> kind of orthogonal and non-scalable to the problem of the Bay Area housing crisis.

The problem can be attacked from two angles. Either ramp up housing development to take care of the population influx, or slow down the population influx to match the rate of housing development. Obviously, the people of the area have a vested interest in keeping the area attractive; but for the rest of us, I think it's important to remember there are other places to live and you can be just as happy or happier elsewhere. I'm someone who could have used that reminder a year ago.

There's a lot of justification that goes into paying $3000 per month to live in a one bedroom apartment. You have to recoup that value elsewhere. A lot of it has to do with the job opportunities available to tech workers. That's undeniable. But some of the other justifications I used were more or less lies I started telling myself about why I had to stay.

> Are you proposing that everyone in SF move to places like the Central Valley (driving up price)

It's already happening, so maybe we should embrace it as a valid option. The town I'm living in has become sort of a telecommuter town, precisely because of rents in SF.

> and start driving around cars (increasing traffic and pollution)?

I actually went about 8 months without a car in SF. I took Uber, bike, and muni as my get around. Between me and my wife, we were spending $700 per month on transportation, so we ended up buying a car to get around -- it was just more convenient. Out in the valley, we actually put fewer miles on it, because it's easier to bike out here, and things are actually closer to us than they were in the city (both in miles and minutes).

> lies I started telling myself about why I had to stay.

care to elaborate?

He mentioned how awful the commute was and that he needed a car despite being in the city. For me, enabling a carless lifestyle is an important feature of a city.

"Are you proposing that everyone in SF move to places like the Central Valley (driving up price) and start driving around cars (increasing traffic and pollution)?"

I don't know where you came up with this. The OP implied that by moving away from a heavily populated area and working remotely, he was able to afford more space and shorten his commute. You managed to turn no commute into increased pollution and moving to a less densely populated place as "driving up price"?

He didn't use a car to commute before (I'd hope) given he was in the middle of SF. But now he likely needs one to get to the grocery, take his kids to school, etc even if he's WFH. And he's likely also using more energy at home, too. So yes, more pollution - and if a lot of other people moved there, higher prices too.

Well, if a neighbourhood is good and convenient, it is only natural that more people would like to move there, more energy would be consumed and prices would rise.

Besides this obvious thing, what exactly is your point?

The point is you haven't solved the problem. You've just moved it to a different place. Urban sprawl is pretty well acknowledged to be a bad thing (TM) - it increases pollution, is bad for people's health, bad for the social fabric, etc etc.

Saying "it's crowded here, let's go move somewhere else and make that crowded" is not just kicking the can, it's making the problem worse because often those areas have even less mass transit.

The alternative is America getting its act together and change their cities into Singapore/Tokyo/Hong Kong. Good luck waiting for that.

Infrastructure is not something the average citizen seems to give a fig about.

Of course someone from SF would have to call it "orthogonal"...

I'm from New York.

>What about folks who don't have the luxury of jobs where they can work remotely?

I would bet >50% of the people working in the bay area who say they can't work remote are doing jobs that could very easily be done remote.

Do you work on a computer? You can do that remote.

The folks who are having the most trouble living in SF - the ones who don't work in tech - often don't spend all day looking at a computer, and have to be physically present at a specific location to do their work. They're teachers, firefighters, nurses, chefs, mechanics, contractors, etc. Generally the tech crowd is impacted the least by housing prices, because they have higher incomes and more job mobility.

It's not that they are unable to do the work remotely, it might be frowned upon or straight up not allowed for some workers.

Employers are still leery of too much work-from-home. My company allows it, but only one day a week. Even people who are ostensibly working from home full time typically have to show up to the office occasionally for meetings and such, so they can't move too far.

Yeah, but you also need to work for a company that will let you work remote. Or find another job.

edit: I phrased this originally in a way that the community didn’t care for.

Plenty of people work on, and require physical access to, computer systems that can’t practically be made available to remote workers.