Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by vertex-four 4216 days ago
> Blaming the "techies" is moronic.

Not quite - it's certainly the techies' fault for centralising on an area that, plain and simple, can't cope with the demand. You can't point to any particular person who gets that blame, but the CEOs of major companies situated there, and the VCs that fund the startups with the requirement that they move to Silicon Valley, probably shoulder it more than others.
2 comments
psaintla 4216 days ago
Absolutely, I do not understand the obsession with tech companies centralizing in a few major cities. There are many beautiful, walkable cities in decline around the country. Each of these cities would make excellent places to live with significantly lower costs of living.
link
lmartel 4216 days ago
I think one factor encouraging centralization in SV is that average tech job tenure is so short--if I quit, get fired, or my company folds, I want to be confident that I can get a (good) new job without having to move.
link
nerfhammer 4216 days ago
The population growth rate is roughly the same as most other cities in the country

http://e.infogr.am/infographic-20300?src=embed

It's SF's fault that it cannot deal with demand growth, not everyone else's

link
vertex-four 4216 days ago
If you use a SaaS that can't deal with demand growth, you use another SaaS or build your own system. If you use a city that can't deal with demand growth for whatever reason... you try to grow demand further?

Anyway - what's income inequality like in those other cities? Similar?

link
nerfhammer 4216 days ago
> If you use a SaaS that can't deal with demand growth, you use another SaaS or build your own system.

Obviously that's not similar. You can't "switch" cities like you switch your phone company. You can't build your own city. You aren't arguing that it would be bad for the SaaS for it to be used too much so everyone should try to stop using it to stop hurting it. You are not a city's "client".

Are you saying it would be in their best interest to move away and they're behaving irrationally against their own best interest for not doing so, or that it's a moral thing and they should all choose to uproot themselves according to moral imperatives?

> If you use a city that can't deal with demand growth for whatever reason... you try to grow demand further?

It would be ridiculous to say they are "trying" to grow real estate demand, as if that's something they collectively would or could try to do. Note almost all of these companies started out tiny and slowly grew locally over time and never decided to move in en masse.

> Anyway - what's income inequality like in those other cities? Similar?

I don't know, what would that indicate?

link