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Comment by hollerith | Hacker News Reader

Marin County to SV is a really nasty commute, but I concede if it weren't close to downtown SF it would cost a lot less to live in Marin County.

Large numbers of high paying jobs are necessary for high housing prices except in tax havens like Monaco.

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When I was a kid, I lived on lake which was connected to Lake Ontario.

One summer a job was across the our small lake, a 40 minute drive by car, but maybe 10 minutes by boat as the crow flies. Sure, I got wet during rain and wavy days, but clothes get dry, and it sure was convenient.

I often wondered, if the job was in SF itself, do people take boats to get to work? If so, why not? I presume docking costs? The place I worked had their own dock, so ... "sure, just tie up over there every day".

Ferries are a popular way to commute from Marin Country to SF:

https://www.goldengate.org/ferry/schedules-maps/

https://www.blueandgoldfleet.com/sausalito/

I don't know of anyone using or having used a private boat to make the commute.

When I was a kid in Miami, I read about people commuting to work by jet ski. This was before they replaced the Rickenbacker Causeway drawbridge with the William Powell Bridge, and the commute from Key Biscayne into Miami could be delayed and backed up, as boats had the right-of-way.

I had a friend who lived in New Jersey in a water front property - he used to ride a jetski over to New York to stop for a drink at a bar in a marina. The issue was you had to pay marina fees to be allowed to dock there, so while it was fun it was actually a pretty pricey way to get to NY (and you'd be wearing damp clothes) - but he still thought it was a lot of fun.

He was OK but apparently the was a lot of boat theft in that area too.

There are people who live waaaaay out there and commute to their Silicon Valley job via a light airplane like a Cessna, quarterly, monthly, weekly, probably even daily. "Commutes, uh... find a way"

I knew one of those too. I consulted for a company across the street from the Palo Alto general aviation airport. The doc/pubs manager lived some place north of Sonoma. She would fly in, walk across the street, and go to work.

At another job, the project manager lived in WA but worked in Palo Alto. He flew (commercial) in early Monday, with a small apartment to live in during the week, then take off mid-afternoon Friday to be back in WA with his family for the weekend.

Fun fact: it was once envisioned that there would be a second Marin–SF bridge via Angel Island: https://cahighways.org/ROUTE131.html

And resort/premium retirement areas like Aspen. I'd also argue that although jobs helped create a lot of the "elite" cities, once they were created, there's a fair bit to keep people in their orbit if not in the city proper even if employment opportunities become less of a consideration.

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