Not even tunnels in this case, just like a whole-ass other set of streets and storefronts, all abandoned, partially buried, and covered on top.
Kinda like a giant codebase that's been maintained for 50 years and has a million regular users is going to make updates difficult.
Find a place people don't already want to live and make that better with great new housing designs? Why do does someone deserve to move somewhere new and live there cheaper than the people who already live there?
Now, that said there are huge distortions to the market driven by taxes and leverage. Many expensive places have 10% unoccupied housing. Think about how much that is. Imagine the time, cost, and disruption to build even 10,000 units of housing, when there are 40-50k units unoccupied.
Few if any of them actually invested that money. Rather they bought when it was cheap and then sat on it (either individually or as a family passing it down through inheritance) as the price went up - worse still they vote to grandfather in cheap property tax rates for people who bought early, so they're not even paying their fair share at the most basic/direct level.
> Find a place people don't already want to live and make that better with great new housing designs?
In today's vetocracy that's pretty much impossible - you'd have to find somewhere where not a single person already lived. Even then, as soon as you started doing it someone would move in and then block you. (Set a rule that requires development to continue? There's already a statewide rule that cities just flaunt)
> Why do does someone deserve to move somewhere new and live there cheaper than the people who already live there?
Being able to move in at the same price would be plenty. Up until the '50s people moved where they liked and build what they liked where they liked, without any permitting or anything. Now it's illegal to build practically anything - the vast majority of housing stock is only legal because it's grandfathered in, and would be illegal to build anew.
> Now, that said there are huge distortions to the market driven by taxes and leverage. Many expensive places have 10% unoccupied housing. Think about how much that is. Imagine the time, cost, and disruption to build even 10,000 units of housing, when there are 40-50k units unoccupied.
Unoccupied housing is a scapegoat. A healthy market needs some liquidity. If you legalise building new houses then unoccupied houses cease to be a problem.
Current zoning is especially odious in who it affects. The people it excludes from high opportunity areas are the poor and disadvantaged. Supply restrictions in the face of high demand lead to high home prices, effectively shutting out the poor and young from a better life for themselves.
I don't know, I live in a big city but I mostly work from home despite the office being 20 minutes away by metro. Because today's hotdesk flexi hipster office is a nightmare for actually doing work.
I moved here because I love living in a big city. Always having stuff to do. All the things to discover. Amazing public transport so I don't need a car (I absolutely hate driving). 20 bucks for a monthly pass and my shoes cover my entire travel needs for a month. Literally all the shops I need right around the corner. I can roll out of the disco at 6am and into my bed. It's amazing. I love being in the middle of life.
A lot of my friends love having a huge house in a quiet village but I don't understand that at all. I come from a quiet suburb but I've always hated that kind of environment. Even though I was happy there when I grew up.
Also I have pretty niche interests. It's just really hard finding a makerspace or a BDSM club in a small town. Here I have many to choose from in both categories :)
Also, small towns tend to be very big on the 'family values' mindset which isn't something I fit into, if that wasn't already clear from the above. In a city people know where to keep their opinions on how other people live their lives. In small towns they'll constantly gossip behind your back. I've lived in one for 10 years and hated that.
Anyway my point is, there's many reasons people want to live in cities that have nothing to do with their personal chance at jobs or money. It's really a very different type of society and environment that's really desirable for some people despite the crazy house prices.
I have a more simple proposition: instead of allowing remote work, how about we allow new homes to be built so the wealthy stop bidding up the price of all the old homes and remodeling them?
Many of the jobs done in hubs can be done anywhere else; they are the "remotest" jobs out there. Tech, Finance, Media, Research, etc... Many of these jobs can be done remotely and that will benefit everybody.
Of course, except for the big hubs landowners who are essentially exerting a tax on the high-income individuals.
And that is with corporations playing with the existing visa system AND illegal immigration.
In short, remote addresses a lot of issues for an average worker. It does mess with existing system for corps.
Are you really asking this question? Cost of living, especially housing, is based on supply and demand. As remote workers move out from expensive areas the cost of living goes down.
And real estate investment funds and landlords don't like this...
Case in point: I've moved to a city 40% the size of the one I grew up in so as to be able to afford housing at all and it's been great. A friend who stayed there recently purchased a 25% smaller apartment for 40% more in comparison to mine. It's not even funny at this point.
You have generally more time for all the things you mentioned when you don't commute 2h a day.
As for new homes: even now investment demand will gobble up any new housing that's built, as the former grows much faster than the latter. Induced demand for housing if you will.
Cities exists because they do something economically and socially valuable for humans. It becomes possible to support some infrastructures and services, such as theater, grocery stores, etc.
All remote work does is distribute some functions to less populated areas without solving the core problems that plague modern cities everywhere with gridlock and vetocracy. Otherwise, remote works would still be roughly be distributed to the same cities instead of going elsewhere.
If we want to unlock the most value, then yes we do want to solve commute 2 hours a day, especially for people who still need to commute. Yes, we do want cheaper housing in the most desirable cities. Yes, we want those remote workers living there anyway.
It so happens that the same people insist that we all, especially specialists with considerable disposable income, return to offices.
To reiterate a point I already stated: you won't get cheaper housing when it's seen as an opportunity for passive income. Only making these properties valued less can help here and remote work is the tool for that.
And they will continue to exist. Because of remote, they will maybe shrink in size, which is not a bad thing.
<< If we want to unlock the most value, then yes we do want to solve commute 2 hours a day, especially for people who still need to commute.
And that part is definitely solved by remote.
Unless, naturally, there is another objection to addressing something as quickly adoptable as remote for a good chunk of workforce -- no reasonable person would dispute that not all jobs can be effectively done that way.
I literally excluded all these people in my statement. Was it that hard to parse?
Well paying IT or white collar jobs that can be done anywhere are in the minority, and further the people that do hold those high paying jobs are frequently the very same people bidding up the price of existing homes in high opportunity cities, and pushing poorer people out in the process.
Also I might add that it seems like* most people who work remotely do not even choose to fully “maximize” the benefit by moving to truly super low cost of living locales, I’m assuming it’s for social, family, and perhaps status reasons. So, yes, economic activity outside fancy areas is being stimulated, but not to a huge degree.
*source: thinking of everyone I know at my fully remote company. Only a few live in places like West Virginia. Many live in the Bay Area, L.A., NYC, and like Connecticut.
The process of leasing is not immediate. In a similar way to how 0% unemployment is not actually desirable or remotely achievable, you want some slack in housing markets so that people actually have price competition and choice.
You should look at before and after pictures of cities in China over the last 30 years.
Those cities have been around much longer than Seattle.
In practice it is governance by those with the most time on their hands. Why does this small group get to restrict property rights for the rest of the group?
Despite all the talk of less regulation in the US it seems our cities and suburbs are much more protected and lethargic to change many European counterparts
Cities exist for geographical reasons, if you don't have the great port (either ocean or river) to attract people 300 years ago to settle there you won't get people today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago
It’s the only article linked with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regrading_in_Seattle, however.
Maybe one day we'll decide to raise Miami or New Orleans, but once all of your cities have raised themselves out of the swamps they were built on, you don't need to keep raising them for tradition's sake. You're done. And new cities, such as they are, we no longer allow to build below grade in swamps.
"fairly interesting" is quite the understatement! Absolutely fascinating and hilarious at the same time! Thanks for your post TIL
When I did the tour, the guide really played up the brothel/prohibition angle and made a few off-color jokes about that part of the history (more burlesque humor than outright offensive). So maybe that's why parents never took me.
I can see on the tours when you purchase the tickets online yourself: "There is a $2.50 convenience applied to each ticket at checkout."
What does that mean ?
You have to give tips to a computer ? Is that a thing in the US ? Like at the self-service checkout ?
I had an electric company that charged a $2 fee for online payment. I seriously considered paying them by check every month. The choice seemed to be between they charging me $ for an online payment or I charging them $ (indirectly for all the labor it takes for processing a paper check, they even sent me a prepaid envelope). It is atrocious that a company charges us for making something cheaper for them. (I ended up using my banks bill pay feature because I didn’t want to risk a check being lost in the mail).
For cities like Seattle, the original town was all wood and burned. Prior to that it was prone to flooding. During the reconstruction they decided to haul in dirt to raise the level of the city for better water management, but that would take a while. So businesses were rebuilt in place (but out of brick and stone), while dirt was being hauled in and new street levels were raised. New buildings were then built on top of the existing (essentially turning the existing ones into basements / foundations for the new ones). Similar thing in Chicago -- the city was raised up, and the second floors of buildings became the ground floor, first floor became basements, etc.
We figured out there was some kind of storage back there, and because the place smelled so musty and the ventilation was so bad we were kinda curious. We rigged the door so that once it was opened it wouldn't latch shut again and waited; a few days later we were in luck.
Going through the door there was the whole brick facade of the building (burnt, ironically), and the bottom of the present day sidewalk, three stories up.
Or are the underground building like a -1 floor to the ones above?
First, they made the streets higher without touching the storefronts. "Crossing the road" would have required climbing ladders. Once the streets were in place, they made the sidewalk and the new storefronts on the old first or second story. So, when you walk around that part of Seattle, there is sometimes just two stories of air beneath the sidewalk. You can identify these sidewalks through their use of amethyst blocks which actually serve/served as sunlight. As you can imagine, a block can consist of a single large structure and so sometimes the basement of these buildings are huge empty spaces. If I recall correctly, the Seattle underground is actually disappearing as development occurs and put these large basements into use. However, I do believe there is a movement to try to preserve at least part of the underground by simply buying enough adjoining buildings and funding their upkeep with tours (which is where I got this information). In terms of touristy things, I think definitely one of the more unique things in the USA and probably has similar vibes to the catacombs of Paris (without the bones).
And what was underneath those higher streets? A giant block of concrete? Scaffolding?