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Comment by TaylorAlexander | Hacker News Reader

Oh yeah, parking minimums are a disaster for many reasons, as is the endless acquisition of property by private equity firms. I currently need about 2000 square feet of industrial space (plasma cutting, welding, work benches, and a small office) and its very hard to find such a small spot! Literally the space in Oakland I previously would have used, American Steel, was bought by a private equity firm, all the small tenants were kicked out, and now they rent 20,000 square feet at a time to big venture capital funded companies:

https://48hills.org/2022/04/american-steel-burning-man-artis...

EDIT: Fun fact, I did approach the building, got the manager's number from someone, and called her. When I said I needed 2000 square feet she actually laughed, said "we typically rent out 20,000 square feet or more", said she would "try to find me something" and then never called me back.

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You're in the wrong place, this isn't a PE problem.

There are industrial spaces near me ~ $6/sq/yr with configurable sizes where you could do all this. This is also 30 minutes from a international airport.

It's like complaning that someone can't build a factory in manhattan because real estate firms bought all the land.

>It's like complaning that someone can't build a factory in manhattan because real estate firms bought all the land.

People complained good and hard about not being able to open/run a bodega in Manhattan because firms 'bought up all the land' - to the point Mom and pop shops got significant legislative benefits. To everyone's benefit(?)

Shenzhen, where China builds electronics, is a 17-million population city where such electronic shops can be built.

If we in the USA are supposed to compete against that, we need to start thinking about how to build our cities or culture to provide similar features to Chinese society.

Not like their human rights or whatever, but their specific production specs. How quickly you can physically shop in Shenzhen in person to look for parts, how easy it is to share designs in the engineering community, the economies of scale and so forth.

We are getting our ass kicked on electronics production. We really should think about emulating China now on this subject.

Emulate China? China emulated us.

The US had all that 100 years ago. We are passed that stage and bringing it back is going to have to be artificial and forced. And probably won't even work.

China is not a USA that figured out cheap manufacturing. China is an emerging economy that reaped the benefits of being an emerging economy (lax regulation + borderline slave labor). The same way (generally) the USA did 100 years ago to get to the advanced economy stage it is at today.

There's no equivalent to JLCPCB in the USA, only in China.

There are no legions of pre-packed pick-and-place machines in the USA that are hooked up to internet orders so that a machine handles nearly the entire process from PCB-manufacturing to PCB-Assembly / Pick-and-place, and then shipped out to you for less than $100.

Seriously: checkout the PCB and Assembly prices here: https://jlcpcb.com/

Yes, there's some degree of low wages going on here. But there's *ALSO* benefits to scale. Internet-scale production and centralization means they can take orders and achieve efficiencies completely impossible in the USA right now.

Now as EEs (be it hobbyist or professional), we need to start thinking about this difference in manufacturing flexibility. USA can keep up with China in terms of overall manufacturing (ex: if someone orders 100,000+ boards and assembly, USA can somewhat compete). But when it comes down to smaller orders, China is just far more flexible. In ways suggesting far superior automation (not just cheaper labor)

Really, think about these prices. Its obvious that jlcpcb just has a pre-made pipeline of pick-and-place machines covering the 500,000 in-house parts, and thus can offer extremely cheap assembly of those specific reels as its likely all automated.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6ZTn1t3Lsc

>The US had all that 100 years ago. We are passed that stage and bringing it back is going to have to be artificial and forced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6ZTn1t3Lsc

This ain't early 1900s bub. This is China today. This is what we're competing against, and people need to wake up to the fact that we've fallen behind.

>We are passed that stage and bringing it back is going to have to be artificial and forced

Look at the damn Youtube video.

That's not "slave labor". That's manufacturing and automation. USA is behind in this kind of training, schooling, and industrial understanding.

That's not some unskilled bozo they picked off the street. That's a Chinese engineer, likely trained from a University, who has Electronics knowledge likely exceeding many American Engineers (especially in the field of manufacturing that we're falling behind on). They program computers to assemble these devices. They have web-programmers to convert our Gerber files or KiCAD files into pick-and-place primitives. They have optimized assembly lines to minimize human error and maximize automation.

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There's a few shops in the USA that can do this sort of stuff, but no one close to the scale, reliability, or price of JLCPCB right now. That's the problem.

Its not "slave labor" or "low-economy" crap that they're beating us in anymore. Its high-tech, advanced economy automation. Do you think anyone in the USA has a pick-and-place machine / PCB-assembly line that well made? And flexible enough to handle random internet orders of quantity 10?

We are in agreement, I think you must just be misinterpreting my comments.

The US used to have insane manufacturing skill and logistics, but has since moved past it, especially in the last 30ish years. The US is now a fully fledged advanced economy, and likewise is primarily focused on high margin/high skilled service work.

China will likely move away from manufacturing too if it moves into advanced economy territory, at which point some other agricultural economy will start their foray into manufacturing, and sell to China for cheap.

This is how economies work. It's unprecedented for an advanced economy to bring back emerging economy manufacturing, it's experimental and untested for sure.

I think where you're missing is that all those "services" in the so called "service economy" exist to make the "real economy" more productive.

If services have settled upon "Use China for Manufacturing", instead of ya know, building better manufacturing centers or figuring out training programs or other such advancements, then the economy has failed us.

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The only way this so called "advanced service economy" actually benefits America is if we create better products, better research, better designs and make due with fewer workers on a realistic level.

If we're just sending money overseas its obviously a loss in the long run.

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USA's manufacturing prowess is still there btw. It took advanced computers, chemicals, and life-sciences to develop the COVID19 vaccines (and the updates to said vaccines) so quickly. China has seemingly been unable to replicate the feat.

But in _specifically_ electronics, China has pulled far ahead of us. I think USA wins in chemical and energy sciences for the most part. (China getting a big lead on LiFePo4 though).

At some point, we need to think and look hard upon ourselves and self-reflect. Why is our service economy unable to replicate the advanced designs and advanced factories that China can so easily stamp out?

We're supposed to have better software. We're supposed to have better engineers and better design services. But at the end of the day, China out-manufactures us in the realm of electronics. Thinking and reflecting upon this, as well as the nature of service economies and what our "services" and "advanced economy" is supposed to accomplish is key.

>USA's manufacturing prowess is still there btw. It took advanced computers, chemicals, and life-sciences to develop the COVID19 vaccines (and the updates to said vaccines) so quickly. China has seemingly been unable to replicate the feat.

That's not manufacturing so much as R&D. China isn't so great in that department, but they're great at pumping out manufactured goods with slightly behind-cutting-edge technologies at huge volumes. If China had access to all the R&D behind the mRNA vaccines, they could probably manufacture them too.

My understanding is that mRNA vaccines require advanced biotechnology, wherein the simulated mRNA is converted into DNA in a lab (DNA which can then create mRNA later), a bunch of magic goop gets added (activating the DNA to start producing the mRNA)... and then chemicals are used to isolate the vaccine (aka: mRNA) out of the goop.

Consistently, and safely, doing this to the scale of hundreds-of-millions of doses or even billions-of-doses is obviously a big manufacturing feat.

Right. So if the US gives China all the know-how for doing that manufacturing process, they'll be able to do it just fine, just like they've done for so many other manufacturing technologies the US happily and willingly exported to China.

if there is a demand for 200sqm space - why wont someone rent 2000 sqm and subrent?

Because that's extra work and risk for a small return, plus local ordinances might not even allow it, or would make it difficult. Being a commercial landlord isn't that easy. And there might be "demand", but not at the prices being offered.

As with many things “not profitable enough” is a huge detriment to society and a huge flaw with unchecked capitalism when so much wealth accumulates at the top

Sure, but what are you going to do about it when most of your voters keep voting for policies that result in this?

Here's my low-effort snarky response to your question: Pesky Laws, ordinances, labor rules, and MBAs with fancy graphs that say something is "unprofitable".

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