Why can't tech companies out-muscle NIMBY's and get 30-50 story residential buildings approved? After spending time in different parts of China, it seems asinine that most buildings here don't exceed ~4 stories.
Tech companies themselves have many internal constituencies (managers, line programmers, service workers). Since these companies are extremely not democracies, it's very easy for the preferences of a small valuable constituency (executives and managers) to override the preferences of a larger commoditized constituency (new grad engineers and janitors). Valuable internal constituencies are already compensated enough to buy a single-family home and generally don't want density.
It would be difficult for e.g. Facebook to publicly support upzoning in Menlo Park when half the NIMBYs in the room are relatively valuable mid-level engineering managers at Facebook. So we don't see these tech companies in general putting big resources behind really transformative upzoning projects.
Not to mention, stopping construction is a majority held opinion. In voting pamphlets, politicians actually brag about how much construction they've stopped: I can only imagine it's because the majority agrees with that.
Approximately 64,000 housing units, 31 million sq.ft. of commercial space & 25 hotels with 4685 rooms are now in the SF new construction pipeline - with 5700 units, 10 million sq.ft. and 5 hotels currently under construction. https://www.paragon-re.com/trend/new-housing-construction-in...
Google owns some land that had previously been developed for dense residential until the city council changed their minds. They've just been sitting on it for the last few years. Finally, the city council is approving 10-12 story residential (which is unheard of in the Bay Area), but they're still bickering over the details.
The crazy part is that Google wants Google employees to live in Google-owned housing next to Google. This should be a no brainer. Every Google employee that lives next to their place of employment takes another car off the road, has another person walking to work. But people are arguing it would create more traffic.
This should be a no brainer.
My landlord actively seeks people from the Bay Area to rent to and if they're not from here they're going to pay more rent especially if they work in tech. You're paying the tech transplant tax.
Also, we're not in China but the population density issue is the same. If the jobs are in one location, you don't actively prevent new housing or better public transportation.
It's because of profit. Amazon opposing the per-employee tax that would provide critical city services should help explain exactly where their priorities lie.
He also proposed instead of a flat tax, it would be progressive like income tax. Larger companies would pay a higher effective rate than small ones in the same sector but the Board of Supervisors didn't approve.
The City of SF has trust of over $24 billion and also administers a defined benefit retirement plan for ~65,000 current & retired employees of SF. And the President of the Retirement board who manages 24 Billion I believe is not someone from Goldman or finance background but a police officer?
SF priorities: Get electric bikes and scooters out of SF but create an unsafe city and homeless to walk around naked and dropping their poop and needles everywhere is okay
mostly opposed by local homeowners
Haven't SF tech companies, their employees and their voting habits done enough damage to SF as it is? One can only hope other cities with emerging tech industries act proactively to prevent current-Californian tech residents flocking from the problems they've caused to cause the same problems in these new cities.