Radical Ideas for the T and Housing Affordability (cost, versus)

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

There is no short term solution. There is no political will to raise taxes to spend the hundreds of billions on infrastructure that solves the problem. You could redirect half of the money spent on poor people and have a good medium term solution since more than half of state spending is on the bottom 10% but I don’t see that happening.

The one immediately viable “solution” is for companies to stop relocating to a city core which has poor access, and/or start setting in/out of office days.

In the past few years I’ve watched countless friends/peers leave their desirable jobs in Kendall/seaport for lesser pay or fulfillment in the outer ring or work as independent contractors. It’s always the same story: commute was killing them and a quality school system within Boston access would have made them house poor.

With gen-Z and younger millennials at peak “young and childless”, this all seems like a good idea, but overwhelming number over older millennials who have done urban living since graduation 10+ years ago are done with the COL and/or commute.

At some point the private sector needs to adjust to lack of public sector investment as there’s plenty of talent hanging up on recruiters the moment they say “seaport”.

[chicagoliz]

Originally Posted by Shrewsburried

The one immediately viable “solution” is for companies to stop relocating to a city core which has poor access, and/or start setting in/out of office days.

In the past few years I’ve watched countless friends/peers leave their desirable jobs in Kendall/seaport for lesser pay or fulfillment in the outer ring or work as independent contractors. It’s always the same story: commute was killing them and a quality school system within Boston access would have made them house poor.
.

This isn't really a solution, although the phenomenon you mention is very real.

If companies start relocating all over the metro area, traffic will be even worse. The transit systems are all designed to bring people from the suburbs to downtown, and despite them needing updating, that should be feasible with a firm commitment to doing so. Once you have employers all over the metro area, then mass transit is no longer an option because it doesn't go from one suburban area to another suburban area. Then you have families with two commuters driving every which way. And if you leave a job in one area (perhaps one you moved close to) but something happens to that job, there's less of a chance you'll find a job in that same area and then you end up with another 1 hr+ commute to some other suburban area.

People want to be in cities. They have a lot to offer. There is no reason we must continue to be car dependent. We need to fix our mass transit system and we need to have higher density housing in the urban core and in the immediate surrounding suburbs, despite the crying of people who want to keep developing McMansions on an acre 5 miles from the city.

[RBThescot]

Originally Posted by bugelrex

the outrage from drivers would be too much for any politician to bare.

The outrage from drivers might be too much for politicians to "bear" but, trust me on this, we don't want politicians to "bare" anything.

[bugelrex]

Originally Posted by chicagoliz

This isn't really a solution, although the phenomenon you mention is very real.

If companies start relocating all over the metro area, traffic will be even worse. The transit systems are all designed to bring people from the suburbs to downtown, and despite them needing updating, that should be feasible with a firm commitment to doing so. Once you have employers all over the metro area, then mass transit is no longer an option because it doesn't go from one suburban area to another suburban area. Then you have families with two commuters driving every which way. And if you leave a job in one area (perhaps one you moved close to) but something happens to that job, there's less of a chance you'll find a job in that same area and then you end up with another 1 hr+ commute to some other suburban area.

What you are describing is silicon valley (excluding san Francisco). The traffic just to get between towns (mountain view, sunnyvale, san jose, palo alto, san Mateo) is pretty horrendous.

At least their commuter rail(cal train) service into San Francisco has a slight better frequency than our horrible commuter rail
Weekday Timetable

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by chicagoliz

This isn't really a solution, although the phenomenon you mention is very real.

If companies start relocating all over the metro area, traffic will be even worse. The transit systems are all designed to bring people from the suburbs to downtown, and despite them needing updating, that should be feasible with a firm commitment to doing so. Once you have employers all over the metro area, then mass transit is no longer an option because it doesn't go from one suburban area to another suburban area. Then you have families with two commuters driving every which way. And if you leave a job in one area (perhaps one you moved close to) but something happens to that job, there's less of a chance you'll find a job in that same area and then you end up with another 1 hr+ commute to some other suburban area.

People want to be in cities. They have a lot to offer. There is no reason we must continue to be car dependent. We need to fix our mass transit system and we need to have higher density housing in the urban core and in the immediate surrounding suburbs, despite the crying of people who want to keep developing McMansions on an acre 5 miles from the city.

My point isn’t a suggestion to shuttle jobs out to the ‘burbs, rather, it’s to suggest corporations moving from highly accessible locations in Newton, or even Davis, to an office in Seaport are extremely short sighted and have, in my limited experience, gutted office culture when half the office is either working remote or leaving at 3pm and the 50-something systems engineer, who is the only one capable of delivering a commercial product, wants to blow his/her brains out from commuting from Westford everyday. So instead of having diverse and efficient teams, you end up with a bunch fresh gen-z grads who, despite their intelligence and ambitions, don’t really get anywhere fast because the people with experience are absent ... either literally or emotionally.

I’d actually take a job Seaport if a company we’re willing to compress all review meetings and team activities into a 2 day window, but 50hr weeks plus 3+ hours a day of commuting? Yeah, no. Much easier to pick a low COL and find flexible clients.

[AtkinsonDan]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

No one else thinks work from home is the answer? For jobs that can.

Plenty of us hold a favorable opinion of work from home. It is just that Massachusetts has some sort of cultural hangup over it. I have to assume that it relates to control issues from exposure to Catholicism. The most ardent critics of WFH that I have known were older people with Irish last names.

[bugelrex]

Originally Posted by AtkinsonDan

Plenty of us hold a favorable opinion of work from home. It is just that Massachusetts has some sort of cultural hangup over it. I have to assume that it relates to control issues from exposure to Catholicism. The most ardent critics of WFH that I have known were older people with Irish last names.

Once work from home is fully embraced, you now become one layoff away from someone in india willing to work for 10k a year... trust me, you dont want this.

Corporate greed knows no bounds...

[AtkinsonDan]

Originally Posted by bugelrex

Once work from home is fully embraced, you now become one layoff away from someone in india willing to work for 10k a year... trust me, you dont want this.

Corporate greed knows no bounds...

Personally I wouldn't want more than two days per week as work from home. Having a reason to leave the house is important to me. What I would prefer over WFH would be a standardized four day work week.

Massachusetts has employment data, under a mandatory four day work week law, companies could be assigned a third day off so that 20% of people are off work and not commuting each weekday. We need to move away from the failed 20th century paradigm of everyone doing the same thing at the same time. Our infrastructure would not be overwhelmed if people's activities were staggered across time.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by bugelrex

Once work from home is fully embraced, you now become one layoff away from someone in india willing to work for 10k a year... trust me, you dont want this.

Corporate greed knows no bounds...

Not really. You still need the face time to be effective. I telecommuted for years. I spent a lot of time on airplanes getting the face time. You can’t do that from India.

[mdovell]

Originally Posted by Shrewsburried

My point isn’t a suggestion to shuttle jobs out to the ‘burbs, rather, it’s to suggest corporations moving from highly accessible locations in Newton, or even Davis, to an office in Seaport are extremely short sighted and have, in my limited experience, gutted office culture when half the office is either working remote or leaving at 3pm and the 50-something systems engineer, who is the only one capable of delivering a commercial product, wants to blow his/her brains out from commuting from Westford everyday. So instead of having diverse and efficient teams, you end up with a bunch fresh gen-z grads who, despite their intelligence and ambitions, don’t really get anywhere fast because the people with experience are absent ... either literally or emotionally.

Can I have this etched in stone?

This is also why I see more development in Gateway cities. People want to live in cities but the costs and commutte add up. We either telecommute and or add more public transit.