Job offer in SF....yes? no? hell no? (calculator, median income)

[ssmaster]

Originally Posted by neutrino78x

Well, that was in the past. We are one of the world's Great Cities now.

But no, you don't need 200k. You can buy a two bedroom condo for 300k if you make 100k (numbers are approximate and I can dig up links if needed). If a couple has a kid, all they need is two bedrooms, one for the couple and one for the child. That's middle class housing.

Your problem is that you're defining "middle class" as a type of housing, rather than as an income level. Middle class is just whatever one can afford on the median salary of a given area. Around here, the median is 100k. So therefore middle class housing is around 300-500k. Somewhere in that ballpark.

Our old house would be about 900k too...but my dad bought that when the IBM PC had only been out for three years, and IBM PCs -- 8088 at 4.77 Mhz and 640 KB of RAM -- were selling for $2000. Silicon Valley (and the rest of the Bay Area, since it is all one region) has exploded in importance and influence since then. No one should expect to be able to buy the most expensive type of housing on the median income.

If we build a lot of dense residential high rises -- something I strongly support -- the condos would sell for about 300k or so, since the median income is 100k. They wouldn't be single family homes, just 2 or 3 bedroom condos. That's the future. We can't even FIT enough single family homes in San Jose for everybody to have one! We have to build denser housing than that.

I was reading the forum for Los Angeles earlier today, and they make the same complaint. People share apartments there, too. Even if they make 50 or 100k. It's normal in large, desirable cities all over the world. It's a good thing: it means you live in a desirable area. I would rather live in a shack, HERE, than in a single family home somewhere that I do not wish to live.

You cannot find a market rate 2 bedroom apartment in San Francisco for $300,000. You were caught posting a bunch of BMR UNITS previously.

As long as there are bidding wars for single family homes there will be single family homes not condos .you can't legislate demand.

Income is only an indicator of social class but consumption patterns are more of an indicator of social class according to economists and social scientists. This has been the case since thorstien Veblen coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption" in 1899 to describe the buying pattern of the post industrial revolution leaisure class.if someone making $65,000 in San Francisco has the same housing and consumption patterns as someone making $18,000 in Bakersfield they would be in the same class their income would be a distinction without difference.

[ssmaster]

San Jose is not a great city. the Gwac Scale for ranking cities demonstrates this clearly. San Jose is gamma level.not only economically but historically and culturally San Jose does not merit a great or alpha rating

Rome-the culture ,government and military conquests of the roman republic is still taught and discussed 2000 years after Caesar crossed the rubicon.

London- seat of the British empire. An empire so large every continent in the world has been influenced by British culture .london is where the Magna Carta was born introducing the idea of representative democracy.

Paris - the French Revolution introduced the idea of ordinary citizens revolting against tyranny and oppression. Paving the way for are own American Revolution and every political uprising for equality and justice since.

Just read a book once in a while.

[neutrino78x]

Originally Posted by ssmaster

You cannot find a market rate 2 bedroom apartment in San Francisco for $300,000.

You definitely can, although anything I link to will be something that others claim to be unlivable. I wonder why you guys stay here if everything is unlivable in your estimation.

As long as there are bidding wars for single family homes there will be single family homes not condos .

Yes but we can still ban new ones. We can say all new residential construction must be dense.

if someone making $65,000 in San Francisco has the same housing and consumption patterns as someone making $18,000 in Bakersfield they would be in the same class their income would be a distinction without difference.

Wtf? Middle class housing is whatever one can afford on the median income, period. If that is a two bedroom condo, then that condo is middle class housing.

[neutrino78x]

Originally Posted by ssmaster

San Jose is not a great city. the Gwac Scale for ranking cities demonstrates this clearly. San Jose is gamma level.not only economically but historically and culturally San Jose does not merit a great or alpha rating

In 1950 that may have been true. In 2016, Silicon Valley hosts international events for world business and political leaders. In any case, SF and SJ are both part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Each inherits the properties of the other. A property of SF is proximity and access to Silicon Valley. A property of Silicon Valley is access and proximity to San Francisco.

[Liz_7]

Originally Posted by neutrino78x

It's workable at $12/hr too! I don't know what ivory tower some of you live in where $90k is just barely getting by.

And people raise families while working at WalMart, so you definitely don't need 200k to raise a kid. 200k is the richest 1% of the country. You're telling me that only the richest 1% of the country can raise a kid in the Bay Area?

Many people raise families in poverty while working at WalMart.

[neutrino78x]

Originally Posted by Liz_7

Many people raise families in poverty while working at WalMart.

Perhaps, but raising families on 100k isn't poverty.

There are other possibilities besides "live in a single family home" and "live in poverty".

If you are a couple with one kid and you live in a two bedroom condo, you're hardly living in poverty.

You just have to accept that the same income buys less housing here than other places. It just means that the properties of middle class in a large city are different from the those of the middle class in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

[04kL4nD]

A family of more than three living on 100k in the Bay Area sure sounds like poverty to me. But what do I know?

[neutrino78x]

Originally Posted by 04kL4nD

A family of more than three living on 100k in the Bay Area sure sounds like poverty to me. But what do I know?

lol, there's no way 100k would be poverty. You're living in an alternate universe, man.

[04kL4nD]

Poverty is a state of mind, just as much as it's an income bracket. A Bay Area family of four living on 100k isn't going to be living comfortably, in a good school district, have money saved for college/extracurricular activities/vacations/etc. You make $12 an hour and share a 1BR apartment and seem to be OK with it, but for most people that's the far, far below the threshold for an impoverished lifestyle- especially people who are coming from other parts of the country where their hard earn wages go so much farther.

[Liz_7]

Originally Posted by neutrino78x

Perhaps, but raising families on 100k isn't poverty.

You said "Many people raise families in poverty while working at WalMart."

No one working at WalMart is making 100k. back at ya