I've been here for seven years. It definitely feels like we're on the track toward what people describe SF as. Several cultural institutions have gone out of business in my time here, everything's getting more shiny and less weird, the homeless camps are growing enormous due to rising rents/displacement, etc. We're not SF yet, but we will be before long if nothing changes.
I held out a small hope that covid and the remote-work wave would stem things a little bit, but it's hard to say whether that's happened. If anything, the influx could have increased due to the exodus from SF.
> I held out a small hope that covid and the remote-work wave would stem things a little bit, but it's hard to say whether that's happened. If anything, the influx could have increased due to the exodus from SF.
This is exactly what we're seeing in the Seattle area. A lot of people in the various circles I'm in thought, as we entered the early stages of this pandemic really settling in for the long-haul, "well, phew, at least it'll put a breather on housing costs."
Nope.
Because of the "work wherever you want" and Seattle and Puget Sound still being a wonderfully attractive place to live, the pace has accelerated. Housing prices here have shot up by double-digit numbers, even inside the city limits from which people are supposedly "fleeing." Both the north and south ends of Seattle, even West Seattle where the main road link has been severed for a year (as of today), have seen massive upticks.
The Department of Licensing has released statistics that show that the number of California driving licenses and vehicle titles exchanged for Washington ones is the second-highest it's been in ten years, with only 2018 being higher, and that's with most DOL offices being closed or heavily restricted due to in-person limits from the virus. (The influx of cars isn't going to do our "pristine environment" any favors, either, and I look forward to the even-louder rants about how terrible traffic is driving by oneself from Marysville to Queen Anne for a hockey game).
Meanwhile, people around here continue to insist that building is bad and, I shit you not, that if we simply don't build then the people will stop coming. I don't know why anyone still thinks this; it hasn't been true for twenty years, why should now be any different? And the new arrivals aren't keen on building more or making sure newer arrivals have space because, well, they moved here, to this spot because they liked it that way and, gosh-darn-it, this space is going to stay like this forever.
It's getting quite frustrating. After many, many years of waiting and hoping and moving around, I finally live near where a light rail station will be opening in the coming year-ish and I fear, even on my moderately good tech salary, I'm not going to be able to afford to live here before the train arrives, or shortly thereafter.
Similar feelings here. I simply don't know where else to go; it seems like every nice-to-live-in medium-sized city that isn't SF is going through this same song and dance. Money comes in like a flock of locusts, consumes the city, and SF is one of the first examples we're seeing of the husk that gets left behind. Then they move on to the next one.
Where's a person supposed to lay down roots, without retreating deep into a suburb? I don't need or want a job at FAANG or the next "unicorn"; I'm happy with my normal tech job/income and the life it affords. Why couldn't those things stay confined somewhere else and leave the rest of us in peace?
Odd answer, but go to the megacities that show resilience and are building housing. In the US, so far that may only be NYC. I know that's not amazing to hear if you have other reservations about NYC, but I think it's the reality until mid-sized cities catch on and get their shit together.
The other answer IMO is to pick a city no one in tech is even thinking about, and the growth rate is expected to be slow. Not to jynx them but places like Cleveland, Richmond VA, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Detroit, Columbus, San Antonio, Milwaulkee, etc.
Personally, I far prefer the megacity, but that second list is a potential option.
From an urban development perspective, to me it seems that the best course of action would be a massive federal investment in existing mid-sized cities. Build large public transit networks in some of these becoming desirable cities and distribute the strain tech is putting on our urban centers. Massively increase housing density, but with this foresight, avoid doing the short term luxury development that won't hold up longterm and build some old fashioned 3-5 story brownstones.
The risk is that the people never come, but the alternative is the consistent hollowing out of all major US cities. Something has to give.
Yeah, I have casually looked towards San Antonio and even Waco. The problem with the "look where nobody's looking yet" angle is that you're potentially just kicking the can down the road. In 10 years when "the market catches up" it'll be back to square one. Perhaps you'll have equity by that point, but that'll be the only difference.
There's an implicit assumption there that this problem will continue until it consumes most every small city, which I don't think is true. At a certain point, it will either stop at a larger/more popular city level or will spread itself so thin that the original set of cities becomes affordable again full circle. I suspect the first case as the cumulative growth rate of tech slows, but of course that guess is just as good as yours likely.
The problem is, from my perspective (and having lived there), the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex is neither resilient nor a megacity. Outside of the 635 and 820 loops, it is just suburban sprawl that gets scorching hot in the summer and everyone who lives there has to be reliant on a car.
DFW is going to be in a world of hurt when the water runs out and that day is coming somewhat soon. There are already places in central Texas where the aquifers are dry and the lakes don't refill during the formerly-rainy season. North Texas is reliant on a set of manmade lakes that are already slower and slower to refill, with more and more taps being added every year.
I came from DFW (technically one of its suburbs). You're either in the suburbs, or you're living in a sea of hot concrete. Unless you retreat to one of the less-wealthy (read: genuinely middle-class) suburbs, everything from the restaurants to the billboards is steeped in corporate pretension and wealth-signaling. And then you're still, well, in the suburbs.
In my first round of interviews out of college I interviewed with a company in Dallas. It was going well, but towards the end of the day I was frank with my interviewer and told them I simply didn't want to live in DFW. I didn't have another offer yet, but I found one in Austin and moved there.
No kidding, I grew up there as well! The not-wanting-to-ever-return feeling is very relatable. I wouldn’t have re-explored DFW were it not for the current state of life in the Bay Area. As it stands, things have changed a lot in the past 10 years, or perhaps I’ve grown up. There’s a lot going on in DFW, and as an adult having explored all over I’m comfortable giving DFW another look.
NYC is building pied-a-terres for money launderers. The whole Hudson Yards was engineered as a phony rehabilitation of Harlem so they could sell visas to millionaires who could then turn around and buy a luxury apartment in the "blighted" neighborhood they revitalized.
No argument here, but what does this have to do with the countless other neighborhoods in NYC and the consistent expansion of housing that has happened in them over the past few decades while other cities experienced far worse gentrification pressures by not building housing?
Hudson Yards is not what I'm referring to in any way in my posts on this article. I'm mainly talking large towers in Williamsburg, along Atlantic Ave in Brooklyn, in the East Village edge near Alphabet City, some in Gowanus, Long Island City, and many others I'm probably forgetting.
It isn't anywhere near Harlem but they created a special zone that connected HY through central park to Harlem so that it could qualify for special redevelopment incentives.
> I simply don't know where else to go; it seems like every nice-to-live-in medium-sized city that isn't SF is going through this same song and dance.
Not to sound too defeatist about it, since let's be honest we are still sitting pretty high on the list of people doing pretty well for ourselves, but I'm not sure there is any real escape.
In addition to more people moving here, one of the other reasons the Puget Sound housing market has shot up so dramatically is because lots of us didn't lose our jobs during this pandemic, but we for damn sure lost what we usually spend money on. With so much money sloshing around, people make the decision of "well, surely now I should buy a house, right?" And then they do. And since more money is available to them, housing prices are driven upward.
What sucks is if we have this worry, those of us of the high-five-figure/low-six-figure brigade, how must it be to be of even lesser means? If we're feeling the creep--the only reason I didn't get hit with yet another $100/month rent increase is because the Governor said they couldn't--then what is everyone else doing? I am anxious not only for my family, but for society at large.
I don't know how much longer that can last. Maybe it can last forever, since the monetary policy in this country seems to be that housing prices Must Never, Ever, Ever Fall, because housing is both a required good and the primary "investment" vehicle of everyone with lower net worth than an Apple executive.
My employer has taken up the work from wherever mantle and has said that where our company has offices, even internationally, are places where living is acceptable. As I'm an EU citizen, I wouldn't need work permission to go live there, maybe I give there a go for the second half of my life.
> I am anxious not only for my family, but for society at large
Absolutely; I didn't mean to underplay how privileged I still am, that my worst-case scenario is spending more than I'd like to on housing or moving somewhere less-pleasant to live. Lots of people are in much worse positions right now and I'm really hoping something gives at some point. I just wanted to air/discuss the source of my own (much smaller by comparison) frustrations, given that lots of people here can probably relate.
> Absolutely; I didn't mean to underplay how privileged I still am
Just to be clear, I was all but certain we were in agreement, and I didn't think you were (deliberately) leaving anyone out. What I wrote was more of a "this is gonna suck...for most of us...pretty damn soon...and we all know it...and that sucks."
> Where's a person supposed to lay down roots, without retreating deep into a suburb? I don't need or want a job at FAANG or the next "unicorn"; I'm happy with my normal tech job/income and the life it affords. Why couldn't those things stay confined somewhere else and leave the rest of us in peace?
Pick a city with cold winters and high humidity and not near mountains or ocean.
>Where's a person supposed to lay down roots, without retreating deep into a suburb? I don't need or want a job at FAANG or the next "unicorn"; I'm happy with my normal tech job/income and the life it affords. Why couldn't those things stay confined somewhere else and leave the rest of us in peace?
Literally anywhere in the upper midwest. "Oh but the winters are brutally cold and the summers are too hot and humid" you say. Well, there's a reason you can get a $150k/yr tech job and a nice $300k house in a good neighborhood. And there's no aversion to building homes up here.
Way too many people think the only place to make a living in tech is on the coasts. But you can get tech jobs in any major city. And some are ridiculously cheap to live in. Just look outside the "normal" places.
I held out a small hope that covid and the remote-work wave would stem things a little bit, but it's hard to say whether that's happened. If anything, the influx could have increased due to the exodus from SF.
Overall I don't feel optimistic.