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Comment by closeparen | Hacker News Reader

>As these office high rises are constructed, we need to be pumping investments into public transit

Salesforce Tower is accompanied by the adjacent Salesforce Transit Center and several residential skyscrapers built over the last few years. It's not enough, but it's something. Not as egregious as a giant Apple/Google expansion with 0 homes.

>How else will the city be able to keep up with the growing housing demand?

Why would it do that? Less than 10% of the population is exposed to market rate rents. That segment (tech-driven transplants) also happens to be regarded as obnoxious, privileged, and undesirable.

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Tech-driven transplants strike me as a related but slightly separate issue. Yes, they make up a large portion of the recent influx and gentrification needs to be addressed. I don't have a good solution for this and it deserves a lot of discussion, but ignoring the rising housing demand is certainly not the answer. If anything, that will force out even more tenants who can't afford tech-salary rents, right?

The Bay area is at the heart of the Third Industrial revolution and hopefully will continue to be a driving force in the Fourth. Not evolving city infrastructure and housing to match this strikes me as Luddism.

Funny you should mention the industrial revolution, because resisting tech-industry-driven growth is done under the banner of progressivism, with the same pride and zeal of old-timey Peogressives fighting for better labor conditions in factories.

I don't follow. Progressivism advocates for the general improvement of society. This applies to both technological advances and social reform. Why not modernize social structure, infrastructure, and technology simultaneously? That should at least to the goal - hindering one will likely hinder the others.

Stopping money from getting what it wants (which in this case is housing, infrastructure, and attendant changes in the character of the region) seems to be enough of a social reform to be satisfying on its own, regardless of the consequences.

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