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Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

There's really no reason why London/SF couldn't do that apart from government policy.

Well, that "government policy" is the will of the taxpayers and voters who want to decide what happens to the city they live in and not just accept that living conditions imposed upon them by some bureaucrat. People in Guangzhou may be accustomed to living in Sim City, but that's not how it works in a democracy.

Personally, I've been to all three cities, and I wouldn't want to live in Guangzhou, compared to London or San Francisco.

People aren't robots to be warehoused.

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You frame nimbyism and protectionist housing policies as the will of the people, but I'd take a Chinese city with clean air over 3400 / month in a second. SF housing is broken, I would not put it on a pedestal of being some grand embodyment of democracy.

I'd take a Chinese city with clean air over 3400 / month in a second.

So go ahead. No one is stopping you.

SF housing is broken

I don't disagree, and that's also the case in most large cities these days.

I would not put it on a pedestal of being some grand embodyment of democracy.

I don't think it's grand, but I think there's more value to it than current generations understand.

> that's also the case in most large cities these days.

Chicago, as always, begs to differ. But no one notices it, it always flies under the radar which probably contributes to it's success in this regard.

I've only visited Chicago once and really enjoyed it, but I suspect its reputation, whether vaild or not, for crime, cold, and corruption serves as a rate limiter on migration to the city.

Chicago, and more importantly IL at large, is broken. The state gov is one of the most corrupt in the country. 4 out of the last 6 or 7 governors have went to jail. Dennis Hastert comes out of the IL political machinery. State employees pension funds will likely bankrupt the state as the taxbase shrinks. The job prospects for most engineers are limited. I grew up there and wouldn't move back.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-ed...

I moved to SF from Chicago and agree that the value for money is nuts there (I loved Chicago), but the extended winter, isolated nature, and the fact that it isn't really destination city for any industry puts pretty hard limits on how much people will pay.

Chicago has a nice balance between QoL and CoL; I don't see the huge appeal of moving to the bay when most of it is just overgrown suburb and living costs are out of control

That's absurd, there are plenty of large cities doing relatively ok keeping housing costs in line. Try visiting San Antonio, Dallas, or Houston, 3 of the 10 largest cities in the US that are quite affordable.

> So go ahead. No one is stopping you.

There's some sort of open border policy between the US and China?

Seems like a lot of effort simply to live somewhere with reasonable housing policies.

The only Chinese city with clean air is Xiamen. It is a nice place, but you might have trouble getting the right job.

>The only Chinese city with clean air is Xiamen.

I was about to disagree but I just looked it up and it seems to be doing a lot better than I remembered.

http://pm25.in/xiamen

Xiamen has geographical benefits, lots of wind blowing any pollution out into the ocean. Not to mention that they have a lot of nice colonial architecture as well.

People aren't robots to be warehoused.

Heh, that's how I would describe much of the SF market in comparison to the (better designed subset of) suburbs. An apartment in SF that is anything more than a place to park one's sleeping corpse is quite expensive.

I'd massively prefer to live on the 25th floor of block apartments with public transit access for $100 a month than to have no such option and be forced to toil a quarter of my adult life to have way more space than I want or need.

But what if, compared to London or San Francisco, places like Guangzhou are the only places normal people can afford to live in?

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