|
Hey, I think you're being unfair here, attributing a wide range of beliefs to me that I never stated, nor do I believe. That's really unfair. I said in another post: I hear that you're angry, but it's not OK to lash out or claim that I'm arguing something I'm not. Anyway, with regards to home ownership: I'm personally of the belief that home ownership has been massively oversold as a benefit. I've been in the Bay Area for 25 years, from undergrad to staff engineer at an internet firm. Over the various dot-booms and dot-busts, I saw people moving further from the Bay Area and taking on insane commutes due to the desire to own homes. For example, many Stanford employees purchased in Tracy(!), then experienced massive financial failures when that area depreciated. I'd like to see Prop 13 die in a fire. Unlikely to ever happen. So, as you say, you're moving out of Palo Alto because the costs to buy there are too high. However, Santa Cruz isn't particularly cheap nor is it significantly cheaper than my own area, San Mateo, which has a 20 minute commute to Palo Alto. If you had just said, "$90K/year in an area 30 minute commute to PA", I wouldn't have complained at all. The problem here is insisting on living directly in PA weakens the argument (it's specious) because there is no specific reason for a person to have to live in PA. There are more affordable communities around within 30 minutes commute. I feel like you're insisting that people who support a community must live (and own) in that city. I don't think that's a rational requiment. Again, none of my argument is based on the systemic issues in the Bay Area (or anywhere with a booming economy and a large number of well-capitalized buyers), which I freely admit is a problem. |