Hacker News Reader

This is the most common argument I hear against building, but I am firmly convinced that the reason you have the commute problem in the Bay area isn't because of the number of people, but because the resistance to building has forced development further and further out.

Consider that there is still housing growth, but its in South San Jose, Morgan Hill, and Gilroy. Those people all have to drive past Los Gatos, Cambell, Cupertino, San Jose, and Sunnyvale to get to Mountain View. All your doing is increasing the amount of Miles people have to drive, and that in term increases the amount of time they spend in their cars, and clogs the roads. If you built houses in Mountain View or Palo Alto, none of those people would be on the roads, and if they were it wouldn't be for nearly as long. You don't have to take my word for it take a look at average commute times in the bay area, those increases aren't due to a 2x increase in Mountain View, its due to a 2x increase far outside with people driving in.

Public transportation is great, but the solution is to build houses near where people work, that means San Francisco and Mountain View.

Well there is also the issue that the VC's and tech executives would rather workers have to do hour plus commutes to offices conveniently close to SFO and Sand Hill Road than they having to drive out to Vallejo. And much less have live in Kansas city or some such god forbidden place.

That is because at the end of the day VC's want you to spend all your money so they can get more of your ownership. There is no incentive for them for fund companies in middle america where their dollars aren't in such high demand.

The market has shown people are willing to make the commute. Not only would you need to induce the current commuters to move, you also need to ensure they aren't simply replaced by more commuters, which isn't necessarily a given.

The market has shown that there is extreme demand at the center. We need to build at the center.

There is a fixed amount of people at any point in time in a metropolitan area. Building at the center will not make new people appear. It removes people from the commuting crowd.

You might have it backwards. Traffic is increasing because we're adding offices but no housing nearby. Therefore people need to pour in from further out. With higher density, alternate transportation options become viable and attractive.

Your argument does not account for people currently outside the Bay Area moving into the Bay Area because of cheaper housing. While people currently residing in far flung places would move closer to their work, the people living in other parts of the country aspiring to live in Silicon Valley would now move to Morgan Hill and Gilroy. Eventually, we will end up with the same housing crunch, except with twice the number of cars on the road.

If you look at the data for SF, 95% of brand new units are first occupied by people who have lived here for a at least a few years. New housing serves people who are already here.

What causes people to migrate to the bay is the office creation, not the housing creation.

That logic doesn't work. 95% of new units going to existing residents doesn't mean that if I built 100 new units, I only get 5 new houses. Those 95% who move to new units leave their old local places open, which in turn go to god knows where.

There is a natural population growth in the bay area from people having and raising children here. Our housing growth rate is slower than the rate of children coming of age. The unoccupied units that current residents are moving into can theoretically be occupied by the children of the current residents as they come of age.

>What happens when more people move into the area from the rest of the country and start driving to work from their newly built housing units?

What happens is they congest traffic far less than they do now, driving from farther-flung places.

Well, Bart is opening in San Jose this year. Caltrain is electrifying which will enable much lower headways.

If you focus on dense developments near them, that goes a long way.

Add bus lanes and HOV lanes which don't require additional lanes and improve efficiency. Charge more per vehicle.

You can actually hire Germans to run your trains.