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Comment by mickrussom | Hacker News Reader

The bay area. The best, brightest, smartest, pedigreed, hardest working most motivated people on earth. And we cant solve the simplest problems in the Maslow's hierarchy. American Indians solved the housing problems with Teepees and Wigwams - so much for being "smart." There was an article recently where a google employee was living in a 24 ft truck in the google parking lot. This Bay Area mess is a self inflicted joke. What I find amazing is Tokyo. Tokyo, 1945, burned to the ground, population 3.5 million. Today, Tokyo is at 13 million and the Tokyo-Yokohama urban area is 37.8 million. And if you've ever been to japan public transportation is functioning and the society seems to nail basic needs much better than smarty-pants bay area.

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Really appreciate the note on public transportation. Limited housing gets a lot of the press currently but other infrastructure including public transportation is pretty overwhelmed currently as well. The traffic is already the second worst in the nation [1], and existing major public transportation like bart[2] and caltrain[3] are also overloaded. It also seems like it would be a lot easier to fix as the current system is pretty crazy with most public transportation done at the county level with 20 operators in 9 counties so for most public transportation you can't cross a county line without transfering[4]. I think a lot of people living in the bay would be more open to development if there were actually going to be infrastructure to support it.

[1] http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/trafficindex/list [2] http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-gets-candid-... [3] http://www.caltrain.com/Page3882.aspx [4] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/bay-areas-disjointed-pu...

The Bay Area does not have the 2nd worst traffic - off the top of my head, NYC, LA, and DC are often ranked higher in most articles on worst traffic, and from experience, I at least know that NYC and DC have it far worse.

Report from I cited TomTom says SF in particular has second worst traffic in the US[1]. I think lots of other cities have terrible traffic and ranking would certainly change depending on how exactly one evaluates traffic and what are the limits of the metro area. Point here is just to show that traffic is already bad and public transportation is also impacted. Especially in SF where Muni is by their own report [2] the slowest and most expensive to operate public transportation of 10 comparable US cities.

I just appreciate top comment bringing up this type of infrastructure as I think there is room for big improvement in Bay Area. We really need it to support any increase in housing which is also badly needed to ensure a diverse and prosperous economy going forward.

[1] http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/trafficindex/list [2] http://sfcontroller.org/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Docum...

Yeah, traffic is so bad in New York that we have to have three different rail systems to bring commuters into the city! Even investment bankers from Greenwich have to commute with the peasants, what a infrastructural tragedy!

I personally take my helicopter to work to avoid all that, but it's pretty expensive.

"What do you mean 'we', white man?"

The problem is there's no solidarity with the newcomers, and a strong desire by incumbents to keep the place the same and not turn it into skyscraper-filled Guangzhou. For a lot of people not building housing is an important priority in their life that they will fight for. Not to mention the question of money.

You might equally ask why the tech industry feels the need to be stuck so tightly to SF when it's far more amenable to remote work than most industries.

There's also the little matter of the earthquake zone.

We don't need to turn into Guangzhou. We could cut housing prices in half by increasing the supply by 30%, and we could do that by replacing 6% of the city's single family houses with six-story apartment buildings. The other 94% could be left alone, and we wouldn't have to build anything else.

Details: https://reddit.com/comments/4lwg49/h/d3qnrsb

You can't try to cut prices in half withoit a story for the people who are going to lose have their investment in real estate (including tax payments on unrealized gains) or they will fight you on it. You need a way to move the windfall profits to the people crushed by regulation changes.

Those people are profiting from the misfortune of others. They aren't providing any useful good or service. They simply held on what should have been a depreciating asset, reaped the benefits of negative externalities, and now they expect the government to protect their ill-gotten gains. Fuck that. The entire point of regulation is to prevent these sorts of market failures.

The best part is many of these people aren't even landlords. So many homeowners are obsessed with the values of their homes staying high, even though it benefits them in no way whatsoever. Well, unless you count "paying more property tax" and "making the neighborhood affordable to everyone but wealthy white families" as benefits. These people are working against their own self-interest because some banker convinced them that real estate was a good investment.

Realistically, all that building is not going to happen overnight, and likely it'll only be enough to stabilize prices, rather than radically drop them.

Indeed; my point was more that even if we decided to build so much new housing that prices fell by half, it still wouldn't bring us anywhere close to Paris, much less Manhattan or Hong Kong.

Since realistically we're probably not going to do even that, fears of Manhattanization are completely unfounded.

>There's also the little matter of the earthquake zone.

So is Tokyo.

> You might equally ask why the tech industry feels the need to be stuck so tightly to SF when it's far more amenable to remote work than most industries.

This pops up in every thread about housing.

The answer is that there's still a ton of value in being in the same place as other people. Stuff happens faster. Ideas are more easily shared. Spontaneous ideas are born.

Of course at a certain point, having to pay someone way more makes it just not worth it, but that seems to be a pretty high number for a lot of companies.

In short, technology has changed a lot of things, but we're still human animals

And because of that, people who were already living there should have to move away?

If they bought in, they don't have to. If they had got their act together 20... 40 years ago and got rid of some of the NIMBY stuff causing so many problems there, that would have helped too. If there were enough housing, no one would "have to" move away.

But no, in most western countries, there is no right to live in a city just because you currently happen to live there. If you want to live in an inclusive place with room for everyone, you have to ensure that the right policies are in place. If it's something you care about, you should get involved with these people: https://twitter.com/sfyimby

There's no right for anyone to live in any city. So why should I be cheering for a bunch of rich people coming in and forcing out people who have been living there for most of their lives?

"... a strong desire by incumbents to keep the place the same and not turn it into skyscraper-filled Guangzhou. For a lot of people not building housing is an important priority in their life that they will fight for."

Which is totally reasonable.

You or I may not like it, or disagree with it, or work against that idea, but it's incorrect to claim that incumbent property owners (anywhere) protecting their perceived value in the status quo is somehow wrong or morally bankrupt or misinformed or illiberal.

Sorry, it's morally bankrupt. Four middle class families spend more on housing than most Bay Area single-family homeowners. If it were legal for those families to live in a four-plex, they'd outbid wealthy families for that land. The wealthy pay cheaper prices by using the law to prevent people with less money from bidding against them. The wealthy can't actually afford the idyllic single-family neighborhoods they claim the right to without economic segregation laws.

"Sorry, it's morally bankrupt. Four middle class families spend more on housing than most Bay Area single-family homeowners. If it were legal for those families to live in a four-plex, they'd outbid wealthy families for that land."

Yes, I also wish I had a pony.

In the face of injustice, some accept it as the way the world works. Others fight to end injustice. Economic segregation laws are abhorrent, and I am fighting to end them in Austin. I hope others fight to end them everywhere.

https://www.facebook.com/DesegregateATX/

They own property, and the value of that property is linked to how hard it is to find housing for other people. Their actions make economic sense (is this what you are referring to as "reasonable"?).

Still, most people find these actions to be immoral, as they result in plenty of suffering and wasted potential. The mealymouthed excuses about preserving historical parking lots or not creating wind tunnels or whatever are easy to see through.

The balancing act is between "what I can do with my own property" and "what I can legislate to limit what other people do with their own property". Only the most libertarian would tilt almost completely in favor of the first, but I think that currently the balance in too many places is tilted far too much towards the second. And I would not hesitate to call it illiberal.

As I've said before here, it's a totally reasonable thing to desire, if you're an incumbent, but we should be totally unsympathetic to it, anyway.

I'm not really seeing why I should be sympathetic to those trying to go in and drive out the people already there.

Imagine two extremes, as an illustration:

1. In one city, incumbents rule. Their property values rise to a level that keeps everyone else out. They make all the rules. They were there first and they win. It's theirs and outsiders should respect that.

2. The second city is open to anyone, always changing. Incumbents cannot expect gains by virtue of having been first. Everyone there has the same expectation of benefiting from the city as anyone else. Anyone in the country is free (and able) to make a life there, if they choose.

I know which city sounds better to me. I know which one sounds like it benefits the most people, for the longest amount of time.

Of course incumbents prefer #1. Of course.

But, so what?

Again, at the same time, why should I cheer for people who are coming in, forcing out people who have lived there for their entire lives, simply because they have more money? That sounds like straight up bullying to me.

Japan is in the worst earthquake zone. How are 2 million dollar 4:2 "homes" and stressed and strained schools a good thing? Where are your kids going to live? Do even consider planning for the future?

If you're so worried about earthquakes, you're more than welcome to leave the Bay yourself. And I love how you equate building more housing to lifeless Chinese skyscrapers.

> If you're so worried about earthquakes, you're more than welcome to leave the Bay yourself.

What an inane response.

Especially as I'm five thousand miles away from the Bay.

Anyway, the point stands that the problem isn't solved because plenty of people either don't want it solved or refuse a solution that disadvantages them the slightest bit. A common problem the world over.

> The best, brightest, smartest, pedigreed, hardest working most motivated people on earth.

Come down back to earth.

Putting your post into the context of neuroscience, Einstein's brain consisted of much smarter (or "just better" and "harder working") neurons than can be found in all other brains!

Or maybe Einstein's brilliance was an emergent property of how they are working together in their network?

You should take some time and think about the nonsense in your statement. You raise a question without much understanding. It's not in the hand of individuals, and to change system outcomes is very, very hard. Politicians and businesses have power - but they have power because they function in a system. If they go against it they lose it. Like the king on that tiny planet in "The Little Prince" who commanded the sun to rise and to set.

You understand humanity as a bunch of individuals - that will always leave you baffled why we act (or don't) the way we do. It is a very inadequate model if you try to apply it to things like the missing housing in the BA.

Also, there are risks few are talking (or thinking) about when significantly increasing the Bay Area's population: Water and earth quakes, for example (the latter can severely impact the former). http://www.bayareacouncil.org/issues-initiatives/water-polic... What will happen in "Black Swan" events? Especially since we can be pretty certain that they will come. The water situation in particular needs to be addressed for the entire Bay Area.

just like the “best and the brightest” who brainstormed the Vietnam war

> What I find amazing is Tokyo. Tokyo, 1945, burned to the ground

Perhaps that's the reason why everything works? It was all rebuilt much more recently. Also, to my understanding the Japanese culture doesn't place the same value on historical structures[1][2]. It's much easier to secure right-of-way when there is less importance placed on the actual locations or buildings, or when it's expected it will be torn down at some point in the next 20-30 years anyway.

1: http://freakonomics.com/2014/02/26/why-are-japanese-homes-di...

2: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-japanese-shrin...

What 'historical structures' are there in Silicon Valley? The place was a bunch of orchards that were later burned down to make place for random ugly office parks. Let's be honest here.

There are portions of Silicon Valley with quite a bit of history (relatively speaking, as the West coast is fairly recently developed compared to the East coast, much less Europe). For example, San Francisco. See who comes out of the woodwork if you try to replace a chunk of Victorian style homes (the "Painted Ladies"[1]). San Jose has its own historical areas[2], as does Palo Alto[3]. I'm not saying our veneration of our history through structures is necessarily a bad thing, just that if your new city improvement project conflicts with one, you'll likely have a fight on your hands.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_ladies

2: https://www.sanjoseca.gov/Index.aspx?NID=126

3: http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/boards/historic/bldgs.asp

I have lived all over the country, there is nothing special about people in the bay area.

You may think you are special, I assure you you are not.

Sort of like companies claiming to only hire "the top 3%".

The rest of your comment shows why the area as a whole is often kind of stupid.

I've lived in a dozen cities all over the world and there is something special about the people in the Bay Area.

This is the area where the Gold Rush happened. It was an entrepot for valuable commodities. It still has that dynamic to this day. People come from all over to extract as many resources as possible, sell them and run off to somewhere else not caring about the externalities their opportunistic behavior creates. The political landscape here is mostly about pandering to special interests and never really solving social problems. Whoever panders best uses their constituent base to get elected into state and federal government positions leaving behind the dumpster fire that is the Bay Area.

the most special thing about the bay is its the best place for a software engineer to find a job in the entire country, and maybe the best density of highest paid software jobs in the world

Relative to the cost of living and housing I would say bay area is way underpaid at this point

Tokyo has a couple things that the Bay Area does not.

1) Zoning happens at the national level in Japan, not the local level so there are no, or at least very weak political mechanisms for neighbors to block projects.

2) There is no Proposition 13, which caps property tax levels for incumbent homeowners. What this means is that transit providers can pay for infrastructure needs through increases in land value created by better connections to transportation. California can't do this because if it improves infrastructure or experiences an economic boom, the incumbent property owners basically get to appropriate all the increases in land value.

> The best, brightest, smartest, pedigreed, hardest working most motivated people on earth.

Silicon Valley has the brightest minds in software engineering, which is great for building the world's most advanced ad-serving network or behavior tracking. Software is easy. The Bay Area's housing and infrastructure issues require political, social, economic, and engineering management fluency; these problems will not be solved by software engineering. These problems will not be solved by "disruption." These problems are hard.

> And we cant solve the simplest problems in the Maslow's hierarchy.

Maslow's hierarchy seems focused on individual psychology. Solving these problems for 7 million people with different values, cultures, and perspectives is not "simple."

> American Indians solved the housing problems with Teepees and Wigwams - so much for being "smart."

Yeah with a few orders of magnitude lower population and a drastically different standard of living. This is a ridiculous over-exaggeration.

> Tokyo, 1945, burned to the ground, population 3.5 million.

Throwing it away and completely starting over might be the easiest way to fix a metro area's infrastructure issues. But to your point there are also very significant cultural differences between CA and Japan; the present debacle can be blamed in a large part on CA's endemic cultural values.

Is a teepee or wigwam really so much nicer than a 24 ft truck?

The tents of the Arabian rulers that they used when traveling were very luxurious. So it very much depends - the variety in the comforts of (and inside) such structures is as big as in houses. Trucks are usually more limited in the layout and in space, but of course there are multi-million dollar "rolling homes" trucks too.

Without having seen the concrete truck, I think I would still always prefer this tent: http://cocoweddingvenues.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/ar...

It might be a tad bit difficult to build a proper tipi (Lakota: thípi) in the bay area, and some damn fool would set the entrance up in the wrong direction anyway.

That is the consequence of focusing on solving problems for the world, instead of connecting with the people next to us.

American Indians didn't believe in land enclosure and didn't have banks issuing fiat money against land, they also bartered I think rather than issuing paper against future labour.

I think hacker news isn't smart at all about fiat money because it's inextricably bound up with the venture capital world where you agree to hand over your labour for paper.

Fiat money is ex nihilo and therefore creatable in infinite amounts. Many of you won't be old enough to realise the productivity gains computers have brought. It's amazing. Yet here we are all scratching around for enough to cover our basic bills.

It will always be like this when you have land enclosure and tax labour. Create more and you can devote more to land costs. Hurry up, the rentiers are waiting.

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