
A Google Gentrification Fight That Doesn’t Involve San Francisco - sinemetu11
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/a-google-gentrification-fight-that-doesnt-involve-san-francisco/?ref=technology
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hkarthik
Boulder was like this when I was in college there, well before Google existed.
They always capped growth at a ridiculously low percentage because of all the
NIMBY behavior.

Housing in the surrounding suburbs of Denver would easily be less than 1/4 the
price. Most people who worked in Boulder commuted from a nearby suburb even
back then. Thankfully it was the only the city in the area to pick up on
NIMBYism, unlike the Bay Area.

~~~
lexap
But how do you know that Boulder real estate won't get more expensive if
Google moves in? Seems like they'd be adding at least a couple percentage
points to the higher income working population, which would have that effect.

~~~
mathattack
Let's say they say No, and Google moves a town over. What happens then?

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hkarthik
Google moving a town over would be the same as choosing a town like Longmont
or Broomfield. Which is likely to be just fine, and provides just as many jobs
for graduates in the area, without getting mired in Boulder politics.

That's exactly what Sun and every other big tech company did in the 1990s when
they had a footprint in Colorado.

~~~
mathattack
Being the Devil's advocate - does it still push up Boulder's home prices?

~~~
davidw
And also, for people who purport to care about urban sprawl, is pushing things
farther out and increasing commutes a good answer?

~~~
hkarthik
The only way to decrease sprawl would be to increase density, and frankly few
Coloradoans would go for that. Few cities outside of Denver have tall
buildings because people don't like their mountain views obstructed. And
public transportation is pretty limited. Many people live in Colorado to enjoy
the outdoors, and to do so, you need your own transportation. Once you have
your own transportation, there's very little incentive to take a bus or train
on a regular basis.

~~~
davidw
Ok, but Boulder is supposed to be fairly liberal, environmentally conscious
and so on. They seem a bit out of touch with reality: they don't want to
increase housing stock, but they don't want higher prices either.

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xiaoma
Brad Feld wrote a pretty scathing response to this piece, and as someone who
lived in the Denver / Boulder area growing up, I have to agree with him.

[http://www.feld.com/archives/2014/12/endless-struggle-
boulde...](http://www.feld.com/archives/2014/12/endless-struggle-boulder.html)

~~~
jseliger
Nice post. But I left this as a comment:

I'm perplexed that in the midst of a piece about rising housing prices, no one
mentions housing supply. The tools necessary to increase housing supply in the
face of rising demand have been available since the early 1900s—as discussed
extensively here, in _The Rent is Too Damn High_
([http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078XGJXO)—and](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078XGJXO\)—and)
yet this endless series of articles doesn't mention the obvious.

The solution to rising prices is to increase the supply of the good in
question. Yet reporters rarely seem to mention this, and they treat rising
housing prices as some kind of law of nature.

~~~
mathattack
The strange thing is that the same things that people use to fight rent
increases (rent control, etc) wind up creating perverse incentives that reduce
the quality and quantity of the housing stock. If you want cheap rent,
encourage people to build houses.

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Pxtl
Why do they always locate in places that have these screwed-up housing
markets. There are many, many urban centres in North America with ample
university grads pouring out of local institutions, a plethora of amenities,
and cheap housing. Any former-industrial city fits the template just fine and
would be ecstatic to have a gentrification "problem".

~~~
michaelochurch
_Why do they always locate in places that have these screwed-up housing
markets._

Large corporations don't care about housing market issues, and the prestige of
locating in a brand-name city is worth the (slightly) higher salaries that
they have to pay.

That said, I've heard good things about Boulder, and it seems like an
excellent place to live, but it's not exactly a brand-name city (and I sure as
hell can't see why it would be so expensive to live in a place that's not
land-constrained like Manhattan.) It's not Manhattan or DC or Boston or
Chicago. It's not even San Francisco (in terms of brand-name; I am sure it's a
better place to live than SF).

~~~
TYPE_FASTER
It's land constrained on the west by the mountains. The farther east you go,
the cheaper the housing is.

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nilkn
Boulder has always been quite expensive because of the abundance of nature
that it basks in. This might add to high real estate prices, but certainly
would not be the root cause of it.

It's actually traditionally been quite an educated and engineering-focused
city, so it's really nothing other than NIMBYism for current residents to
oppose this. Does it really matter if some of the new residents are software
rather than petroleum engineers?

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raldi
More of the "I'm in; close the gate!" mentality.

"People who arrived after me are ruining Boulder!"

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robotic
What a luxury these people have to complain and be worried about high income
jobs coming to their town. The town I live in would fall all over itself to
have Google build a campus here.

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irickt
Brad Feld commented on this article here:
[http://www.feld.com/archives/2014/12/endless-struggle-
boulde...](http://www.feld.com/archives/2014/12/endless-struggle-boulder.html)

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michaeldwan
Anyone who describes Boulder as undergoing gentrification has clearly never
been here. Upper class whites have been pushing out middle class whites for 15
years now. Comparing this to the situation in SF seems irrelevant.

Edit: I've split time between Boulder and SF for the past few years and have
experienced both.

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ca3dmon
While cost in certainly an interesting -and perhaps dire- discussion, I'm
equally curious about what this will do to the work environment in Boulder.

A have a good deal of my friends in tech here in Boulder, many of who work for
big names such at Twitter and Google. However, nearly all of them agree- they
wouldn't work at those places if they had to work Silicon Valley Hours.

Boulder has long had a culture of not working 80 hours weeks like the Valley.
But if Google massively increases their presence in Boulder, I wonder if that
will change the normal work habits here? Or perhaps they will lose the workers
that refuse to prioritize work over lifestyle?

I really don't know which way that will go, although I personally hope the
latter.

~~~
blackaspen
I would like to think that 1100 people isn't enough of a critical mass for
other companies in Boulder to start "requesting" the devotion of 80 hour
weeks. As long as it's only one(Google) then employees who move to Google
Boulder with the hopes of a non-Silicon Valley lifestyle can find hopefully
equally gainful employees at one of the other companies.

If the general world culture here were to become more similar to that of the
Valley then I'd leave. Part of the reason I live in Boulder is because of the
lifestyle perks (being able to go skiing in 90 minutes). As soon as I don't
have time to enjoy that there's much less reason to stay.

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davidw
Interesting; I'm considering moving to that area. Sad to see this kind of
thing, especially considering that Boulder has plenty of room both vertically,
and to the east, in which to add housing stock so as to lower prices.

~~~
davesque
No, it doesn't. Much of the area to the east is protected under open-space
laws. Also, there have been limits imposed on the vertical height of buildings
intended to control the atmosphere of the town.

~~~
TulliusCicero
What's more important, the atmosphere of the town, or the affordability of the
town?

~~~
ca3dmon
Unfortunately, the upper class of the town think the former.

I know a prominent member of the local government personally, and we've
discussed this problem at some length. The fundamental trouble- and hypocrisy
IMO- is that many of the people in the town bitch and moan when prices go up
and interesting local businesses/artists/features have to leave. But these
same people refuse to allow greater density and constantly try to also push
the students out.

I'm fine with Google moving in to town if we can get smaller, more affordable
units in greater number. However, due to the planning decisions being pushed
by various groups, there aren't any studio sized apartments being allow to
develop in the city, and the affordable neighborhoods are often 'historic',
turning into student ghettos.

Most of my friends are high payed tech folk and don't have trouble with rent.
But many others, like myself, are designers, photographers, writers and so
forth. We don't have the money to rent a 2 bedroom apartment for ourselves, or
buy a condo to sublet. The only other option at this point is to live with 3-5
roommates in a house, for 600+ a month.

I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to have an reasonable, clean, modern 1 bedroom studio
like I had in Copenhagen. But that just doesn't exist in Boulder, and most
attempts to make such things are blocked.

In the end, I think Boulder could address the housing and cultural concerns
while still preserving the Open Space around the town. But we'll HAVE to
accept greater density, better transit (which needs density) and the fact that
sometimes in a city you'll see things you dislike. Without change on these
fronts, I suspect we'll quickly go the unfortunate way of Silicon Valley...

~~~
wiseleyb
I remember living in Boulder (now in SF) in the late 80's. They had laws
banning more than 2 unrelated people living together - making roommates kind
of impossible.

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nickhalfasleep
I'm surprised nobody just puts together a new little tech town on the front
range where there isn't anything, say just south of Pueblo or north of Ft.
Collins. Plenty of foothills to go around.

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GFK_of_xmaspast
Why would anybody want to live there.

~~~
davidw
The mountains to the west, mostly.

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ChrisNorstrom
Change the tax code to a "Colonizer's Locked In Rate" so that people who
originally started or live in a town pay the same property tax as long as they
stay in that town / city / zip code / within _ mile radius of their original
home.

● That way original residents are not forced out.

● Low income residents can afford to stay without further special subsidies.
Tax payers don't have to pay for low income housing.

● Residents will have the incentive to improve their communities without fear
of it raising their taxes.

~~~
YokoZar
They're not afraid of taxes, they're afraid of rents. Locking property tax
rates is exactly what California does and it only makes housing supply worse
by giving a very strong incentive for incumbents not to leave.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
I stand corrected. What's a realistic solution then? Acceptance that times
change, cities change and nothing is permanent and any attempt to create
permanency almost always comes with some kind of consequence?

~~~
seanflyon
Yes. Times change, communities change and if a middle class area or even a
slum becomes a wealthy neighborhood that's not such a bad thing.

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TYPE_FASTER
Real estate has always cost more in Boulder than neighboring towns. There's a
height restriction on building, and the local government (I've forgotten if it
was the county or city) bought a lot of open space from private landowners.

Supply and demand...people want to live in Boulder because it's nice because
there is open space. Google builds in places where people want to live.

