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Comment by jmclnx | Hacker News Reader

This article is just referring to just one building. But it does have a point and may be showing a trend to something like "the free market works".

Until cities solve the rent crisis, I believe this will happen more and more. I think the only way to solve that is to build and build, but NIMBY people and Companies who love high rent prices seem to do all they can to stop the building of Apartments.

But, in SF case, it may be a good thing. Having a city like that in a severe earthquake zone is rather foolish. I can hope people wake up and move to more environmentally stable areas of the US. By that I mean places with low risk of earthquakes, flooding and droughts. They do exist, but no one wants to live in those areas.

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> Having a city like that in a severe earthquake zone is rather foolish

What is this based on? Tokyo, Jakarta, Manila and Los Angeles are more or similarly seismically active as San Francisco [1].

> They do exist, but no one wants to live in those areas

Because they’re fundamentally less productive. Natural harbours, fertile soil, striking vistas—each is related to geography, geology and economic potential. Landlocked, sterile, featureless terrain is less productive, less appealing and less valuable than natural port near volcanic soil and new mountains.

[1] https://www.worldatlas.com/amp/articles/cities-most-likely-t...

…Santiago, Mexico City, Rome, Athens, Seattle, …

> Mexico City, Rome, Athens,

Definitely not landlocked, or sterile. Seats of millennial civilizations for a reason

Where are these paradisical places with no natural disasters and livable climates?

Um. Maybe Pittsburgh? Appalachia?

I'm drawing a blank. Pretty much all of the mid-west is susceptible to tornadoes. The east and southeast to hurricanes. The west to earthquakes. The northeast to those crazy blizzards they sometimes get.

> I'm drawing a blank

Because it doesn’t exist. You don’t build a city where you fortress. The oceans that give rise to natural harbours and ports also bring risk of floods and tsunami. Similarly for fertile riparian. The same seismology that raises the mountains which squeeze rain from clouds and provide stunning vistas also level badly-built homes.

The risks can be mitigated, but never eliminated. Look at the list of natural-disaster safe cities in America, and find a sea of low GDP per capita [1]. In an unexpected place we find the old adage reaffirmed: risk and reward come together.

[1] https://www.rockethomes.com/blog/housing-market/safest-place...

> Pretty much all of the mid-west is susceptible to tornadoes.

And some good sized earthquakes too.

https://www.usgs.gov/programs/earthquake-hazards/new-madrid-... // https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34701813

And from https://www.usgs.gov/programs/earthquake-hazards/cool-earthq...

> Earthquakes occur in the central portion of the United States too! Some very powerful earthquakes occurred along the New Madrid fault in the Mississippi Valley in 1811-1812. Because of the crustal structure in the Central US which efficiently propagates seismic energy, shaking from earthquakes in this part of the country are felt at a much greater distance from the epicenters than similar size quakes in the Western US.

And yes, while the entire west coast is red in the risk category... there is a good sized blob in the midwest.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-131-02/CUShazard.html

The canary islands

Cheaper than Hawaii but with roughly the same risks, i.e. your home turning into a lava field.

You can reduce the odds a bit lol

Volcanic activity has occurred in the past 600 years on all the Canary Islands except La Gomera, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura

Weather there is perfect if you want eternal June :)

La Palma volcano erupted in 2021.

https://phys.org/news/2022-09-planet-volcano-visitors-spanis...

The weather is nice, I'll grant you that. Any Atlantic climate place with volcanoes has nice weather. I'll take the volcanoes over The Nederlands, thank you.

And Redwood City!

https://www.rwcpulse.com/blogs/portal-to-our-past/climate-be...

https://www.kqed.org/news/11889712/can-redwood-city-really-b...

> "Henry C. Finkler was a bicyclist. And he became, I have to say, fanatically interested in weather. And he recorded, every day he rode down the hill, what the air temperature was, what the winds were, the number of days of rain," Svanevik said.

> It’s Finkler who first claimed there were only three parts of the world that had perfect weather: the Canary Islands off the coast of northwestern Africa, North Africa's Mediterranean Coast, and anything within a 20-mile radius of Redwood City.

Singapore

Nova Scotia, Canada. We get hurricanes but they're not usually too bad. Not at risk of anything like earthquakes tornados etc

Where there are only four months that with average highs >10 degrees Celsius? Where there are was a tsunami with 7m waves less than 100 years ago?

I love Nova Scotia but I don’t think it’s the perfectly safe and livable paradise people should apparently move to.

Montana

You've died of dysentery.

Besides dissing Terry you also got blizzards which are certainly something.

Western Europe, at least. Possibly Australia expect for the forest fires, but that might just be availability bias in the news I see as it's the other side of the planet and hardly anyone (in relative terms) lives there.

> Western Europe, at least

Western European cities flood, most recently in 2021. The short list of low-risk high-GDP countries is limited to city states and the likes of Hungary, Czechia, Qatar, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Finland and Iceland [1]. Worldwide.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural...

With much lower risk and severity.

From that list:

4 Luxembourg 0.52%

13 Switzerland 1.03%

88 Germany 3.92%

110 United Kingdom 5.78%

131 Spain 9.68%

168 United States 22.73%

Though this does definitely tell me I was wrong about Australia, and that it only looks safe from a distance because the news isn't reporting on it:

164 Australia 21.36%

You can probably strike Hungary off that list.

https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/economic-surveillance-e...

Hungary is quite nice though. Also, I'll take the Balkans over Western Europe any day. Not Bosnia or Kosovo, but the other EU countries, maybe even North Macedonia or Serbia. Or Southern Italy if you also want to be sophisticated.

Western Europe is about to get so fucked by climate change. The area is basically unlivable without the North Atlantic Current - geographically the UK/France/Germany are at about the same latitude as Alberta and the Siberian Taiga, Scandinavia is the same latitude as Alaska and the Yukon. They would have similar climate if it weren't for warm Gulf water circulating in the Atlantic.

There's evidence that the current is already slowing [1], and the midpoint of estimates for when it might collapse is at 1.8C warming, something we seem pretty likely to blow past within a decade or two.

It'd be bad for Australia and the Southwest US as well, since collapse of the AMOC would bring permanent La Nina conditions.

[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/12/14/1041321/climate-...

Mid west and north east basically have no natural disasters. But cold winters and hot summers. Depends on your definition of livable. I don’t mind wearing winter clothes in winter and AC in the summer.

Midwest and northeast have flooding, droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, etc. Maybe not earthquakes (or wildfires), but I worry about earthquakes and wildfires much less than I used to worry and have to deal with frozen pipes and snow removal and humidity.

Has Chicago ever had a tornado? And a blizzard is really that bad? Nothing compared to an earthquake or a forest fire.

https://wgntv.com/weather/2-tornados-touchdown-in-chicago-ar...

It is all subjective of course, but I will take the lower chance of the high severity event over the high chance of the somewhat lower severity event. I have had to dig myself out of snow many times already in my short life and I have been through multiple power outages due to rainstorms or ice bringing down power lines.

But I have never had to deal with an earthquake or wildfire (other than staying inside for a few days). And I have been through multiple power outages due to rainstorms or ice bringing down power lines.

> Has Chicago ever had a tornado

Yes [1]. It also floods and freezes from its proximity to the lakes and rivers that make it a logistical hub.

[1] Has Chicago ever had a tornado

This source seems to be rotating faster and faster and causing a looping funnel …

Flooding in Chicago is its own pretty interesting story.

https://slate.com/business/2019/01/chicagos-deep-tunnel-is-i...

Chicago is in the midwest. It has multiple each spring.

Chicago can feel earthquakes too. https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-131-02/CUShazard.html

https://earthquaketrack.com/us-il-chicago/recent

And for blizzards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Groundhog_Day_blizzard https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-blizzard-2011-snowmageddon-b... (it's just that in the midwest people know how to prepare for blizzards and the city services have the tools) and yet...

> At least 36 deaths were reported to be related to the storm, many of them in shoveling or auto-related incidents, and the total damages were US $1.8 billion.

For your tornado question: https://www.weather.gov/lot/sigchitorn

> There were 92 significant tornadoes in the 8 county Chicago metro area between 1855 and 2008.

> The deadliest tornado occurred on April 21, 1967 during an outbreak of 5 significant tornadoes. A violent F4 tornado formed in Palos Hills in Cook County and traveled through Oak Lawn and the south side of Chicago. 33 people died and 500 people were injured by this 200 yard wide tornado that traveled 16 miles and caused over $50 million in damage.

> The most recent significant tornadoes occurred on June 7, 2008 over Will and Cook Counties.

> The only F5 tornado to ever strike the Chicago area was on August 28 1990. This tornado formed near Oswego and passed through Plainfield, Crest Hill, and Joliet. The tornado killed 29, injured 350, and caused $165 million in damage along a 16 mile path.

A tornado within the city limits of Chicago is pretty rare, but tornados within 100 miles of Chicago are quite common.

https://www.weather.gov/media/lot/severe/chitorlist.pdf

https://www.weather.gov/lot/sigchitorn

There is evidence that large buildings (cities) actually discourage tornado formation (which is why they like to eat trailer parks).

But Chicago is in an area that gets tornadoes - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LnkMSmLc6mM

The great appeal of San Francisco is that you don’t have to think about what you’re going to wear at least 300 days of the year. If you’re outdoorsy at all it’s very hard to go to the rest of the US and feel trapped inside. Unfortunately for me, family moved there after I moved to be close on the west coast, so I get to experience that 2 weeks every year.

I would also dispute “no natural disasters”. There are serious winter events in those regions (and crazy floods depending on where you are in the Midwest) that happen basically yearly.

I don’t think any part of the world is without significant tradeoffs, you just have to find the ones that matter to you.

Nothing is without trade-offs. We hardly notice the ones that come naturally to us.

Native New Englander here, married a Californian. My wife likes to say that "Every winter in New England is a natural disaster" whenever I bring up moving back.

St Louis, Atlanta, Austin, Phoenix, albequerque.

None of these have the climate of San Francisco, but certainly livable.

IMO, Phoenix is stretching the definition of "livable"

Phoenix and Albuquerque don’t have water

I was living in Georgia when CNN's building in downtown was hit by a tornado. They're not nearly as bad as in the midwest, but they certainly happen. Mind you, it's a perfectly reasonable place to build up, but the likelihood of getting killed in a tornado over the past 100 years looks to be worse than the likelihood of dying in an earthquake in California over the past 100 years (slightly lower numbers from what I could gather, but dramatically lower population).

Phoenix (and Albuquerque but I'm less familiar with the specifics) is in the desert; both the water it gets and the ambient temperature are getting worse due to climate change. There are already legal fights over water rights in the greater Phoenix area, and it's just going to get worse. That is not a place to be building up.

> There are already legal fights over water rights in the greater Phoenix area, and it's just going to get worse.

One recent example: https://kjzz.org/content/1847190/scottsdale-wants-governor-v...

> Scottsdale cut off Rio Verde Foothills from water sales in January due to worsening drought conditions. That left hundreds of homes in the unincorporated community without a reliable water source.

> Arizona lawmakers earlier this week sent a bill to the governor’s desk that would force Scottsdale to resume sales, for at least a few years while the community works out a long-term solution. But in a letter to the governor, Scottsdale’s mayor and City Council say the bill penalizes their city for sensible water management.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/joannaallhands...

> The bill requires the city to deliver at least 150 acre-feet to its standpipe each year, through 2025, unless outside circumstances reduce whatever source they use for it. And Scottsdale can’t charge Rio Verde Foothills residents more than $20 per 1,000 gallons for that water.

And the letter from the City of Scottsdale to the governor: https://www.scottsdaleaz.gov/Assets/ScottsdaleAZ/News/News+I...

> I was living in Georgia when CNN's building in downtown was hit by a tornado.

How many people died? How many billions of damage occurred?

Of course stuff happens, there are also minor earthquakes. But I think the point upstream is to avoid massive events. A tornado downtown every decade that does a few million in damage is very different than a 1% chance the city is destroyed.

Ireland

Try Helsinki. I'm not aware of there ever being a natural disaster here. Climate is definitely livable too, although maybe not everyone's cup of tea.

Everyone in the replies to this comment are naming places so dark and grim in Winter that I personally couldn't survive there. A summer in the southwest US is easier on me than even a mild winter in the northeast.

HN confirmed for Hyperboreans.

When you’re “work-from-underground-bunker” the weather woes of the surface dwellers are not your concern.

I have faith in the Builder's Remedy and how that invalidates local control when a required housing element plan isn't submitted. Papers in Marin are cringing about the high rise going up on Sloat Boulevard in SF's Parkside/Outer Sunset, I hope Marin ends up worse than Santa Monica with the remedy.

I think you may be calibrating for the wrong thing in terms of sampling. The idea that this is "just one building" doesn't mean that it isn't a representative sample: this one building represents hundreds of leases, if not a few thousand. If the aggregate value of those leases is down 75%, that means something.

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