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Comment by SturgeonsLaw | Hacker News Reader

99.99% of the world's population don't live in San Francisco, so it's probably geared towards them

Maths: It almost seems like it should be a higher percentage, but 900k/8Billion gives 99.9875% exactly.

I don’t think 99.9% of people have the choice between a Honda or a Porsche (… or either of the two), so this list is probably aimed at a much more narrow group.

I reckon we could just about run to a Honda if we tried, but the Citroen works fine. So not really feeling the need for it ;)

> 99.99% of the world's population don't live in San Francisco, so it's probably geared towards them

Is the situation any better in other big IT-cities in the States (Seattle, NYC) or in Europe (London, Amsterdam, Zurich, Munich)? Some of these are slightly better than SF and some are even worse IMO.

The geography of the Bay Area makes it harder to escape high housing prices while retaining somewhat reasonable access to pretty much the whole stretch between SF and San Jose. By contrast, go out to the suburbs and exurbs of Boston and--while some are pretty pricey--there are pretty reasonable options on commuter rail and an hour drive from the city. (And many jobs in tech and other fields aren't in the city anyway.)

Yes, housing in the core downtowns is pricey, but get outside the city and there are decent options. This is true of a lot of places. The Bay Area makes it unusually hard to escape high pricing.

It’s not as dire in NYC unless you’re exclusively considering Manhattan. And even in Manhattan it’s relatively “affordable” if you’re willing to live in the 160s+. Significantly less than people think, at least.

OP wrote about owning a "home" as opposed to his coworkers who live in "condos" which makes me think he meant single-family house. Are you saying that SFH in Manhattan is relatively affordable for average FAANG developer?

I mean, SHFs barely exist in Manhattan so it's kind of a moot comparison. But the thrust of GP is correct - you can buy a townhome in much of Brooklyn and Queens for less than $1m.

Well, it is like saying that in order to live in SF you can just buy a house in Oakland for less than $1m.

I suppose, although perhaps this analogy would be more apt if there were few to no single family homes in SF (as is the case with Manhattan).

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