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Comment by cultofmetatron | Hacker News Reader

there are plenty of reasons to live downtown. maybe there will be more coffeeshops and coworking spaces. I'm in Barcelona right now but whether here, medellin, bangkok etc, there is a huge demographic of educated workers who like livign in the city area but wan the freedom to walk around a beautiful economically diverse environment. I for one wouldn't mind a apartment where I can walk to a number of parks and cafes and social areas. The problem in SF is one found all over america. we don't have have proper third places. The closest thing I have to a hangout whenever i'm back stateside is the gym or starbucks.

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So now to work from home I’m a dense urban environment I have to find a coworking space? That sounds a lot like an office, only one with random people and no place to safely leave my laptop when I take a piss?

Seriously, why would anybody live in a tiny downtown flat if they either work from home or have to find a half-assed “office that isn’t an office but isn’t at my cramped alartmen?

It makes no sense.. WFH requires a big house with a comfortable private office. The amount of people willing to live in a sense urban environment and somehow manage to work outside a formal office is incredibly small.

WFH is a suburban developers wet dream.

WFH does not need an executive level suite. That is just your preference. I'm currently staying with a friend for a month in a 1k (1 room plus a kitchen) apartment in Tokyo and it's been surprisingly easy to adjust to a smaller desk and one extra monitor from my WFH setup stateside with three on a much bigger desk.

If I was permanently living here I'd opt for a simple 2k or higher like I used to have which was easily affordable as a couple on mediocre salaries and definitely affordable on a dev salary. Probably could get a nicer place than I used to have and recreate my US based setup.

My friends location has dozens of restaurants of basically every type, even more bars, multiple grocery stores, and various other services I won't need for a visit but would use in daily life like dentists and gyms.

That's also ignoring the ten minute walk to multiple train lines to the whole of Tokyo that gives me access to nearly anything you'd ever want to do in a city. A smaller space is definitely a worthwhile trade-off millions of people elected to live and work in. I'd say it's a very easy choice when the city is built around people with things to do within walking distance and good public transportation, instead of planning for cars and Lyft transportation.

Ignoring NIMBYs and allowing large amounts of housing to be built also keeps rents from becoming the silliness that they became in SF. If you go the opposite way in Tokyo and elect for a smaller place (perhaps because you work at a restaurant and don't WFH and are fine using the various amenities Tokyo offers outside your home) it's possible to live in basically the various hearts of Tokyo on a solidly middle of the road salary.

The smaller space only becomes an issue when people have kids and start a family, when some percentage moves to the suburbs. However, not everyone because rents in a bigger place are expensive, but once again not insane.

But you were complaining about WFH not being luxurious enough outside of a detached home.

American cities could reinvent themselves after the mass exodus of people leaving down town offices. I don't think most will, but it's definitely possible with the right planning

Co-working spaces are really really nice but I suspect they will prove to be just an eccentric, boutique-like, expensive things that companies actually hate to use.

Vast majority of them would prefer to sign a lease for 7y for a building instead of overpaying for a small space with nicer interior. The reality is that companies really want assembly lines for office workers.

The thing about SF is that every neighborhood has its own "downtown" in the form a primary commercial street with coffee shops, grocery stores, small businesses, etc i.e. everything someone working from home might need. Also, nearly every neighborhood has at least one park that is accessible and walkable. When people say "downtown SF" they're referring to the eastern/northeastern part of the city with all of the office buildings which is ironically the part of the city with the worst selection of coffee shops, food, parks, etc. so there is really close to zero reason for people to want to be there. Working from home in NOPA, Inner Richmond, Haight, Duboce, Noe, etc etc is quite nice and also very walkable and convenient.

Is there enough coffee shops and park benches in that part of SFO to support even a small fraction of the 160,000 people who used to walk/bike/bus to their former office? Or are we all gonna now have to rent an extra bedroom in order to live downtown? Is my employer gonna pay for this new pseudo office or did my cost of living just go way up?

Cause I ain’t working on the kitchen table or in my kids room. I have almost three years of experience to tell you how much that doesn’t work.

If you have kids you don't live in SF. Plain and simple. It's too expensive to raise a family in the city so it ends up being a handful of very rich old money types who send their kids to elite private schools like Covenant & Stuart or the children of refugees, legal, and illegal immigrants from Central America, Asia, and the Middle East (large Yemeni population in TL) who end up in shithole SFUSD schools

Most people in the wfh demographic in SF are either DINKs or Yuppies

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