
New businesses are choosing cities with good public transportation: study - jseliger
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/07/startup-cities-public-transportation-new-business-development/594286
======
ghaff
I was a bit confused by this article, especially given the headline. As I read
it, the research was something along the lines of: We looked at cities that
are known for having a lot of startups. Some of those cities have decent
transit systems. Others don't. Where there were decent transit systems, we saw
businesses generally clustering around transit. (Which seems fairly obvious.)
Where there wasn't decent transit, businesses couldn't very well cluster
around it, could they?

I don't actually doubt the general statement that startups are tending to
abandon suburban office parks for certain cities--some of which have decent
transit systems and commuter rail. And there's probably some connection
between transit and attractiveness to young urban-dwellers in particular. But
the headline seems only sometimes true.

~~~
save_ferris
Agreed, this looks like a classic example of "correlation != causation".

It seems like this argument taken to it's final conclusion would be that
startups gravitate towards cities with better transit than those that don't,
which isn't the case given the Austin and San Jose examples.

~~~
ghaff
And, for that matter, San Francisco is nothing to write home about.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
Of course I haven't lived there in about 30 years, but when I did I think it
was better than much of the U.S

~~~
baddox
Probably second in the US to NYC right?

~~~
servercobra
Personally, I think Chicago's is much better than SF. But SF's is still
alright and certainly better than LA (where I am now).

~~~
em-bee
and i thought LA was all right, at least if you are not in the suburbs

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pwned1
Transit usage has been declining for years in all of the cities listed in this
article, except Austin.

[https://nationaltransitdatabase.org/massachusetts/massachuse...](https://nationaltransitdatabase.org/massachusetts/massachusetts-
bay-transportation-authority/)

[https://nationaltransitdatabase.org/pennsylvania/southeaster...](https://nationaltransitdatabase.org/pennsylvania/southeastern-
pennsylvania-transportation-authority/)

[https://nationaltransitdatabase.org/california/santa-
clara-v...](https://nationaltransitdatabase.org/california/santa-clara-valley-
transportation-authority/)

[https://nationaltransitdatabase.org/ohio/the-greater-
clevela...](https://nationaltransitdatabase.org/ohio/the-greater-cleveland-
regional-transit-authority/)

[https://nationaltransitdatabase.org/texas/capital-
metropolit...](https://nationaltransitdatabase.org/texas/capital-metropolitan-
transportation-authority/)

~~~
Tuxer
hi it's me caltrain, serving santa clara and growing 2x in 15 years

[https://nationaltransitdatabase.org/california/peninsula-
cor...](https://nationaltransitdatabase.org/california/peninsula-corridor-
joint-powers-board-dba-caltrain/)

~~~
briandear
In 15 years, how much has road usage grown and how much has population grown?
Just a 2x increase seems like a relative decline.

~~~
rgbrenner
SF hasn't grown by anywhere near 2x in 15 years:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco%E2%80%93Oakland%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco%E2%80%93Oakland%E2%80%93Berkeley,_CA_Metropolitan_Statistical_Area)

~~~
Tempest1981
True, but tech jobs have grown more than 4x:

 _Since the current expansion started in 2010, the San Francisco tech industry
has more than quadrupled in size to 100,644 tech jobs as of year-end 2018._

[https://www.globest.com/2019/11/13/san-francisco-has-
second-...](https://www.globest.com/2019/11/13/san-francisco-has-second-
highest-tech-jobs-growth/?slreturn=20200213044019)

------
chrisseaton
> Cities With Good Transit ... San Francisco

Does not compute. San Francisco has essentially one subway line, one slow
local railway line, some horrendous busses, admittedly a good airport. That's
it.

~~~
BurningFrog
My Indian coworker says he's never seen a worse public transit system than SF.

I have no conflicting data to offer.

~~~
jyounker
Muni sucks, and it simply seems to be a matter of miss-management. Timed
stops? What are those?

On the other hand BART is fairly effective, and once you're in the city a
bicycle will get you from one end to the other in forty-five minutes.

~~~
BurningFrog
BART is fairly decent, in the limited areas it serves.

It's also not run by the city of SF, which to me explains their relative
competence.

------
ravenstine
This article is confusing. How are they determining what's a "startup"? If you
count a small retail, food, or tech business as a startup, then it's going to
appear like there have been a lot of startups in suburbs. But more people
don't consider mom and pop operations to be "startups".

------
jackcosgrove
I remember reading an article in NewGeography (which is often a counterpoint
to CityLab, so take both with a grain of salt) discussing the Los Angeles
subway expansion. LA actually saw declining use as the subway expanded, and
this was mostly chalked up to lower income people being better able to afford
a car and therefore not related to the subway expansion.

However another theory was that LA subway expansion is often accompanied by
gentrification near stations. This makes the train less accessible for low
income people, who are most likely to use it. In this way public transit could
increasingly be a luxury good, chosen for the lifestyle benefits (no fighting
traffic) rather than economic necessity.

For a very niche audience I think this is true, and this audience has a lot of
overlap with startups.

------
killjoywashere
This just in: people flock to cities, which then have the tax base to justify
additional bond sales to fund further construction. Also, positive feedback
loops exist. In other news, bread is now available pre-sliced.

~~~
reportgunner
Yeah I don't understand why we needed a study for this.

Why would a business start in places that are hard to get to ?

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duxup
I'm a little confused. I thought a lot of new businesses were started by
immigrants who often do use / need transit and such....

I feel like there's a lot of factors here that aren't being accounted for.

I'm not sure if this isn't just "lots of new businesses in cities"...

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Mountain_Skies
Many big businesses are also citing the existence of public transit as a
reason for relocating to a new city. Of course there are usually tens or
hundreds of million in subsidies and gifts when they relocate so it's hard to
know if transit is truly important or a bit of obfuscation for their real
motives.

------
nl
The title I'm seeing on the article is "Startups Are Abandoning Suburbs for
Cities With Good Transit" which seems to more accurately represent the study
compared to the current HN title: "New businesses are choosing cities with
good public transportation: study"

------
eugenekolo
Correlation is not causation? A better guess would be that businesses are
choosing places where the next generation of employees wants to live and
work... happens to be cities on the coasts that also have public transit
systems.

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tus88
Why the hell wouldn't you take that into account, alongside a raft of other
factors?

------
throwaway1777
Oh, I thought startups were abandoning expensive cities for remote work and
cheaper living costs.

~~~
bpodgursky
They are. This article doesn't prove, or even show, the opposite.

(CityLab does a lot of good stuff, but they are 100% pro-dense-urban
development. Independent of whether it's a bias you support, it colors the
articles you'll see from them.)

~~~
TulliusCicero
I really don't think there's much movement on that front, of startups moving
away from expensive cities to remote work. I'd like there to be, that'd be
rad, but I haven't seen anything to that effect that's significant. Do you
have a source for that assertion?

And what CityLab is, is pro-making-cities-that-aren't-garbage. There's a
reason Americans marvel at how _nice_ European cities feel when they visit,
while almost no Europeans say the same thing about any US cities.

US cities have nice businesses and people and points of interest within, but
the design of the cities themselves is almost always terrible.

~~~
bpodgursky
I know a lot of startups aggressively hiring for remote roles for devs. I can
send you names if you're looking for opportunities (fair warning, most will be
limited to US residents).

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burfog
That isn't good.

We're trying to slow a pandemic. Until we get a vaccine, public transportation
shouldn't be running.

------
trothamel
I prefer to get places in my Coronavirus-ready Autonomous Rover (CAR, for
short).

Being in it alone or with a few friends, family members, or co-workers means
that there's an innate means of social distancing. That's also improved by the
way it doesn't require hubs where many people are forced to congregate - for
moderately long journeys, I can stay in my CAR all the way from my house to
walking distance of my destination.

And of course, while not as fully autonomous as the name might suggest, my CAR
only requires refueling every three hundred and change miles, and maintenance
every five thousand or so. This provides some robustness if the infrastructure
is compromised, whether by disease or other issues.

It looks like CARs might have a place in the 2020s.

~~~
Symbiote
These features are useful approximately what, once a century?

The cost of infrastructure for cars far, far outweighs the cost of a few weeks
of no-one working, and the pollution has caused many more deaths than
Coronavirus will.

~~~
trothamel
I'd think that the social isolation feature has benefits whenever communicable
diseases are in the air, which seems to be every winter. The autonomous nature
of the system means each CAR can change from road to road to route around
congestion and construction, in a way that mass transit can't.

And of course, the time saved by being able to go from point to point rather
than through mass transit hubs quickly adds up to many lifetimes. I agree that
pollution is something that needs to be addressed, which is why electric and
hybrid CARs are being introduced by startups and legacy players in the
industry.

~~~
nicoburns
> each CAR can change from road to road to route around congestion and
> construction, in a way that mass transit can't.

Assuming there is a route without congestion. There typically isn't at rush
hour in large cities. On the others hand trains have a dedicated track and
thus don't have traffic problems.

> And of course, the time saved by being able to go from point to point rather
> than through mass transit hubs quickly adds up to many lifetimes.

If your transport system is good enough this isn't a problem either. In
London, you're rarely more than 5-10 minutes from a tube station. And they'll
likely be buses even closer. Public transport is much quicker than driving for
most journeys. I think I know fewer than 5 people who own a car here.

~~~
burfog
Finding a route without congestion is literally impossible for trains stuck on
a dedicated track. One little traffic problem shuts down the whole line,
including all stations along the route. Since lines are typically connected
without redundancy, a failure can partition the network into two disconnected
halves.

All it takes, in one tiny little spot anywhere on the line: derailment, flood,
suicide, stuck switch, malfunctioning sensor, failed motor, wrong kind of
leaves on the rails, wrong kind of snow on the rails, broken signal, street-
running car crash, tracks blocked off for a crime scene investigation, bomb
threat...

~~~
nicoburns
Well sure, but in practice on a well-run line this doesn't happen very often.
Especially on underground lines which don't have weather realted problems.
This maybe happens to me a couple of times a year. Whereas roads often have
traffic jams every day.

