
In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown - akud
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/technology/in-san-francisco-and-rooting-for-a-tech-slowdown.html
======
spinlock
One of the interesting side-effects of Sen. Fienstien's quest to keep high-
rises out of San Francisco is that _all_ real estate is more expensive. There
are many people here with similarly narrow ideas about how to protect what is
"theirs."

A great example would be the people who throw rocks at Google busses. Everyone
on that buss can afford a car and would drive to work alone (maybe carpool) if
they didn't have the busses to reduce congestion.

~~~
DannyBee
FWIW: A lot of those rock throwers were probably not in bad shape. That is
because the real people being hurt were probably working their first or second
job at the time that was happening, and didn't have time to throw rocks at
buses because they'd get fired for not showing up to work.

~~~
xur17
Serious question: Who is getting hurt by Google driving people to work on
buses. It seems like this reduces congestion, and helps the environment, which
is good for everyone. What am I missing here?

~~~
jonknee
The issue was they're using public bus stops. It's not hard to picture why
it's demeaning to be standing at the public infrastructure and see a fancy
shuttle come and pick up "Google People" while you're left waiting to ride
with the proletariat. Especially demeaning when the shuttle is in the way of
the real bus.

Imagine if the NYC subway had a special car for Wall Street workers that was
much more comfortable.

~~~
fluxquanta
How is this any different from someone driving a 2017 Lexus versus a 1990
Toyota? Both may be a reflection of the income one receives. Both take up the
same public infrastructure of the road and parking spaces.

~~~
jonknee
I don't get your point, but if you park your car in a public bus stop you're
an asshole regardless of its value.

~~~
fluxquanta
You seemed to imply in your original comment that taking the Google bus versus
not taking the Google bus boils down to a class issue of "haves" and "have
nots", so I was trying to illustrate that no matter what that class
distinction would still exist.

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thedevil
When I lived in SF, the categorical hate towards tech workers (I was not a
tech worker back then) was nothing like "mainstream". It was just a few
extremists, a few protesters I might see in the news. I didn't actually know
anyone like that. Journalists made it sound like a bigger thing than it was.

It's been over 3 years though. Has the anti-tech-worker hate really gone
mainstream or are journalists continuing to inflate it?

~~~
wsinks
I actually gave an interview to a reporter for NPR recently. I work for a
major tech company. Here's what I told him:

I don't feel the hatred, and I think reports of it are either from areas where
I haven't been in (so single events that I missed) or it's not actually a
problem.

All of his questions were leading questions into people hating on tech
workers. I hang out with people of middle class, both upper and lower, go work
occasionally with poorer people, and have rubbed my shoulders with a couple
richer tech elite. I feel like the chances are I would've experienced the
hatred.

So either I'm missing out on a lot (I don't think I am..) or they're
overblown.

------
Apocryphon
Tech workers are not to blame, but tech workers shouldn't blame those angry at
getting priced out, either. Instead, both groups should work together to lobby
for more housing.

So the question is, how can a hacker help?

~~~
dublinben
>how can a hacker help?

Help make remote work more possible and acceptable.

~~~
briandear
This this THIS! I live on two acres in the South of France. If I couldn't work
remotely I'd be in San Francisco like the rest. So my three kids go to a small
village school, I rarely drive the car and I paid as much for my place as I
would have an apartment in San Fran.

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bishnu
I think people will be shocked by how little housing prices decrease if the
startup economy experiences a downturn.

~~~
api
Absolutely. Housing prices are like wages: very "sticky." _Nobody_ wants to
_ever_ sell a house at a loss or drop their rent, so housing will sit idle on
the market rather than take a write-down.

The only way housing could conceivably fall (without intense depression-level
pain) is if the entire rest of the economy inflated such that housing was
reasonable. Everyone would be making six figures, a gallon of gas would be $6,
a loaf of bread over $10, but housing would be reasonable again.

~~~
doseofreality
Yes, right. Housing can never fall. I've heard that one before.

~~~
api
Housing fell _a little bit_ off the 2005 highs and the result was very nearly
a total collapse of the financial system. The Fed and the government did
everything they could to backstop housing (at the expense of housing
affordability and banking system reform) and it's now permanently
unaffordable.

More accurately we could say that housing will never be allowed to fall. The
entire economy will be sacrificed at the altar of home values. Homeowners vote
more than non-homeowners, and so much investment capital is tied up in housing
that a major fall in home values would destroy the financial system.

~~~
waterlesscloud
This chart for housing prices in San Jose fell off more than "a little bit."

[http://www.zillow.com/san-jose-ca/home-values/](http://www.zillow.com/san-
jose-ca/home-values/)

~~~
api
There was a dip, sure, but that's not what I meant. There was no lasting
correction.

------
bonniemuffin
I question the author's fact-checking abilities when the article starts with
the statement "the city officially gave the shuttles free rein to use public
bus stops". Actually, the shuttles can only use 200 out of 2500+ muni stops
and have a plethora of other restrictions. That doesn't seem like "free rein"
to me.

See [https://www.sfmta.com/projects-planning/projects/commuter-
sh...](https://www.sfmta.com/projects-planning/projects/commuter-shuttles-
policy-and-pilot-program) for full program details, and
[http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/San-Francisco-Muni-
Appr...](http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/San-Francisco-Muni-Approves-
Commuter-Shuttle-Bus-Pilot-Program-241401511.html) for a reference on the "200
out of 2500" statistic.

~~~
Cyclone_
That just tells me the author most likely is in favor of making the tech
companies look bad even if it means distorting the truth.

------
equalarrow
The overall gist of this article to me seems like a similar SF argument: let's
keep the city the way it was. Let's not build more housing, let's not build
up, let's not move forward into the future.

Obviously, this isn't how a city moves forward and grows.

Peskin is not necessarily a bad guy.. I agree with him on some things, but
neighborhood preservation is not one. It's easy to single out tech in all of
this, but the prior non-tech landlords have a lot of blame on this. Sure,
market dictates pricing and the large tech community has been willing to let
the prices go up. (Mind you, this isn't just real estate, but also food.) But,
I feel like, as someone in tech not able to afford buying _today_, I'd rather
have the city moving forward vs. stagnant just so another group of people can
live here.

I appreciate diversity and my wife and I have talked for a few years of where
else we should move to. Portland? Seattle? Austin? But, SF seems to have the
right mix of diversity (more or less), compact city-ness (like NYC), close to
a lot of great outdoors, and a lot of other things. We just keep coming back
to SF has pretty much all the boxes checked off for us, even if it's in this
crazy inflated market right now.

Nothing lasts forever and we will probably get some kind of housing
correction. But look a look back historically will show that you can't buy a
house anywhere (at least in the bay area) for $20k, like our parents did. To
think that things should stand still and stay fixed is just ignoring how
reality works for cities that keep growing..

Maybe this will all go away once we have no need for money like in Star Trek.
But today, this isn't the case.

~~~
YuriNiyazov
The idea that "the future" is a megapolis that needs to be built up really
needs to be defended a bit more. Historically, the dense megapolis has been
the future, but that might have just be an accident of technology's evolution.
Why can't Earth be densely covered with smallish cities like current Berkeley
and San Francisco?

------
the_watcher
Very few people who are being remotely rational disagree that techs
relationship with San Francisco couldn't be improved. That said, relying on
rental prices to justify an argument that tech is the root cause of the issues
and ignoring that the only adequate solution - building more housing - is
primarily opposed by exactly the same people is the height of hypocrisy.

------
chvid
How about: let's root for interest rates to go up by 5 percentage points or
so.

------
capkutay
I can't stand obstructionist politicians, but I also don't buy the argument
that SF is not 'moving forward'. It's also building a significant amount of
housing and getting over its fear of heights. There are 3 districts in SF
getting significant up zoning. This is what SF's downtown will look like in 3
years:

[http://i.imgur.com/mcJf5zK.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/mcJf5zK.jpg)

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rco8786
Agree with a lot of this, but it seems odd that parents are worried about
children getting hit by a bus. Are there not school bus stops in front of
every school?

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vishalzone2002
i think a viable solution would be to look at internal structures of companies
and really find out teams and departments that could function from a remote
location. It could be tech or product or even HR. And move them to different
office locations distributed at a wider spread to avoid one epicenter for
influx of population.. Not sure if some company tried thinking in this way..

------
WalterSear
The non-tech parts of this town will be devastated by a tech slowdown.
Absolutely destroyed.

~~~
e40
How's that? They seemed to be OK before the crazy upswing.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
The relative power structure won't meaningfully shift. Levels will just
change. The guy whose 1% of this pie is meaningful today may find that it is
unsustainable tomorrow. The gal who lives richly on her 10% of the pie may
have to tighten a belt or two tomorrow, but it's unlikely to become be
existential. More tangibly, city services will pull away from non-core areas,
projects and services.

~~~
metanoia
I would argue that despite budget increases we have not seen an appreciable
increase in operating service levels across the board - from transit to
infrastructure to homeless outreach and everything in between. Hard to believe
with a $9B (yes, billion) budget. [1]

(Yes, there are capital expenditures happening that are quite visible but do
we really need an extension of the slow T-line to Fishermans Wharf?)

[1] -
[http://sfmayor.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/mayor/budget/SF_Budget_...](http://sfmayor.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/mayor/budget/SF_Budget_Book_FY_2015_16_and_2016_17_Final_WEB.pdf)

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beatpanda
For the love of God, move your company somewhere else. You don't have "easy
access to capital" as an excuse anymore. You could locate literally anywhere.
Stop coming here. Thank you.

------
guyzero
Terrible public transit. A lifeless housing policy that's out of touch with
local needs. Police rousting people out of one homeless encampment and then
the same people just setting up a new camp a few blocks away. Racially charged
police shootings.

And the problem is workers at tech companies.

------
fiatmoney
San Francisco is one massive "tech slowdown" (although I suppose more like a
tech collapse, given the baseline level of employment further down in Silicon
Valley) from turning into Detroit-on-the-Bay.

~~~
emcq
That's some very wishful thinking. You have rich people like Robin Williams or
Michelle Pfeiffer living here unlike Detroit, not to name countless CEOs and
retired VCs who wont disappear.

As for the rest of us plebs, SF has survived many boom and bust cycles [0],
unlike Detroit.

[0]
[http://sfist.com/2015/10/07/san_francisco_has_always_been_a_...](http://sfist.com/2015/10/07/san_francisco_has_always_been_a_pre.php)

~~~
fiatmoney
There were rich people living in Detroit, until they moved to Grosse Point and
such. Is San Francisco, the geographic-political entity, _that attractive_
that people wouldn't move 10 miles to Daly City or Burlingame to escape the SF
municipal government?

~~~
dang
The answer to that question is certainly yes.

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dreamdu5t
Please stop posting this drivel. It's like listening to a broken record. Shut.
Up.

