[echelon]

Absolutely absurd. The comparables are a quarter of the price or less in any other major city.

SF as a tech hub needs to die. There are better cities that are far less NIMBY and regressive.

If you don't succeed in launching a startup, you're just participating in a meat market. Your salary goes to rent. It's not sustainable.

My SF coworkers often have roommates. You can't live like that in your 30's. You can't get married or raise kids like that. I've owned multiple concurrent properties in the heart of a city - historic properties with 25' ceilings - and I still pay less than SF rent. It floors me people put up with SF living conditions.

NYC, Boston, Portland, Austin, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Miami have way better adjusted costs of living and aren't so broken politically. You can probably pick two cities and own homes in each for the cost of your SF rent.

Let the land owners have what they deserve. A brain and wealth drain.

[api]

I was visiting SF for business a while back and while I was going for a walk the following kind of just hit me:

"San Francisco is someone else's house."

I can't explain exactly what prompted it, but I got the sense that there exists in SF a deeply embedded property-owning class that owns the city. The city is theirs. If you are not one of them, you are only visiting. The city will never truly be your home. It's possible to buy into this class, but the cost of doing so is intentionally kept so high that it's unreachable to all but the extremely wealthy.

Has the city always been like this? I don't know, but I wonder if maybe it has... if the various waves of hippies, post-hippies, ravers, hackers, and tech bros weren't just visitors permitted to crash on the couch for a little while.

There are many other cities all over this country where you are permitted to become a true resident, often for a very sane price. I don't get this feeling in most other cities.

[scottlamb]

> Has the city always been like this? I don't know, but I wonder if maybe it has..

It was like this during the gold rush of 1849. [0] Maybe the whole time since.

[0] "mining the miners" https://stlukesexpandingwest.weebly.com/mining-the-miners.ht...

[ashtonkem]

There’s a reason why I call the property owning class in coastal CA neofeudal. The property tax cuts for property passed down in the family doesn’t help.

[ojilles]

Funny, I had the same thought walking through Manhattan.

[api]

The same is probably true there, at least for the central high-priced parts of the New York metro.

[mrgordon]

You lost me completely when you said Miami is less broken politically than San Francisco. Have you spent much time in these places? Miami is a mess of planning and corruption with none of the modern industries like tech that create quality employment for the middle class with reasonable wages, quality healthcare, and partial ownership of their employers. After decades you still can’t take a train from the airport to the main destination (Miami Beach). They won’t even admit climate change is happening as the state suffers worsening floods every year. In fact the governor has banned the use of the term “climate change” to help avoid the issue. You must be pretty far to the right if you’re going to argue Miami is working well

[manigandham]

They only said less broken, not working well, and that's true of pretty much most cities today when compared to the abyssal dysfunction of SF.

There is far more to a city than employment, like taxes and affordability.

[mrgordon]

Employment allows people to afford things. Also when you live in a place with $8/hour minimum wage you quickly realize that nothing is affordable for most of the service industry workers. $320 per week before taxes with no stock options or healthcare and you think the basic affordability is better in Florida than California? What are they going to buy things with?

Florida is great if you made money elsewhere and want to come spend it in a low tax state where people move to retire to the suburbs and die. If you’re actually working then you realize there is no major industry outside of things like tourism which leads to a lot of low paying dead end jobs.

[manigandham]

There's a massive difference between states and cities. Are you talking about states now?

Why are you comparing service workers in Florida to software engineers in California? Being in the service industry is worse in CA than FL, even with a higher min wage (which usually increases cost of living just as much). And there's not much of a middle class in CA either regardless of industry, in fact the entire state is known for its vast wealth inequality and disappearance of the middle class.

As far as affordability of housing in SF, it's because of city policies that refuse to let new housing be built, not because people don't make enough to buy a home. Same with extremely high taxes that deliver no value to citizens while the city is overrun with crime and homelessness and deteriorating infrastructure. This is separate from employment, and really needs to be fixed first before you can increase opportunities for people.

[mrgordon]

“Extremely high taxes that deliver no value to citizens”

Hah! Yep the money just disappears

Your comments throughout this thread make it clear you don’t want to have a discussion on the issues. So we can agree to disagree.

In summary, the point is software engineers in Florida rarely get equity or decent healthcare either, if they can even find a real software job in FL that isn’t just IT for some company that has nothing to do with computers. Most of the Floridian software engineers I know work for companies based in California or NY / MA where there are networks of successful startups and angel investors who help get new companies off the ground. You criticize San Francisco for deteriorating infrastructure when places like Florida haven’t even managed to build comparable infrastructure. It’s easy to critique BART but until you take Tri-Rail you’ll never realize that it’s like BART is from the future in comparison. The machines to buy tickets routinely don’t work to the point that I had to board without a ticket and just pay a fine when they checked tickets so I didn’t have to wait an hour for the next train.

Meanwhile the state is sinking while they deny climate change. Truly an infrastructure disaster.

[manigandham]

> "make it clear you don’t want to have a discussion"

We are literally having a discussion. Does it only count if we agree? Call it a debate then if you must.

And yes the money does disappear. It's called waste, a very common problem with how governments spend money. The quality of life and govt services in SF and CA are not commensurate with the taxes collected.

The wider point is that ratio of avg income to expenses is worse in CA than FL. This is what "adjusted" cost of living means, and is regardless of various specific niches and industries that you're focusing on.

If you still think FL is worse than fine, just move to CA. You might love it here, but I doubt you will once you realize just how bad the politics are, which was what the original claim was.

[echelon]

> You must be pretty far to the right if you’re going to argue Miami is working well

That's a baseless and factually incorrect accusation.

> Have you spent much time in these places?

Yes, and I don't see it the same way you do.

> After decades you still can’t take a train from the airport to the main destination (Miami Beach).

That's a problem? There are other forms of public transit and low-cost transportation. The US has by and large opted not to invest in heavy rail - that's not a local issue, that's a federal one.

It's not like California is leading the way on trains anymore.

> Miami is a mess of planning and corruption with none of the modern industries like tech that create quality employment for the middle class with reasonable wages, quality healthcare, and partial ownership of their employers.

Sharing a flat with two roommates isn't quality middle class living, either.

> In fact the governor has banned the use of the term “climate change” to help avoid the issue.

Florida is a purple state. You can point fingers, but the state is at the precipice. The election was incredibly close. You shouldn't diss those living there - they have an outsized impact on the direction of this country. Their electorate matters more than California's, and we should hope more liberal voters move to Florida and similar states.

[mrgordon]

You totally missed the point. It’s not that Miami designed some great alternative to get to Miami Beach and I am mad they didn’t use heavy rail. There is no good way to get around without a personal vehicle. Going from the airport to Miami Beach is the most common trip for visitors and they haven’t even done basic planning for it. It’s completely a local issue.

In fact, even if you want to talk about heavy rail, it’s been a local or at least state issue. The voters of the state passed a referendum for a bullet train nearly two decades ago and then the state government went to great lengths to avoid building it anyway. The Obama Administration even offered federal funds for it since it was the project that could be completed most quickly. But the state refused. And yes California is proceeding with a high speed train despite the anti-train hit pieces from the LA Times.

Sure rent is lower but the incomes are so much lower and the minimum wage is so low that the average worker is worse off.

There has not been a Democratic governor in Florida since the 1990s and we have had a member of the Bush family and one of the biggest Medicare fraudsters in history since so I would say it’s been a relatively red state other than occasionally swinging blue in the presidential race.

Thanks for telling me I shouldn’t diss people who live in Florida. I live in Florida so I don’t really need the advice. After several decades here I am well versed in the many issues here including finding any neighborhood larger than two blocks that is walkable. Or finding a public park since the land was all sold to private developers. That’s not how urban planning works in functioning cities like San Francisco.

Maybe you should take your own advice and not diss people in California since you don’t live there.

[kortilla]

> And yes California is proceeding with a high speed train despite the anti-train hit pieces from the LA Times.

So far the high speed train has been a boondoggle, not a good example of a success. It will be decades before it goes anywhere useful.

> Or finding a public park since the land was all sold to private developers. That’s not how urban planning works in functioning cities like San Francisco.

Have you ever actually lived in San Francisco? A significant chunk of it (and 95% of the rest of the bay) is not walkable. And there is no functional urban planning in San Francisco. A policy of rejecting every new substantial proposal is not “planning”.

When was the last time they agreed to allow dense housing to replace single/multi-family homes? When was the last new BART line added? When were new commuter rail lines added in?

I lived in the Bay Area for over a decade now and this fantasy you have of a functioning local government doesn’t exist. The only people that make good enough money to be worth it are senior software folks. Everyone else is better at their slightly reduced equivalent wage anywhere else in the US (aside from maybe NYC).

Tax money is absolutely being pissed away at an alarming rate based on what citizens get here. The schools are frequently garbage, the public transit is useful for maybe 5% of the population, and the homeless problem is as bad as ever. All of this for the low price of one of the highest income tax states + sales tax.

I chose the bay because of the tech economy and nice weather in spite of the blisteringly incompetent government. I don’t think any of my friends or coworkers are in SF or the wider bay because they think it’s a good governance model. The thought is likely pretty laughable to most residents.

[mrgordon]

You don't need to replace historic Victorian and Edwardian houses necessarily, although its one option. Instead you can extend zoning in areas like SOMA to allow much larger buildings there where there aren't as many people already living there and most of the structures aren't nice historic houses. This is exactly what they've done. San Francisco has a whole area of very tall residential skyscrapers in various stages of completion as well as the tallest building on the west coast (the Salesforce Tower) as part of a new transit hub.

Many of the schools are great. Sorry if your school district is bad. There are excellent schools in many areas. Cupertino, most of the Peninsula, Berkeley have some really great ones.

My coworkers for a decade took public transit more often than not. You live in the suburbs if you think 5% of the population takes BART or Muni to work. Plus many people walk or bike.

I've walked all over San Francisco so if you don't find it walkable its on you. Grab an electric scooter, a bike share, an electric skateboard, some rollerblades, or one of those uniwheel things and the hills won't be so bad if you can't handle walking them. The Mission has more streets of great walkability with restaurants and small businesses everywhere than almost anywhere in America.

Perhaps the fact that you don't even know about the BART expansion should be the warning sign that you don't really follow Bay Area transit very closely. Ironic that you ask if I have ever actually lived in San Francisco. Yes I have. Trying to act like the government is so incompetent that they can't open a station when they just opened Milpitas and Berryessa/North San Jose stations on June 13 says more about your lack of attention to local issues than it does about their urban planning. They also built 7,000 nearby housing units. Its actual transit-first development as they've been doing in SF for years.

I've met more people in junior roles get rich in the Bay Area from equity than would ever be possible by trying to live in the cheapest possible place with minimal opportunities such that your expenses are a slightly lower percentage of your take-home pay as a new graduate. If you did an entry level job at Twilio you're probably a millionaire now. People get promoted significantly faster in the Bay Area due to the number of fast growing companies and the pay, which started out higher, grows that much more every year due to promotions, larger cost of living increases, etc.

So sure make your money and leave. Don't try to improve things you don't like, just complain about them. Go somewhere new and find out all the issues there that you didn't realize including several of the ones I brought up here. Learn what a truly unwalkable place is like.

[kortilla]

> most of the structures aren't nice historic houses. This is exactly what they've done.

So they prioritized nice houses over solving the housing problem. Not to re-assuring if you aren’t rich enough to own one of these houses or compete for the few high rise units there are.

> Many of the schools are great. Sorry if your school district is bad.

Lol, the embodiment of what’s wrong with California politics. That’s almost literally NIMBY.

> My coworkers for a decade took public transit more often than not. You live in the suburbs if you think 5% of the population takes BART or Muni to work. Plus many people walk or bike.

Yes, I live where the majority of the Bay Area lives - outside of San Francisco proper because SF has such hostile housing policies. Nobody would give a shit about the bay bridge if public transportation was decent but instead it’s a parking lot every day (non-covid).

> Perhaps the fact that you don't even know about the BART expansion should be the warning sign that you don't really follow Bay Area transit very closely.

If you’re talking about the track extension to San Jose, that’s pathetic. That’s something that should have been done about 20 years ago and it still doesn’t solve shit for most of the peninsula. It also doesn’t do anything for most of San Jose itself. If people cared about transit there would be multiple lines up and down the peninsula, cross lines, and a way to get to Mountain View from SFO that runs 24/7 and doesn’t require waiting at a bart/Caltrain interchange for up to an hour when it is running. As it’s run now, BART and Caltrain are red-headed step children used as lip service by politicians afraid to do anything serious to address public transportation in a meaningful way.

> I've met more people in junior roles get rich in the Bay Area from equity than would ever be possible by trying to live in the cheapest possible place with minimal opportunities such that your expenses are a slightly lower percentage of your take-home pay as a new graduate. If you did an entry level job at Twilio you're probably a millionaire now.

What a sad distraction from the point about the incompetent government. I already said the business environment is great and operates in spite of the incompetent government. Also, keep in mind that only a couple percent of the population work for tech companies and only maybe 1 percent of that group get to ride a successful exit. For every millionaire junior engineer you met, there are 10,000 people being failed by the current Bay Area government.

> So sure make your money and leave. Don't try to improve things you don't like, just complain about them.

What makes you think I haven’t worked on improving things? You might learn that the ability to identify problems is the only way to actually meaningfully fix anything.

It sounds like you’re just happy with your rich circle of friends in the city, that’s great for you. IMO that “I’ve got mine” attitude is what makes the bay so miserable for the rest of the 99%.

> Learn what a truly unwalkable place is like.

I’ve spent months in Tokyo and over a year in NYC. The Bay Area is a joke when it comes to walkability. Small segments of SF can be suffered through and then everyone else is just fucked without a car or ride sharing.

I suggest the opposite to you. Go spend some time in walkable cities to open your eyes to how mismanaged the governance of the bay is. Try Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong, Osaka, etc.

Your point of comparison might be some suburb rust belt US city so it might look golden to you, but it’s shockingly bad compared to governments that are truly motivated to support car free lifestyles.

[manigandham]

Cars are the de facto American transportation and what most cities are designed around. LAX is the 2nd biggest airport in the USA and has no direct rail connection either.

[asdff]

LAX was supposed to have a direct rail connection 20 years ago from the green line, but you can thank private parking lot owners for trenching up local opposition and the FAA for driving in the death knell on that effort. It does have a shuttle connection to the green line, and in the near future that shuttle will be replaced with a people mover.

[manigandham]

We have subways in LA. It's not like there were no other options. It's just a failure of local governance to actually plan and build for citizens.

[manigandham]

> "we should hope more liberal voters move to Florida and similar states"

Why? Seems like a good way to get the worst of both sides with constant gridlock. I prefer states to have a clear political stance so citizens can clearly choose the rules they live under.

Liberal voters staying in liberal states might learn more about how their policies work instead of escaping the consequences they voted in once those policies ruin the city, like they did to SF.

[kortilla]

Yeah, why would someone move to Florida to escape California and then bring the shitty big government politics with them to do the same thing there?

[swiley]

The weirdest thing is that a lot of politicians are holding this up as a model for housing and a solution to what is essentially a national crisis.

[4ggr0]

Of course you can raise kids and be married while having room-mates, it's just not the standard way of living. I know of some homes where 4-5 people live together and all their salaries are put on the same bank account. Doesn't matter if someone's a student or working full time.

It's obviously an alternative lifestyle and I don't know if I could do it. But saying that having kids, being married and having room-mates is impossible is not a fact, but an opinion.

I wonder if there are people living together in the some home and in a polyamorous relationship and simultaneously have kids, also living in the same home. Basically a whole community living together.

[fakedang]

Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's mainstream. As someone who's seen Asian households of this sort, it doesn't end very well quite often.

[4ggr0]

Are you supposing that our nuclear family never ends in a bad way? Or that it ends bad less often than say the traditional Asian model?

[fakedang]

Well you know how nuclear family conflicts are right? But now imagine if multiple nuclear family conflicts were to happen in the same dwelling. Even better, when those conflicts feed off each other and fester.

[dmode]

How is it absurd ? It is in a nice neighborhood, close to the water, walkable to the Golden Gate bridge, and sits next to a massive national park.