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Comment by alxbrun | Hacker News Reader

SF is great for two categories of people:

- The wealthy

- The homeless (yes, social services and tolerance is much better here than in any other big city in the US)

People caught in the middle who own a house will survive 10 years before quitting. If they don't own a house they have already left.

I'm doing more than $100K and I had to leave the day I started a family (try to find a rent below $6K for something suitable for a couple + 2 children). I think it's sad that the city will progressively become a strange place where the very rich and the bums stare at each other. If you want to have a preview, spend one hour on Market and 7th.

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I feel exactly the same way except that I'm in another city, Vancouver BC. There is an odd assortment of people in Vancouver consisting of the obscenely rich, wannabe rich, obscenely poor, and singles/couples with no children. Once you have children, you are pushed out of the Vancouver area and into the suburbs due to cost of adequate living conditions [1]. But people say, "oh, it's just the suburbs, it's not that far to drive" and not realize that we have the 2nd worst traffic in North America [2].

I really shudder to think what 10-20 years will do to a city where the middle class (whatever that word means nowadays) has been completely hollowed out.

[1] http://www.vancouversun.com/news/East+Families+leave+Vancouv...

[2] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/01...

How can middle class not mean anything? Doesn't it refer to the fat section of the income curve, where there are supposed to be the most number of people?

Sure, except that the perception of the middle class is significantly screwed (at least in the US, but probably similar up north).

In the US, the median household income is $51,404[1]. So, the middle class should probably be centered around that number. Say, $35000 to $75000 or so. I bet your looking at that number and saying "No way! I'm middle class and my household income is $150k!" Well, turns out that basically everyone thinks the same way regardless of what their incomes are.[2]

So it becomes pretty hard to nail down exactly what defines the various classes in the USA. Especially with the cost of living differences across the country.

Take a look at Rich Blocks, Poor Blocks[3] and spend a little time clicking around the map. The zip code I live in has a median household income of $38,646 and the site suggests the middle class income range for the state is $53,264 to $68,300.

Anyway, middle class is a loaded term.

1 - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/29/c...

2 - http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/everyone-is-mid...

3 - http://www.richblockspoorblocks.com/

I think the middle class is defined to be those people who have enough income that mere survival is not a daily concern, but do not have so much money they don't have to work.

That is, indeed, most people, which is why further divisions are useful, and so we talk of "lower-middle" and "upper-middle".

No. It's more complex than that, and depends on who you're talking to.

Marxists, for example, do not find 'the middle class' to be a concept of any significance.

I know absurdly rich people with children who moved out of the city, even when they could afford an $8mm house suitable for a family, because of the schools, too. (and weather, but mainly schools); the mortgage differential between SF and a place like Hillsborough or Palo Alto, combined with $30-50k/yr per child for 14 years or so of schools (to go to private schools in SF, vs. good public schools), is a lot of money.

You'll end up with the homeless, the super wealthy, and maybe the $70-200k/yr earning singles or (young) couples without kids. Tech seems to mostly hire from that third group.

Cannot agree more -- I actually moved to Palo Alto :)

try to find a rent below $6K for something suitable for a couple + 2 children

I guess you mean SF proper.

You can find very nice (but small compared to mid-west) houses in nice areas for less than $3k in the east bay.

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