should strive for, not more lotteries for a tiny
percentage.

------
santaclaus
> In the Bay Area, you’re unlikely to have easy access to San Francisco at all
> if you’re not in San Francisco proper.

Eh? It is pretty easy to get to San Francisco from Oakland or Berkeley. Hell,
its easier to get to fidi or soma from Oakland than from parts of San
Francisco.

Edit: For the downvoters, I’m genuinely curious how BART from Oakland to San
Fran is considerd hard? I was simply contesting the point that there is
nowhere in the bay with easy access to San Francisco! Now San Jose to San
Francisco? Maybe not.

~~~
ryguytilidie
Yeah, this is bizarre. I used to live near MacArthur BART and my commute into
the city took ~20 mins. I could EASILY get to: the ballpark, anywhere along
market, anywhere in the mission, SFO.

I now live in El Cerrito, which makes people go "Oh god, how long is your
commute?". 31 minutes. That's it. People seem to think it's a different
planet, but I can't even get through a full podcast on the ride home.

Totally agree with you on the last part. It's WAY easier to get to
FiDi/SOMA/The Mission/Embarcadero or the Ballpark area from Oakland on BART
than it would be to get there from: The Presidio, Sunset, Richmond district,
etc.

~~~
martian
I don't disagree with the sentiment here, but want to add a few comments: If
you have to walk once you get off of Bart (and let's be honest, the Bart stops
are pretty well spaced out), your commute goes up. SF transit (the 38 Geary,
the N) might seem slower, but you typically don't have to walk as far when you
get off. Also, depending on time of day, Muni runs more frequently than the
specific Bart lines. Compared with NY Metro (or most other major cities), Bart
stops are spread thin.

And quick nit on the Presidio: it's a lovely place to live and if you live
there, there is a free shuttle to downtown called the Presidigo that's easy
and efficient.

~~~
santaclaus
> Compared with NY Metro

You end up walking a lot in NYC, too, it isn't some panacea. I had a ~25
minute walk from the N train to my apartment in Queens when I lived in New
York.

------
samlevine
San Francisco's population density: 18,573/sq mi

Manhattan's: 71,998.9/sq mi

It's difficult to look at this without thinking that the initial problem to be
solved is density in the urban core.

Eventually, yes, you need much better transit to outlying areas. This will
take decades even with iron clad political will, which isn't happening short
of a takeover by house of Bourbon.

~~~
timr
That's not how it works. You don't build housing first and the infrastructure
to get to it later. Nobody rational would build a skyscraper in the outer
sunset (even if they could), because they know that the _demand_ isn't there.
Commuting to the outer sunset from downtown is painfully inconvenient. This is
why rents are substantially lower on the west side of SF, despite the lower
density.

Build effective transit, and dense housing _automatically_ happens, because
people will organically demand it -- the story plays out identically in nearly
every city that builds a light rail line. The YIMBY activists in SF don't seem
to understand this, despite lots of rhetoric about supply and demand.

The truth is, YIMBY folks in SF are myopically focused on a few core
neighborhoods that are _already_ pretty dense (i.e. the Mission), and
completely ignoring the driving forces behind the demand. This is largely
because they're being supported by people who want to _re-develop_ already
expensive neighborhoods, which is a quick way to make a buck in the short
term, and a dubious way of responding to a housing crunch. An effective
movement to increase housing density in SF should focus on better transit
corridors, and leave the housing policy to happen of its own accord.

In other words: if you want density in SF, run a subway line down Geary.

------
polskibus
Is it beneficial for the rest of US to save SF? Won't its demise actually
improve the lives in the rest of the country/world as businesses spread out
after workers or allow remote work?

~~~
twinkletwinkle
Isn't that true of any city? Let's permanently shut down the subway in NYC.
The rest of the country will benefit from the flood of educated people looking
for jobs elsewhere.

~~~
polskibus
I suppose it depends whether a city is a hub that serves other cities too, on
the shape of wealth distribution and how the rents are shaped. As far as I
know NYC has rent control laws and it serves as financial hub for many other
cities. If you dismantle it, another city will take it's place, but one not
multiple - that's pretty much how finance works.

------
chrismealy
If nice places for people are too expensive, make more nice places for people.
But instead we make more nice places for cars.

~~~
SirZimzim
Parking lot to parking lot, home computer to cubicle.

------
Veelox
The idea of having a Bay Area "Mayor" sounds like an idea that could have
solve a lot of the problems in the Bay Area. The issue would be trying to make
that transition happen, seems almost impossible.

~~~
ende
Interestingly enough, when SF and Oakland were both attempting to annex every
neighboring town in proximity, SF had designs on consolidating all the Bay
Area municipalities under a system similar to NYC's boroughs.

~~~
gojomo
More details on what coulda, woulda, shoulda been:
[http://hoodline.com/2017/03/that-time-san-francisco-tried-
to...](http://hoodline.com/2017/03/that-time-san-francisco-tried-to-annex-
oakland-berkeley-and-most-of-the-bay-area)

~~~
ende
Aha! I was looking for that article. Thank you!

------
pnathan
I've long thought that having a regional government be the governing authority
for the Tacoma-Everett-Kirkland region would be the proper system to have:
turn the cities into bouroughs and have a Puget Sound Metropolis Government
(that encompasses Seattle).

This would politically solve many intractable problems that are being
naturally caused by local tribes sparring. I think it's likely the proper
solution to the urban/suburban donut problem we have in many regions in the
US.

------
pfarnsworth
The real solution is for companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, etc to have
the COURAGE to create large work epicenters outside of the Bay Area. Create
headquarters for tens of thousands of workers in more remote areas with a
strong infrastructure, with great benefits for working families. Do what
Amazon wants to do with a second HQ, and create demand outside of the Bay
Area.

If Google created a new HQ in Kansas City, with it's fiber links, and low cost
of living, and added really great benefits like free day care, etc, then won't
software engineers move there, especially those that are ready to start a
family? I bet you they would. I definitely would. Then it would create a new
ecosystem of economic prosperity there, and then it would take a lot of
pressure off the Bay Area.

~~~
jra_samba
In its heyday HP did this. Look at places like Roseville and Fort Collins.
Essentially company towns. And while the going is good, and the quarterly
numbers keep going up, everything is great.

But eventually the bad times come, and the employees living in these places
are cast off like so many worn shoes, along with their families.

I've seen this. I'm _never_ moving out of the SF Bay Area until well after
retirement (and maybe not even then :-). Going to a Kansas City HQ is a gamble
that whatever company will always do well. Do you want to gamble your future
on that ? Do you want to gamble your _family_ on that ?

~~~
pfarnsworth
Risk vs return. That's okay that you prefer the Bay Area. I would have no
problems if I knew that Google were committing to a permanent HQ in Kansas
City. If they close down, they close down. I have no control over that, but I
do have control over saving money and still maintaining a high quality of life
because I'm not obsessing over property prices, private school for my kids
because the public schools are so terrible, etc.

~~~
s73ver_
You don't think Google moving to KC would have a huge effect on property
prices?

Not to mention, if they close down, you'll likely have a harder time finding
another job than you would somewhere with a lot of tech places.

~~~
Apocryphon
I think the hope of such a move (ditto Amazon building HQ2 somewhere outside
of the usual SF/ATX/NYC tech hubs) is that if one giant did it, other
companies would follow, tech workers who leave the giant go and build
startups, wealth and talent attract VCs, etc. The hub self-reinforces itself,
much like how SF and Seattle have done it. It would be a very interesting
economic experiment to see if a cycle can be created in new areas.

------
methodover
Better transit and a unified representative government is a great idea.

It's also never going to happen. Or if it will, it's decades away.

I've become convinced that if we want real change, it needs to be done by
technology. Lyft for example could solve the transit problem if they figure
out how to lower the cost of a ride, perhaps with automated drivers. Then you
wouldn't need to build too much more infrastructure -- no need to get the
entire bay rallied around a hundred billion dollar public transit system
that's just going to get outdated again. We might need to make another bridge
though...

Housing is another problem though. I've been wondering if technology can help
there too but I haven't come up with any good ideas yet.

~~~
whamlastxmas
AirBnB arguably has the potential to help with housing. Some would argue it
also winds up hurting it though.

~~~
methodover
The best idea I've heard is a system that helps people pool their money
together to buy expensive single family homes, then split the lot into
multiple homes or into a condo.

------
kcorbitt
I agree with everything that the article writes. That said, if you work in SF
and are looking for a concrete way to improve your commute today without
adding another car to the road, consider purchasing an electric bike or
scooter. I've been commuting from San Bruno to SOMA (14 miles each way) for
the last 3 months on an electric bike and I vastly prefer the experience to
the available alternatives. If you live closer in, it's even more of a no-
brainer.

------
taheca
Those of us who grew up in less desirable environments (where they have real
winter) are perfectly content with living out farther, and commuting in on the
BART.

I personally live out by the Delta surrounded by fresh air, fresh fruit, and
nice people (we have a strong community and frequently see people we know out
and about, it's great). My commute into SF is about 90 min one way, and it is
the easiest, least stressful commute I have had in my life.

~~~
alkonaut
I hope you work during your commute so you don't have to be away from family
for 3 + 8 (Or more) hours. That means basically working the whole day all
week, seeing your family only on weekends. I can't imagine what kind of comp
someone would want for that (effectively permanent 55 hour weeks).

~~~
taheca
Easy to make a statement like this.

My wife has never worked because she did not have a career established when we
decided to have kids. Allowing her to stay home is one of my proudest
accomplishments (and it has done wonders for our kids).

I am home every night to spend a few hours with my kids, and I read to them
every night before bed.

I spend all day on the weekends with them.

Sure I would love a shorter commute, as I said, I am in a non technical, and
not in as high demand profession as many on here.

This is what a regular person goes through Hackernews. Keep that in
consideration the next time you feel like complaining.

~~~
alkonaut
I don't mean to say you are making poor choices, I meant to say I hope you are
well compensated for it. And it saddens me that we still have to be making
this (11-12h workday) as a perhaps rational choice. It's a failure in
infrastructure, city planning, labor laws, ... People fought really hard to
get to 5 day/40h work weeks. Seems we lost a bit of momentum after that.

------
RestlessMind
> Do we want to be a white-washed Disneyland for software developers, or do we
> want to be a vibrant, diverse, integrated (and bigger) city?

What if people actually prefer the former? I mean, sure, their "stated
preference" can be later but the "revealed preference" can actually be a
myopic selfish one; which is not that abnormal and totally in line with basic
human nature (claims of "being progressive" notwithstanding!)

~~~
Apocryphon
Social causes aside, do a majority of software developers really want to live
only with software devs? What happened to monocultures being bad?

It might come with being a local, but I always feel alarmed when people
contrast to places like NY or LA, which have a dominant industry but isn't as
dominated by it, and have costs of living that allow those outside of the
high-paying industry to survive. Having a one-industry region is trouble both
economically, and culturally. (Doesn't it get tiring to only meet people who
are in tech? Doesn't it create bubbles cut off from the larger world?)

------
atcole
His proposal is two-fold, for those who want a summary.

1) Build better transit to connect areas that are affordable (or areas at all
i.e. San Jose / Oakland) to central business districts

2) To accomplish this by creating a centralized governing authority for the
whole Bay Area.

I wonder if this kind of consolidation has ever happened before. Did New York
City absorb areas that it now controls as it evolved, or did the parties agree
afterward to some symbiotic relationship?

~~~
vosper
I'd argue Oakland is fairly well connected to the SF CBD. A lot of people in
Oakland live within (at most) a 15-20 minute walk of a BART station, and then
it's ~20 minutes to downtown SF, with only a handful of stops.

What surprises me is that there aren't more startups headquartered in Oakland.
Sure, it's a bit more hassle for people in SF to get out there, but you're
going against the flow of traffic, so the commute is pleasant. And my
suspicion is there are a lot of senior people living in the East Bay (or even
further out). People who've moved on from small apartments and roommates and
and have their own places, or have a family, or want cheaper rent... whatever
it is. I suspect there's enough of those people who'd love to be getting on
and off at 19th St Oakland and working down near Lake Merritt, rather than
commuting into the city. I have a senior engineer friend, living in Berkeley,
who said he'd take a $20k pay cut not to have to commute into SF. And that's
not even a bad commute.

If I was starting up, looking to save some money, and wanting to hire
experienced developers, I would definitely be setting up in Oakland.

------
abalone
tl;dr Uses excellent maps to visualize just how dramatically worse our
regional mass transit is vs. New York. Makes the point that Manhattan is very
dense but still not affordable. What makes New York more affordable is the
accessibility of less expensive boroughs.

Wackier highlights: calls for politically reorganizing the bay area into a
metropolitan government, and confuses regional work commutes with "diversity
and inclusion."

------
abecedarius
Would you bet on the rail network being greatly improved before robocars
greatly improve the experience on the road network? That’d be good, but I
wouldn’t.

------
kapauldo
Is SF out of buildings to renovate? If I were to move to SF it would be to
build housing. Seems like a sure bet.

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purplezooey
Great article! I like the call for bold strokes. We seem helpless in the face
of our big problems.

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ringaroundthetx
Finally, empirical evidence that San Francisco sucks without just coming off
as a pretentious New Yorker.

SF masquerades as a world class city because there is literally nothing else
for Northern California to compare it to.

