
Bay Area Politicians Strangling the Region's Key Industry - apsec112
http://reason.com/archives/2016/08/26/bay-area-politicians-strangling-the-regi
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matt_wulfeck
> Five years after the boom, it's time for San Francisco to ask the tech
> companies to pay their fair share.

I read a comment like this and I ask what the heck I'm paying taxes for? I'm
getting ripped in _both_ state and federal taxes. If the cities aren't getting
their fair share of the money then they should take it up with he state,
because somebody is sure getting paid!

~~~
bagels
It's infuriating. Higher salaries = higher taxes. Tech is already paying more
than its fair share of taxes. These same politicians are trying to blame tech
success as the sole cause of high housing costs, ignoring their own failures
to deal with poor regional transportation and the regulatory impossibility of
building enough housing.

~~~
jjawssd
Who is representing your cause politically? Sounds like a good case for a
political action committee

~~~
Decade
I suppose there would be:

San Francisco Housing Action Coalition
[http://www.sfhac.org/](http://www.sfhac.org/)

San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association
[http://www.spur.org](http://www.spur.org)

And there are smaller efforts such as:

GrowSF [http://www.growsanfrancisco.org](http://www.growsanfrancisco.org)

SF Bay Area Renters’ Federation [http://www.sfbarf.org](http://www.sfbarf.org)

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adrianratnapala
The behaviour of the politicians is not a baffling as the _Reason_ authors
make it seem. Money-making industries can be troublesome for their locales.

When I lived in London I thought it was a great city but felt there was "too
much money" in it. I.e. finance people could drive up prices for the rest of
us. But then again, it was that very money that made the place great.

So while zero-sum leftism is silly, it is still in the interest of San
Fransicans to try and grab some of the IT bonanza through taxes. A vindictive
one-indsutry only tax is ugly, but property-value taxes would get right to the
heart of the problem.

~~~
mahyarm
London also has another problem, non-domiciled residents who only have to pay
a flat fee income tax on global income and a non-existent property tax scheme.
The combo leads to an explosion of real estate as bank account and very
wealthy people moving into the key city of London, making it impossible for
even the upper middle class salaried briton to buy property.

You might as well call the entire UK rainy Monaco.

On top of that, the finance types have been there for quite a while, but it's
only in the recent few decades that have made london extra crazy.

Other regions of the USA have had economic booms, but it hasn't ended up with
hyper growth in property prices because they have less supply restrictions in
development.

~~~
0max
I literally just saw a Russell Brand documentary on this. To be fair it was
more galvanizing than factual.

~~~
mahyarm
As long as the non-dom resident income tax rule is real, that is enough to
attract the non-british super rich to the UK in droves.

And we know the lack of property tax rule is real.

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dmode
This seems like a wildly outdated article. I haven't heard anything off late
on the bus situation and I believe the tide is turning when it comes to
housing. There are still some clueless opposition like the Aron Peskin and the
Palo Alto mayor, but a consensus is rapidly developing that more housing is
needed. Also, other than SF, most cities in Peninsula and East Bay go out of
the way to court tech. Look at Mt. View granting land to LinkedIn or Fremont
creating Warm Springs corridor.

~~~
blazespin
Great! More deadlock on the 101.

~~~
asuffield
They could also build a larger road for the most popular commuter route. Or
even some form of public transport that's good enough for people to want to
use. I realise that the idea of spending tax funds on improving infrastructure
is considered radical in California, but I feel that it has some weight of
historical evidence behind it.

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friendlygrammar
As someone that is soon moving to san francisco for a job, can someone explain
to me why tech jobs are still located there? are tech workers really resistant
to moving out of that horrible city and state? I will take a 10% reduction in
salary to live in Miami, Atlanta or New York over San Francisco. All of those
are cities with actual vibrant culture and the rent is actually lower.

~~~
hga
The single unique thing about California, and therefore SF/Silicon Valley/the
Bay area is that by _long_ standing public policy, non-competes are
unenforceable for employees like you, making it a very liquid market for
talent.

This Wikipedia item is on the front page right now:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12372315](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12372315)
i.e. the "traitorous eight"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight)
); we wouldn't even be here discussing all this if Shockley had been able to
keep his dissatisfied employees from working in the brand new field of
semiconductors when they could no longer stand working for him, ditto when
they left Fairchild Semiconductor to e.g. start Intel, which besides the
microprocessors was the first company to commercially sell DRAMs.

On the other hand, Texas Instruments managed to be a leader in all of the
early stages of all this while based in Texas, even created the standard TTL
logic family used by just about everyone to make computers until
microprocessors became capable enough. And in several stages Motorola was
competitive without as far as I know having a significant Silicon Valley base.

------
Decade
This article leaves out the people, and that makes it a weak rote-Libertarian
rant. Very disappointing.

The politicians wouldn’t have power without local support. In San Francisco,
the power is centered in individual neighborhoods. Especially when you take
into account campaign contributions, community organizations, and voter
turnout.

The article mentions Campos, Mar, and Peskin, all representatives of majority
old, rich, white neighborhoods. When David Chiu left to go to the California
Assembly and Ed Lee appointed the business-tolerant Julie Christensen in his
place, Peskin managed to out-spend and out-organize her and returned to the
Board of Supervisors.

On the other hand, Supervisor Tang represents a district with a lot of Asian
families who are discovering that without new housing nearby, their grown
children have to stay at home indefinitely or move far away. I’m not sure what
motivates Scott Wiener; I don’t interact with his district much. So, there is
diversity among the politicians, but the majority are propped up by narrow-
minded local interests.

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jameslk
Is it so strange that perhaps maybe the volatile tech industry that has had a
spectacular crash before may have another one in the near future? And if so,
wouldn't it be better that the tech industry not completely fuel the Bay Area
economy and create a potential oversupply of housing at the same time? Would
it not make more sense to tax this anomalous sector to keep things more
balanced (i.e. disincentivize further growth) before the area ends up in a
potentially similar situation as Detroit?

I don't live in the Bay Area, so I'm observing this from the outside. And I
don't know much about the Bay Area economy either, so these aren't rhetorical
questions, nor necessarily informed ones. But to me, the actions of these
politicians, regardless of motivation, on the surface kind of seem rational in
a long-term hedging-our-economy kind of way.

~~~
raldi
New York City's financial industry went through a devestating crash in 1929.
Fifteen years later, would you have believed it better for the city to _not_
become the world capital of finance?

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spectrum1234
Excellent article. The only reason SF is an outlier is because the housing
supply is an outlier. Japan is an excellent counter example as well.

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rayiner
I hate to say anything positive about DC, but here we go. DC has grown
significantly faster than San Francisco since 2000. And because it's
relatively low regulation, that growth has been relatively painless. There is
a ton of construction everywhere: 12-14 story buildings popping up left and
right.

~~~
ac29
I cant say much about SF, since I'm rarely there, but in the South Bay there
has been a ton of construction going on. Near where I live in Sunnyvale, there
has been a dramatic amount within the past few years. 1 and 2 story buildings
have been getting replaced with 4 or 5 story ones, and much of construction is
near the rail corridor, major highways, or El Camino (a major non highway
road).

Not all of the Bay Area is stuck with regressive development regulation.
Caltrain electrification (supposed to be completed in 2020, which is probably
realistic now that funding is finally in place), BART expansion (ongoing, not
sure final completion date), and other various transportation improvements
like bus rapid transit will all also help improve the region.

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muzz
Shorter version: Bay Area politicians disagree with author, so market results
must be ignored since they are not in line with his ideology

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PaulHoule
Any other industry would threaten to leave town.

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sevenless
HN's seriously voting up this libertarian wank?

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tomohawk
"If it moves, tax it. If it keeps on moving, regulate it. If it stops moving,
subsidize it."

    
    
      - Ronald Wilson Reagan, talking about his competition
    

Some things never change.

