Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

Re:Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable hou... by pm90 on Monday October 23, 2017 @01:21PM (#15534875)

Austin is a lot more progressive about accommodating new residents. Of course you do hear a lot of folks complaining about how the skyrocketing rents are destroying some long-time businesses, but like you said there is a LOT more land to expand and accomodate new residents.

Also, the Domain development has somewhat eased the traffic situation by shifting a lot of new businesses slightly closer to the Northern Suburbs. Which is a welcome respite: the traffic situation would have been a LOT worse (if that's possible ;-) ) had the Domain not been developed.

I'm pretty optimistic about Austin's future. It offers an extremely high standard of living on a developers salary. Most suburbs are not too far away. There is a lot of undeveloped land. And the City Government is proactive and responsive to the needs of citizens. I think it can evolve into another Tech hub, maybe rivaling Seattle. For it to rival Bay Area, I think we would need a lot more VC's to set up shop here.

Disclaimer: lived in Austin for 5 years now, loved every year so far.

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Re:Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable hou... by enraged_camel on Monday October 23, 2017 @01:48PM (#15535221)

I live in Austin as well. I'm optimistic but not nearly as much as you. Traffic is strangling the city and slowing growth, especially of the downtown core. And the city is wasting time and money expanding highways (something proven to be useless in the long run) instead of investing in public transport like most successful cities have.

I'm looking into buying a house but anything that is affordable is out in the suburbs or neighboring cities. And I say that as someone who makes $100k.

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Re:Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable hou... by pm90 on Monday October 23, 2017 @02:59PM (#15535946)

You make good points. The only highway expansion I see is for Mopac though, right? After that disastrous experience (which is finally nearing completion), I think people have become a lot more against expanding the highways any more.

Austin does unfortunately have a terrible record when it comes to public transit. The rail system is a joke. Although, I am hoping that future infrastructure projects will focus more on creating a viable train/rail/subway system from suburbs to dt/domain. The density of dt is skyrocketing with recent developments, and I can only hope that it will spur a rethinking of transportation policy.

As for the cost of housing... unfortunately, all the outsiders coming in are flooding the market and driving prices ridiculously high. I don't really see an end to the boom... which is why I too have stayed away from considering purchasing a house for the time being.

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