Comment by drakaal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drakaal | Hacker News Reader

Visit the Tenderloin in SF.

Twitter came in to the community brought lots of jobs. Did that make the neighborhood better? No. What happened was that the price of housing went up for a group of people who could already not afford it. Basically the "area" was developed but not the "community".

Like an invasive species. There is nothing wrong with rabbits in general. I like them. But in Australia they are destroying the native species.

As humans we have more ability to pick up an move, but we tend to not want to do so. Most of the people in the low end of the economic spectrum rent, so it is not like the increase in property values is making them rich off of their homes, instead they see rent increases.

Trader Joes in the "wrong" neighborhood does the same thing. Many communities "need" a walmart because it will serve their need for cheap food and clothing, and won't raise the property values. It is easy to hate Walmart and other big box stores, but in truth, often a community needs "cheap" more than they need "good".

Edit: Produce is one of the things that are hard to get in a "food desert" Trader Joe's is notorious for having expensive produce with a short life span. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-things-not-to-buy-at-trader-jo...

Could we find some nuance between "poor people are going to be wiped out by invasive rich/middle class people," and "there are no losers to gentrification, ever"?

It seems clear that when a neighborhood gentrifies, some of incumbent residents will find their lives improved (perhaps because: a job is created that they get, they own property which is now more valuable, the neighborhood is safer, schools are better), while others will find their lives worsened (because they are renters who can no longer afford their home or neighborhood).

Whenever we have these kinds of discussions, I want to know what the alternatives are. Granted that gentrification is a mixed bag, is there a plausible alternative which helps anyone in these neighborhoods?

Mandate that the new businesses hire only locals.

I think this handily solves the problem - rents can't go up too much, otherwise the possible employees leave and the business shutters. Locals are employed, business runs, things improve in the neighbourhood and lift all boats.

That doesn't solve the problem at all.

The "lift all boats" outcome is exactly what activists are afraid of, because if that actually happens it makes the neighborhood "more desirable", and new people will start getting interested in moving in. Those people provide upward pressure on rents.

And once new people move in, they would now be "locals" and eligible for the jobs, too.

There's no logical way to satisfy these anti-gentrification groups because what they're afraid of is quite literally "the neighborhood getting nicer".

Instead of making their cause "keep the rent low by keeping the town crappy", they should make their cause "raise wages so we can afford a nicer town".

The business has to charge more in order to pay the newly increased wages that are necessary in order to hire the wealthier people who now desire to live in the improved neighbourhood.

I don't think they're afraid of "the neighbourhood getting nicer". I think they're afraid of people who don't know the local situation "helping" them out - "for their own good" of course. It is the same problems that countries face who work with the IMF/World Bank. Who wouldn't want free money?

It seems likely to me that this policy would polarize, not mitigate, the effects.

That is, if a neighborhood is kind of on the line between okay and bad, this policy might help push it up into okay -- businesses would say, "Okay, there is enough going on in this neighborhood that we can deal with moving into it even if we have these hiring restrictions," and then the hiring restrictions may in fact improve the neighborhood.

But if the neighborhood is solidly bad, the business says, "Let me get this straight: you want us to move into a part of the city where it's by no means clear that we can prosper anyway, AND you want to make it really hard for us to hire people, AND you want to slow down any improvement that our presence may make to the neighborhood by meaning that it all has to be organic rather than imported? HELL NO." And so then nobody takes a chance on really poor neighborhoods and they get worse and worse.

On the gripping hand, I don't think it's a plausible policy in America. It seems outside of the type of business regulations which can actually get enacted.

Ideally a growing city would build enough new housing to accommodate all it's citizens. If there isn't enough built, developers will spend their square footage on the highest paying people first. And generally the rich are better at effective NIMBYism than poor people, meaning that new development aimed at rich people gets pushed into poor neighborhoods, which does actually suck for poor people. The best solution is not to panic about the second order effects, but to try to get to the root of the problem and build more housing, and do it everywhere.

I think the reality that needs to be confronted is that many, many neighborhoods were harmed significantly by a large range of occurrences over a good chunk of history. Redlining, first and foremost, if we're discussing neighborhoods. White flight from urban school districts is a closely related issue.

These happened. Redlining was in no small part due to direct federal policy. These have had impact on our neighborhoods, impact that can't be downplayed, and communities adjusted to survive. Gentrification in a lot of ways looks like the undoing of these policies, which would be fine, but look closer and you see that the neighborhood ecosystems are being strained yet again. Whatever equilibriums were obtained (many via struggle and sweat equity by families with ties to the area/no other options) are now being threatened.

I think reparations to neighborhoods, communities, and people directly affected by redlining is necessary, and would serve to lessen the power differential between communities and neighborhoods. Doing so would ease the problems created by population transfer.

Perhaps you're not familiar with Trader Joe's --- they are known for good food at low prices. And it's hard to see any parallel between a grocery store (open to local residents) and Twitter HQ (where most workers never interact with local residents at all).

That someone can innocently and unironically describe Trader Joe's as being "known for low prices" is really the crux of the problem here.

Perhaps you're not familiar with minimum wage?

It's true and what's more, TJ's is not even close to a one-stop grocery store. They have a few general interest items and a bunch of foods specific only/mostly to their store. Only a nutritionally deficient person could shop solely at TJ, for everyone else I know it's supplemental shopping. There is a lower limit to your wealth before you get to the point where you're in the market for supplemental groceries.

*source: I lived above a TJ's in Berkeley for a few years.

> Only a nutritionally deficient person could shop solely at TJ.

I shop almost exclusively at Trader Joe's* and am not (to my knowledge at least) nutritionally deficient. I get fruits, vegetables, dairy, meats, eggs, bread/cereal, and the odd snack. What am I missing?

In my experience, while it's true that technically they have items for every section of the food pyramid, you're often limited to a very small selection within many of those categories. Maybe your store is better stocked than mine was, but I could only eat there if I had the same few meals repeatedly.

I'll admit to a small bit of hyperbole in calling that nutritional deficiency, I should have better called that a distinct lack of variety.

http://m.traderjoes.com/fearless-flyer/article.asp?article_i...

http://thebillfold.com/2013/08/price-comparison-battle-safew...

http://www.checkbook.org/interactive/spmkt/other/t/article.c...

> Trader Joe’s received higher overall quality ratings than Dominick’s and Jewel-Osco, and charges similar prices.

I could go on, but I guess you can do your own research. Seriously, their prices are on average, lower than most.

My wife and I buy about 20 different items weekly from Trader Joes because it does have the cheapest prices on those 20 items.

Speaking of minimum wage... Trader Joe's pays substantially above it. My niece works there and as a stock clerk she gets paid substantially over minimum wage and has health benefits from them.

Not sure what you are getting at. Trader's pays very well:

"...full-time crew members can start in the $40,000 to $60,000 a year range."

http://womensenews.org/story/labor/130722/cashier-the-deal-o...

Uneducated, inexperienced, poor people cannot compete for a job that pays that well. It would be trivial to staff the store with much higher quality candidates from farther away. Unless this specific TJ makes an explicit commitment to hire extremely local folks, then there will not be any working there.

Trader Joe's can get meal costs really low. If you're past the stage on only eating rice, eggs, and chopped veggies, TJs is comparable to any other store. Having lived in relatively poor neighborhoods that are not at all hip, it's not like fresh fruit is super available otherwise.

Trader Joes has low prices but they don't have the dirt cheap junk food that you might find at some stores. But you can eat cheaply at a Trader Joes. You can also eat very expensively if you go into some their specialty stuff.

They put a Whole Foods (definitely not known for low prices) on a vacant lot in downtown Detroit and it's doing great.

That's a terrible counterexample. How can we possibly draw parallels between Twitter, which has very specific high-education employment requirements, and TJs, which is exactly the opposite? TJs has no need to import labor when it opens a new store - its cheaper to hire locally. Completely different situation.

With regards to your edit: Not sure how no produce is better than produce with a short expiration. Also, anecdotally, I've never had this problem (although I largely eat their bananas, which have easy tells for how long they'll last and are amazingly cheap).

As someone who lived very close to a Walmart-centered ecosystem for several years, including working there, I'll also add that while it isn't Gucci, there's nothing really wrong with the stuff Walmart sells, from a poor person's practical point of view. It's just regular, everyday useful stuff.

Except the food which, on the whole, just isn't healthy.

> Except the food which, on the whole, just isn't healthy.

Care to elaborate? Assuming the Walmart has their standard grocery section they will sell fresh fruits/vegetables, meat, dairy, eggs, grains and the like. It may not be the highest quality but it won't kill you.

Agreed. The assortments available at all of my local Walmarts are on par with the local big box grocery stores. This includes produce, bakery, deli, and prepared items.

I didn't mean to imply that it was bad. There is a lot of fights around organics, and made in the US, and such. Walmart tends to optimize for price rather than low environmental impact, or made in the US. Trader Joes tends to optimize differently.

I think a large past of the anger against Walmart is not about their products; it's about their poor economic practices - underpaying people, being effectively subsidized as their workers are on food stamps, and the deleterious effect they have on local neighborhood stores.

underpaying people, being effectively subsidized as their workers are on food stamps

Bill applies for a job at Costco, but Costco only hires a fraction of the number of workers that other retailers do per square foot or dollar of revenue, so they turn him down. In the future, Costco will be paying Bill $0/month. As he continues to hunt for a job, Bill goes on food stamps.

A month later, Bill later applies for a job at Walmart, where he's hired making just above minimum wage at $8/hour. Since he's only earning $8/hour and only working ~30 hours/week to start, Walmart will be paying Bill about $900/month. Bill will continue to receive some food stamps, but less than he was receiving in the month that Costco turned him down.

Explain to me why Walmart is being "subsidized" here.

How are they underpaying people? They pay what the market supports. If you get an $8/hour job as a greeter and you think that's less than you're worth, then you are welcome to not work there. If the supply of labor becomes scarce, then the wages will rise. The thing is that there are some jobs that just don't warrant high pay. If I can teach you your job in an hour and it requires no skills or experience, then why should I pay a huge wage? It's like buying a netbook and paying Mac Pro prices. It's silly. While I know Wal Mart people generally work hard, the work itself is on a level of difficulty on par with collecting aluminum cans. If you find yourself working for 10 years as a Wal Mart cashier, then it's your own fault. There are so many government programs for workforce education, technical training, university, etc. Instead of watching Dancing with the Stars or keeping up with the Kardashians, it might behoove some of these career low-wage earners to try to work a little smarter and learn a skill that they can monetize at a better rate than they currently earn.

For a short stretch in 2008, I was actually living out of my car, making barely $200 a week DJing at some shit clubs in Houston. I knew how to use a computer, but I certainly didn't know how to code. Here it is in 2014 and I make more money in a day than I did in an entire month back then. I taught myself, reached out to complete strangers who where experienced to recruit them as mentors and in 2010 I started getting paid to code. I'm not saying everyone should learn to code, but there is a way out of shit-paying jobs -- but it involves taking initiative instead of blaming everyone and relying on the "system" to help.

I have little sympathy for folks who continue to make minimum wage for years -- it's their own fault. That's not a popular opinion, but it's true. There is nothing stopping that Wal Mart greeter from spending his after work time learning something new.

Poverty is a choice. Maybe not a conscious one, but a choice nonetheless. I see plenty of satellite dishes when I drive past the public housing complex. I see plenty of $200+ sneakers using food stamp cards at the grocery store. I see a lot of blame, but very little personal responsibility -- it's always the "Evil" corporation's fault. It's the government's fault, it's Wal Mart's fault -- it's everyone's fault but the person who is actually in the situation.

They pay what the market supports.

Randian worldview detected. Continued oppression of the downtrodden assured. Society must reserve resources for professional PowerPoint makers. All hail Status Quo.

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