Hacker News Reader

Comment by Tycho | Hacker News Reader

Is housing unaffordable, or is it just that everyone wants to live in the same few places? That’s the impression I get in the UK. Of course the houses/neighbourhoods that everyone wants to live in will be unaffordable to most. That will always be true, basically.

View on HN

The problem is that people want to live there because that is where employment is concentrated, so they have more opportunities to choose.

Remote work may somewhat alleviate the problem, though it will take time and it won't dissappear entirely.

It's illegal to build dense housing almost everywhere in the U.S.

New York has the densest housing in the US, and is still one of the least affordable places to live.

Of course people want to live at a reasonable distance from their workplace. You can’t work for a FinTech startup in the City and live in Nowhereampton where rent is 100£ a month and everybody is on the dole.

So for people who choose careers where it’s important to live in a hub city, housing is increasingly unaffordable, but what about everyone else who is content with a career/job with no such restrictions? Most cities have a trendy, expensive side, but also lots of low cost areas, plus satellite towns.

In the uk specifically, it really is London or nothing for high pay work

When I was living and working in the UK I got that same impression. Trying to buy a property anywhere in central London is nigh on impossible. The only people living there are the very wealthy and the very poor in social housing projects.

My colleagues used to commute in by train from two hours away each day, but I'm guessing they're leaning heavily into remote work now.

There's nice areas in the UK which are dying because everyone wants to live in some metropolitan area. It's a real pity, but I can't see the trend reversing anytime soon.

> There's nice areas in the UK which are dying because everyone wants to live in some metropolitan area.

Maybe because

> My colleagues used to commute in by train from two hours away each day

There must be affordable housing everywhere (read: in every city, and multiple areas of larger cities, not literally every inch of earth) if you want to have workers in lower-wage jobs who aren't forced to spend all their non-work, non-sleep time commuting.

If it's effectively impossible to find housing in San Francisco at a price that a barista can afford, and you're OK with that, then you're saying it's OK for San Francisco to have no baristas. (Or for baristas to be homeless.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com