One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_29837065/one-third-bay-area-residents-hope-leave-soon

by jdp23 • 10 years ago

216 312 10 years ago

smeyer• 10 years ago

I wonder what the percentage is in other areas around the country. It would be nice to know to have a better sense of how much is a reasonable baseline and how much is Bay Area specific.

joe_the_user2• 10 years ago

Also,

The high cost of housing here is often presented as Bay Area specific phenomena whereas it's phenomena that's appeared many urban areas, especially the most desirable ones that Bay Area residents might consider moving to.

potatolicious• 10 years ago

Increasing urban unaffordability is a theme throughout the US, yes, but let's not pretend that the Bay Area has experienced this to a degree not seen anywhere else - even in New York.

While unaffordability and its many causes needs to be addressed everywhere, SF does seem like the odd one out of the bunch.

mwksl• 10 years ago

It's also particularly interesting to compare this growth now with city desirability immediately post-recession: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2009/01/29/for-nearly-half-of... . I can't say with any certainty that the desirability has gone up or down for people living outside the Bay Area, but this may be another "cycle" that San Francisco goes through.

nether• 10 years ago

I remember on the defunct 43 Things (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/43_Things), you could sort by geographical area. For NYC and LA, top 5 had "Get the hell out of [city]."

trhway3• 10 years ago

Hope too, in 20 years, retire to Latin America :) Until that, I have to work, and BA is the only place where a programmer can work.

raverbashing• 10 years ago

and BA is the only place where a programmer can work.

Yes, in exactly none of the big cities in the USA there is programming being done, let alone medium cities.

Nothing in NYC, nothing in Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Austin, DFW, Minneapolis, Portland, etc

Only on SFBA

Sure

trhway3• 10 years ago

Haven't tried myself, yet huge crowds of incoming people can't be that wrong :)

In particular i think only CA has non-recognition of non-competes (and moonlighting protection too if i remember right) while the rest of US - doesn't.

knieveltech• 10 years ago

For reals. Research Triangle Park in North Carolina produces zero lines of code per year on average.

mosdave• 10 years ago

BA is the only place where a programmer can work. wut.

jonstokes• 10 years ago

Please don't come to Austin. I moved from SF to Austin a little over two years ago, and I want to make it clear that it's terrible. The food is bad, the people are lame, and all the musicians are out of tune. I hear Chicago is where it's at, so please go there. Or New York. Or anywhere else, really. Just don't come to Austin.

chillaxtian• 10 years ago

the grass is always greener on the other side.

jonny_eh2• 10 years ago

They were being sarcastic.

SEJeff• 10 years ago

Except for TX, where it is always brown unless you water it excessively ala Los Angeles.

caniszczyk• 10 years ago

shame on you for even mentioning Austin :)

dkopi• 10 years ago

Perhaps Austin needs a lot of zoning laws and bureaucracy to prevent more people from moving there. Worked really well for SF.

muzz12• 10 years ago

Hard to tell if this comment is sarcastic or not

equalarrow• 10 years ago

Hah, how true..

easuter• 10 years ago

I hear you'll have a lower life expectancy in Chicago...but that's just what I gather from the news :(

zem• 10 years ago

on the plus side that won't disenfranchise you!

ocdtrekkie• 10 years ago

It's not actually that bad. But we probably make more of an effort to be aware of our surroundings. I've never been robbed, but I've known from a young age that you never leave anything valuable visible in your car.

legitster• 10 years ago

And definitely not Seattle.

mey• 10 years ago

Not sure if Portland stole Austin's drawbridge syndrome like Keep Portland Weird, but I see the same attitude here.

Portland is great, but it is changing. Housing is growing fast, transportation is not keeping up with the growth and the city is not doing enough to solve the homeless problem. Conversely, amazing food, everything you want in a metro but not the size of NY, excellent outdoor options and a growing tech scene.

Touche5• 10 years ago

There's a lot of "up and coming" cities in the U.S., I'm guessing there must be a massive exodus from all of the traditoinal "big" cities like Chicago and Boston. Add to the list:

* Nashville

* Pittsburg

* Charlotte

* Orlando

* San Jose (at least in terms of population, not sure about industry)

It's an interesting phenomenon given how in the developing world there are more super large cities, are we going the opposite direction?

pacomerh• 10 years ago

You just put Austin in everyones head now. hehe

zappo2938• 10 years ago

I just want to add that Fort Lauderdale is a horrible, horrible place too. We don't have a tech industry here so you won't find work.

Cyph0n• 10 years ago

Maxim and Motorola seem like nice places to work, for me at least ;)

vonmoltke4• 10 years ago

I'd like to move home, but my wife hates South Florida. :(

bubbleRefuge4• 10 years ago

Agreed. But you can find work doing C# .net contracting via recruiters. I've got a friend who's been doing it for 10 years and is never out of work very long and bills at good rates for the area. He was telling me a funny story: he interviewed for a spot in an IT department of averaged sized non-tech company and they said he had to wear slacks, collared long sleeve blouse, and name tag to work every day. lol. He said no thanks.

tzakrajs3• 10 years ago

To add to your list: the bigotry of the Texan people seeps into Austin, the job market is tiny compared to the Bay, it is in a state where Republicans call the shots regarding social issues, their tech job market is dominated by contracted talent firms, and it gets hot as hell.

tyingq• 10 years ago

> the bigotry of the Texan people

A somewhat interesting counterpoint: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/28/the-m...

davidw21• 10 years ago

Please do come to Bend (although not all at once - at 80K, it's not big enough to absorb that many people at one time). But bring your anti-NIMBY hat!

It's time the US grew up a little bit and realized that moving to "the next place" and repeating the same patterns that made the first place too expensive isn't going to work.

techchick852• 10 years ago

Yay! Bend is gorgeous, I'm from Portland, Oregon and at least it's still affordable. Great food, music, housing, nature, etc.

thearn42• 10 years ago

Also: Cleveland as well.

(... jokes on me, you were all going to keep away anyway)

tzakrajs3• 10 years ago

My nana tells me Cleveland is up and coming and that I should move back home. But Cleveland is a city that will always be "up and coming". Perpetually fighting the reality that they are one of the most average cities of all time. I love Cleveland and I am glad I was raised there, but I can't come up with a convincing reason to go back.

tzakrajs3• 10 years ago

For some fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysmLA5TqbIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZzgAjjuqZM

plandis• 10 years ago

Even after factoring in for cost of living adjustments Cleveland isn't worth it for me. It's still a huge pay cut and while there are a few interesting start-ups, big businesses still dominate (Progressive, GE, Philips, Key Bank, The Fed, IBM, etc) and don't have the standard developer-friendly attitude of a lot of west coast tech companies do.

I say this as someone that graduated from CWRU. Cleveland doesn't want developers badly enough to increase wages and benefits. This is all super unfortunate since I still fly out to Ohio several times a year to visit family and it would have been nice to stay in the region.

jsonne2• 10 years ago

I'm going to clarify that I'm not picking on you, but I loathe this attitude. I see it in Denver constantly. I moved here, but now we're full up. Ironically, it mostly comes from people that are transplants themselves. It's rather elitist to tell people where they can and can't live especially with the "forget you, I got mine" dynamic going on from the transplants themselves.

krstck• 10 years ago

Denver has so many wonderful things, but this undercurrent of "I hate all the new people" is so gross. I've encountered it in situations where I'm literally handing money over to someone who is bitching about people moving here.

bunnymancer• 10 years ago

Everyone who have moved from something they loathed to something they love wants to preserve their place just like it was when they arrived.

AndrewUnmuted• 10 years ago

I think that the OP's intent at humor just wooshed right by you. The OP author was poking fun at the situation, by making up things about Austin so that people don't rush there like they did San Francisco.

mud_dauber• 10 years ago

Oh, and the breakfast tacos are terrible. :)

jsprogrammer• 10 years ago

Perhaps Austin is in need of an influx of new people to fix the problems you have been observing?

npx• 10 years ago

You can keep Austin. I'm gonna go gentrify your home town!

joesmo• 10 years ago

Are you joking or is this a do as I say not as I do suggestion?

linuxlizard2• 10 years ago

Don't go to Austin. Come to Boise, Idaho instead.

https://www.tsheets.com/living-in-boise/

(I don't work for T-Sheets but have friends that do.)

We have a great high tech community that is searching hard for more engineers. Great outdoor activities for those few minutes you want to spend away from your keyboard. Low traffic, good wages, great biking environment, decent weather.

Move to Boise!

bubbleRefuge4• 10 years ago

I second this. Lived in Boise for 3 years last decade and its all true. Its a blue city in a red state.

notliketherest• 10 years ago

"We have a great high tech community" I've been seriously considering moving back to Boise (lived their 05-09). Can you name a few companies or startups that are part of the scene?

rosalinekarr• 10 years ago

Come to Chattanooga. We have municipal fiber, cheap housing and no income tax. Our state government is so conservative businesses can get away with pretty much anything, and our city government is so liberal there are funds and grants for just about everything. As long as you can get over the occasional rebel flag bumper sticker, it's the promise land.

dmode2• 10 years ago

I know you were being sarcastic, but Austin is very overrated. Low VC funding, small city, surrounded by Texas. Ironically, in another related study, the #1 place people want to move to from Bay Area turned out to be NYC - an even more expensive place. I guess the thought there was might as well stay in a big city if we are paying that much money

abalashov• 10 years ago

Perceived better value?

lexhaynes3• 10 years ago

There's a) affordable (even wildly affordable) housing in NYC, though the commute can be around an hour into the city but then there's b) decent public transport and c) a good deal of jobs if you're in tech.

windlep4• 10 years ago

I'm sure the fact that there's an increasing trend of empty Chinese investment properties isn't helping. I grew up in Cupertino, and when I visit my parents there, I'm rather shocked at how downhill the neighborhood has gone in parts. It's crazy that these old 70's tract homes go for 1.5 million. Even more insane is that they're bought and then left empty to go downhill. Literally broken windows and paint falling off. I never used to see that.

Part of the problem with building more housing (outside of SF where transit is decent) is that it means even more people. Lack of effective mass transit means those additional people need to drive everywhere, and there's no space for more roads/freeways. So the roads will just get even more clogged.

Cupertino recently had a developer proposal for 4 large high-density housing developments (condos & some apartments), and of course they were to go into areas that already had ridiculous traffic, and there was no way to facilitate even more drivers.

Until the South Bay gets serious about mass transit, merely adding more housing is only going to make the traffic pain worse.

andrewmcwatters• 10 years ago

It seems to me the real answer is to leave. This town ain't big enough for everybody. Mass transit isn't going to solve this problem.

windlep4• 10 years ago

Yup, it can just become 50% empty investment properties, and folks can scrounge for what's left. Some solution is going to be needed to prevent that situation, though maybe with all those empty houses, there'll be less people to make traffic so bad.

yock• 10 years ago

I grew up in Cupertino, and when I visit my parents there, I'm rather shocked at how downhill the neighborhood has gone in parts. It's crazy that these old 70's tract homes go for 1.5 million. Even more insane is that they're bought and then left empty to go downhill. Literally broken windows and paint falling off. I never used to see that.

Do you have any idea what's behind this?

oxryly12• 10 years ago

Chinese capital chasing the California real estate dream?

windlep4• 10 years ago

I'm inclined to believe many are empty investment properties. A documentary about the housing costs showed a Chinese investment tour of Cupertino for such purpose:

https://youtu.be/SBjXUBMkkE8?t=2m35s

The other issue is that the high school I went to there, Monta Vista High School, is extremely well-ranked. As such some investors buy houses, then rent them to a single custodian who boards as many students as possible so they can attend the schools. These custodians don't seem to have a high priority on keeping the house in great shape.

rubicon332• 10 years ago

"I'm sure the fact that there's an increasing trend of empty Chinese investment properties isn't helping."

This. This. This.

A couple of years ago, I found myself utterly shocked by the price of homes in San Francisco. In a fit of frustration, I fired off a few emails a few random real estate firms in SF, asking one simple question:

"Who the BLEEP can afford these homes?"

You see, I was frustrated. I have a great job, great pay, and yet I can't even come close to buying a home in the city I live in.

The responses I got were jaw dropping, if not infuriating. The #1 purchaser at 2 of the 3 firms I emailed, were foreign investments. Unused, speculative, investments.

I am shocked that land isn't more protected in this state. It seems strange to me, that someone living thousands of miles away, can buy a piece of land with a home on it, thereby shrinking the available market, and driving up the price of housing. This means people who live in, work in, and contribute to, their local community, can't even afford to buy a home there.

The fact that this isn't seen as a full on crisis, confuses and saddens me.

davidw21• 10 years ago

What would make it a less interesting investment is if there were a credible threat to add enough supply to devalue it.

That's generally how markets keep prices regulated: if they go up enough, more people jump in to producing the good.

That mechanism is severely broken in the Bay Area, among other popular places in the US.

hkmurakami8• 10 years ago

We made a pact with the devil when as a society we decided to believe that our primary homes would also double as investment vehicles that will appreciate in value and help us fund our retirement.

ubernostrum• 10 years ago

Unused, speculative, investments.

As I understand it, it's not really speculative, but rather is a way around China's currency controls. It's allegedly quite difficult, if you're Chinese, to convert holdings into USD or other currencies and get that money out of the country, and investing in foreign real estate is apparently a popular way to work around that

ASinclair• 10 years ago

The final slap in the face is that the investment is guarded from rising property taxes by Prop 13.

bubbleRefuge4• 10 years ago

Same thing happening in South Florida only buyers are South American oligarchs/crooks. A good fix would be to charge much higher property tax rates for non-owner occupied single family residences.

shenanigoat• 10 years ago

Absolutely. The same thing is happening here in Vancouver and it is eventually going to suck the life out of the city. Beautiful homes in formerly vibrant neighbourhoods are left empty...indefinitely...held as an investment by offshore owners. The governments (provincial, civil, and federal) have no intention of limiting foreign ownership so it will continue apace until nobody wants (or can afford) to live here. I rent a house that was bought in 2014 (when I moved in) for $800k and it's now worth $1.5M. Foreign investment is driving this.

brianmcconnell• 10 years ago

Two doors from my house is a deluxe 3 unit condo building that has been uninhabited for years. Not once have I seen any evidence of anyone living there. The units went for little under $2 million apiece. It makes me wonder what will happen if/when China has a financial crisis and people start trying to liquidate their offshore piggy banks.

cpitman• 10 years ago

Exactly! If this is indeed a major factor, could we see the SF housing market nose-dive if/when the Chinese market does at the same time? Or if/when better investment vehicles become available to them domestically?

cbhl• 10 years ago

Until the South Bay gets serious about mass transit, merely adding more housing is only going to make the traffic pain worse.

This seems very chicken-and-egg. SF has a million dollars in its annual budget tied up in maintaining the status quo for homelessness -- if those people had homes, that money could get redirected into mass transit.

steffan• 10 years ago

SF has a million dollars in its annual budget...

A million? If only. Try $241M

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-record...

muzz12• 10 years ago

Literally broken windows

This would be a code violation. Neighbors would in theory be reporting it.

jandrese2• 10 years ago

They can report it all they like. The city (or HOA) will send a letter to the homeowner demanding that they fix it. If the don't fix it in a few years then they'll send a second letter or may go as far as to take a lien out on the property. What doesn't happen is that the window gets fixed.

GigabyteCoin2• 10 years ago

empty Chinese investment properties

It's like this all over North America. Not just the west coast.

I lived in a chinese-built condominium in Toronto a few years ago, and the rumor was that 50% or more of the building's units were owned by absentee landlords.

Which made sense, because almost the entire building was seemingly vacant.

Hardly any lights on at night. No furniture on most of the balconies. Never had to wait for an elevator (at 30+ floors, that is strange). Always ample visitor parking spots when there was only 15 of them shared between ~300 units. And I knew most of the neighbors on my floor, would see them come and go regularly, but there were always a few apartments that just never made any noise.

bashinator2• 10 years ago

Why aren't more people squatting in these? My understanding is that if you can maintain "tenancy" for 30-60 days(?) you gain all sorts of rights.

hkmurakami8• 10 years ago

I have to question the moral scruples of many of the real estate brokers who are selling these inflated properties to Chinese investors as if they are can't miss, can't fall, foolproof investments.

A real estate friend has actually refused to represent clients on the buy side for a couple of years now since he cannot in good conscience facilitate a transaction that he seems as questionable in judgment.

rtsuk• 10 years ago

I live in Cupertino, near DeAnza college and the Garden Gate elementary school, and I see no sign of broken windows or peeling paint. The prices are crazy.

I'm not sure what developments you are referring to, but the Main Street and Hills developments are running shuttle buses to caltrain. The one by the Oaks shopping center certainly seemed ill-advised, but it got shut down by the city council.

windlep4• 10 years ago

The neighborhood around Kennedy Jr High School and Monta Vista High School. Many houses over the past decade became mini-mansions for awhile, but the recent trend seems to be ignoring basic house maintenance.

I didn't mean to imply there were lots of houses like this, but even two houses kept up poorly on a single street in this area is a relatively new thing.

eldavido3• 10 years ago

What's needed is a property management firm that caters to these people.

There's no reason for houses to sit empty. They're much more economically productive (a nice way to say "profitable") with tenants in them.

DanielDent2• 10 years ago

There are plenty of property management & other real estate firms in Vancouver which cater to foreign owners. But the math on renting isn't actually so straight forward.

A 10-20 year old building in Vancouver will have many units with kitchens that have literally never been used. There's wear and tear and a lot of extra work and risk that comes from renting a place. And as odd as it may sound, the resale value can take a hit when a property is "used".

Unlike San Francisco, rents in Vancouver have not gone through the roof. Recently AirBNB seems to have put some upward pressure on rents, but rents still remain fairly detached from capital costs.

Frankly, the rental income is almost a rounding error. Vancouver real estate is about capital, not cash flow. It's a place to store capital (which in and of itself is quite valuable for many foreign owners), and current supply/demand trends also lead to price appreciation.

Traditional views of real estate market fundamentals are nearly irrelevant to the observed behaviour of the Vancouver real estate market.

hnnicker• 10 years ago

Why aren't the investment property homes being rented out? Seems like an entrepreneur could pitch a service to the overseas owners to rent out the house, do all maintenance and insurance, pay the property tax from the rental income, and get a slice of the remaining profit.

pjlegato• 10 years ago

SF where transit is decent

Transit is abysmal in San Francisco. Muni is an utter disaster.

The fact that it exists doesn't make it "decent." Cities with decent public transportation include Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Moscow, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Taipei, Portland. Even New York is much better. SF is a far cry from any of those.

jseliger• 10 years ago

Makes sense. I wrote a piece called "Do millennials have a future in Seattle? Do millennials have a future in any superstar cities?" (http://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a-futu...) that focuses on Seattle, but the problems in SF are even worse.

We're seeing decades of parochial land use policies turn into affordability crises in SF and similar cities. Which is why so many people are moving to Texas: http://time.com/80005/why-texas-is-our-future, despite some of Texas's other challenges (like travel and inadequate mass transit).

oxryly12• 10 years ago

You can have good mass transit or affordable housing, but not both. This sucks.

pavel_lishin2• 10 years ago

You can have good mass transit or affordable housing, but not both.

Why's that?

bronson• 10 years ago

Or, as the Bay Area demonstrates, neither.

avn2109• 10 years ago

> "...but not both."

What about Chicago. Way cheaper than New York, and has the second best train system in the country.

wrsh07• 10 years ago

With self-driving cars on the horizon [hopefully!?], this will hopefully become false. [ie everywhere that currently has shitty mass transit will get a system with no single point of failure which is hopefully cheap]

Who knows, though?

shimon3• 10 years ago

This is a very insightful comment.

It's also important to understand the reason you can't have both, in the US, is political. Infrastructure spending in the US is currently below depreciation (http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/03/10/spending-on-our-cru...) so we aren't building mass transit at a rate that meets growing demand. Rich, mobile people buy up property in cities and along transit lines. If we invested in transit we could make a lot of underused housing useful.

davidw21• 10 years ago

Where I lived in Italy had pretty good mass transit (although not up to northern European levels, most likely) and reasonable house prices.

Because it's dense.

rwhitman• 10 years ago

Philadelphia has both

thrownaway2424• 10 years ago

The question is will people use this signal to change course (better transit, sane housing density, walkability, etc) or to perpetuate the wrong course (more tract housing in Antioch, wider freeways, etc).

dmode2• 10 years ago

Has this number gone up or down compared to other years ? It is completely conceivable though that people would want to move, given the difficulty in procuring homes.

jonny_eh2• 10 years ago

What's the number of people that want to move to the Bay Area though?

blackhaz7• 10 years ago

I'm thinking about moving to either Bay Area or Los Angeles with a family, from Prague. I have a 7 years old kid. I am not sure if that's the right thing. We're doing it for the climate. It's really difficult to find a warm English-speaking country where you won't be culturally isolated from the rest of the world. I can work pretty much from anywhere, however I am not a magnate. Things definitely to be missed:

- Prague's ultra-affordability (avg. salary is about $1,000/mo, so if you're selling to global market you can live with luxury) - travel opportunities--I'm in the middle of everything - proximity to relatives - great British school--very liberal, easy international atmosphere, we're lucky - overall "easygoingness" - full decriminalization (no problem in CA) - economically uniform society, although sometimes it's a double-edged sword - no requirement for pretending being a patriot

Things I will not miss: - very short summer, always feeling cold, gloomy skies - crappy food, although it's improving fast lately.

Am I crazy? Where would you move if you'd want a good weather? I enjoy Berlin immensely, but it's too cold. I'd move to London, but it's cold. I hate being cold.

marcusgarvey• 10 years ago

Portugal has a lot to recommend it.

swang• 10 years ago

everyone wants to be in california because the climate is never brutal on either ends. although it has gotten hotter and hotter in most recent years.

but if you are considering living anywhere in california, and want nice warm weather, you should also consider orange county (~30-40 minute drive from LA depending), san diego (~3 hours south of LA) and santa barbara (~2 hours? west of LA, nice but maybe a little more expensive and also prob fewer tech jobs). the sf bay area gets colder than southern california but nothing extreme, it doesn't really snow and rain is infrequent (both a good/bad thing for california).

muggermuch• 10 years ago

Sydney, Australia.

jerf2• 10 years ago

There are some other American cities with "good enough" climates and tech hubs if you're not looking to be in the Valley specifically. Austin and Atlanta are two that would be southern enough that it probably meet the rest of your criteria. It may not be as nice as the Valley per se, but still perhaps nicer than what you're used to. If you're not particularly worried about being in a tech hub because you work remotely and intend to continue to do so, a whole lot of other areas of interest open up too, both in and out of the US.

ameister14• 10 years ago

I'd look into San Diego if you're doing it for the climate. It has by far the best climate in the United States, and is a beautiful, manageable city right on the ocean.

1812Overture• 10 years ago

The schools in Los Angeles are terrible unless you live in an insanely expensive part of town or send your kids to an insanely expensive private school.

jensen123• 10 years ago

Wouldn't you be able to maintain a home in Prague PLUS another home in southern Europe somewhere for less money than it would take to maintain one home in the Bay Area? Of course, that depends on you being able to work in a location-independent way...

pragueexpat2• 10 years ago

I'm an American who grew up on the East Coast, went to USC (Los Angeles) for university (left in 1990), later worked for a San Fran company and have been living in Prague for 15 years so I may have some perspective for you. Long story short, LA and San Fran are fantastic for single people or married working couples w/out kids. Once kids enter the equation, your perspective changes. You are not going to find cheap, good schools in those cities. And unlike Prague, will not want your 7 year old to ride the buses/metro alone. LA weather is fantastic, no doubt. Its the thing I miss most. The thing I don't miss is the traffic. Literally bumper to bumper crawling along at a snail's pace will drive you crazy after a while. Farther south in Orange County is an option, but housing is pretty expensive and the traffic is not a whole lot better. San Fran is even more expensive to live plus the weather is not as good as LA. I understand opinions will vary, but as someone with direct experience with all 3 cities you mentioned, there is a reason that I'm still in Prague :)

Semiapies2• 10 years ago

Like the man said, there's a sucker born every minute.

pyrrhotech• 10 years ago

After living in the SF Bay Area for 5 years, (1 in a crappy apt in Belmont, 4 in a modest home in Hayward), I have very mixed views of the place. I love the progressive politics, diversity, high concentration of smart and interesting people. I hate the traffic, over-crowded trains and the vast wealth inequality--especially since I feel that a large portion of the wealth has been retained due to tax loop holes and that if it were taxed fairly, we could solve a lot of the referenced infrastructure problems.

AdrianB12• 10 years ago

Do you also feel that you should decide how wealth should be retained? If people work for something (income) what makes you feel you are entitled to decide what to do with their work's result? I love socialists, they care more about other people's money than their own lives. They fight for equal poverty for all, too, but they never mind their own business.

myhf• 10 years ago

Actually the term "loophole" refers not to a dispute over how wealth should be redistributed, but to a discrepancy between the expected amount and the measured amount.

uptownfunk2• 10 years ago

I already left! In Boston currently, but looking to go back to SoCal soon! (Really wonder why there isn't a bigger startup scene in LA/SD than in the Bay Area, it's such a sweet location..)

buckbova• 10 years ago

There's been a good size biotech startup scene in SD for some time.

uptownfunk2• 10 years ago

Yes you are correct! Very interesting phenomenon how similar industries will cluster in/around the same location.

tathastu• 10 years ago

Great, we'll have 1/3 less traffic and more housing space soon!

Xcelerate3• 10 years ago

Is the Bay Area no longer a good place to start a career? I'm close to finishing up my PhD, and my original plan was to apply to work at the tech companies that I find most interesting. For the most part, these are located in the Bay Area — although some are in New York, Austin, Boston, Seattle, Raleigh, and Atlanta.

I figured I would stay there 2-4 years tops though, since my family and girlfriend live in the southeast. I don't mind living in a box-sized apartment for a while, but if there's no longer a career benefit to doing this, then perhaps I should focus my job search efforts on other cities?

autotune• 10 years ago

As someone without a degree working in tech, I would argue The Bay Area is the best place to grow a career, maybe rather than start (didn't start out looking in SF for tech jobs. Most places want someone mid-senior level). You having a PhD probably opens the door for a ton of good companies though depending on what your field of study is in, which I assume is CS, and if you can pass the interviews. As long as you don't mind living in a box-sized apartment with other roommates despite having that or a studio in one of the more stab-y parts of town the opportunities for career growth are incredible.

Xcelerate3• 10 years ago

Oddly enough, my degree is in chemical engineering, however all of my work is entirely computational (molecular dynamics, high performance computing, machine learning, data analysis). In fact, my research for the last year has been on a large-scale nonconvex optimization problem — hopefully employers read further than my resume title...

But yeah, I don't really mind where I live as long as it's not in too dangerous of a location. Once I have children I'll want something more comfortable though.

cylinder2• 10 years ago

Nothing wrong with that. The costs only start to bother you as you get older and have been there a while and want to plan your next 10 years. Especially nice if you know you want to settle in the SE eventually (although your prferecnes may change...).

davidw21• 10 years ago

Yeah, when you're young you can get by with a room in a shared house. When you have a wife and kids... the calculation changes a lot.

hkmurakami8• 10 years ago

I'm slightly older than you (my college friends finished their PhDs 2 years ago), grew up in SV and still work here.

With respect to cost of living, I think it is fine to start a career here. A PhD starting salary at most (big) places will cover a 1 bed room in a good area with decent transit options like San Mateo just fine. You won't live like a king but you won't like like a miser either. That being said looking for places while still being Tennessee will be hard, so you might get a sublet for 2 months and look for a more permanent place after you arrive.

Where it gets really hard is when you start looking for homes to buy when you start a family, and care about school districts. If you're open to moving out to the South East after getting established in your field (not sure if you want to stay in chemistry/pharma or head towards purely data oriented roles), you would be able to mitigate this [1] One thing I'd consider is how feasible moving across the country will actually be.

Anyways, happy to answer questions over email. Contact is in profile.

[1] you should definitely look at Cambridge/Boston if you want to stay in pharma/chem.

Xcelerate3• 10 years ago

Thanks for the advice. I'll check out the Boston area too.

freyr• 10 years ago

There's still opportunity here (in terms of good experience and good salary) but it's not guaranteed. There are also plenty of startups will try to convince you work for $100k/year plus a lottery ticket (equivalent to $54k in Austin, $57k in Georgia). That would give me pause.

While a lot of companies will try to lowball you, others will pay well if you apply some pressure. There was recently a post here by a guy who learned to programming at a coding bootcamp and soon after got an offer for $210k+ total compensation. At that level (depending on how liquid that offer is) you won't really be suffering nor living lavishly.

jshorty• 10 years ago

I may be missing some nuance here, but wouldn't increasing sales tax (as the Silicon Valley Leadership Group is advocating) further disproportionately punish lower-income residents? The article doesn't make clear whether moving towards a "Manhattan-like megalopolis" would be a positive or negative trend, but this would push it further down that road.

r0fls• 10 years ago

From my limited understanding of economics: yes. The reason is that lower income people spend more of their money on necessities, whereas richer people spend more money on luxury goods (things they don't need), and they could hence respond more to an increase in sales tax (that is, spend less as a fraction of their income). To reiterate, the lower income people can't spend less (they're buying necessities), so the increase will cause them to spend a greater total fraction of their wages. So, when compared to an increase in income tax, an increase in sales tax is theoretically far more regressive.

refriedbeans3• 10 years ago

bye felicia. lower rents for all!

eva1984• 10 years ago

Seattle is good!

peatmoss• 10 years ago

No it's not. I'm trudging through mud and oppressive rain right this moment.

mx2323• 10 years ago

lies

TranquilMarmot• 10 years ago

More like "my apartment is 90 degrees and it's not even June"

grillvogel• 10 years ago

seattle is just the SF situation with a few years delay and also wasn't as good as SF to start with.

tomjacobs• 10 years ago

12,000 people moved to SF in 2014. 4,000 new homes were added. I think we need more homes. https://medium.com/@TomPJacobs/what-housing-crisis-3c0568a5d...

muzz12• 10 years ago

The link seems to advocate/facilitate increasing occupancy, which is indeed one solution. With 12k people and 4k homes, that's a ratio of 3 which is very close to the average occupancy of around 2.5 that most cities have.

jtuente2• 10 years ago

Except that looking at a single year doesn't tell you much about why even a ratio of 3 isn't good in SF. After a quick google search I came across this set of charts that do a pretty good job of covering the history of population and housing in SF.[0] For the period 2010-2013, population rose 32,500 and housing expanded 7,500 - a sustained ratio of 4.33. The decade prior to that saw a much gentler ratio just a little over 1, but that may have been catching up to the booming growth of the '90s and the dotcom bubble. The thing that really caught my eye though was the tidbit of information in the first chart - nearly half of the existing housing in SF was built prior to 1940. The original report (linked in the article) provides a much more grim outlook for 2010-2015 predicting a total population growth of 60,000 with a housing increase of 12,000 - a ratio of 5.[1]

0 - http://sf.curbed.com/2015/2/4/9995388/sfs-population-is-grow...

1 - http://www.paragon-re.com/San_Francisco_Real_Estate_Feb_2015

mwsherman• 10 years ago

Nobody moves there anymore, it’s too crowded.

muzz12• 10 years ago

Also

Nobody buys houses there anymore, because the bidding wars have gotten out of hand.

Nobody drives to work there anymore, the commute traffic is just too bad.

Nobody wants to work there anymore, there are just too many jobs producing competition for scarce housing and transit.

ww520• 10 years ago

It's a cycle. Waves of people come to and leave from the Bay Area over time. The last exodus was the 2008. The one before was the dotcom bust.

r00fus• 10 years ago

The "hope" part discourages me. It means that despite the wishes to leave, the jobs elsewhere (or telecommuting opportunities) may simply not be there.

Johnny555• 10 years ago

I've been saying that for about 15 years now, yet I'm still here. I've certainly looked around, visited a few places, went on some job interviews out of the area, but haven't been able to find anyplace that I felt I could call "home".

DannyBee• 10 years ago

Errr, so now i'm wondering why everyone stopped caring about cost of living in 2015? :)

It looks like they may have been super-concerned about water running out instead?

x2398dh1• 10 years ago

The results of that poll reminded me of this:

http://www.theonion.com/article/report-98-percent-of-us-comm...

Stated intent is different than actual intent. I think it's interesting to note that employment is going up, while people state that they will leave in a few years. What does a few years mean - 2 years? 5 years? Wouldn't ones actual move correlate more with economic outlook than stated intent to move?

throwaway64973• 10 years ago

Among the people who voted, this is the number for Taxable household income for 2016

More than $150,000 16% Prefer not to respond 11% Rest of the % are all under $150,000.

Good senior engineer/product people make way more than that. I don't think any of those people are leaving. They are the critical-mass who will make/break good technical companies and power the innovation cycle. SV is in no trouble. There is no real scare of brain-drain.

throwaway64973• 10 years ago

I admit this comment might be insensitive and will probably ruffle the feathers of many but I was purely thinking from the point of view of economic impact and who drive(s) the innovation engine here. VCs, People who made it in tech, hungry (for success) people who want to make it in tech, and senior product and engineering people who can build solid products (not charlatans or imposters) have no reason to leave SV. They are all doing well money wise except probably hungry ones who are motivated to make a lot of impact or money or both.

I am interested to hear what other people have to say about this.

shimon3• 10 years ago

Zoom out - you're missing the huge demographic risk. The next generation of people who will become top engineers, founders, etc. are facing tougher tradeoffs between standard of living and access to SV's social and business networks. It's not only the risk that the current drivers will leave but that the new drivers will just go elsewhere.

pianoben• 10 years ago

I don't disagree that there exist a good number of people making $WAY_MORE, but it certainly seems like that number of people is greatly overstated - as in, for every such senior engineer I personally know, I know probably 10-20x making (much) less than that. In fact, I know senior engineers who aren't pulling that much; granted they aren't at Google/FB/Apple/Amazon.

Even the senior folks making bank aren't necessarily all willing to plunk down $2m for a crappy house in Cupertino. Simple economics will disperse at least some of this talent pool.

techchick852• 10 years ago

I never thought I would say that LA is cheaper than San Francisco. The average one bedroom apartment is around $3k. I'm not sure how people can afford to live here anymore. I live in Marin and commute to Silicon Valley...

Nathannn• 10 years ago

And 1/3 just got there. The cycle continues.

Balgair3• 10 years ago

Don't look at Denver, it's all stoners from the green wave and Tebow fans now. Maybe Austin?

kylec• 10 years ago

I moved to the area a few months ago for my career, and while I wouldn't say I hope to leave soon, I don't plan on putting down roots. My hope is to save up some money and buy a cheap house in cash where the cost of real estate and living is cheap, then move there. I suspect that there are a lot of other people that are looking to do the same.

ixtli• 10 years ago

Please don't come to New York. I moved from Amherst to New York a little over four years ago, and I want to make it clear that it's terrible. The food is bad, the people are lame, and all the musicians are out of tune. I hear Chicago is where it's at, so please go there. Or Seattle. Or anywhere else, really. Just don't come to New York.

dev1n2• 10 years ago

Come check out troy, new york. Growing startup scene and lots of awesome shops and cafe's.

fluxquanta• 10 years ago

Is there really a lot to offer there? I currently live farther upstate (north of the Adirondacks) and have been considering moving down to the capital region.

dev1n2• 10 years ago

yeah its a really fun time. Along with all of the shops, microbreweries and bars that opened up within the last four years, there is a makerspace called the center of gravity which opened fairly recently [1]. It's got 3D printers and all that jazz. The city has done a nice job reinventing itself.

[1] http://www.tvcog.net

kethinov• 10 years ago

I visited recently and enjoyed it. I live west of you a few hours. Somewhat recently came back home to upstate NY after getting tired of the cost of living in Silicon Valley.

bkjelden2• 10 years ago

I'm one of those in the 1/3rd, currently in the process of moving to the Denver/Boulder area.

I knew on paper the housing would be cheaper, but what's stood out to me is how much less crowded it is:

You can go to stores and find parking, and not wait 15 minutes at the cashier.

You can go to restaurants and actually get a table.

You can make unprotected left turns.

Things are busy during rush hour, but outside of that it's really not bad, and overall it doesn't perpetually feel like the infrastructure is about to collapse under the weight of being so far over-capacity.

There are some things I will miss, but I keep reminding myself that I can fly back to SF cheaply (or anywhere in the US from DEN, really) and hit all of my favorite spots. I am a little afraid I won't be able to find the same quality fruits and vegetables.

When I moved out to the bay area, I thought it would be great to have so many job opportunities and career flexibility. But now as I'm leaving I feel like that wasn't all it's built up to be. Having some options if your employment situation goes south is important, but I don't really need to change jobs every 18 months, or have 5 cold calls from recruiters in my inbox every week. I'd truly rather find a company where I am a good fit and just stay put for a few years.

I also think that is in some ways healthier too: having a bit higher switching cost forces you to learn how to work out some disagreements with your employer and boss, instead of just leaving at the drop of a hat.

mdorazio• 10 years ago

Are you sure about these things? I feel like this sentiment reflects the Denver/Boulder area 2-3 years ago, but the recent influx of so many people with the exact same thought process as you has significantly dampened the lower population density appeal. For example, I was in Denver in November and there were lines out the door for pretty much every trendy restaurant and dessert place downtown, and traffic was decidedly not pleasant.

bkjelden2• 10 years ago

Yes.

It may be worse than it was a few years ago, but it still feels like a night and day different compared to the bay area.

khushia• 10 years ago

What does "you can make unprotected left turns" mean?

I'm from the UK so I guess this is the US equivalent of turning right at a set of traffic lights... but what significance does "unprotected" have?

35bge57dtjku2• 10 years ago

I think it means without the green turn arrow that indicates oncoming traffic has a red light. I've never heard this term before, though.

DanielStraight• 10 years ago

Unprotected means there is no traffic light.

Typically it will look like this...

  =             (end)
  ===========     ^  =====================
         <<       |                 <<
  -   -   -   -   ^   -   -   -   -   -  -
     <<           |                     <<
  ============    |  =====================
   (start)-->->---^  =====================
       >>                 >>          >>
  -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -
    >>             >>    >>         >>
  ========================================

joshAg2• 10 years ago

You're right, it's the equivalent of a right handed turn in the UK.

Consider an intersection between two perpendicular streets that is controlled by traffic signals.

A protected turn is one in which the turn through the intersection and across the oncoming lane of traffic happens when the oncoming traffic (that is going straight) is stopped.

An unprotected turn is one in which the turn through the intersection and across the oncoming lane of traffic happens when the oncoming traffic does not stop.

In the unprotected turn's case, traffic going straight has the right of way, so cars wishing to turn must wait for a break in oncoming traffic, or for the signal to change. In either case, one car goes straight into the intersection and then stops and waits with its blinker on for a safe opportunity to finish its turn. If it is still there when the light changes, it completes the turn as oncoming traffic comes to a halt and before the sideways traffic begins to move.

Unprotected turns are usually done when both streets are not very busy or when one street is much busier than the other street. In that case the less busy street will have unprotected turns, because it means that there is one less signal during which the busier street is at a complete standstill (ie one signal for both traffic turning onto the busy road and traffic going straight across the busy road instead of one signal for traffic turning onto the busy road and another signal for traffic going straight across the busy road).

Unprotected turns can also work in on very busy streets (think traffic jams), because the streets are so filled that only one car would have space to complete a turn without remaining partially inside the intersection anyway. This allows the lights to cycle faster, since there are fewer signals per cycle.

The Los Angeles area is (semi-)famous for its many intersections with unprotected left-hand turns.

Touche5• 10 years ago

As someone who lives in a not-crowded this makes me smile :) I can't imagine being so used to such a lifestyle that it starts to feel normal.

davidw21• 10 years ago

Boulder has a NIMBY problem nearly as bad as San Francisco's:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11583455

https://journal.dedasys.com/2015/06/18/boulder-colorado-vs-b...

Not sure about Denver, I never looked into it much - it's an order of magnitude too big for me.

more_corn2• 10 years ago

Nimby or not it's quite a nice place. One of the fittest places in the nation, 300 plus sunny days a year. Hiking within a ten minute walk of downtown. I hated it till I moved here. Now I see the allure.

Balgair3• 10 years ago

Meh, I was raised in the Bay and Denver is no different anymore. Trying to get a table on Larimer Square or 16th is no different than SoMa now, 2+hour wait times if you can get that. The stores are just as crowded to me, but that may be my preference for shopping with the after church crowd (btw, Sunday drivers are so bad). On the left turns, I did live in LA for a bit, so yes, the drivers here are not as aggressive in taking turns, but that doesn't mean the Tech Center or 36 is not a parking lot most days. I don't know when it was when you came here, but the roads can get really bad outside of Denver proper, because: winter. 36 just got resurfaced (the rail-line debacle aside) so give it 2 more winters. Generally we have 2 seasons here: winter and road paving. If you think that going out of DIA is a nice time, the other post on the frontpage here about wait times in the hours specifically mentions the mess that is DIA. Oh, and DIA is about as close to the city as OAK is to the Outer Richmond.

My sour grapes aside, on you expectation to no-longer job-hop: Good luck. I too would love that, but it is becoming more clear that is not going to happen. Lockheed and Ball have huge divisions on the frontrange. Which they are all closing right now. After they closed out of the mid-atlantic (Valley Forge excepted) too. There are a lot of people here that are very smart and very experienced and still have mortgages and the network of folks here. Nothing is good right now.

I do agree that Colorado is healthier though. Not many fat people to look at here. The skiing helps. Also, there is a sizable big-ish dog culture here, retrievers are somewhat small.

liquidise• 10 years ago

Huh? Active Denver resident for the past 6 years and i have never waited more than 30 minutes at a restaurant here. I work on the mentioned intersection and dine daily for lunch, with no wait regardless of my choice.

I struggle to even fathom how a 2 hour wait is possible here. Are you walking into places on Valentine's Day without reservations?

Arubis• 10 years ago

You're in for a treat: the Denver metro area is an _amazing_ place to live! You're right to fear the produce, because it isn't California; particularly a this time of year, it gets a bit bland. There's a few farmer's markets and Sprouts probably has the best produce of any of the big stores. You'll probably miss the ocean, too; I do.

More than anything, I suspect you'll really love the culture out here if you're starting to slow down and don't want to jump jobs all the time. It's a lot more laid back--this is a city that manages to be mostly wholesome without being boring. It is SLEEPY after 9-10pm, especially during the week, but the outdoorsiness and access to the mountains more than makes up for it.

If you want any tips or to meet new folks, give me a shout when you're a bit more moved in! My contact info's in my profile.

pessimizer• 10 years ago

I'm pretty sure that the tech kids didn't plan to stay there for more than a few years anyway. They're making big salaries, but the rent is so high that they can't save any money. What they can do is drag that fancy resume back to the Indiana suburb they came from, and buy a nice house with a 20 minute commute to the industrial park that they work in. Or a nice condo in downtown Boise, a five-minute bike ride from their CTO job at some newspaper, or the gas company.

Not necessarily a bad outcome...

intrasight2• 10 years ago

My advice: find a nice town with really good Internet and lots of people you think you would enjoy being around. Programmers can work from anywhere. Take advantage of that fact (if you are a programmer).

more_corn2• 10 years ago

What is the telos of man? (ultimate goal, end) The best thing for you is impossible, and that's for you to have never been (here) The next best thing is to die soon (or leave)

The wisdom of Silenus applies to life in the San Francisco

stewartUK• 10 years ago

Anyone wondering where to move? https://teleport.org/cities Compare life quality data, costs of living, salaries...

One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds

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