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Perhaps I'm just more altruistic than most, but if I had $1,000,000,000 I'd be happy. If I had $10,000,000,000 I'd give $9,000,000,000 to such a fund so that those cleaning my office, busing my table, or ringing me up at Banana Republic were able to afford to rent a studio apartment less than 90 minutes from their workplace.
You know the old saying about greed: "How much money is enough?" "More is enough". I'm pretty sure I'm misquoting that, but money has a way of making people different. After a certain point, it does become just numbers on a screen.
But if people are willing to pay those prices, and it seems millions have opted into the system, then the prices will remain what they are. The NIMBYers COULD let housing pace job growth, but that would block their views or something.
Thanks for the quick replies. I suppose many in the service sector in the Bay Area live in government-subsidized housing and/or commute 90+ minutes each way to work. I've never been to the Bay Area but have spent countless hours researching it online and cyber-touring it via Google Street View. It truly does seem like a wonderful area, and I suppose that makes it worthwhile for those in the service sector to endure that in order to live/work there.
I mean I grew up in rural Northeastern Pennsylvania. We had many lower-income people commuting 90+ minutes each way to jobs in Northern NJ or even NYC because our area was the closest to the NYC Metro Area they could comfortably afford to buy a home.
If nothing else in the case of San Jose/San Francisco/Oakland I hope some of the tech billionaires consider starting a fund (a voluntary "payment in lieu of taxes", if you will) to give grants to service sector workers for down payment assistance on buying their first homes and/or just an ongoing fund for service sector workers to tap into to help pay their rents.
Perhaps I'm just more altruistic than most, but if I had $1,000,000,000 I'd be happy. If I had $10,000,000,000 I'd give $9,000,000,000 to such a fund so that those cleaning my office, busing my table, or ringing me up at Banana Republic were able to afford to rent a studio apartment less than 90 minutes from their workplace.
Well, so far we have $4.5 billion pledged from Apple, Google and Facebook specifically to build affordable housing.
The main issue however, is NIMBYISM by homeowners on the Peninsula, where the jobs are, suburban places with names like Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Menlo Park, quiet and subdued, thrust on to the global stage by local start ups that have grown into massive empire-like entities. Google, Apple, Facebook, etc. Enormous presence in the world, yet located in small suburbs that refuse to evolve into high density cities they should be in order to support the jobs being created in them.
I know this area very well, Tesla hq is located among gigantic mansions and open fields.
Who does that? Answer: The Bay Area
So those poor workers have to cross bridges and valleys to get there. The result is the following excerpt from ABC7: The Bay Area and surrounding regions lead the nation with more than 120,000 people commuting at least three hours. Stockton tops the list with 11.2 percent of the workforce being super commuters.
So the solution is simple: Just build.
But it will never happen en masse until attitudes change in the cities where the jobs are located.
Well, so far we have $4.5 billion pledged from Apple, Google and Facebook specifically to build affordable housing.
The main issue however, is NIMBYISM by homeowners on the Peninsula, where the jobs are, suburban places with names like Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Menlo Park, quiet and subdued, thrust on to the global stage by local start ups that have grown into massive empire-like entities. Google, Apple, Facebook, etc. Enormous presence in the world, yet located in small suburbs that refuse to evolve into high density cities they should be in order to support the jobs being created in them.
I know this area very well, Tesla hq is located among gigantic mansions and open fields.
Who does that? Answer: The Bay Area
So those poor workers have to cross bridges and valleys to get there. The result is the following excerpt from ABC7: The Bay Area and surrounding regions lead the nation with more than 120,000 people commuting at least three hours. Stockton tops the list with 11.2 percent of the workforce being super commuters.
So the solution is simple: Just build.
But it will never happen en masse until attitudes change in the cities where the jobs are located.
Bay Area and LA area are mainly car commuting area. There are commuter rail, subway in LA and San Francisco cities here and there. Predominant commuting method is car in CA.
Northeast has different culture. NYC, and Boston, Philadelphia, DC metro areas rely heavily on subways, commuter rails and buses.
U.S. west coast and east coast certainly are different on attitude on urban planning and transportation.
Bay Area and LA area are mainly car commuting area. There are commuter rail, subway in LA and San Francisco cities here and there. Predominant commuting method is car in CA.
Northeast has different culture. NYC, and Boston, Philadelphia, DC metro areas rely heavily on subways, commuter rails and buses.
U.S. west coast and east coast certainly are different on attitude on urban planning and transportation.
The point is that the attitude must change or else this disaster will continue.
Bay Area and LA area are mainly car commuting area. There are commuter rail, subway in LA and San Francisco cities here and there. Predominant commuting method is car in CA.
Northeast has different culture. NYC, and Boston, Philadelphia, DC metro areas rely heavily on subways, commuter rails and buses.
U.S. west coast and east coast certainly are different on attitude on urban planning and transportation.
The car is #1 in every metro area including New York-unfortunately.
Otherwise...
2018 Metro Areas( MSA) Percentage of Workers Who Commute on Public Transit
30.9% New York
17.3% San Francisco
13.2% Boston
13.0% Washington DC
12.1% Chicago
10.7% Seattle
9.8% Philadelphia
6.1% Portland
6.0% Baltimore
5.6% Pittsburgh
4.8% Los Angeles
4.5% Minneapolis
4.0% San Jose
3.8% Fresno
3.3% Las Vegas
3.2% Salt Lake City
3.1% Buffalo
3.1% Miami
3.0% Atlanta
2.7% Cleveland
2.6% Hartford
2.6% New Orleans
2.6% Milwaukee
2.6% San Diego
2.4% Providence
2.2% Sacramento
2.1% St Louis
2.1% Tucson
2.0% Houston
1.9% Austin
1.8% Phoenix
1.8% San Antonio
1.7% Cincinnati
1.7% Columbus
1.7% Richmond
1.5% Charlotte
1.4% Grand Rapids
1.4% Virginia Beach
1.3% Dallas
1.3% Detroit
1.3% Orlando
1.3% Tampa
1.2% Riverside
1.1% Fresno
0.9% Indianapolis
0.9% Jacksonville
0.9% Kansas City
0.9% Raleigh
0.8% Nashville
0.7% Memphis
0.6% Oklahoma City
0.5% Tulsa
The point is that the attitude must change or else this disaster will continue.
Disaster for who though? The top 1%ers who want people to move away, or the middle class/poor? Why would the top 1% care about the middle class/poor's issues, if the top 1% are invariably creating the issue to begin with?
With anything in a system, there's always someone who benefits. Once you figure out why, that's when true change can happen.
His point is the high incomes don't matter because the COL is so high that it takes away the income anyways.
The alternative is people not getting paid as much, and the COL is still high. More money is never a bad thing.
But people tend to forget that COL tend to scale with quality. Also if you own a house instead of renting then COL doesn't matter much. I live in San Jose, as a home owner the high COL doesn't bother me. SJ has an influx of immigrants, you can always find services with cheap price. My hair cut is $5, hired a guy to change the toilet 2 years ago and it costed $20. Yes I do pay a lot sometimes but it worths the money. My piano lesson is $120/h but the teacher is from Russia, he was the head of department of music there, he's now one of the judge of SJ international piano competition and I'm totally satisfied. I have a friend who took piano lesson from a teacher claiming she was invited to White House to play for Bush as well. I would not criticize if someone pays higher for a piano teacher in NYC, it worths the money people.
But people tend to forget that COL tend to scale with quality. Also if you own a house instead of renting then COL doesn't matter much. I live in San Jose, as a home owner the high COL doesn't bother me. SJ has an influx of immigrants, you can always find services with cheap price. My hair cut is $5, hired a guy to change the toilet 2 years ago and it costed $20. Yes I do pay a lot sometimes but it worths the money. My piano lesson is $120/h but the teacher is from Russia, he was the head of department of music there, he's now one of the judge of SJ international piano competition and I'm totally satisfied. I have a friend who took piano lesson from a teacher claiming she was invited to White House to play for Bush as well. I would not criticize if someone pays higher for a piano teacher in NYC, it worths the money people.
Can not believe you only pay 5 bucks for haircut. I pay $20 including tips in New Haven county in CT. I know bay area salary and cost are both lot higher than CT
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