It's fascinating and sad to read these articles, about some cities struggling with the effects of tech wealth while other cities would see it as an almost unqualified boon.
We constantly hear about a desperate shortage of software engineers from tech companies, as well as talk of "six figure" salaries. But the median price for housing in SF is well over a million now, and if you're hoping to have kids and raise a family, trying to buy a SFH or 3br apartment, even in the remaining unfashionable and mildly blighted areas south of 280 (not really unsafe, but a bit depressing in spots, lots of dumping, garbage, paved over front yards with abandoned cars), even that you'll be lucky to get in for much less thank 900k unless the house needs a lot of work or is very small with no expansion possibilities. A shortage of young people who are willing to work for salaries too low to put down real roots is not a shortage of workers, it's a wage vs cost of living problem.
SF needs to build (certainly the bay area needs to build), but I don't see construction in the bay area as more than part of the solution. We will eventually have to accept that it isn't desirable or possible to cram all the programmers into a 7x7 grid and a narrow corridor down the peninsula.
Truth is, there are a lot of interesting old cities in the US that are pretty much neglected.
I thought Patti Smyth said it best:
"The Godmother of Punk recalled coming to New York in 1967 when she was broke and the city was "'down and out,' and you could get a cheap apartment and 'build a whole community of transvestites or artists or writers.'" But today, she says, "New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling. But there are other cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City has been taken away from you. So my advice is: Find a new city."
I don't think that it's realistic to expect a coordinated effort from the tech "industry", which doesn't really speak with one voice or have one opinion. Market forces may eventually create the change we'd like to see, but for now, the tech industry really has obtained a subsidy in the form of control over the immigration system that prevents these market forces from working as they should. The first step is to stop taking claims of a worker shortage seriously, and don't give tech companies a crutch that allows them to avoid making the adjustments that will help everyone in the long run (in other words, don't allow tech companies to control visas that force workers to work in San Francisco or the valley, make sure all members of the workforce are free to chose their job, field, educational and career path, and where they live, in response to market signals).
Just to be clear, as I have in the past, I feel positively about general immigration, I believe that immigrants must be free to choose their own path in live, including what they study, where they live, who they will work for.
I haven't lived in the US for almost five years now but if I did come back I'd pick a second-tier city. There's enough remote work now that you can pick any city you want in a US timezone and still make a decent living. I don't see why everyone feels obliged to squeeze into one of three or four insanely overpriced coastal cities in 2015.
It's hard to believe this given the current state of the tech industry, but until fairly recently, San Francisco was a second tier city.
What I mean by this is that San Francisco wasn't the "alpha" city for any particular career path. If you wanted to pursue law, finance, publishing, entertainment, and so forth, the alpha cities were New York, Los Angeles, and maybe Chicago. Even tech was mainly a south bay thing, and it was smaller.
That's not to say you couldn't pursue a fine career in these fields SF, and SF probably was one of the better 2nd tier cities from a career perspective (the only other one I can think of is Boston, similar in that it has top tier universities that do bring top academics to town), but it wasn't until tech hit that SF became a place you would live for your career, even though otherwise you didn't like it here.
This has changed things a lot. People have always come to SF looking for something new, but in the past, really as recently as maybe the late 90s (just before the first dot com boom), people really only came to SF because they wished to some extent to live in SF. I also think this may be what is behind many of the recent "10 things I hate about SF" posts, often comparing it unfavorably to New York or other "alpha-career" cities. In the past, whoever wrote these would simply be living in New York or another alpha city.
It has been a very deep cultural change for SF to suddenly find itself an "alpha" city for careers in a a substantial segment of the economy - in other words, people who moved to SF specifically for career advancement, but would otherwise prefer to be living somewhere else.
I lived in SF for most of the years between 1992 and 2010, so I saw that a lot of that change first hand. When I first moved there it was a funky, artsy town with a lot of interesting people doing creative things. I was there earlier this year and it now feels like a yuppie playground.
I don't see this trend reversing any time soon though so instead of lamenting this change I'll just live somewhere else if I decide to live in the States again.
One of the sad things here is that tech was one of those interesting, creative things people in SF were doing. It fit right in with the funky, artsy town you're describing. Ironically, tech was actually one of the early casualties of the tech boom. It's still out there, though, here and there.
For a while, Seattle has been a second tier tech city. Some of us wish it would stay that way (affordable). While rents are on the rise, it's still a far cry from being as ridiculously expensive as SF.
Have you written any blog posts/comments about your remote working situation and what led up to it? I'd be interested in hearing your perspective as I've recently faced a lot of difficulty getting companies to even reply to my applications. I'm curious if there's any tips or advice you have. I really, really do not want to move back to SF to get a good job.
I think it's like a normal job search really. Be persistent, network, build up your portfolio, and don't be too picky about the gigs you take in the beginning. It took me a few years to get going but now I have more incoming work than I can handle.
It's best to go by sales price rather than asking price, since very low pricing to start bidding wars is a common real estate strategy in the bay area.
I went to zillow and looked up actual sales prices for condos/townhouses in mountain view for the last six months, with more than 1,250 square feet of living space.
From my search of actual sales prices rather than listing prices, the cost of a 1,250+ sq ft condo in Mountain View ranges from $910,000 to $1.08 million.
Because you can get a nice house with almost 2000 sq. ft. in Texas for under $300k [0]. We're not talking about somewhere out in the country or in some distant exurb, either: I'm talking about housing prices I just looked up in a nice neighborhood within the City of Dallas. It's a safe neighborhood with good schools (speaking from personal experience: I grew up in that exact neighborhood).
Also, I currently rent a 1500 sq. ft. townhouse in Dallas for $1220/month. There's no way I'd be able to get anything nearly that nice in the Bay Area.
Fellow Dallas resident as well. Everyone here in Uptown keeps complaining about rent increasing but these HN threads help me realize how good we have it. The job market is extremely hot as well.
Actually, I live in Far North Dallas. Rents in Uptown are too rich for my blood.
I get all the benefits of living in a suburb (low rent and lots of space), but I can still walk to Addison Circle when I want to go out and have fun. It's the best of both worlds to me.
Because you can get a 1300 sq foot condo for 70k (or less!) in most of the country. If you aren't among the elite of financial means (we're talking 1% wealth) SF is a losing proposition.
Pretty much nothing in Mountain View goes for "asking price". I strongly bet that place will go for near $1M. The Zestimate (http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1945-Mount-Vernon-Ct-APT-1...) is $800k, and zillow estimates for that area are notoriously low.
We constantly hear about a desperate shortage of software engineers from tech companies, as well as talk of "six figure" salaries. But the median price for housing in SF is well over a million now, and if you're hoping to have kids and raise a family, trying to buy a SFH or 3br apartment, even in the remaining unfashionable and mildly blighted areas south of 280 (not really unsafe, but a bit depressing in spots, lots of dumping, garbage, paved over front yards with abandoned cars), even that you'll be lucky to get in for much less thank 900k unless the house needs a lot of work or is very small with no expansion possibilities. A shortage of young people who are willing to work for salaries too low to put down real roots is not a shortage of workers, it's a wage vs cost of living problem.
SF needs to build (certainly the bay area needs to build), but I don't see construction in the bay area as more than part of the solution. We will eventually have to accept that it isn't desirable or possible to cram all the programmers into a 7x7 grid and a narrow corridor down the peninsula.
Truth is, there are a lot of interesting old cities in the US that are pretty much neglected.
I thought Patti Smyth said it best:
"The Godmother of Punk recalled coming to New York in 1967 when she was broke and the city was "'down and out,' and you could get a cheap apartment and 'build a whole community of transvestites or artists or writers.'" But today, she says, "New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling. But there are other cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City has been taken away from you. So my advice is: Find a new city."
I don't think that it's realistic to expect a coordinated effort from the tech "industry", which doesn't really speak with one voice or have one opinion. Market forces may eventually create the change we'd like to see, but for now, the tech industry really has obtained a subsidy in the form of control over the immigration system that prevents these market forces from working as they should. The first step is to stop taking claims of a worker shortage seriously, and don't give tech companies a crutch that allows them to avoid making the adjustments that will help everyone in the long run (in other words, don't allow tech companies to control visas that force workers to work in San Francisco or the valley, make sure all members of the workforce are free to chose their job, field, educational and career path, and where they live, in response to market signals).
Just to be clear, as I have in the past, I feel positively about general immigration, I believe that immigrants must be free to choose their own path in live, including what they study, where they live, who they will work for.