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Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by fatbird on Friday July 21, 2017 @02:39AM (#14818524)
People should give up. People should leave the area. They should move where they can find a job and a cost of living that's reasonable. The fact that people don't give up is why landlords can afford to charge $2,800/month for a 1 bedroom. You can't rent at $2,800/month if no one will sign the lease.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by crawshaw on Friday July 21, 2017 @07:15AM (#14819514)
Many do. The cost to society is enormous.

If housing and labor markets were entirely elastic, and those are the only two factors your people need to consider, then "go away" could be a reasonable government policy. But people are more than their income and their cost of living.

Consider a recovering opioid addict making minimum wage. Medicaid for health care. They are recovering, not relapsed, because of great support from their parents, brother, and grandparents, all of whom live in (say) Oakland. If we look at the labor market and the housing market, the rational economic decision is to move away. Away from their family, the support network that keeps this person employable (and quite possibly alive). Should the whole family move? Not all jobs are everywhere. Should the brother quit Berkeley? These webs are not easily untangled.

If their support network were a Church, or a local football club, the cost would be same: leave your life behind so the Bay Area can stay suburban.

Expensive housing destroys the small, vital institutions that hold our society together by driving people apart.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by fatbird on Friday July 21, 2017 @10:39AM (#14820868)
This is a great comment and I wish I saw more like it on HN, where such webs are frequently ignored when discussing the latest opportunity for disruption.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by sliverstorm on Friday July 21, 2017 @03:40PM (#14823286)
Moving obviously doesn't work in all cases. But urbanizing doesn't permanently remove the problem, it delays it. Ultimately any plot of land has a maximum carrying capacity. If some of these issues are not solved, what's to say that a decade after we urbanize, we won't be right back here with this same problem?

Personally, I have definitely noticed many people who have convinced themselves they have to stay despite their miserable conditions. Nevermind they have no family in the area, few friends, and despite their very well paying job they can barely afford food & rent. They could surely never be happy elsewhere!

It's like some kind of bubble, where we imagine the whole rest of the country is a backwater hellhole and won't even imagine we could leave.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by crawshaw on Saturday July 22, 2017 @07:31AM (#14826651)
You claim demand to live in the Bay Area exceeds housing technology carrying capacity. Do you have any evidence for this?

No city on Earth is full. (Indeed, estimates of human population growth show planetary population stabilizing at less than one tenth our global carrying capacity, so this is not surprising.) It would be extraordinary for the Bay Area to be the first, and so calls for extraordinary evidence.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by sliverstorm on Saturday July 22, 2017 @11:45PM (#14830798)
I did not say demand exceeds housing technology carrying capacity. I said if the peninsula urbanizes (i.e. denser building, maybe 2-4x, not mega skyscrapers with bunks) demand will keep up. That should not be an extraordinary claim, given how many bedroom communities and commuters already surround it.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by crawshaw on Sunday July 23, 2017 @12:00AM (#14830845)
Why are you limiting the possible technologies? Skyscrapers work.

Housing is a cost of living. Driving the cost of being alive as low as possible should be a high priority. We should use the tools we have to do it.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by sliverstorm on Monday July 24, 2017 @04:39PM (#14842455)
Because I believe they sacrifice quality of life for density, and I think we can do better.

We don't need to pack everyone in like sardines. As you already noted, there's plenty of space in the world. (You just have to turn your eyes outside the peninsula).

P.S. I do not live nor aspire to live in the peninsula, or anywhere near it

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by crawshaw on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @06:06AM (#14846504)
Why are you limiting the possible technologies through government regulation?

No other city is full because at some point people decide not to live so tightly packed together, and demand dries up.

Current laws raise prices to enforce low density. That's wrong.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by pcwalton on Friday July 21, 2017 @03:22AM (#14818688)
The simple fact is that there are a lot of people who need to live in the Bay Area. Wishing people would just leave is what the NIMBY organizations have been trying for decades. It doesn't work, and it inflicts undue hardship on everyone who wasn't one of the lucky ones who bought in early.

The only thing that does work is confronting the fact that a lot of people need to live here and encouraging housing supply to meet demand.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timr on Friday July 21, 2017 @04:42AM (#14819004)
"Wishing people would just leave is what the NIMBY organizations have been trying for decades."

...and yet, this crisis is only about 5 years old. Between 2008 and 2012, San Francisco rents were going down, not up. San Francisco's population declined in the 1980s. Say what you will about construction rates, but this is an acute housing crisis, brought on by an asset bubble, instigated by historically low interest rates.

One way to look at the current situation is to get upset and say "how dare this community not overturn its way of life to accommodate our industry!", but another, equally valid viewpoint is to acknowledge the simple fact that it's painfully stupid to try to cram the entire tech industry in a 49-square-mile patch of land (or realistically, a 20-square mile patch; nobody in tech believes there's life west of Divisidero or east of Embarcadero).

So no, people don't "need" to live here. There's no practical reason that the tech industry couldn't be spread all over the world. It was actually always kind of dumb and impractical to found startups here. But it's trendy for 20-something tech bros to live here right now, and therefore, everyone else is expected to move aside and make room.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by Decade on Friday July 21, 2017 @05:06AM (#14819075)
5 years. How cute. Prop 13, a law with horrific long-term consequences, was passed by the voters in response to the housing crisis. 40 years ago.

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-pol-ca-housing-supply/

San Francisco rents have sometimes gone down slightly, but they never returned to sane levels, and affordable housing for the poor hasn’t been abundant in many, many years.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by hectorr on Friday July 21, 2017 @12:05PM (#14821584)
Yeah. Prop 13 massively depresses housing turnover and reduces property tax revenue, which means they need to collect more from income tax. Malcom Gladwell's excellent podcast on golf courses has a great discussion of this.

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/11-a-good-walk-spoile...

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timr on Friday July 21, 2017 @12:25PM (#14821754)
That article has nothing to do with Prop 13 (the only mention of prop 13 is in the comments). And while I think Prop 13 is an abomination for a variety of reasons, there's basically no evidence that it reduces new construction.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by Decade on Saturday July 22, 2017 @11:54AM (#14827775)
Yeah, I was in a hurry. My point was that voters were already voting to save themselves from the housing crisis 40 years ago; while making the crisis even worse. The article was about how the housing crisis goes back even further.

Ultimately, the original sin was racism.

http://www.oaklandmagazine.com/May-2017/The-Real-Cause-of-Ge...

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/zoning-...

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by mattm on Friday July 21, 2017 @05:00AM (#14819058)
AirBnB is a huge factor. Take a look at http://insideairbnb.com/san-francisco/ and the chart under Activity and see it go up after 2012.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by briandear on Friday July 21, 2017 @08:10AM (#14819729)
AirBnB doesn’t cause 3 bedroom tract houses in Cupertino to cost $2 million. There is AirBnB in Houston and it has almost an unmeasurable effect of prices. I don’t know if the Bay Area has rent control, but those types of policies (along with planning commissions and other bureaucracies have more deleterious impacts than a thousand AirBnBs.

The simple fact is that if you own a Bay Area home, you will oppose increased supplies because it makes your home less valuable. Homeowners are simply attempting to protect their equity. If housing prices dropped 20% because of increased supply, suddenly tens of thousands are now upside down on their home.

I know the actual reason, but I still can’t help but wonder why Hong Kong/Seoul/Shanghai style high rises are not more of a thing in the Bay Area. There seems like a ton of good spots along the 280 from San Bruno to Woodside.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by mattm on Saturday July 22, 2017 @02:23PM (#14828542)
Houston has a 20% vacancy rate [1]. Unfortunately, I can't recall the source but I did read a study that concluded that Airbnb has no effect on rental prices where the vacancy rate is 6% or more but it absolutely drives prices up in low vacancy rate cities.

I live in one with < 1% vacancy rate and it's also a tourist city. Apartment prices have gone up more than 50% in the past few years.

[1] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-17/houston-commercial-...

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timr on Friday July 21, 2017 @12:31PM (#14821809)
"The simple fact is that if you own a Bay Area home, you will oppose increased supplies because it makes your home less valuable."

Yeah, this is a bit of "yimby" rhetoric that's pretty simple-minded. People don't oppose new construction because of abstract fears like "property value"...they oppose them because of concrete fears, like changing the character of the neighborhood, or increasing traffic.

I'm not saying I agree with those fears, but it's helpful not to make cartoon characterizations of the other side's arguments, when many of those arguments have merit. If you spent most of your life savings on a house in a cute suburban neighborhood, you'd (rightly) be pretty pissed if people suddenly wanted to surround it with high-rises.

Again, I don't agree with these arguments, but it's helpful to actually understand them.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by wbl on Friday July 21, 2017 @01:41PM (#14822379)
Neighborhood character is what they cited when they kicked out Willy Mayes. We are talking in some cases about people who bought houses knowing construction was permitted opposing it.

Traffic goes down when we have mixed use zones vs. Euclidean zoning.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timr on Friday July 21, 2017 @02:42PM (#14822841)
"Neighborhood character is what they cited when they kicked out Willy Mayes."

I see. Because people have used this complaint to do bad things, it is therefore always incorrect. Got it.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by wbl on Friday July 21, 2017 @02:48PM (#14822894)
It's fundamentally about turning public space into a private club. Fine. Just don't expect me to be happy about paying for roads and sewers in places that keep poor people out.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by LMYahooTFY on Friday July 21, 2017 @01:07PM (#14822094)
I would not consider property values abstract in any sense of the word, especially when your "concrete" fears directly affect those values.

Writing off the whole notion that people fear their property value falling is illogical.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timr on Friday July 21, 2017 @01:38PM (#14822352)
They're entirely abstract. Unless you're a professional real estate analyst, you have absolutely no idea what some proposed development is going to do to your "property value" (even then, you're basically guessing).

When you go to planning meetings, people are not generally complaining about property values. They're complaining about neighborhood character, traffic, parking, etc. I'm not going to say it never happens, but when it does, you should dig deeper. There are always real concerns.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by eastbayjake on Friday July 21, 2017 @03:23PM (#14823155)
This is manifestly untrue. The city has been out of vacant land since 1954 and common talk of a "housing crisis" in San Francisco started in at least 1966 [0]. We have been failing to build enough housing to meet demand for decades.

What is true is that for decades people who came here at some time in the past complain about how newcomers are overturning its way of life, despite having been newcomers themselves at one point.[1] Aging hippies complained in the 80s that yuppies were ruining the Haight, despite having been "neighborhood-ruiners" themselves when they came in the 1960s; the Mission used to be an Irish and Italian neighborhood before it was the center of Latino culture in the city, but it's the neighborhood most vociferously complaining about newcomers and insisting on building moratoriums to stop the neighborhood from changing.[2] It's all deeply hypocritical and unprincipled, but also completely unsurprising.

tl;dr: San Francisco has always been an expensive place to live and we've never built enough housing to meet demand [3]

[0] https://experimental-geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employme...

[1] https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/04/15/san-franciscos-current-...

[2] http://sfist.com/2015/10/07/san_francisco_has_always_been_a_...

[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/san-francisco-housing-cr...

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timr on Friday July 21, 2017 @05:04PM (#14823753)
"This is manifestly untrue."

Actually, everything I wrote is a fact, and you can verify it. SF rents went down as recently as 2012, and are currently in a pronounced, acute period of hyperinflation [1]. San Francisco's population declined rather dramatically from 1950-1980 [2]

I'm sorry if this doesn't fit with your preferred narrative, but citing opinion articles does not provide data for your position.

[1] https://medium.com/@mccannatron/1979-to-2015-average-rent-in...

[2] https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2FrCiZiCNaMFiUqWC_RK8sh3NnU=...

Edit: even your sfist link confirms the basic facts, despite its (inaccurate and hyperbolic) headline. To wit:

"Dips in the population, urban flight, and a decaying Edwardian housing stock — much of which was built between 1907 and 1910 and was in great disrepair by 1970, when areas like Alamo Square were extremely "low-rent" and dilapidated — may have made life cheaper for the hippies, but that all began to change by the early 1980s."

So yeah...SF hasn't "always" been an expensive city. No more than any other city, anyway.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by pcwalton on Friday July 21, 2017 @02:44PM (#14822861)
I am much less interested in what "should" happen in a macroeconomic sense than what is happening: lots of people need to live here right now. It's worth remembering that the people most hurt by NIMBY policies are not, by and large, the tech workers making six-figure salaries. The victims are the teachers, firefighters, artists, nurses, secretaries, and everyone else who isn't a programmer.

Yeah, it might be nice if the US tech industry were more geographically distributed throughout the country (though that would also potentially have negative consequences due to constant relocation necessary when switching jobs). But NIMBY policies have broadly failed at getting people to move away. They have, in fact, just made the situation worse.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by geebee on Monday July 24, 2017 @12:55PM (#14840133)
"The victims are the teachers, firefighters, artists, nurses, secretaries, and everyone else who isn't a programmer."

I'm coming late to this just to make a narrow point, but I'm not sure you should put nurses into that sentence. Take a look at US News Best Jobs and see a roundup of BLS stats for salaries in San Francisco.

Registered Nurses earn a median salary of $133,650 in San Francisco

https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/registered-nurse/...

A software developer in SF earns a median salary of $117,770

https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/software-develope...

Now, that does seem suspiciously low to me (in San Jose, the salary is over $140k). And every time I mention this, I am careful to point out that I have no objection whatsoever to nurses making lots of money, more than programmers. It's a tough and important job that deserves good pay, and while I wouldn't argue that it should pay more, I certainly wouldn't argue that it shouldn't, either (I do think programming is a tougher and more stressful job than people generally realize).

But the notion that programmers with their high pay are driving out nurses seems a stretch. I would argue that programmer compensation is higher than what is cited here, and there are other factors. But none of this is enough, to me, to overcome these numbers. While low income people are driven out of SF by the presence of higher earning workers, I don't think you can really say Nurses are driven out by programmers. Doesn't really work.

And programmers, I assure you, are most definitely hurt by the high housing costs in SF.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timr on Friday July 21, 2017 @05:15PM (#14823801)
"The victims are the teachers, firefighters, artists, nurses, secretaries, and everyone else who isn't a programmer."

OK...but that's also an argument for creating public policy that discourages tech companies from locating in the city. We could start by eliminating the mid-Market tax incentives.

The "yimby" movement is at least as much about tech companies who have invaded and now want to change their environment, as it is "everyone else who isn't a programmer." I wish we could be honest about that fact.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by Decade on Saturday July 22, 2017 @12:44PM (#14828003)
The housing crisis is much MUCH older than the tech boom. From your privileged position, with lots of income relative to normal Americans, there wasn’t a crisis until you couldn’t afford San Francisco.

My parents are poor, so I watched the market from the bottom end. What I experienced was that the amount we paid for what we got was sort of dumb, but at least we could afford an illegal in-law. Then, in the early 1990s, we got an OMI eviction and moved in with relatives. And now I’m paying twice as much for a fourth of the space in the same neighborhood, while my parents were ripped from their communities and moved out of the Bay Area.

For the low end of the market, any restriction will make housing more scarce, and San Francisco is not short on restrictions. That is why I support the YIMBY movement.

https://sf.curbed.com/2013/4/3/10257506/navigating-the-treac...

Even without the tech boom, California hasn’t been keeping up with housing demand:

“Every generation, civilization is invaded by barbarians - we call them ‘children.’” - Hannah Arendt

http://ochousingnews.com/california-nimbys-dont-love-childre...

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timr on Tuesday August 01, 2017 @09:27PM (#14907150)
"The housing crisis is much MUCH older than the tech boom."

Except, it isn't. As I've documented in this thread, like most American cities, the SF population was declining for ~30 years, until the mid/late 1980s. The first tech boom really kicked things off for local real estate again, starting in the early 90s...which was the last time the city saw a building boom. Developers build in times of increasing demand, and that's exactly what happens in SF.

In any case, repeating the "supply and demand" mantra doesn't change basic facts about the timing and cause of this boom. The problem is not that developers "didn't build enough" in 1980...it's that we've disproportionately grown demand starting in ~2012, and large housing projects don't get built that quickly in tiny, landlocked cities.

Cutting the counter-productive tax incentives for tech should be on the very short list of ideas for restoring sanity to SF.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by Decade on Wednesday August 02, 2017 @11:55AM (#14911561)
I admit that “supply and demand” is not the cause of the housing crisis. It merely explains the high price of housing (with minor contributions from a bunch of other factors[0][1]). I feel that supply and demand is most useful as an intuitive appeal to balance: There is way more demand than supply,[2] of course we suffer from a shortage. The cause of the crisis is the array of regulations against homebuilding, that caused the shortage.

As you say, developers build in times of increasing demand, yet there hasn’t been a real building boom since the early 1990s.[3] In a normal situation, increasing prosperity would bring both jobs and homes to an area. Here, we have the jobs but not the homes.[4]

The developers intimately know how price is caused by supply and demand, and do not build unless they are reasonably certain that they can make a profit. They avoid causing gluts. The problem here is that California has some of the most misguided regulations,[5][6] and municipalities some of the worst processes,[7][8] that prevent housing from being affordable to build.[9] Developers can’t be certain to make back their investment when housing is not in crisis, and we need to fix this.

Like sea urchins in a kelp desert,[10] mega-developers with large projects are not the core issue. Mega-developers work best when trampling over pristine wilderness. We need to build inside cities.[11] The core issue is that we collectively do not have the imagination to enable thousands of small-time landowners to undercut the mega-developers with naturally affordable housing.[12] Zoning makes it illegal,[13] and government process makes it impractical, for ordinary non-developer people to build around here.

The Republican mantra is that “Government is the problem.” But at the local level, the government is the people, or a funhouse subset of them. The policies that create the housing crisis enjoy bipartisan support. My support for the YIMBY Party[14] is not about supply and demand. It’s about creating a political demographic for getting people into humane homes.

[0] http://www.sightline.org/2017/07/05/stop-blaming-foreign-hom...

[1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-tax-deductions-econ...

[2] https://sf.curbed.com/2016/10/12/12945854/bay-area-cities-jo...

[3] https://twitter.com/mottsmith/status/856553360278736896/phot...

[4] https://sf.curbed.com/2017/7/26/16040938/san-francisco-jobs-...

[5] http://www.builderonline.com/building/regulation-policy/the-...

[6] http://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2003-07-01...

[7] https://sf.curbed.com/2013/4/3/10257506/navigating-the-treac...

[8] http://www.oaklandmagazine.com/May-2017/The-Real-Cause-of-Ge...

[9] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/6/15/affordable-hou...

[10] https://cdfwmarine.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/perfect-storm-de...

[11] http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-climate-ch...

[12] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/6/12/the-power-of-g...

[13] https://www.curbed.com/2017/3/7/14837014/affordable-housing-...

[14] http://www.sfyimby.org

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timr on Thursday August 03, 2017 @02:16PM (#14922187)
"The cause of the crisis is the array of regulations against homebuilding, that caused the shortage."

No. That's what YIMBY people keep repeating. Regulations account for only ~20% of the cost of new construction in SF. The "cause of the crisis" in SF is acute demand on a tiny peninsula where there is no unbuilt land. I can't speak for the rest of the bay area, but the YIMBY line is almost entirely wrong when it comes to San Francisco.

"In a normal situation, increasing prosperity would bring both jobs and homes to an area. Here, we have the jobs but not the homes."

San Francisco has been in the midst of a dramatic building boom since ~2013. There are projects all across the city. Mission bay went from vacant land to fully developed in less than four years.

In other words, aside from the fact that huge multi-family housing projects take a few years to get built (everywhere!), things are working exactly as they should. But no, you can't build giant housing projects faster than the tech bubble has inflated in SF. That part is true.

"The problem here is that California has some of the most misguided regulations, and municipalities some of the worst processes, that prevent housing from being affordable to build. Developers can’t be certain to make back their investment when housing is not in crisis, and we need to fix this."

Repeat after me: 80% of the cost of building in SF is land, labor and materials. Meditate on that fact every time you're compelled to repeat something about regulations. When developers in SF complain about regulations, they're dog-whistling to the BMR housing subsidy. That's the bulk of their "regulatory" costs.

Also, stop confusing "California" and San Francisco. They're different. Atherton's building policies have nothing to do with SOMA construction projects.

"The core issue is that we collectively do not have the imagination to enable thousands of small-time landowners to undercut the mega-developers with naturally affordable housing. Zoning makes it illegal, and government process makes it impractical, for ordinary non-developer people to build around here."

Nonsense. Small-time landowners cannot fix housing density in dense, fully-built cities like SF. To create any meaningful amount of housing, you need the capital to buy large amounts of land, labor and materials for high-rise buildings. That's why big developers are doing the construction -- not "regulation", and certainly not "zoning" (while I agree that height limits can/should be higher in many places in SF, it wouldn't suddenly enable small landlords to build skyscrapers. Your "evidence" for this claim has very little to say about zoning; it's merely a collection of snarky graphics).

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by Decade on Saturday August 05, 2017 @02:17PM (#14937058)
Oh, I’m pretty sure that the cost of regulation is well over 50%.[0] Maybe if you consider a development that actually succeeds (as opposed to bought and then not developed, so the cost of regulation is 100% and there is no additional housing), and maybe if you file all the pre-construction costs in another category (e.g., having to redesign your building for stupid reasons[1]), then you get 20%. But the biggest cost to society is all those units that nobody even imagines building.

I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but San Francisco is in California. Bad state laws are being abused in San Francisco,[2] and the entire state is in housing crisis.[3] Additionally, Atherton affects San Francisco because it is within commuting distance. If Atherton built 500,000 units of housing especially within a mile of their Caltrain station, that would dramatically affect housing prices in San Francisco.

You keep using words like “dense.” San Francisco is not dense.[4] Most of the recent development has been on 20% of the land.[5] Go west or south of the Mission District, and except for small “transit corridors” and a few pockets of housing, it’s like a time capsule from the 1950s. With a lot more cars.

The idea that an area once built is finished, is a disease that threatens the viability of this country.[6] Small-time landowners cannot fix the crisis because around a third of the privately owned land is zoned for single-family homes (even worse down the peninsula).[7] It is actually illegal for most landowners to increase density, so they don’t even try.[8]

We do not need mega-developers with mega-towers at this time. Those have very high building costs. We can satisfy current demand with a whole lot of medium-sized buildings with much lower building costs.[9]

[0] http://sfist.com/2017/02/15/another_study_contends_sf_housin...

[1] https://sf.curbed.com/2017/4/28/15476540/1924-mission-review

[2] https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/how-cities-bypass-...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/us/california-housing-cri...

[4] https://sf.curbed.com/2017/3/8/14856316/san-francisco-densit...

[5] https://archpaper.com/2017/05/san-francisco-housing/

[6] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/4/17/sprawl-is-not-...

[7] http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/11/25/bay_area_zoni...

[8] https://yimbyaction.org/upzoningletter/

[9] http://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-density-thought...

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by closeparen on Sunday July 23, 2017 @03:27PM (#14833930)
There is no such thing as "invading" your own country. The level at which we can make such claims, and implement such controls, is the national border.

The equal protection clause of the Constitution establishes freedom of movement for all Americans. Native and longtime San Franciscans have no more or less right to be there than the Iowans and Wisconsinites flooding in.

If you want to change that, then secede from the United States.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by abritinthebay on Friday July 21, 2017 @01:19PM (#14822195)
5 years? LOL

It’s been a problem since the 90s but it eases off for a year or 3 every recession.

Same deal here - it’s been crap for decades but the 2008 crash deflated the balooon a little for a while.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by randomdata on Friday July 21, 2017 @05:18AM (#14819130)
The economic need will, of course, compensate for higher housing costs by providing higher compensation, which ultimately makes housing costs a moot issue for anyone providing value to the local economy.

As someone from outside of the region, what reasons necessitate that a lot of people be in the Bay Area that is beyond the economic need?

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by Hydraulix989 on Friday July 21, 2017 @07:49AM (#14819627)
Compensation isn't nearly as elastic as housing prices though.

Not only that, the demand side for housing is also the supply side for the job market, so prices are squeezed on both sides.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by randomdata on Friday July 21, 2017 @01:28PM (#14822278)
> Compensation isn't nearly as elastic as housing prices though.

Because there is usually room to give. If people were on the brink of actually having to leave due to rising costs, incomes would lose their inelasticity pretty quickly, insofar as the need for labour is required. There is always superfluous work that is useful at a low price, but fine to give up completely if costs grow too high.

> Not only that, the demand side for housing is also the supply side for the job market, so prices are squeezed on both sides.

Squeezing is necessary to a point. After all, the economy eventually seeks equilibrium. It has been the case – at least before housing costs grew out of control – that one could make a fortune by moving to the Bay Area, where average incomes are significantly higher than most of the rest of the country. Now the costs are rising to close the gap with lower-income areas.

If someone in a low-cost area has a gross income of $30,000, and expenses of $25,000, then someone in a high-cost area with a gross income of $150,000 can take on expenses of $145,000 without being any worse off. While housing isn't the only cost one has, it is usually among the largest (with taxes being the other major expense). Having $145k to spend on expenses each year can go a long way.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by Hydraulix989 on Friday July 21, 2017 @03:59PM (#14823405)
"If someone in a low-cost area has a gross income of $30,000, and expenses of $25,000, then someone in a high-cost area with a gross income of $150,000 can take on expenses of $145,000 without being any worse off."

I disagree: $5,000 has a lot more buying power in the low income area than the high-cost area.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by randomdata on Friday July 21, 2017 @04:09PM (#14823458)
I guess that ultimately depends on what you want to do with your discretionary money. The day-to-day costs are already accounted for in our hypothetical examples.

Someone in a low-cost area may want to travel to the city to take in the entertainment and amenities available in the big flashy city, in which case that money is being spent in a high-cost area. Similarly, someone in a high-cost area may want to travel to a low-cost area to take in what it has to offer and thus will spend it in a low-cost area. In that case, the person with $5k in a high-cost area is actually still better off.

If you're going buy an iPhone with that money, the price isn't going to vary much in either place. If the $5k is saved in both cases, there is no real difference either.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by Hydraulix989 on Saturday July 22, 2017 @04:18PM (#14829125)
I claim that there only has to be at least one so-called discretionary thing priced differentially based on housing/CoL to make living in the lower cost area more financially optimal. It's easy to show there exists at least one; in fact, there are many.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by randomdata on Sunday July 23, 2017 @03:13PM (#14833879)
Why's that? And why doesn't the reverse hold true? I can think of many things that are usually more expensive in lower-cost areas than in higher-cost areas.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by closeparen on Sunday July 23, 2017 @03:32PM (#14833956)
Almost, except that progressive taxation significantly advantages low-income-low-COL. The $145k earner will pay more than proportional taxes, so will need lower than $145k expenses to achieve that $5k surplus.

Lenders also don't seem wild about letting you commit 80% of your take-home to a mortgage, even if your discretionary cash after the mortgage would be the same as in a cheaper place with a mortgage at 25% of your take-home.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by RobertoG on Friday July 21, 2017 @06:16AM (#14819287)
maybe they were born there and their family, community and network is there?

or is that a nonsense thing to say in the States? In some places of Europe that would be a pretty normal feeling.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by potatolicious on Friday July 21, 2017 @12:51PM (#14821965)
> "or is that a nonsense thing to say in the States?"

It's a nonsense thing to say in front of the educated American elite.

Most of America agrees with you, but as we've seen, there is a disturbing trend amongst American elites to mock anyone who is unwilling to sacrifice their families, communities, and networks in the name of career development/personal advancement.

I'm not into most aspects of the populism that is sweeping the US right now, but the elite dismissal of basic family- and community-building is IMO completely real. The brutal policies that result - of forced displacement, of people adrift without support networks - are one of the very real reasons why anti-elite sentiment will continue to increase.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by closeparen on Sunday July 23, 2017 @03:47PM (#14834016)
Each of the places that elites think we should abandon was created, in its time, by people uprooting their families to move to it. Most had zero or minimal population until a few generations ago.

It's unclear why migration should stop now. Why is this the status quo that should be locked in, rather than the status quo of 50 years ago or 50 years from now?

The disturbing trend is that migration has slowed to historical lows. Among Americans, being unwilling to move for opportunity is the new development. Of all the settlement patterns that could be locked in for eternity, today's is a poor choice.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by randomdata on Friday July 21, 2017 @04:14PM (#14823491)
> Most of America agrees with you

The ever increasing urbanization rate suggests otherwise. If the majority of Americans had stuck close to their families, these cities would be small settlements at best, and maybe wouldn't even exist at all. In reality, the high cost (which may come in the form of lower income) of living elsewhere has pushed most into these cities.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by potatolicious on Friday July 21, 2017 @05:16PM (#14823804)
Like the other user said, the pattern of what people end up doing isn't necessarily the pattern of what people want to do.

More specifically, though, the majority of Americans have stuck close to their families - they may not live in the same exact town they grew up in, but most live within a certain radius of where their family/community/network is. Americans have shown that they are willing to move to follow economic fortunes, but remain tethered to the general area their families and loved ones are in.

And this - at least anecdotally - is a common preference. I've lost count of the number of conversations I've had with colleagues and friends about where they can live where they can still be in range of [parents|grandparents|cousins|organizations|institutions].

And this is where I think the rhetoric goes off the rails - some forcible relocation may be inevitable - after all, we can't ensure there are enough jobs for all people in all places at all times.

But there's a line between acknowledging that forced migration is necessary/inevitable, and regarding those who resist it with derision. God help us if we ever fault someone for wanting to stay near their family and their community.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by lovich on Friday July 21, 2017 @05:07PM (#14823769)
I think woosh might be in order here. @potatolicious is discussing how people value their communities but American elites can't understand not sacrificing everything for your career or economics, and your reply is to just discuss the economics?
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by randomdata on Thursday July 27, 2017 @10:02AM (#14865322)
If you want to take that point of view, the American elites are giving these people an opportunity to return to the communities they would have lived in had they not been pushed out of those areas in the first place.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by cat199 on Friday July 21, 2017 @04:56PM (#14823696)
Just because one relocates out of economic necessity doesn't mean that was their best preference or philosophical ideology.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by ubernostrum on Friday July 21, 2017 @05:41PM (#14823913)
anyone providing value to the local economy

Nice to see that all the people who actually make the city function -- so that those high-paid "value providers" can live there and get work done there -- are completely written off in your analysis.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by randomdata on Sunday July 23, 2017 @11:43AM (#14832773)
Where are they written off, exactly? They are most definitely included. If anything, they are specifically the people who am I talking about.

Unless there is some reason their function isn't actually necessary, in which case, yes, the jobs may disappear. But I do not see the trouble with unnecessary jobs disappearing. Nobody is crying over the loss of loom operators either.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by ubernostrum on Monday July 24, 2017 @02:02AM (#14836171)
Turns out a city needs police officers. And firefighters. And garbage collectors. And transit operators. And cooks. And cleaners. And waiters. And teachers. And construction workers. And... lots and lots of jobs that don't involve getting paid $200k to use node.js to build a platform that does nothing, earns no revenue, and goes under 12 months later having provided no return on $100m in VC money. But for some reason that is the job people on HN think is "value".
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by randomdata on Monday July 24, 2017 @08:40AM (#14837912)
There is no big book in the sky that says how much a job has to be paid.

It is simply supply and demand. If the populace needs police officers, firefighters, garbage collectors, transit operators, cooks, cleaners, waiters, and teachers, there is no reason those jobs cannot also pay $200k per year – if that is what it takes to keep people in the region doing those jobs.

Nobody thinks there is special value in that node.js job. It is simply that $200k is what it takes to incentivize someone to both live in the Bay Area and work on that node.js project. If the VCs could find people matching that criteria to do the job for less, they would be jumping all over those people. Why do you think SV's largest tech companies have been pushing the government so hard to ensure that everyone learn how to code in school? But, for now at least, they don't exist.

And when the people for the other aforementioned jobs don't exist at a lower price, pay has no choice to go up for the jobs as well. Unless the local population decide those jobs aren't as necessary as you claim they are and choose to forego them entirely. Which is always an option too.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by wbl on Friday July 21, 2017 @01:27PM (#14822277)
Why shouldn't we build more to promote clustering?
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by chrissnell on Friday July 21, 2017 @04:01AM (#14818837)
As someone living in the Midwest and telecommuting to SFBA, that's almost unbelievable to me. I pay less than that for my brand new and quite nice 5/4 house on almost half an acre of land.

With all of the remote work available, why would you stay here? I manage a team with two remote-friendly job openings currently. You could work for me and go live in Telluride, CO for less than that East Bay 1br and still have money left over.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by briandear on Friday July 21, 2017 @08:18AM (#14819766)
I work remotely for a company in the Cupertino area while living on 2 acres in the south of France – my entire “estate” cost less than a 2 bedroom apartment would have cost in SFO. Even commuting monthly for two days of meetings is still cheaper than living in the Bay Area.

I would like to live in the Bay Area but it’s financial suicide.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by pascalxus on Friday July 21, 2017 @12:48PM (#14821935)
There's not much remote work available. Those jobs are the most desirable and also the very hardest to get. In the past 10 years, i've received 100s of calls from desperate recruiters looking for Software engineers: and every single time, it's because they're looking to fill positions of companies in Palo Alto or San Francisco. Anytime, I ask them to find a position outside of the penninsula or SF, they turn up empty handed (east bay).

Companies can learn from this as well: there's a difference between # of workers working in a field and labor supply vs labor demand.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by chrissnell on Friday July 21, 2017 @01:38PM (#14822356)
I think we're starting to see a shift. Today, as a hiring manager that hires remote workers, I have the pick-of-the-litter when it comes to talent for my team (infrastructure engineering). I can find the very best folks, people that I would have a much harder time winning when up against the FANGs (Facebook-Amazon-Netflix-Google) of the world if I was hiring in my company's SFBA home base.

Having remote-friendliness in my pocket, I can be choosy and can hire strong senior-level folks. I think it's inevitable that the rest of the Valley catches on and figures out how to make remote work for them. When this happens, I think we'll see who things:

- A leveling-up of remote salaries. Not such a big deal at my company and on my team, because we don't hold someone's remoteness against them and we pay fair SFBA salaries. Other companies (GitLab, etc.) adjust salaries based on cost-of-living. This is a reduced-fare lunch for them but probably not sustainable. Other companies are going to catch on and snap up top talent at average SFBA comp levels and the salary-savers will be forced to level up.

- SFBA talent will start leaving the Bay Area for more affordable and enjoyable areas. We'll see engineers moving to Central American beach towns, Colorado ski towns, back home to flyover states, etc.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by johan_larson on Friday July 21, 2017 @06:10PM (#14824079)
Interesting. Where do you usually advertise remote positions, Chris?
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by chrissnell on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @01:20AM (#14845276)
The HN Who's Hiring thread, our website, a few other job sites, etc. You can probably find it in my recent comment history.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by Sleeep on Friday July 21, 2017 @10:24AM (#14820751)
What's a 5/4 house?

The Midwest is stereotypical for "affordable living" but I live in New England and it's fairly affordable here too in comparison. I own a three bedroom in town, with 20% down my P+I is $750 a month and PITI is $1275 a month. If I financed the whole thing the PITI would be $1462 a month. I think my housing cost is about average for the US.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by isotropy on Friday July 21, 2017 @12:27PM (#14821773)
> What's a 5/4 house?

5 bedrooms/4 bathrooms

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by CameronBanga on Friday July 21, 2017 @11:16AM (#14821190)
I think here, it means 5 bedroom 4 bath.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by aphextron on Friday July 21, 2017 @01:55PM (#14822485)
>With all of the remote work available, why would you stay here?

As the other comments have said, remote work is extremely competitive, low paying, and unstable on the whole unfortunately.

It's either tough it out and deal with the gauntlet of traditional tech interviews and sky high rents in the Bay Area, or hustle your ass off 24/7 competing with the millions of new CS grads in India and China who are just as skilled as you (or more) and can work for $4/hr.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by afpx on Friday July 21, 2017 @07:50AM (#14819640)
I stay here because I've not found any place on Earth that's as good for working in technology. And, every year, this area creeps even further ahead. It's just an amazing place. So, I tolerate the pain for the opportunity to enjoy my career to the fullest.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by 998213981381 on Friday July 21, 2017 @07:58AM (#14819664)
I don't understand this sentiment. Whenever I see an announcement out of Silicon Valley, it is invariable an old technology hyped as the latest sensation.

Compare that with for example Microsoft Research, who actually do things I find interesting.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by Retric on Friday July 21, 2017 @08:05AM (#14819691)
Odd, I find the bay rather stagnate. It's constantly chasing last weeks fad and a few years behind cutting edge research.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by afpx on Friday July 21, 2017 @05:19PM (#14823810)
Where do you live?
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by Houshalter on Friday July 21, 2017 @03:16AM (#14818668)
Move where exactly? So many people want to live there for a reason. If moving to another city saves you $1k a month on rent, but you lose $1.5k in income, it doesn't make any economic sense.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timothycrosley on Friday July 21, 2017 @03:26AM (#14818705)
Seattle. Lose ~2-5 thousand a year in income on average as a Software engineer, save 1-2 thousand a month on rent, and no income tax: https://www.codementor.io/blog/best-cities-software-engineer...
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by mercutio2 on Friday July 21, 2017 @11:11AM (#14821146)
People keep using Glassdoor numbers and think they’re representative.

Representative of low performers, maybe, but even then I’m not convinced. The idea that a high performer only gives up $5k total comp going to Amazon or Microsoft in Seattle is... well, feel free to believe that. You’re making a ton of money any which way relative to the general population.

But most people I know in the Bay Area don’t report that they’re leaving net income on the table staying here. Maybe all those software engineers are just bad at accounting, seems to be everyone’s analysis.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timothycrosley on Friday July 21, 2017 @11:19AM (#14821211)
Eh, it doesn't really matter what stats you drive from they all paint the same picture. More and more engineers are moving here from San Francisco for that reason. People never report that there leaving net income on the table, especially once they have enough to be comfortable, and most never even search to look.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by mercutio2 on Friday July 21, 2017 @12:08PM (#14821614)
If you’re looking at $100-150k total comp, and expect to max out there, you should definitely move to Seattle.

If you’re interested in earning $300-400k/year after working for a BigCo for 4-5 years, Seattle isn’t going to work out to a better net savings/year.

I think it’s perfectly fine to max out at $100-150k. You’re still extremely rich by any standard. And startups in The Bay Area will pay you vastly less regardless, so Seattle may well be a better place for startups.

But I think you’re doing people a disservice if you convince them they’ll save more money working in Seattle than the Bay Area.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timothycrosley on Friday July 21, 2017 @12:13PM (#14821650)
The same people who make 300-400k in San Francisco, also do so in Seattle. I don't know where your getting your information from, but all existing stats disagree with you for a reason.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by mercutio2 on Friday July 21, 2017 @09:17PM (#14824903)
And your source for this is... Glassdoor?

I have hired many people who worked for Seattle BigCos, and I know many people who have gotten offers from Seattle BigCos trying to lure them away from the Bay Area.

And I’ve chatted with people doing competitive analysis on what offers to make to engineers.

The Bay Area generally has 20-30% higher total comp after the first 2-3 years.

Somewhat amusingly, the headline salaries are pretty similar, which makes people think total comp is similar. It’s all about the bonus and RSUs.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timothycrosley on Sunday July 23, 2017 @12:23AM (#14830887)
Even if you were right, and someone made 20% more total compansation, they would loose more than half of that right off the bat due to the mutliple layers income tax in San Francisco, and easily the rest and then some to increased housing cost. Not to mention Seattle tends to have a much more relaxed and healthy working culture, so your probably working less hours too.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by toephu2 on Friday July 21, 2017 @04:16AM (#14818911)
Every city has its pros and cons. Seattle is no exception. You move to Seattle so you can save a couple bucks, okay so what? Then you get seasonal depression because its overcast all the time.*

*except during summer when it's beautiful

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by seanmcdirmid on Friday July 21, 2017 @04:28AM (#14818944)
Eh, I've been in LA for a year and it's too darn sunny. I can't wait to move back to Seattle and get some good pine scented rain again.

But I get your intention, and it's been our strategy for a few decades now: over exaggerate seattle's rain problem to keep Californians from moving up and driving housing prices up even further. Unfortunately, it's no longer working, Seattle just keeps getting more popular and more pricey every year.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by posguy on Friday July 21, 2017 @04:50AM (#14819022)
I feel ya there, I don't think I could do LA, but then again I was getting sunburned just driving around with the windows rolled up when I spent a few weeks down there.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timothycrosley on Friday July 21, 2017 @04:28AM (#14818952)
Sure that's true. I take Vitamin D, and have a light that I use during the winter. However, it's really both the Spring and Summer that are beautiful IMO, which is half the year. I make sure to take my vacations during the other half. I also tend to get more work done during that half, since staying indoors is conducive toward it. But, per the article I posted: it's not a couple bucks, on average - you end up after paying your rent, and taxes - having double the money left over living in Seattle over San Francisco. And it will probably only move more in Seattle's favor, as Seattle keeps on building: http://www.spur.org/news/2017-06-15/keep-building-oakland. Vitamin D pills are cheap. Living in San Francisco is not.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by posguy on Friday July 21, 2017 @04:54AM (#14819032)
IMO we still need to dezone Seattle, parking minimums and height caps are strangling new development and eliminating the possibility of affordable, unsubsidized housing for the average working person.

I hate seeing my old classmates and friends move from Fremont to Marysville or further, no good reason why we have to keep every single building in Seattle super short and build parking that will sit empty.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timothycrosley on Friday July 21, 2017 @05:00AM (#14819055)
100% agree. We are doing better than most tech cities right now, but that's unfortunately a low bar. I want us to build so much that anyone who wants to live or start some crazy business here can without hesitation.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by posguy on Friday July 21, 2017 @05:06AM (#14819074)
Yeah, I'd much rather see an apartment or condo building go up in the city limits rather than up in say Bothell. Dense complexes where a 3bed/2bath is in the low $1600s shouldn't be held 15 miles outside the city limits, there is no reason beyond terrible zoning that that couldn't be built in Ballard or Magnolia or the Central District.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by edoceo on Friday July 21, 2017 @12:33PM (#14821826)
There are over a dozen new buildings, five story, 100s of units built over the last few years. Large and small units all over the place. And they are full!
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by edoceo on Friday July 21, 2017 @12:31PM (#14821811)
Fremont here means a neighborhood in Seattle, not an East Bay town.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by posguy on Friday July 21, 2017 @04:48AM (#14819018)
Ha, don't tell 'em about Seattle, remember its cold and wet and the sun never shines up here!

On a more serious note, after spending a few weeks in SoCal with the SO, I have no intention of ever moving to such a hostile climate. No onshore breeze + sunburns from driving for 40min = No bueno. At least it takes more than 40min to burn on a sunny day in Seattle :P

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by fiblye on Friday July 21, 2017 @05:32AM (#14819178)
The vast majority of the world deals with seasons. It'll be okay. And frankly, the PNW is outright pleasant. The NE gets covered in snow for 1/4 of the year, and transplants to Portland and Seattle complain about it being cloudy.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by blahblah12 on Friday July 21, 2017 @07:38AM (#14819581)
this. so much this. A thousand times this. You have no idea how much it affects you to be in a city that has gray skies for like 3/4 the year. You can go days without seeing the sun in the Winter. Honestly, I theorize, half-jokingly, that Seattle's startup scene never took off because people get too depressed by the weather and give up.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by rdl on Friday July 21, 2017 @08:37AM (#14819892)
Seattle is full/horrible. Do not move here if you are a San Franciscan. Especially don't bring your government philosophy, tax policies, or aversion to reality here.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by dmode on Sunday July 23, 2017 @03:20AM (#14831234)
Don't be fooled by Seattle's position on income taxes. Seattle has some of the highest regressive taxes. For example, alcohol taxes in WA are 10x higher than CA https://taxfoundation.org/how-high-are-taxes-distilled-spiri...
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by WalterBright on Friday July 21, 2017 @04:30AM (#14818961)
Seattle just passed a city income tax.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by timothycrosley on Friday July 21, 2017 @04:40AM (#14818999)
Yes. With 3 important caveats: 1) similar things have happened in the past and got overturned, because it's against the WA state constitution. A challenge has already been mounted and the income tax isn't even in effect yet. 2) There is a very very small number of Tech Employees this would actually affect as it's only a 2% of income tax on income over 250K for individual, and 500K for married couple. 3) It's only on Seattle proper, independent of where you work, so you could literately live one block outside of Seattle and not pay. Most people who make that much already do live outside Seattle in Medina or Bellevue.

It's really just a symbolic gesture, to appease the base of those in office, that will most likely be overturned.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by thrillgore on Friday July 21, 2017 @12:56PM (#14822014)
Suburban Atlanta is always an option.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by teen on Friday July 21, 2017 @11:53AM (#14821482)
I did. LA is 1000x better. I don't miss anything about SF, except Golden Gate Park :)
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by johan_larson on Friday July 21, 2017 @11:13AM (#14821162)
Maybe it's time for some soft vigilante action. Start mailing people brochures about how Denver, Seattle, Portland and Austin are really really nice places. And enclose a bullet.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by chadgeidel on Friday July 21, 2017 @11:34AM (#14821326)
Denverite here. It's not Silicon Valley, but rents and housing are pretty out of control here too. Additionally it's still very car-centric. Lots of opportunity though.

I really have no idea what the "enclose a bullet" part means.

Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by tnecniv on Friday July 21, 2017 @01:13PM (#14822143)
He means put a bullet in the envelope as some vague threat.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by jff on Friday July 21, 2017 @11:51AM (#14821466)
All those places are sick to death of Californians moving in and fucking things up.
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by kevinburke on Friday July 21, 2017 @11:43AM (#14821393)
Oregon has been putting commercials on SFBA airwaves saying "move here."
Re:The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups by davidw on Friday July 21, 2017 @01:19PM (#14822191)
And housing is getting expensive here too.