More than half of Silicon Valley residents want to leave: The mood is darkening

https://nypost.com/2022/10/05/more-than-half-of-silicon-valley-residents-want-to-leave-the-mood-is-darkening/

by rmason • 4 years ago

91 154 4 years ago

eunoia• 4 years ago

Data point of one but my wife and I decided we were done and left earlier this year. Quit my FANG job that wouldn’t support the move, bought a house in a MCOL area and could not be happier.

I’ve even lost some pretty significant weight just getting back to living a non-workaholic lifestyle.

Life is short people. Keep an eye on what’s actually important to you.

f1shy• 4 years ago

Life is short people.

Always when I think about how short life is, in the cited context, I remember this essay from PG. Which I found great:

http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html

bmmayer1• 4 years ago

What does MCOL mean?

SoftTalker2• 4 years ago

Medium/Moderate Cost of Living?

Just a guess, but seems likely in context.

FeistySkink• 4 years ago

Medium cost of living, perhaps?

ch4s32• 4 years ago

It means Medium Cost of Living. Think Philadelphia or Atlanta.

mv4• 4 years ago

Medium Cost of Living?

RichardCNormos• 4 years ago

I did the same and haven't looked back. I can take a walk without wandering through a sketchy bum colony. The streets aren't lined with RVs. My property tax is in the single-digit thousands of dollars.

I was able to get a concealed carry permit, but ironically, I only carry when I have to travel back to the Bay Area.

klondike_klive• 4 years ago

Calling first dibs on "sketchy bum colony" as a band name.

triyambakam2• 4 years ago

Where did you end up?

powerslacker• 4 years ago

I wonder how this will affect housing prices in the rest of the states. The bay area has a lot of people, if half of them migrate that's bound to have an effect.

jeffbee3• 4 years ago

Most American cities are only slightly behind Bay Area cities in the housing crisis process and small disturbances radically upset their housing markets. Market rents in Austin almost doubled in the past year alone. If you're leaving SV for lower housing prices you might be surprised.

jimt1234• 4 years ago

Facts

gnulinux• 4 years ago

This is true. I make $150k a year and Boston area rent prices + cost-of-living makes me live close to paycheck-to-paycheck. (I'm not there, but I can save very little even though I try to live frugally, prices are insane!). I simply cannot comprehend how low income people live in major American cities, you'd have to live with many roommates and be very food insecure! Life is hard in the US [1] right now!

[1] In the cities. I'm guessing life in suburbia/rural towns is easier. I lived in a major city my entire life, and living in rural parts of the country not worth it unfortunately. It's my own personal decision, I understand that it comes with significant trade-offs.

digdugdirk• 4 years ago

The Austin housing market is insane. And with Texas getting a large chunk of their income from property taxes, there's going to be some very major effects when everyone's homes start getting reappraised for tax reasons.

SoftTalker2• 4 years ago

Yes, houses in nice areas with desirable amenities tend to be expensive, because (no surprise) demand to live there is high. Most of these areas also have the common problem of local government that is very heavy-handed in the zoning in permitting of new housing construction.

lotsofpulp2• 4 years ago

Most American cities are nowhere near SV prices (or coastal California in general).

https://cdn.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/documents/metro-...

bdcravens2• 4 years ago

Housing prices have risen everywhere, but they are still dramatically cheaper than SF or even Austin. The average home price in the US is more than 1/2 that of SF. Big cities in Texas are typically cheaper than Austin (Houston and San Antonio averages are around $350k).

If you restrict yourself to specific "tech lifestyle" cities obviously that's a different story.

Fomite• 4 years ago

Moving from California put a tremendous amount of pressure on the housing prices in Denver. And then Salt Lake when Denver got too expensive. And then Boise when Salt Lake got too expensive. And then Spokane when Boise got too expensive.

We're literally running out of cities in the west.

dougmwne3• 4 years ago

How about build some new cities that allow high density and public transit? I swear Americans always think they could never survive without free parking. You are absolutely not running out of land out west.

stuff4ben• 4 years ago

And the places they move to are seeing the effects. Rising home prices here in RTP, NC is making life difficult for those not in the tech sector since wages haven't increased proportionally. Good for us that bought homes even just 4 or 5 years ago, but I feel for those who are just entering their careers and looking to buy or even rent a home.

leetrout2• 4 years ago

It is felt 2-3 counties away. Anything within a 1 hour drive.

I am glad big tech is growing in the area but the home prices have been bonkers.

clusterhacks3• 4 years ago

Ugh. I do NOT miss commuting into RTP. What counts as a 1 hour drive these days? Dating myself, but I remember co-workers at Nortel commuting into RTP from well east of Raleigh . . . that was awful even years ago when Nortel still existed.

Know much about folks buying that far out these days? I mean, I hear apocryphal stories about Apple/Google engineers buying up houses unseen in the immediate RTP area but I am not entirely sure I believe those.

clusterhacks3• 4 years ago

Anecdotally speaking re: RTP, NC but I think the area may have peaked back in summer. Inventory is sitting much longer. I know sellers who sold under asking for a price much more similar to previous years recently.

New construction is always a bit behind here and we will definitely see higher prices in central NC with the various tech companies increasing their presence in the area.

But it was complete bonkers until August. Sellers were getting double-digit all-cash offers 10%-20% over asking price. Never seen anything like that here before.

kevinventullo• 4 years ago

A lot of the slowdown may also be due to rising interest rates.

kitsunesoba2• 4 years ago

It cascades all the way down to the lowest income brackets, unfortunately, with each group displacing the next group down.

It's a systemic issue and can't be fixed by focusing on any particular set of earners. The entire system is broken and needs to be replaced.

lotsofpulp2• 4 years ago

What is the systemic issue? Some people are too poor compared to others? Insufficient supply of housing in desirable metros? Insufficient supply of desirable metros? Technology and automation allowing for economies of scale that allow fewer people to capture more and more of the gains?

jandrese• 4 years ago

The Bay Area is one of the few where half of the residents could move out and they would still have a housing crunch.

borski5• 4 years ago

The death of Silicon Valley has been stated and overstated for decades now. This isn’t the first “exodus” we’ve had, and it won’t be the last. But somehow, new blood finds their way back here every time.

jjtheblunt2• 4 years ago

Does the new blood finding their way back depend on H1B programs?

(I actually do not know one way or the other, but am aware of that topic.)

borski5• 4 years ago

Nope. Well, yes, but not solely. H1B visas don't tend to change based on the other ups and downs of the valley.

yazzku• 4 years ago

I'm not even going any further than HN comments on this one.

NYPost (and also SFChronicle) were constantly talking about this 'exodus' during COVID. How everyone was leaving; how the U-Hauls were cheaper in the egress direction. Seemed like complete and utter BS. I'm sure they made a lot of revenue from ads though.

billylindeman• 4 years ago

To be fair, I did leave during COVID and it was actually impossible to get a Uhaul (September 2020).

Moving back to SF in the next month for a new gig (after the startup I was working for ran out of cash and laid everyone off).

m4632• 4 years ago

I remember moving half way across the country to silicon valley in the 1990's and a giant brand-new diesel rental truck was a super-cheap $400. I don't think things have really changed.

There is no exodus, people move to silicon valley to work, for a few years or decades, until they get sick of it or retire, then move out. Someone always takes their place, for a job and/or the weather, and housing prices fluctuate a little but always keep climbing.

httpz• 4 years ago

I'm just annoyed with the word "death" being thrown around for the slightest decline or slow down.

When a person hits their late teens and stops growing in height, you don't say death is the only thing awaiting them.

borski5• 4 years ago

Amen.

fasteddie310033• 4 years ago

Do it. We got probably 5x the amount of house than we could have gotten in the Bay Area and we don't have to worry about our car windows being broken. We now live close to nature and I'm in such better shape being able to trail run, mountain bike, and snowboard minutes away from our house.

triyambakam2• 4 years ago

Colorado?

fasteddie310033• 4 years ago

Shh

bobkazamakis• 4 years ago

delete this

catiopatio• 4 years ago

Please don’t, unless you’re willing to confront your own contribution to the situation you’re fleeing.

Wherever you go, there you are.

As someone in Colorado watching the influx of Californians with a dread and frustration over the past 10 years, the majority of newcomers seem to vote and live exactly like they did in CA, creating the exact same problems in CO that they ran from CA to escape.

jhpankow• 4 years ago

CA is the future. Transplants are just exporting it to your area.

spaniard892774• 4 years ago

Watching from Spain, what do you mean "vote and live exactly like they did in CA"?

Here in Spain more and more northern europeans come. I guess many of them are going to settle here (I get lots of questions about taxes and dealing with the spanish state, candid souls), so they contribute to the housing problem but I don't really see what they might import here that can worsen the situation besides their purchasing power.

Also, being Sillicon Valley one of the most productive places on earth, why companies don't involve themselves in politics about housing and city planning?

If I was some top head in such companies I woudl definitely consider it, as it goes directly against my floating line. If I manage to convince mayors that copying the netherlands onto the land around my offices I wouldn't need to pay so much and my engineers would be happier anyways.

They are basically swimming in cash, so IDK, they are involved in politics anyway...

m4632• 4 years ago

I heard that exact same sentiment in the 1990s. I remember people in seattle complaining about people moving from california. (didn't check colorado at the time)

mosdl• 4 years ago

The truth is people vote the same everywhere, we see the same nimbyism in Texas for example for decades, its just now finally catching up with increasing population.

Acting like all the issues are due to recent laws is a easy lie to fall for.

jlawson• 4 years ago

This is a complaint with all forms of migration where someone seeks to escape their bad living conditions.

Generally those conditions are caused by the people who live in them - their culture and ways of thinking - even if they don't understand or can't acknowledge how.

Many people want to escape the consequences of their own beliefs, but don't want to give up the beliefs themselves.

Another example of, "You're not stuck in traffic, you are traffic."

chris112• 4 years ago

Please don’t, unless you’re willing to confront your own contribution to the situation you’re fleeing.

What do you mean? I've lived in Colorado and now live in California. Sure, it has serious problems but I'd say some of them are from population density. Millions of people living in small area causes issues. Housing prices? I'd want housing prices to go up if I owned. Taxes? That's a financial question, and the bay area offers world class comp in tech. Traffic? Also bad, but that's from attracting so many people. Crime and homelessness is a serious issue. But I don't think there are easy answers. I live in a safe area, and I would run into other political issues in different states.

kordlessagain• 4 years ago

That’s a lot of judgement to individuals without a lot of facts to back it up.

If California is broken, it’s not from the people that live there or leave because they can’t stand it the way it is. If another place becomes that way, it isn’t the people coming there that causes it (other than from the population shift).

Everything is crowded nowadays anyway, ant least in the cities. That’s an issue with there being more people in general.

icare_1er2• 4 years ago

So true. In France, with Covid, many of the IT crowd moved from Paris to cities like Bordeaux or Nantes, much nicer destinations.

They brought their votes with them. Those towns took a turn to the woke-left. Took barely a year to see it translate into higher crime, petty theft, etc. Now people are fleeing it again.

chasd00• 4 years ago

the majority of newcomers seem to vote and live exactly like they did in CA

same thing happened to Austin and is starting to happen in Dallas

itronitron2• 4 years ago

If you think that is bad you should consider the influx that Colorado residents had to witness 170 years ago...

fasteddie310033• 4 years ago

Trust me. We don't vote like how the rest of CA votes.

e40• 4 years ago

Seattle of the 80's and 90's comes to mind, when they hated having people move north from CA. They now have traffic jams in Seattle just like we do in SV.

lazide2• 4 years ago

lol - that's like begging people to not cash a giant tax refund check to 'help the gov't'.

I get that it causes angst in the destination, but that is the last thing on anyone's mind when they're considering such a disruptive life change. They're moving because they're miserable right now. That it might make someone else slightly uncomfortable politically later?

And that's ignoring the whole 'no single raindrop causes the flood' issue. Beating up on any individual doesn't make a bit of difference. These changes are being driven by macro-economic shifts.

On a side note, what is also likely contributing? Nasty, nasty air pollution 1/4 to 1/2 of the year in the SF bay area due to all the fires.

chaostheory• 4 years ago

What people who never lived in California don’t realize is that there are a lot of transplants from elsewhere. California natives tend to stay. The transplants do not. Many of these transplants tend to move back to their home state.

Also many of them are not liberal, if that’s what you were hinting

stouset• 4 years ago

I'm amazed at how many new Californians we must be creating every year. Those leaving the state are doing so in numbers able to impact the housing market and political situation in seemingly every state, city, and town across the country. All while still increasing our population every year.

Truly incredible.

seanmcdirmid3• 4 years ago

Did you know Colorado actually receives more people from Texas than California? It doesn't really make sense, because California is 33% larger than Texas, but it's true.

So you really should be blaming Texans more than Californians, and if they are ruining Colorado like they did Texas, you should call them out on it.

https://stacker.com/colorado/states-sending-most-people-colo...

yibg• 4 years ago

Not a disagreement, but only to point out bay area isn't just SF. Go south a bit and there isn't really a worry of getting car windows broken either and also plenty close to nature.

xivzgrev• 4 years ago

This seems really high, and feels like a biased population. The article says this was based on 1700 responses from 5 counties, but who did they survey?

A lot of families have deep roots here (and houses). They have businesses, friends, families, etc. despite the crap they don’t plan to move anytime soon.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this survey captured more renters, or techies / transplants, or younger folks. Then I’d believe 50%+ thinking of leaving.

thewebcount• 4 years ago

Given that this is from the NY Post, it is probably the results of some deceptively worded push poll. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that it was on their web site with no constraints on how many times you could answer.

jibe2• 4 years ago

No, they didn't do the poll, they are just reporting on it. They link to the full poll results in the first paragraph.

https://jointventure.org/images/stories/pdf/sv-poll-2022-rep...

120bits• 4 years ago

I was working in tech in Bay Area and left to a mid-west 13 years ago. My friends called me crazy. Who is crazy now?!!

I was really burned out and though the tech scene was good in silicon valley(startups, good companies), it still felt my life was just monotonous. I had same tech friends, which were competing against each other. Talking about FAANG companies.

I took a pay cut when I moved away to my new place. I joined a small tech company and was happy. 9-5 job and skiing on the weekends. Taking dog to the walk everyday.

I feel happy.

elforce002• 4 years ago

That looks like a really good work-life balance right there. Congrats!

WWLink2• 4 years ago

It felt like the vast majority of people I knew on IRC lived somewhere in the midwest, mostly Ohio. Honestly things didn't turn out so well for a lot of those people. Glad to hear it worked out for ya!

aftbit• 4 years ago

I left during COVID to be closer to family. I don't miss the high cost of living or the crowding, but I definitely miss the climate and access to nature. I've gained a bunch of weight now that I drive everywhere instead of walk. Just another anecdote to go with the rest in this thread.

giantg22• 4 years ago

I've never lived there, but I image other would share my strategy (not that I ever got to use it) - move there, make a ton of money, move away 5-10 years later, possibly switch to a smaller company (big fish in a small pond). I would guess there's a lot of churn on the population there but I don't have the numbers.

bfung2• 4 years ago

That’s the typical pattern in SF: young 20s & 30s there, move to the burbs/San Jose after marriage and kids.

Due to the high cost of living and high incomes, the other local wisdom is: [get in early, once you leave, you’ll never really go back]

giantg22• 4 years ago

The only difference with what I was thinking is truly moving away, not just to the suburbs.

jeffbee3• 4 years ago

There's a thing they are doing on Twitter these days: "a short history of [false meme]". This fits that pattern very well. I can find mass-market news stories about how [large fraction] of SV residents are planning to leave from this year and each of the past 10 years.

eli_gottlieb• 4 years ago

New York Post is really not a suitable source for this site, is it?

daltont• 4 years ago

I'm sure they are eager to report problems in what they deem progressive areas of the country?

SpacePortKnight• 4 years ago

It's interesting since as a SDE in India/Bangalore, I would absolutely love to work in California. All the reasons citied in the article applies to Bangalore as well?

For example similarities include, cost of living / rent in Bangalore is high but it's also the city with most tech jobs. The public transport infra is weak and there is an acute shortage of Uber cabs and yet it still is the most fun city for the youth to be in.

I guess what I am saying is that the grass is always greener on the other side. There will always be a tradeoff to make.

InitialLastName• 4 years ago

Something tells me that most of the people who want to leave Silicon Valley don't think that India is where the grass is greener.

ok_dad• 4 years ago

It would be a giant culture shock for an American to live in India, but I was in Bangalore for a while auditing some vendors there, and I have to say I would be very happy to work at any one of those places, they were like Google campuses and I enjoyed sitting in their gardens doing work in between audit meetings. Their work ethic was also very hardcore, so they worked a bit harder than I would be willing to do, but they were certainly as professional and their companies and facilities were as nice as anything in America.

dxbydt• 4 years ago

as a SDE in India/Bangalore, I would absolutely love to work in California

As someone who spent all his childhood in Bangalore before migrating to the USA & specifically California, let me give you some perspective. No SDE wants to work in a Shimoga or Davangere. They want to work in Bangalore. Similarly, no SDE wants to work in a Concord or Martinez or what have you. There are thousands of perfectly good cities in California, but the SDEs all want to work in Silicon Valley. I remember during the early days of YC, I wrote to a founder saying I'd like to work with him. So he invites me. I go to see the company. Its just a 2 bedroom house in San Francisco! They've gotten rid of the furniture, put tables & chairs & laptops. So I tell him, look, I have a 2 bedroom house in San Ramon. We can just operate out of that. He says, I too have a 2 bedroom house in San Ramon! So I say, why are you working out of San Francisco ? Because that's Silicon Valley, you see! So 2 people who live 5 minutes walking distance from each other, both in San Ramon, each have 2 bedroom houses with enough space to spare, no cost, have to commute 1 whole hour, all the way to San Francisco every morning, to work in an expensive rented 2-bedroom house, because Silicon Valley. Now if that's not ridiculous, I don't know what is.

In the case of Bangalore, one could argue there is a huge advantage to commuting from say Hebbal to Electronics City, because there is a gigantic 4 million square feet Infosys campus over there. But if you have a collection of 1000s of startups, and each of them is just a 2-bedroom house or some small office building, the same can very well exist in Danville or Pleasanton or Walnut Creek or Clayton or Dublin or Antioch or .... I've stayed in all those places and there's plenty of cheap office space & 2-bedrom houses. But no. All the action must happen in Silicon Valley. Because.

In that sense I really welcome all this disruption. You don't have to go to Colorado or Seattle or whatever...just go 20 miles N/S/E/W...that itself would be a huge deal. Forget cost cutting, Cutting down on the pollution due to commute traffic would be a very significant positive contributor to the environment.

sifar2• 4 years ago

> one could argue there is a huge advantage to commuting from say Hebbal to Electronics City

I think you are underestimating the commute to Electronic city. It must be life sucking, same as the SV commute, probably more.

jdminhbg3• 4 years ago

and yet it still is the most fun city for the youth to be in.

This definitely does not apply to the Valley. SF you could make an argument for at least.

sifar2• 4 years ago

I guess it all depends on what your base threshold is. Once you move to SV, after a few years one might feel the same way.

borbulon• 4 years ago

If you’re looking for truth, might I suggest looking at something other than the NY Post.

jibe2• 4 years ago

They appear to have reported truthfully. Read the source poll yourself, which the NY Post didn't commission, but helpfully linked to in the first paragraph.

https://jointventure.org/images/stories/pdf/sv-poll-2022-rep...

1270018080• 4 years ago

I wish this was actually true. I'd love to live in the best climate in the country if it was affordable.

smithclay2• 4 years ago

I’m a 30-something transplant that happily decided to stay in San Francisco, but I have a lot of empathy and understanding for those who decided to leave.

The thing that had the biggest impact on various quality of life issues (and why I stayed) was moving from the Mission to a quieter and safer SF neighborhood. I bike everywhere, don’t have a car, and can walk to work and several beautiful parks, including one that opened this year.

If I had kids, don’t think it would have been possible at all to stay.

floren• 4 years ago

I'm curious, what would have been the "breaking point" if you had kids?

smithclay2• 4 years ago

(Hypothetical) breaking point: Cost of housing for a family in desirable SF neighborhoods and the SF public school system.

belfalas• 4 years ago

Reminds me of the 2000s dot com bust, there was a funny meme that got shared in a chainmail (remember those?). It was one of those "Top Ways You Know You're From the Bay Area" lists, maybe twenty or thirty bullet points.

The one that got me was: "People are leaving due to the economic downturn. But you're not, because you're already home."

theGnuMe• 4 years ago

The only reason is for stock options and the weather. Schools are pretty good too in select metros. Otherwise not worth it.

salmonfamine6• 4 years ago

The discussion here regarding how fleeing SV workers is disrupting property markets in other cities in the US brings up an uncomfortable but, I think, unavoidable point: local housing policy has nation-wide consequences.

If SV and SF allowed for the construction of additional housing, there would not be a downstream housing crisis in Denver, Austin, etc. The policy decisions of a handful of city councils of the suburbs on the West coast has had a huge impact on these cities -- and has indirectly displaced residents, disrupted local economies, and pushed many people into homelessness.

Housing policy in major economic zones in the US is a national issue, and should be treated as such.

This doesn't even touch on the wider problem of income inequality itself.

If we're being completely honest, the average American would be much, much better off if SV had never produced a single unicorn.

SllX2• 4 years ago

Authoritarian regimes across the Pacific Ocean have consequences on American property demand too. So does migration across the southern border. In fact I think you would be hard pressed to name a thing that happens anywhere in the world that doesn’t downstream from it have an effect on the American property market.

Clearly the solution is for US to annex the Earth like we annexed the Moon and then nationalize housing policy. /s

Our local housing policy does suck, but this is not a constructive direction. You’re simply replacing one power structure with a different one in the hopes that maybe it’ll be better, when what you want to make are specific policy arguments.

salmonfamine6• 4 years ago

Yes they do. But we -- that is, our nominally democratic government, a "power structure" which you have arbitrarily equated with a collection of private corporations -- have placed restrictions on immigration, and some light restrictions on foreign ownership of real estate itself, for precisely this reason.

Secondly, Canada, whose real estate markets have been even more seriously disrupted by authoritarian regimes across the Pacific Ocean, have already placed outright, albeit temporary, bans on citizens of those regimes from parking their capital in the domestic real estate market.

Your characterization of my argument is specious and straw-man-esque. You are assuming that globalization is a given, that borders are always porous, that neoliberalism is the only way of looking at the world. I am kindly inviting you to reconsider your point of view, in light of evidence that it has made housing more unaffordable for the many Americans, disrupted their livelihoods, and dissolved their communities.

Or you can keep making colorless jokes to yourself about the property markets on Mars, up to you.

dougmwne3• 4 years ago

How about those other cities build the housing that SF won’t? There nothing stopping them. And those cities could benefit from the new high income residents. How can “we should all be poorer” be a good solution to high housing prices? There’s always the supply side of the equation and people need to live somewhere.

arebop• 4 years ago

It takes many months to develop new housing in the U.S. Even when you have local political support, there's a lot of custom manual work and so forth.

It's also very hard to find examples of long-term successful large-scale (town-scale) growth. So we can't just move substantial fractions of people from our largest cities to mid or small-sized cities in a matter of months or years (and get satisfactory results).

Undoubtedly NIMBY forces around the U.S. are partly to blame, but the Covid/WFH exodus is surely the more important factor at this point in time.

salmonfamine6• 4 years ago

Yes, they should build more. But again, that's just pushing the core problem away from SF (one of the most notable cities in the US for over a century, with a history of economic booms and high migration) to what was until recently a large-ish college town known as a haven for slackers.

Having lived in one of those cities as a low-income resident, a medium-income resident, and now a high-income resident, I assure you that the high income residents do much less for these cities than any other group. And no, taxes do not make up for it.

hotpotamus• 4 years ago

Would you encourage your children to go into a homebuilding trade? Which is the kind of question I think about when I wonder who is supposed to build all the houses.

itronitron2• 4 years ago

Local housing policy, and more importantly city planning, is just as bad if not worse in Austin than SV. I don't really see city councils on the West coast having any impact on Denver or Austin as the influx of people to Denver and Austin could (and probably does) come just as easily from any other location. Point being, don't let local government in Denver and Austin off the hook for their failure to adapt.

salmonfamine6• 4 years ago

Yeah, Austin and Denver et al have also failed in their housing policy, for pretty much the same reasons as SV. No argument there. But it's hard to deny that SV's wealth explosion and exodus has not contributed to the problems in these cities.

seanmcdirmid3• 4 years ago

Perhaps one of the reasons these places are desirable is that they don't allow for "no zoning/housing aggressive" policies like say...Houston?

the average American would be much, much better off if SV had never produced a single unicorn.

Is this an envy thing? The average American isn't really affected by SV's housing prices at all.

salmonfamine6• 4 years ago

The average American is greatly affected by SV in many ways, hardly any of them positively.

munificent• 4 years ago

Seems like a lot of comments here are quick to fit this into a moral narrative.

The survey results aligned with my impression from talking to folks in the Bay area over the years: Most don't like how expensive it is and are there primarily for the jobs. Once more companies became open to remote work, the value of being in Silicon Valley went down. If housing prices don't drop fast enough to match that, then simple cost-benefit analysis says that people will want to leave. Sure, the weather's nice, but it's not that nice.

People here are saying that this will make other cities unaffordable, but I don't think that really holds up. There's many many cities that people leaving Silicon Valley to move to and distributing the load across all of them should be easily absorbed. Sure housing costs will go up some, but this is not going to turn Spokane into SF. Obviously, it would be great if housing was miraculously cheap everywhere, but that's not reality. Slightly more expensive everywhere and significantly cheaper in Silicon Valley is probably a net win for the country. (Remember that non-tech people do still live in Silicon Valley.)

This seems like an overall good thing to me. The US has been struggling under an incredibly painful demographic shift. We outsourced our manufacturing jobs to China and automated away most of our agricultural jobs. This forced a huge migration into the relatively small number of metro areas with significant service and tech economies, but those cities physically can't grow as fast as people want to move there.

Giving information workers more remote work opportunities lets the country load balance jobs more effectively across its existing physical infrastructure.

zamalek• 4 years ago

homelessness at 71%

Stereotypically, not conclusively, speaking:

The most bizarre thing about this problem is that both sides don't want it solved. The NIMBY crowd obviously doesn't want affordable housing, or housing programs, anywhere near their million-dollar home, or city for that matter. The YIMBY often oppose extremely effective (although never perfect) approaches to this crisis.

These people are bringing one of these attitudes with them to wherever they move. The homeless [generally] aren't the cause of homelessness, the homed are. I'm sure many of the QoL problems will follow these people/attitudes around.

[1] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/homelessness/id1380008... "You're wrong about: Homelessness" (Available on other platforms too)

peterbonney• 4 years ago

I have one thing to say about this: “Online survey”

beej71• 4 years ago

When housing prices fall significantly we'll know this is a thing. But right now it seems like plenty of people want to live there.

(I left the Bay Area in 2014.)

seanmcdirmid3• 4 years ago

Ya, when is this exodus going to happen already so I can pick up some cheap Silicon Valley real estate.

When people are eagerly waiting for prices to drop...they aren't going to drop.

More than half of Silicon Valley residents want to leave: The mood is darkening

Related Stories