
Apple Commits $2.5B to Ease California Housing Crunch - grzm
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/technology/apple-california-housing-crisis.html
======
major505
A better way would be build a campus in a cheapper place and offer benefits
for works to move to this places.

Continental US is full of dying cities that need a stead source of income that
big companies like Apple, google could supply. In the day and age of remote
work and comunication, there`s no more escuses to concentrate resources in
places like California, NY, etc.

~~~
RandallBrown
The main reason that resources are concentrated in those places is because
they're nicer places to live.

You would have to pay me an absurd amount of money to move back to the
midwest.

Not everyone has the same priorities as me, but I think it's a mistake to
think people are only moving to those places because of jobs.

~~~
nradov
There are millions of people who would prefer to live in the Midwest if they
could. It takes all kinds.

~~~
booi
Yes but the cross-section of people who prefer to live in the midwest and
talented engineers is much smaller and the main reason why it's difficult to
do that.

~~~
shard972
And yet as one of the people you describe, you can't find a single tech job in
the midwest.

~~~
RandallBrown
Sure you can.

Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Twitter all have offices in the
Detroit metro area.

Any medium sized city will have at least a few insurance companies looking for
developers. Not to mention other random tech jobs and startups, especially if
it's a college town. I worked in Lansing MI for 3 years after college and it
was one of my favorite jobs I've ever had.

Madison Wisconsin, Omaha Nebraska, Minneapolis Minnesota, St. Louis Missouri,
are all places in the Midwest that are going to have plenty of tech jobs.

Then of course, there's Chicago, which is a bit less affordable than the rest
of the Midwest, but still better than San Francisco or NYC. They have a huge
tech scene.

------
BurningFrog
> $1 billion to help first-time home buyers find mortgages.

Adding more money to the supply while leaving demand frozen will only raise
housing prices.

I'm sure everyone making this decision already owns a house, and will enjoy
the benefits.

~~~
dmix
The same people doing nothing to fix the supply problem are pushing small
blocks of 'affordable housing' as the only solution, while simultaneously
blaming the job/wealth creators for giving people enough money to buy houses.

The addition of loans by Apple also seems odd to me. We've seen repeatedly
that gov backed 'affordable housing' is not a sufficient solution to supply
problems. It's just going to further create a two-tier market, with the lucky
few getting 'affordable' houses and everyone else stuck paying millions for
tiny houses using gov/company incentivized loans.

Not to mention this continues the trend of incentivizing and redirecting
increasing amounts of middle class capital into low-value housing instead of
into job creation and other net-gain investments.

------
outside1234
We don't need more people fueling mortgages (which is only going to make
housing MORE expensive for the rest of us).

We need more housing supply, which in a lot of cases means we will need more
housing density.

------
rgbrenner
Almost all of the funds will go towards increasing demand by helping people
buy homes. It does little to increase supply. So this fund will actually make
the housing situation worse overall since it'll increase the competition for
the meager supply of housing that's available.

~~~
paulddraper
If I remember my supply/demand curves correctly, doesn't moving the demand
curve increase the volume?

~~~
jagannathtech
When the supply is artificially constrained it doesn't.

------
H8crilA
If only there was a trivially simple policy that is nearly guaranteed to work,
that has worked everywhere it was tried, like reducing zoning restrictions ...
If only the most obvious things were possible, such as building apartment
buildings all over the place ...

~~~
pascalxus
We wouldn't want to do that. That might reduce the "character" of the
neighborhood. No, it's far better to have homeless camps all over the place
with poop lining the streets and people paying 80% of their paycheck for
rent/housing than take a chance on reducing "character".

~~~
H8crilA
If America even had any "character". I'm sorry for being frank but most of the
US, in particular outside of big cities but also often in big cities, looks
like crap and depression. Neighbourhoods look better in Argentina, Italy and
Greece, countries currently in the middle of their own Great Depression. Rows
of boring malls and identical houses, no people walking around, parking lots.
Everything is built in the cheapest way it could possibly be built, and out of
a single template repeated across the country, and yet somehow costs a
fortune. Including most of Silicon Valley. You have to go to Connecticut or
some other super wealthy place with a bit of history to have some enjoyable
neighbourhoods.

Also, the reason why for example Spain is so exciting visually is precisely
because it mixed styles and influences over time. It's completely natural.
Have you seen the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba? It's mind blowing, so cool.

There's only one thing that people really want to preserve, and that is the
current price of their homes. US government is complicit in running this
ridiculous policy of forever home price appreciation, be it via Fannie Mae or
the FED or mortgage incentives or zoning restrictions.

~~~
egypturnash
Ugh yes, I recently moved back to one of the few places in the country that
actually has history and it is SO NICE compared to the time I spent in LA and
Seattle. There’s variety!

~~~
selimthegrim
NOLA?

~~~
egypturnash
Yep. I feel so damn spoilt that I grew up here now that I'm back after years
of frozen, car-centric Seattle.

------
solidsnack9000
It is so crazy that people continue to blame tech for public policy issues. No
one can say what tech did besides make money and spend it that led to the
crisis — but successful industries do that everywhere without it leading to a
housing crisis.

 _Apple on Monday announced a $2.5 billion plan to help address the housing
crisis in California, becoming the latest tech giant in the state to address a
problem that it helped cause._

Apple makes computers! They don’t write tax laws or run housing associations.
Policymakers and older Californians have managed to shift blame to a younger
generation of working people.

~~~
KoenDG
The thing with tech companies is their desire for most of their employees to
be in-house.

Causing a mass of people to arrive at a location that previously did not have
that.

Over time, of course.

People who, due to the nature of their job and their employer, earn way more
money than the average working person.

And when 10 people like this go for the 1 available house on the market, guess
what happens? The price of the house goes up. Up to a point where only 1 of
the bidder is willing to pay that price. Or rent.

Notice that I said "willing to pay" as opposed to "what that person can
afford".

Supply and Demand is nice in theory, but really, pricing is more a game of
"ask the maximum amount you can get away with".

And of course, owners of property in the same region can't let their property
sit at a value much lower than the property around them. If the property
around them can go for a certain amount, then so can they.

And this process repeats unendingly. Making it impossible for people with non-
tech jobs to get affordable housing. And if not for the big tech company, it
never would have happened.

So yeah, it is 100% correct to put the blame on tech companies. If not for
them, this would not have occured in the first place.

~~~
solidsnack9000
What is unique to California is not the success or wealth of the ascendant
industry, but the incredibly poor policy response. There are many cities in
the world in a similar or even more severe situation than California cities,
with regards to successful industries that pay high salaries. Bankers and
traders still make more money than software engineers.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Do folks successfully fight housing in NYC?

~~~
solidsnack9000
There is so much housing in NYC.

------
selectodude
What's ridiculous is there is hundreds of billions of dollars that would love
to help ease the housing crunch in California, however due to utterly
braindead oppressive zoning regulations, none of it ever gets spent. Apple
spending 2.5 billion dollars is meaningless, that money is far better spent on
lobbying to fix the underlying cause of the high rents.

~~~
momokoko
Because if you build the rows and rows of gross generic condos with corporate
shops underneath that ruined Seattle, it will no longer be such a desirable
place to live.

~~~
carapace
If you're in San Francisco, go take a look at the thing that recently went up
across the street from the Zoo.

The Westerly Condominium 2800 Sloat Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94116
[https://goo.gl/maps/vmBTAKoN4grP5GfE7](https://goo.gl/maps/vmBTAKoN4grP5GfE7)

It's ugly as sin. It's _almost_ Brutalist but without any of the exciting
style (which, I say as a fan of Brutalist architecture, is it's _only_ saving
grace.)

\- - - -

It's very easy to see that, if you replaced all those blocks and blocks of
single-family homes around it, that make up the Outer Sunset district today,
with similar condo-monsters you could fit another 100,000-200,000 people out
there.

One huge problem with that is that there's no infrastructure for those people.
Nevermind that the nearest grocery store is over a mile away (in a city that
is 7x7 miles square), we could build more grocery stores.

Consider the roads. The only way out of there is East on Sloat or Lincoln, or
South on 19th Ave which becomes 280. The Great Highway extension to Lake
Merced and Skyline Blvd is closing soon due to the beach reclaiming the area
(hello climate change.)

Which reminds me, the Westerly will be beachfront property in a few years. I
mean the beach will reach it. Talk about underwater real estate. The whole of
the Sunset is going to need a big dike. (Because that worked out so well for
New Orleans.)

Anyhow, I had a friend who moved from Outer Sunset to Oakland and his commute
time (to downtown SF) was reduced by half. In a lot of ways it makes much more
sense to build in the East bay than on the SF peninsula.

(If I were starting a startup I would do it in Davis CA!)

I'm just ranting now...

\- - - -

Just converting the existing blocks to e.g. Westerly-style condos isn't the
way forward that I personally want to see. The thing is so fucking ugly it
makes me sad. It doesn't even try to take advantage of the incredible view.
The ocean-facing side ignores the ocean. The ground floor is hostile, it looks
and feels like a fortress. "There's no organic flow through. It's like an ant
farm." It somehow looms over the Sloat Nursery next door despite the distance.
Tiny inner courtyards that are doomed to eternal gloom. I just hate this
building so much, especially compared to what it could have been.

~~~
idoh
Not a fan of that building, but at least they are trying to do something. A
small correction to "Nevermind that the nearest grocery store is over a mile
away" \- I heard that there will be a Whole Foods placed on the bottom floor
of that thing, so that would solve the grocery store issue.

~~~
0xffff2
I'm a bay area software engineer, but on a government contractor's salary. I
would never even consider setting foot inside of a Whole Foods for fear of
spending my entire monthly grocery budget in a single trip. In my mind Whole
Foods solves the grocery store issue every bit as well as a 7-eleven.

~~~
idoh
I totally get that. Shopping at Whole Foods is not part of my plan either. My
point is narrowly tailored, in that the OP said that there is a new apartment
building being built with no matching resources to support it. That's not true
because having a Whole Foods directly underneath an apartment building
charging $4K rents does seem like a match.

I live in the Outer Sunset, and it is not by any stretch of the imagination a
food desert. There's many grocery options with easy parking or by train, just
not in walking distance.

------
jseliger
This is nice but the real problem is legal restrictions that restrict housing
supply. [https://www.econlib.org/the-rent-is-too-damn-high-
highlights](https://www.econlib.org/the-rent-is-too-damn-high-highlights)

------
caseyf7
Apple, Google and Facebook should invest on making other areas new tech hubs.
Creating more and more jobs in the Bay Area just makes it worse. There are so
many talented employees willing to work in other areas.

~~~
mywittyname
> There are so many talented employees willing to work in other areas.

Not enough though. I've worked at so many companies that fled the midwest due
to lack of a technical talent pool and an inability to attract remote talent,
even with generous relocation benefits.

The appeal of Silicon Valley, NYC, or Seattle is the abundance of high paying,
prestigious tech companies to work for. While it may be cheaper to live in
Pittsburgh or Columbus, there's still the issue that you can't find nearly as
many comparable jobs in the same market. Currently, if you work for Google in
Pittsburgh, you're stuck there unless you're willing to take a paycut. This
isn't a problem if you're in Seattle.

~~~
Apocryphon
That's why Apple and other companies need to put more than money where their
mouth is, and also commit to expanding more resources in those areas and
attracting workers to relocate there. It isn't as if there's a dearth of
talent where CMU is, and the lower CoL and other expenses are additional
benefits for opening up offices there.

~~~
qaq
They actually do Apple is investing a billion into Austin campus expansion.

------
ragona
The thing that fascinates me about the narrative around the tech industry is
that it’s one of the few where salaries have not been utterly flat since the
70s as adjusted for inflation. We make a lot more than many other workers, but
mostly because many industries have gotten away with giving their increased
profits to their CEOs and not their workers. Our executives are just as
wealthy, but our workers actually make competitive salaries. I wish we could
move the conversation towards actually paying average workers much more rather
than complaining about how much tech workers are making. My takeaway is that
other people should make more, not that we should make less.

~~~
Traster
Is that right? Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos. It seems to me like the
average Tech worker is 3-5x higher paid than the average worker. The average
tech CEO is 3-5x more valuable than the average CEO. It's not that the trend
is different, it's just that tech workers are comfortable enough not to kick
up a fuss.

------
Ididntdothis
This gives me a bad feeling. On the one hand companies are arguing that their
only obligation is shareholder value. How can they square this with spending
money on stuff that doesn’t benefit them? More likely this is geared towards
benefitting Apple but probably doesn’t do anything to address systemic
problems. In the end California needs to build much more housing especially in
areas like SV or LA.

~~~
Rebelgecko
If they're taking advantage of laws for "Opportunity Zones" and such, there
are some substantial tax benefits for investing their money this way. It's not
gonna have a huge impact on the bottom line for a company like Apple, but it
beats having $100 billion just sitting in the bank

------
samstave
This was on NPR today, and they glanced at it, but really, the elephant in the
room, sitting on top of the housing issue, is fucking transportation.

I have turned down no less than FOUR positions in the last few years for one
reason: they were in Sunnyvale, and there was no way I would move back to
Sunnyvale, and there is no way to commute to Sunnyvale on any semblance of
efficient public transportation.

Fuck Sunnyvale.

But more largely; fuck the state of transportation in silicon valley as a
whole. BART is a joke, cal-train is a joke, Amtrak is a joke, buses are a
joke.

Not everyone is a Tesla driving google employee who could give a shit about
how people actually need to move about to make the whole economy work here.

If tech companies actually had the best interests of the long term viability
of silicon valley in mind, housing is nothing without the ability to get
around efficiently. And cars ain't it.

------
KorematsuFred
Can someone tell me why entire west of interstate 280 is empty and not opened
up for housing ? Why is that there are only 3 bridges crossing the bay and not
10 ?

It puzzles me why housing of any kind be expensive in bay area. There is like
ton of free land there.

~~~
gamblor956
Those are the Santa Cruz mountains. They already house many parks, and small
residential enclaves.

However, In today's wildfire-prone climate, it is extremely unlikely insurers
would ever offer policies for residences built there as the mountains are
heavily forested and quite rugged.

~~~
KorematsuFred
Can't those forests be razed and replaced with residential communities ?

------
robomartin
The only way to fix California's many ailments is to vote and vote out the
ideology that has had a firm grip on this State and it's cities for decades.
The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. They can do anything they want.
Pass any law they wish. And things are getting worse, not better.

It's as simple as that. Keep voting these people into office from the local to
the State level and you will not solve any problems, you'll create more and
more.

I know so many people, both families and business owners who are planning to
leave California. It isn't easy, you can't uproot your life and business just
like that. One company where a friend works moved the entire operation to
Arizona. Large company. They service multi-million dollar contracts and
support hundreds of families with the jobs they create. They had enough and
moved camp. Everyone I know from that one company could not be happier with
the move. This is not an isolated example.

If Californians truly understood the financial state of this State, the abject
failure of the government they have supported for so long, they would be
horrified.

I have done lots of construction in CA, and so have friends and family. It's a
nightmare, even for the simplest things.

Want to improve housing and the overall economic environment here? Stop voting
for the same ideologies that have created and maintained the problems in the
first place.

~~~
dmode
California exactly understand the state and have voted what they like. And
that's why the Democratic party have a supermajority. Californians have voted
for the 5th largest economy, huge budget surpluses, unprecedented economic
growth, huge investments in clean energy, high minimum wages. This has
resulted in unprecedented wealth creation, economic value, innovation at all
levels. We went from a 27bn deficit to $30bn surplus. We went from Prop 8 to
leading the country in LGBT laws, decriminalization of minor drug offenses,
protection of the most vulnerable communities. California population is
actually going up (up 2 million over the decade) and conservatives are getting
replaced by wealthy residents. So excuse me, that I will keep voting for this,
while at the same time working on local zoning reform. We don't need Trumpian
politics to solve local zoning

~~~
robomartin
You are mixing way too many issues. For example, LGBT laws and drug offenses
have nothing whatsoever to do with having sound fiscal and regulatory
policies. Don't throw everything onto one pile. Things don't work that way.
Yes, those are important policies and I am glad we have them. That does not
mean EVERYTHING else is done well.

As for the economic balance sheet, you are not well informed. For starters,
check this out:

[https://www.usdebtclock.org/state-debt-clocks/state-of-
calif...](https://www.usdebtclock.org/state-debt-clocks/state-of-california-
debt-clock.html)

That said, this isn't the entire story. California liabilities are in a range
between 1.5 and 3 TRILLION dollars. It's massive and not something that leads
to good outcomes. The nature of a Ponzi scheme is that it feels great until
the music stops.

[https://californiapolicycenter.org/californias-state-and-
loc...](https://californiapolicycenter.org/californias-state-and-local-
liabilities-total-1-5-trillion-2/)

Not sure what "Trumpian politics" might be (Is that actually a thing?).

> California population is actually going up (up 2 million over the decade)

You are falling for using very shallow analysis. Did you stop to ask how much
of what you claim might be due to birth? And how much might be due to net
international migration?

The fact is exactly opposite what you think it is. Here, check this out. Nice
charts too:

[https://qz.com/1599150/californias-population-could-start-
sh...](https://qz.com/1599150/californias-population-could-start-shrinking-
very-soon/)

From the article (emphasis mine):

"Besides births, the main reason California’s population hasn’t already
started falling has been international migration into the state. Every year
since 2011, net domestic migration has been negative—i.e., MORE PEOPLE LEAVE
CALIFORNIA THAN MOVE IN FROM OTHER STATES. But from 2011 to 2016, the number
of international migrants moving into California was larger than the number of
locals who were moving out.

Since then, however, domestic departures have outstripped international
arrivals. In 2018, 156,000 locals left the state, compared to 118,000
international who came."

Yet, that doesn't tell the entire story. Businesses are leaving California,
and with them job creation and more:

[https://chiefexecutive.net/business-exodus-california-
troubl...](https://chiefexecutive.net/business-exodus-california-troubling-
sanctuary-policies/)

From the article:

"What is more serious is the number of California-based companies that have
left or signaled their intention to leave the state. Last year marks the first
anniversary of the announcement that Carl’s Jr., a California burger icon for
more than six decades, was relocating its headquarters to Nashville. It’s a
symbol for what’s become a stream of businesses that have quit California.
What was once an almost quiet exodus of companies now looks more like a
stampede."

There's also a bit of bigotry in a comment like "conservatives are getting
replaced by wealthy residents". I won't even go into the assumptions this
makes. One thing is clear: Democrats have become a party that is for the poor,
so long as they vote Democrat and don't bitch about the fact that the people
they vote for somehow magically never seem to do anything for them. The proof,
as they say, is in the pudding. People who earn $55,000 and less are leaving
CA if they can because things have become unsustainable. So, yeah, if the
assumption is that all of those are conservatives and are being replaced by
"wealthy residents" \--the implication being that they are good people because
they are not conservatives-- sure, yeah, Democrats want to help the poor so
much they multiply them.

[https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/04/17/the-changes-that-
made...](https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/04/17/the-changes-that-made-
california-become-a-liberal-fiasco/)

The irony here is that CA has been under leftist control for decades now and
it is still a mess and getting worse. This is a case just like that of
Chicago, where nobody wants to talk about the thousands of black kids getting
shot there every year, dozens per week, because the inconvenient truth is
they've been under Democrat control for somewhere close to a century and the
place is a mess.

This is a website that should inspire deep introspection about how this
ideology has derailed, to the detriment of all:

[https://heyjackass.com](https://heyjackass.com)

------
jedberg
If they really cared about this issue, they would start with their own
backyard.

Apple is currently supporting the plans of a developer in Cupertino who wants
to build 3M sq ft of office space _for them_ and then not build enough housing
to offset that space.

If Apple really cared, they would tell the developer that they won't rent any
of that office space unless the development is more housing than office, and
use their leverage and clout to make that happen.

~~~
Redoubts
>If Apple really cared, they would tell the developer that they won't rent any
of that office space unless the development is more housing than office

This is the city's job, and it's the city that is actively pushing the
office/housing ratio way out of wack like this.

~~~
jedberg
> the city that is actively pushing the office/housing ratio way out of wack
> like this.

No it's not. The city is trying to make them build only housing and no office,
but they are using SB35 to go around the city. The city has approved a ton of
housing but the developers aren't building it because the city won't approve
the office space the developers want to go with it.

The city is trying to _improve_ the housing ratio and the developers are
trying to make it worse.

Apple could push the developers to make the housing ratio better if they
actually cared.

------
jandrese
Is $300M worth of land in San Jose a lot? My guess is that would only amount
to a few dozen acres. Will they be building actual dense housing on that land?
IMHO California would be better of if the entire $2.5B was spent on high
density housing and local support (mass transit connections, food, and retail
space).

~~~
kikki
You're right - it's not. In fact the median house price in San Jose is around
$1 million. $300m is not going to go far.

~~~
my_usernam3
Ehhh, as a professional armchair land developer, I'm sure IF they can build
upwards with the land it could amount to a lot of new apartments. Just a
theory.

------
novok
They should spend $2.5B on lobbyists to remove the restrictive apartment &
house building laws in the first place.

------
buboard
They could make a lot of their employees remote. Literally anything tech-
related should be, and apple would set a great example. Why spend even more on
what is apparently a bottomless pit?

Are workers going to live there, or will the properties be endlessly flipped
by all kinds of investors as prices rise ?

------
judge2020
[https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/11/apple-commits-two-
poi...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/11/apple-commits-two-point-five-
billion-to-combat-housing-crisis-in-california/)

------
moonfern
I created this chart which shows change in real house prices in the USA (and
Belgium) with 2015=100, from 1970 till 2016

[https://data.oecd.org/pinboard/4sxE](https://data.oecd.org/pinboard/4sxE)

Prices doubled,while real income rose 66% in that period. Household size
shrunk from 3.14 to 2.53 during that time.

Sources: [https://www.multpl.com/us-average-real-
income](https://www.multpl.com/us-average-real-income)
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-
of-h...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-of-
households-in-the-us/)

------
umeshunni
Skims the article. Sees no mention of Prop 13. I guess this is just another PR
move..

~~~
rcpt
Yes. A $2.5B anti Prop 13 warchest could actually do something about housing
prices and quality of life for young families here.

------
SXX
This reminds me how Steve Jobs answered the question about how city residents
will benefit from their new campus (2011) [1]. So I honestly don't get why in
the US of all countries private company have to solve problem that government
supposedly taxes them for.

[1] [https://youtu.be/gtuz5OmOh_M?t=663](https://youtu.be/gtuz5OmOh_M?t=663)

~~~
jedberg
It's funny to watch this now. Living in Cupertino, none of those benefits
materialized. Only 10% of Apple's workforce lives in Cupertino (thanks in
large part to those busses he talked about). Apple barely pays any taxes in
the city, because they get a bunch of tax breaks. Their employees do patronize
the local restaurants to some extent, but for the most part they eat in their
cafeterias.

And most importantly, the campus is closed to the public. The original
proposal was to make the center of a spaceship a public park, but somehow they
managed to get it approved as a private space.

~~~
Apocryphon
Absolutely appalling.

------
cracker_jacks
How does creating more demand ease a housing crunch?

------
jmpman
Is Apple going to increase supply by providing free loans for their workers to
build mother in-law apartments on to their houses? Or decrease demand by
reducing their workforce in the bay? Or install high speed rail to expand the
number of viable commuter cities? If they’re not increasing supply, or
decreasing demand, they’re just shuffling money around.

------
request_id
[https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/11/04/bernie-sanders-slams-
app...](https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/11/04/bernie-sanders-slams-
apples-2point5-billion-housing-pledge.html)

------
frandroid
[https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/car-releases-
its-20...](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/car-releases-
its-2020-california-housing-market-forecast-300924777.html)

Home resales forecast for 2020: 393,500

Median forecast price: $608,000

Total resale market size: $235,800,000,000

235 billion dollars.

I don't see Apple making much of a difference on their own.

~~~
bonestamp2
Fair enough, but hopefully others follow. There are other "free", or even cost
savings, things they could do too.

For example, if silicon valley could hire more remote people, that could help
relieve some bay area home pricing pressure. I would love to work for Apple to
improve their SDK/API documentation, and that probably isn't a job that would
require feet on the ground in cupertino to be effective.

~~~
Razengan
Hell, I would pay you to improve Apple's documentation.

------
webwielder2
I guess this is part of the post-Reagan civic reality of the US. We've given
up on taxation as a means to raise money for the public good. Instead, we must
rely on a random patchwork of private enterprises to occasionally improve
things for some people.

~~~
rayiner
> We've given up on taxation as a means to raise money for the public good.

Have we? California's marginal tax rate is over 50%, higher than many European
countries. The Internet suggests that someone making $260,000 (200,000 pounds)
will pay about 41.5% of their income in taxes in the U.K.
[https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php](https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php).
Using a similar tax calculator for California suggests that they'd pay about
39%. I assume the U.K. is also in a post-Reagan, post-tax world?

Must be Reagan. Couldn't be total mismanagement at all levels of California
government.

~~~
bildung
_> California's marginal tax rate was over 50%,_

Is that really true? This official calculator [1] says I'd have to pay only
16k on 200k income.

And this source [2] says income tax tops out at 13.3%.

[1] =
[https://webapp.ftb.ca.gov/TaxCalc/Home/Results](https://webapp.ftb.ca.gov/TaxCalc/Home/Results)

[2] = [https://www.communitytax.com/state-taxes/california-
taxes/](https://www.communitytax.com/state-taxes/california-taxes/)

~~~
kbrackbill
I'm guessing they're talking about the total taxes for someone living in
California, including federal and local as well as state.

~~~
mywittyname
Which is disingenuous, because 75% of those taxes would remain, regardless of
where a person lives in the US.

~~~
zepto
It‘s not disingenuous - the point was that a lot of tax _is_ being collected
not that California is special.

Tax is comparable to Europe and yet services are not. The problem is therefore
the government.

------
mistrial9
How does this plan compare to what Intel and others built in NW Portland area
a decade ago? Genentech and a few others moved a lot of operations up there,
it seems.

------
crb002
Apple is throwing their money into a REIT essentially. Guessing a lot will be
small apartments for their own staff which will save a lot in wage demand.

------
lucasyvas
Nice to see Apple doing something that is the job of a government. Or they
could pay taxes and not have to worry about it.

~~~
briandear
They pay a lot of taxes. But apparently the government in the area is inept.

------
papln
Headline is repeating Apple PR. This is a $2B pay-through to landlords, plus a
claimed $300M contribution of land.

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/FFKDk](http://archive.is/FFKDk)

~~~
deckar01
They served the full article, the JS is just getting in the way. You can pop
the console open and read the text in the article tag.

    
    
        console.log(document.querySelector('article').innerText.replace(/(.{80}\w*)\s*/g, '$1\n'))

------
m0zg
Easy to solve this problem: just spend this $2.5B on bribes and repeal a bunch
of bullshit laws and regulations which enable NIMBYs and don't allow housing
to be built. Moreover, there's no other way of solving this problem. I'm not
an Apple shareholder, so I don't really care how they spend their money, but
if I were, I'd be pissed.

------
archie2
California will squander this money on literaly nothing like they already do -
what a waste.

------
notus
Just let your employees be remote and they will go live wherever they feel
like.

------
PHGamer
the bay area needs to loosen housing laws and allow more building. Its not
really an apple problem (except in the PR/political sense), but a supply and
demand problem.

------
gbronner
Perhaps "The Circle" wasn't that far off...

------
Skunkleton
Meaningless. How about 1) California figures out some meaningful zoning reform
and 2) Apple starts paying its fair share of taxes.

------
Kalium
> But it could also be that crisis has gotten so out of control, it can no
> longer be solved at the local level.

We can't do anything. We're _helpless_! Please rain money on us from DC to
spare us having to reform our zoning and permitting processes!

All of the policies that drove this mess are local. Which means solving the
mess can also be done locally.

We're not helpless. We just cosplay as helpless because it means we can avoid
discussing the hard changes to popular policies that might be needed. I am so,
so sick of seeing this canard given serious credibility.

~~~
colechristensen
People need to _leave_.

There is a supply and demand problem where there is an enormous demand for a
small area when there are so many other great places to be in this country.

Jobs are abundant all over. If you want to solve the housing problems in the
bay area, start programs that give people $10,000 to go anywhere else. You'll
enormously increase the quality of life of the people who leave.

There's nothing wrong with an area that doesn't aspire to intense density.
Nobody is entitled to that, there's nothing wrong with self determination and
choosing not to grow. People need to realize there are other places to be,
companies need to realize there are other places to be.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
> People need to leave.

Ah yes, the perfect solution to a housing crisis: xenophobia, and using market
mechanisms to enact the kinds of mass expulsions whose _mere suggestion_ gets
Trump labeled all kinds of mean things.

Mean things like _racist_ or _Nazi_. All because he wants to do on paper what
California does every day with prices: make the people he believes are
inferior get out of "his" land.

~~~
papln
"California" doesn't do this. Certain urban regions in California do this.
There are low-cost areas of California.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
California as a whole passed Prop 13 by a ballot measure, which prevents
localities from fixing the problem by taxing long-time housing wealth at the
same rate it inflates in value.

------
magashna
$2.5B seems like a drop in the bucket compared to what they should pay in
taxes.

~~~
briandear
What should they pay? How much do they pay in local and state taxes now?

~~~
magashna
[https://gizmodo.com/apple-successfully-avoids-50-billion-
in-...](https://gizmodo.com/apple-successfully-avoids-50-billion-in-american-
taxes-1822189738)

------
schlu
Apple would do themselves a lot of favors by embracing the fact that most
technologists don't live in SV.

My proposal:

\- Spend 10X this amount (25 Billion) making a slack competitor.

\- Dog food it in house.

\- Launch when you have solved the problem sufficiently.

\- Make a profit and help solve many local housing problems globally.

~~~
skyyler
They did this because their employees are feeling the pain of the housing
crisis. I'm almost sure of it.

------
coolspot
What if housing crisis should be approached from other end - controlling
population growth.

Building more housing just converts beautiful places into ant farms with
terrible traffic. Do everyone want their grandkids to live in 100sqf cells
like in 5th element?

All our major problems are because we got too many people on earth - global
warming, plastic contamination, air pollution, food and water availability,
etc.

~~~
j8014
Do what ya need to do on the coasts; Destroy personal liberties and freedoms,
regulate and outlaw everything, have fun with your social experiments, but
please leave me out of it. People tend to be pretty shitty, when your
surrounded by millions all on top of each other I guess I can see how you
believe its getting close to the end of the world.

Your utopia is my hell.

I prefer smaller cities, personal vehicles, the outdoors, good schools, the
space and freedom where the only thing I really bitch about with the local gov
is the road construction and how it takes me a couple more minutes every once
in a while to run an errand.

