[hueving]

>Why is silicon valley more expensive to rent in?

Because supply and demand. High salaries attract a lot of people to the bay and communities systematically refuse to build new housing to meet the demand so the price goes up.

You can do whatever you want to the banks but that won't change the fundamental of 2X people trying to live in X houses.

[wangchow]

Silicone valley is mental. I wouldn't want to live there just because of the gentrification..

[branchless]

No, many hot-spots have large rentier presence including people "owning" and renting out multiple residencies which causes huge supply pressure.

Credit also typically increases ahead of wages which squeezes people further.

This isn't supply of people vs supply of homes, this is supply of credit. If you neutralise this you will see prices fall and be paying less of your labour to banks.

2008 - the credit taps ran dry => huge crash. Before that near unlimited credit saw land prices increase hugely. Neither on the up or the down did we see wages have such volatility.

[newjersey]

I don't know why it is outrageous to say the solution to high rent is to build more.

We shouldn't worry about "squeezing" people out. Ours is a HUGE nation. We have A LOT of natural resources and there is no reason why we can't let people build more (outside of protected areas, of course).

People who are "priced out" should move to places where rent costs less. I keep hearing about property owners having enough political clout to block further development, depressing supply. They placate existing residents with tiny portions of rent-controlled apartments.

I fail to see how "gentrification" is a problem at all in the bigger scheme of things.

I don't think people renting out more places is a problem. If landlords hold supply out of the market to prop up prices, we can discourage such actions with a more dynamic property tax that places a realistic tax burden on under occupied or unoccupied property.

All that being said, we definitely need to figure out some way to peoperly educate people about personal finance.

[branchless]

I'm not arguing not to build more I'm simply arguing with the notion that the main problem is one of supply and demand. It is not, there are other problems in the mix including taxing labour not land.

https://www.amazon.com/Progress-Poverty-Industrial-Depressio...

[newjersey]

> there are other problems in the mix including taxing labour not land

I agree to some extent. Property (land) taxes have to be high enough to discourage people from leaving it unused. I have no problems with fully replacing personal income tax but I'm not an expert and I have no idea if we can realistically raise the same tax revenue from land tax alone.

[branchless]

We can. Land ownership is far harder to hide. Land value tax is the establishment's worst nightmare.

[TrickzOnU]

>> People who are "priced out" should move to places where rent costs less

It is a huge nation, but one where 70% of the tech jobs are stuck in SF/SV. I can move to Lincoln Nebraska and pay $400/mo in rent, but I sure as heck wont find an employer seeking a python job.

[nl]

Of course you will[1][2]. Lots more in Omaha[3] of course, but people underestimate just how widespread programming is.

[1] http://python.jobs.net/jobs/lincoln,nebraska.aspx

[2] https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/python-jobs-lincoln-ne

[3] http://www.indeed.com/q-Python-Developer-l-Nebraska-jobs.htm...

[branchless]

And you move, that job falls through, then what? It's far more comp!ex than you very basic approach.

[nl]

Actually, I live in Adelaide, Australia. I know quite a lot about the technology industry.

Software gets written in a lot of places.

[whoiskevin]

Water? Nation has natural resources. Valley does not.

[Retric]

California has plenty of water for people, it just wastes most of it on crops poorly adapted for the area.