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In Silicon Valley $37K/Year May Mean Public Housing
flanksteak
sent us this U.S. News and World Report
story
about head-shakingly high Silicon Valley housing prices.
A local homeless shelter administrator is
quoted as saying, "We're serving firemen, cops, and
teachers. We even have the human-resource departments of
some of our biggest companies calling us, asking,'Can you
get this employee into your shelter?'"
Well said Rene...
Some of you should stop being politcally correct simpletons for a minute and think about that 41 year old software guy in the article who can't find a job here. I know that his situation can be fairly typical here because the same thing happened to me and my middle aged friends.
It really sickens me to see that the companies here are trying to raise the limits on those visas again by about 100,00 because they supposedly can't find qualified employees. I guess they consider being over 40 as being unqualified.
Maybe some of you are too young to care but believe me some day many of you will be in the same situation.
Nobody that can't afford even modest shelter is OVER paid. It's more a situation of reverse price gouging. Very few people have skills so 'special' that there is nobody else who can do the job.
Employers regularly join various organizations where they discuss what they will pay their employees, why shouldn't employees discuss what they will charge employers?
On the other hand, I DO have to wonder why some of these people don't move somewhere where the cost of living vs. going wages is SANE.
At least they could adopt the Japanese practice of providing large dormitories for newer workers.
Now there's a country with real estate problems of this nature... nobody can buy houses in the urbanized areas, and they take up a significant portion of the country. Their answer (which would work in Silicon Valley if they just tried a bit harder) is public transportation.
Oxryly
I don't think this is a bubble. Bubbles usually happen when there is a lot of speculation in business property. This drives up prices for business property; the price increases ripple into down-town apartment and condo prices; and finally single-family housing prices rise. The effect on prices is highest for business property and least for single-family houses in suburbia.
In the valley, the exact opposite is happening. The price increases are driven by an influx of people who have very productive jobs and want houses. Housing prices are rising faster than apartment and condo prices, which in turn are rising faster than business property. It will only burst if lots of people decide to leave. That doesn't seem likely, given the productivity and consequent high wages in the region.
I don't doubt that prices will fluctuate. I doubt that they will go down much, or for long, unless there is a really major economic dislocation that affects the whole world.
We only have so much buildable land, and limited natural resources. We can't just keep growing and growing. If we reduced immigration to, say, 10,000 people per year, the level of growth would drop to nearly zero, due to relatively low new birth rates.
Once people are here, they have to live somewhere, and it is too late to complain.
Much of Atlanta's low income housing residents are on welfare, not because they are engineers or city workers who have to pay 1650 on a 1000sqft 2-bedroom apartment in a crappy Mountain View neighborhood.
That is what it is and after spending two years working there, I'm very happy to be back in the Midwest. It turns my CA friends' stomaches to see the house I got here in the Twin Cities area for $180k. :-)
I sort of disagree. I mean, how many tech geeks would be willing to work on an auto production line? My guess is very few. A lot of people seem to dig air conditioned offices.
Though I agree the skill level is less, I don't think it's as little as you percieve it. A lot of folks who are currently working in it grew up around the automotive industry, and picked up a hefty deal of knowledge in those fields from an early age, much akin to the geek with computers. I know a LOT of people doing IT jobs and pulling in 80k+ without having recieved a formal education in the CIS field.
But pushing this and all laissez-faire idealism aside - even if auto workers are worth a lot less - they unionized and benifited. You may philosophically disagree with the motive of the unions, and very well may curse them for driving up the cost you pay, but the folks in union jobs are sitting pretty, you can't really argue it's effectiveness.
(Though there are certainly effectiveness arguments to be made on other grounds)
I still have complaints, but nearly everyone in every job does. It's just our nature.
As far as the cost of living, there are some people who just don't know how to handle their money. I'm twenty-two years-old and live in/near Oregon's own "silicon valley". My cost of living (including paying off my student-loan) is little above fifty-percent of my total income (after taxes).
I found a good deal on an apartment, but I wasn't picky (hey, it has a phone line and a vending machine down the hall, what else do I need?). I also don't drive, so I save the expense of a car (you can get anywhere easily on light-rail or or bus and keep your sanity without dealing with the growing traffic).
While I may have it reasonably well, I know far too many people who are just letting themselves be walked all over. No, they shouldn't build a union (frankly, if their were a high-tech union those who were doing well and wanted to stay on their own would be seriously hurt by it). They should band together, though, on each individual basis. That is, if a particular company is grinding you into the ground, the employees at that company need to do something about it. They need to combine their power to have leverage. If the Autobots just sit around in fear of rocking the boat, the Decepticons win by default.
And that's why I said it's what we deserve. Not because we lack a union, but because we refuse to unite when confronted with those situations.
If people at Company X are happy, they shouldn't, via a union, be expected to stand up and leverage their combined power for employees of Company Z. However, the employees at Company Z should all grow some balls and do something about their situation, collaboratively.
Where one person is disgruntled, there may be ten, twenty, or fifty. If one of them stands and draws the line, management will shrug and just hire someone else. If ten, twenty, or fifty of them made the same demand, they may very well have some leverage.
---
seumas.com
Everyone who wants this guy as your boss, raise your hand ;) (Dilbert producers may be calling you soon to cast you as the pointy-haired boss in the live-action movie)
I saw on a recent news report that Nebraska has so few people that McDonald's pays $10/hr in some areas... Real estate can't be too bad there, right?
I'm surprised you didn't mention the big cities in Tennessee. The cost of living is about average or less than average and the weather is ok. Aparently the IT related job market in Nashville is pretty good. FedEx is Memphis is always griping that they can't hire enough IT staff. The area doesn't produce enough IT talent and they can't attract enough from out of state. But then again, a friend of mine has said the only reasons someone moves to Memphis are:
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
We need immediate emergency rent control and a rent roll back measures on the 2000 ballot.
I want a 10% rent reduction on all units and limit rent increases to the inflation rate (which is currently about 3%) every 12 months.
So a $1500 apartment would be $1350 and the next year it would be $1390. That is fair and reasonable.
When I moved into my Mountain View apartment, I was paying 1425, then they increasted it to 1550 (8.8% increase), then to 1675 (again 8%). That is insane!
STOP THE INSANITY, ASK FOR A BALLOT MEASURE TO KEEP RENTS LOW!This has got to be one of the larger problems with the industry today: the assumption that all of the good and interesting work is being done in a tiny number of huge cities. And its just *not* true. I live in Rochester, NY and work at a company named Aurgen Communications. An internet development company for whom I design web applications, in an environment that is just as free as any startup firm in 'the valley'. I'm willing to bet that Buffalo(and most cities of any reasonable size) has its share of computer startups as well.
brighton and allston (essentially part of boston), you can get a decent studio for $700/mo..i should know..im living in one. its on the green line T too.
Exactly my point... If you aren't paid what you *think* you are worth in a certain job market, don't cry union and demand what you think you are worth. If you can't hack it in SV, move somewhere else and be a bigger fish in a smaller pond.
It's really a chicken-and-egg problem.
I recently quit working at a software company i Los Angeles that I'd been at for 5 years. The owner was constantly moaning about wanting to move to the SF bay area... why? Because he had problems finding talented programers down here.
Ya see... there were high-tech companys in the SV - so all the programers moved there. So now if you want to hire programers you have to be based in the SV... and if you want a job you have to move there because all the companies are based there.
The feedback loop is actually working - companies ARE moving to places like Boston, NC, Austin, Phoenix, etc... Their primary reason is because it is so expensive to be in the bay area. You have to pay huge salaries to counteract the cost of living. So this supply/demand thing DOES work. The problem is that the movement is happening far more slowly than the IPOs and other things.
I worry about my friends who are buying those $650k houses in Mountain View... the movement has started... what happens in a few years when all these tech compnies have established labs all over the country and no longer HAVE to house their programs in the bay area? I think the prices will plummit.
hitchhiker
Actually, do you ever wonder what happens to a lot of those MS competitors who seem to go under overnight? . . . Hm... Don Gates may have already had my vision years ago.
"Hey, boss . . . You want I should put his geek-ass in cement loafers?"
---
seumas.com
I would think a light rail system with park & ride lots near these housing developments would be very successful. A well designed bus system would help while still using the existing road system. There is a bus stop right in front of my work. I would much rather use it than driving, but I have to drop kids off at school so I could only use it for a few months of the year. It is nice to not have to worry about the traffic and I can read while going back and forth to work. I learned Java that way.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Interesting opinion, but you don't seem to have put a lot of thought into it. Yes, they could sell the property for less or even give it away, but all that would accomplish would be to create a situation where there's no property to be bought at ANY price. Supply and demand--too many people, too little land.
As for MS assets, you don't seem to understand what the stock market is even for. Microsoft's assets mean nothing because the company won't be liquidated any time soon. The value of the stock is determined solely by how much investors expect Microsoft to pay them in the future in dividends.
I agree you do have massive flamebait there.
Last night I met up with some friends in San Fransico, and we bummed around, talked on radios and had an awsome time discussing technology. Later I saw a group of about 200+ rolerbladers just blading through the city. In Houston prices were nowhere near as high as they are here, but there wasn't the diversity. There also weren't hundreds of companies with job openings, granted the Television industry was a little easier to get into in Texas. This place isn't for everyone, but nobody left their heart in Los Angeles, or New York, and wrote a song about it!
---- Fight to protect your right to keep and arm bears! ummmm... ya I think that's right....
And Calgary is expensive for a Canadaian city (Excluding bits of the big three ..). I'm in Regina, Saskatchewan. Housing is cheap here.
... that's $84000ish US!
... for some reason, Canada has good 'net access). You have three options for high speed in Regina:
Example: If you're willing to commute from Pilot Butte (Like 30-40min drive, sort of a detached suburb), you could have "2,600 sq. ft. newly renovated with oak kitchen/trim, 1 1/2 3 car garage. $129,500"
There are tech jobs here, this is the capital city in Saskatchewan so the government is here, a happy variety of companies are floating around too. Of course, if you're making a 'net company of some sort, location doesn't matter so you might as well set it up somewhere with low prices.
Bandwidth is plentiful here (and in Calgary too
Cable company (Cable modem):
$35 US/month, 4 static IPs, 3Gb transfer, 1mb/s both ways
Local ISP (wireless radio thingy):
$39 US/month, static IPs are $20 each flat rate, 2mb/s both ways
Telco (ADSL):
$39 US/month, 1 IP, changed a lot with NAT, 1.5Mb/s downstream, 64K upstream.
All this in a city with 200,000ish people.
So, it's not as if the people in Silicon Valley need stay there, they could always just move somewhere where their money is valued more.
Part of the problem is that the average income is over $82K, resulting in inflation. Pay them more and housing prices will go up to match... Non-tech-workers (teachers, police, etc) will then be left even further behind.
> As for the prices being high - so what's new?
> When I moved here in 1982 I had rent a room
> from a college room-mate for a year and save
> up the down for a house too. That's almost a
> time honored tradition around here.
umm... you only had to save for A YEAR? My how times have changed. Most people I know have to scrimp and save for at least 6 or 7 years to afford a downpayment. And most of my friends are in the high hi-tech income level.
hitchhiker
We're having similar discussions in Ann Arbor, Michigan (home of the University of Michigan, lots of software companies, very tech-friendly, cable modems), tho on a much smaller scale. Lots of people moving in, lots of farmland in surrounding townships being built up, housing prices appreciating 10% or so a year, traffic getting to be a problem. Still, our definition of "insane" housing prices is California's definition of affordable, average house is $170K. I did the math and decided to stay put, commuting 3 miles from my condo to my current job.
Problems? The usual suspects: idiot socialists running city government, cranking up property taxes (approaching $5K/year on that $170K house, tho much less in the townships), driving developers nuts with arbitrary rulings and delays, density restrictions, and what not. City Council is spending $$$ on consultants to help address the "affordable housing crisis" (hello, see property tax rates). Some parts of some townships mandate huge lots (10 acres!), which gobbles up ridiculous amounts of land. Lots of $400K McMansions being built to take advantage of the mortgage interest deduction (replacing that with a 5-figure personal deduction, as the Flat Tax proposed by House Majority Leader Dick Armey and Presidential Candidate Steve Forbes would do, would do a lot to curb the speculative excesses of the housing market). Putting up high-rises (well, 12 floors?) in downtown Ann Arbor would make a lot of sense (tear down some crappy run-down student ghetto housing to make room), the one high-rise they did manage to build is supposed to be very nice (built back in the '60s), but again, local gov. gets in the way. (Used to work downtown, lots of software companies there, including Outrage Entertainment, lots of great restaurants, some loft apartments, hub of the first-rate bus system so you don't absolutely need a car. I took the bus to work. Borders flagship store is there too. Really miss that and the restaurants.) Nice thing about high property values is that it makes land-efficient (high rise) housing economical, but government gets in the way of this obvious free-market counterweight to runaway costs, so away we go.
I keep waiting for big SV companies to build well-equipped high-density studio apartment housing for their (single) employees on company land, maybe add on a couple floors to office buildings, wire 'em up real well (direct Ethernet to the company's Internet feed), nice appliances and all that. Land cost is not a problem in this arrangement. Of course, the socialist legislature in the Peoples Republic of California (and their trial lawyer patrons) would probably get in the way. (Another nice thing about Michigan, state taxes are half that of California. Too bad the weather sucks 75% of the year...)
Not to mention that Wisconsin has kick-ass roads for bicycling. A gazillion paved country roads traveled most frequently by tractors and house-pulled Amish wagons. Paradise for any road cycling enthusiast (3 seasons of the year anyway).
Something needs to be done... public housing seems like an acceptable alternative to.. this.. I wonder why the prices are so high to begin with...
:)
Oh yeah, first comment
Frankly, I don't see your problem. I moved to CA five years ago and I was being paid less than $40k at the time. I had no problem whatsoever making ends meet and I lived alone. I was looking for a new place not too long ago and I checked in with the complex I lived in at that time. The rent on an apartment just like my old one had gone up by about $200/month which isn't bad for five years.
Y'know, if people didn't think they needed 3000 square feet, a big honkin' SUV, and ski trips every weekend, $40k is certainly a living wage in this area.
I still live in SV (Santa Clara) and in five years I've gone from $40k/year to $170k. Contrary to the assertions of some euro-trash twink elsewhere in the thread, I did it through technical excellence and hard work, not through marketing and politics.
If you're making $43k now, you can make $70k in a year or two if you work at it. Of course, if you got terminated from any tech job in this area, either your company went toes up or you gave them an outrageously good reason to fire you, like incompetence, intransignence, or maybe just really really bad personal hygiene.
The people who get the shaft here aren't the tech workers. The people in the sh*t are the unskilled ones. Those people working at Burger King or cleaning up your trashy high-tech office are the ones getting a raw deal. So are cops, firemen, and teachers. I don't know how *that* problem can be solved, but I do know that I can hardly stand to hear whining from incompetent and/or lazy tech workers when they could *easily* do better!
This scares me...the average price of a home is ~$620 K??? At that kind of price, you might as well live at work.
Actually, why don't employers offer that as a temporary solution? (I know, I know...very few people out there want to live at work, but to at least have a roof over your head, feel safe, and have AC when it gets bad out there...)
Another question...how do home prices compare at various locations along the east coast (NYC, Atlanta, etc)?
--------------------------
I went to school at RIT (late 80s) and worked in Rochester for several years. There were lots of good technical jobs when I left three years ago. I only left because I was sick of the snow--moved to Florida and now live 4 miles from the beach. Cost of living is about the same for me as in NY.
I live in Indianapolis. I paid $104K for a 2900 sq ft home on almost an acre of land in a nice neighborhood in the city. I have a cool job, work decent hours, good benefits, savings, etc. and I still have a life. I play with my kids and my dog in my huge back yard, putter around with gardening, biking and running. The biggest drawback for a techie is no DSL or cable Internet service. I make do with dial-up ISDN paid for by one of my contracts.
For those of you who groan, "Midwest, phooey!", Chicago is a 3.5 hour drive and the east coast (from Boston to near the Carolinas) is a day trip away. By the way, 3.5 hours driving here translates to hundreds of miles, not a morning commute to work. :-P
Maybe, just maybe, if I were one of these new IPO millionaires, I might be able to put up with living in an overcrowded, hyperfrenetic urban cesspool like most Californian cities. But I would really have to be rich. I have a favorite saying for people who rave about California: "Yeah, California itself is fantastic, it's those way too many Californians that I can't handle."
Oops, I forgot about the politics and culture. In the People's Republic of California, my personal views would be met with considerable anger and hostility from the tolerant, open minded and peace-loving natives. Then again, from what I've read in this forum it's not such a Great Worker's Paradise after all.
I agree with everything you said on economic terms.
But I really can't imagine getting political support for the repeal of zoning laws. As you said, zoning laws are designed to keep out the undesirables -- and the structures that come with them. Property owners would be very displeased indeed if a few lots were bought up and boom, all of a sudden there's an apartment building. The city council and the mayor would be gone so fast you wouldn't have time to blink.
Alternatively, you could focus on the economic boom that brought all these fine folks into town. The property owners are happy, the construction workers can have some more government contracts to keep them happy, and you're only alienating the new and unhoused people who've yet to aquaint themselves with the local political scene anyway. Plus chances are they're just going to wind up demanding something like rent control -- they moved there because it was a groovy place to live. They wouldn't want that destroyed now would they?
If I were in office, the decision would be pretty clear.
And the most vapid money grubbing bastards come from there! Just kidding. Sort of.
Code ANYWHERE in the mid-west. $100K will still get you a decent spread.
Honestly, quite a few folks I work with come from Santa Clara, and they only miss the weather!!!
Yeah, the funniest thing I've ever seen on my life was a TV news expose about the rising cost of gas -- their main interviewee was a yuppie guy who was driving all over town to write down gas prices ... by himself, in his SUV.
I nearly peed.
DEMAN DEMAN DEMAND!!!!!
This type of proxying was not what I meant (I think either of us missunderstund the other). What i meant was that the local gov., or a company, hires busses/trains&drivers from the buss/train-companies and then acts as the only public transporter (Monopoly, that's why it shouldn't be a company; a private monopol is worse than a govermental, but in this case, there is a need for a virtual monopoly).
This does not imply any taxes or subventions for neither those traveling by bus or by car, nor for those walking. It just makes it easy to travel from point A to point B, you just need one ticket, bought from one seller. Who does actually own the buss and employs the driver becomes unimportant.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
The SJ Merc ran a story back in May that the median home price in Santa Clara County had topped $410k. Thats the *median*, and for the whole county, so the average in Cupertino is probably higher...
Mmm. That's a *wonderful* sentiment. After all, its certain that once all the teachers, policemen, firemen, fast food people, clerks, and the myriad of people needed to make a city work leave due to the fact they just can't afford to life in SJ anymore all the tech workers will unite and do the work that's left!
Hey..How good do you think a tech worker *is* at patrollign streets?
The article refers to people commuting from "Cheaper San Francisco" to work for more affordable housing. Man, I never thought I'd hear the words cheaper and San Francisco together in the same sentence...
The light rail is almost worthless right now. In 5 years it might be worthwhile (it'll go to Mountain View and down Tasman past Cisco's huge complex). I used to take Caltrain to Menlo Park and loved it. I always read the paper in the morning and a computer or SF/Fantasy book on the way home. Now if there was more of this to the east bay, I'd do it again.
This is real timely, since I hvae to move from my apartment in a month. It's becoming a HUD project for people who make SV minimum wage (read: $15.00/hr). Anyone know of an apartment complex near a Pacbell CO (dsl limitations) that allows cats for under 1,300/month for 1br/1ba? Didn't think so.
_damnit_
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
While I understand how useful a SUV can be (a previous poster compaired them to a swiss army knife), I don't understand why people commute in them. Especially with the really big ones like a suburban. Why buy a $30K+ vehicle that gets maybe 10-15 mpg back and forth to work? You are risking it getting it hit by some idiot that doesn't know how to drive and putting more mileage on it driving down its value. I can understand why a friend of mine drives one. His Explorer is full of test equipment that he needs and he often has to go to construction sites that may or may not have decent access for his job. Seeing a 18ft SUV going down the road with just one person going to work in an office is crazy. Get a small Jeep or pick up all your buddies at work and carpool.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
A little over three years ago when I was finishing up my bachelor's degree in computer science I was going through job interviews. One of these was in the Silicon Valley area.
The job sounded interesting and I was quite excited about the prospects of working in the Bay Area.
Then I got a chance to see apartment rental guides and discovered how much it cost to rent an apartment...in many cases, well over a thousand dollars! Needless to say, I was shocked. I had endured five years of college in the hope of having a standard of living higher than I had in college. I didn't get a job offer from that company, and I am glad.
Instead, I got an engineering job in Vancouver, Washington across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. It is a beautiful area (I grew up here) with views of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood, proximity to the Columbia River Gorge, and housing is actually somewhat affordable. A little over a year ago I purchased a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home in a nicely manicured master-planned community (Fisher's Landing) for $122,900. It has two stories, twelve-foot vaulted ceilings, and is two minutes away from shopping, restaurants, a large 16-screen theater, and my job. It's not bad for a bachelor pad.
One positive point of the Bay Area that people talk about is the mild, pleasant weather there. Although the weather isn't as pleasant in Vancouver, I going to compensate for the fact that we get at least six months of dismal fall/winter/spring gloom (continual clouds and rain) by purchasing five forested acres of land east of the Cascade Mountains where it is actually sunny more often (the pleasant summers in Vancouver though make the rain here worth it). I plan to put a manufactured home there and use it as a vacation home. It takes only two hours to get there and the land is costing me only $11,500 (no, that is not a misprint). With the new manufactured home I figure that residence will cost me total (land, amenities, and home) less than $70000.
So for around $180K I am going to have two homes and a standard of living infinitely higher than I would have had if I had relocated to the Bay Area. I figure I would be barely scraping by in a one bedroom apartment with an hour or more commmute each way in traffic jams if I had moved there.
Vancouver, Washington though is more expensive than many places in the nation. I visited Austin, Texas once and saw homes comparable to what I purchased here in Vancouver for $20-$30K less.
I guess my point is that one can have a much higher standard of living if he or she chooses to live outside of the Bay Area. The Bay Area may be the hotbed of technology, but work isn't everything. There's no way I could afford to pay $300K-$400K or more for a basic house. If I could afford a home of that price range here it would practically be a mansion.
I'm not so sure some guy floating to Florida on a raft or Pedro, moving up from some South American city where you can't find clean water or employment is going to be stealing your IT job from beneath your feet.
You're more likely going to be squeezed out by the effect of some companies on the bottom rung who hire employees who think Linux is an air-conditioner manufacturer and are baffled by the Windows Registry Editor (and pronounce SysOp Sigh-Sopp). This has to have some residual upward effect on the rest of us, no?
I live out here in the middle of PA and my parents had thought about moving back some time ago (before they started thinking about Las Vegas). I loved San Francisco and had friends there but seeing that property prices there are insane (compared to here) I doubt I'll be going back anytime soon.
> But companies are being crushed under the pressure of extremely high IT salaries. Its common in companies for mid-level IT workers to be making as much as upper management, which causes a lot of friction in the companies.
Why the *heck* do people have a problem with engineers earning more than managers???? The jobs are totally different. Managers *manage*. That is their *purpose* in life. If engineers are more in demand, who *cares* if they happen to work in a schedule set by managers? Managers aren't "higher" or "better". Supply and demand -- someone with an MBA shouldn't be paid as much these days as someone with a CS degree. Period.
Heh. A person who makes $170K/year telling a person who earns $45K/year that he doesn't know what their problem is. Heh. I *do* like that. It'd be like Gates saying something like "you know, money isn't everything..."
you're really not getting the scale of the thing. my 1 bedroom in mountain view was $1600/mo, not $800/mo. it was just off castro street and probably above average, but still not that far out of line. i wised up, moved back to seattle and now i pay $385/mo to live in a vastly nicer neighborhood. even though i make a lot less money, i actually save more because the cost of living here isn't astronomical.
I've heard of people from several places (Provo, SLC, Sioux Falls, Rodchester, etc.) that were initially pleased to be picked as #1 in the Money Magazine Best Places to live survey. Then people from CA and other places began moving in bringing all the social ills along with them, ruining all what was good with the place in the first place. The next year the city drops a large amount of the MM list. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the people who move and then go on public assistance as soon as they get there. A 2% unemployment rate doesn't always mean there are lots of new jobs.
Money Magazine doesn't rank the cities 1-300 anymore. It categorizes each city in specific groups: NE, South, Midwest, West, Big, medium, small. Maybe this was the result of cities complaining of the influx of rif-raf after each one of these surveys came out.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
And getting through the INS is *hell*. I worked with a math prof recently who's *still* a citizen of England because getting US citizenship is *insanely* miserable, expensive, and difficult. You wouldn't believe the stories he had. It's not just your visions of an 19-th century walking past a desk on Ellis Island and getting your name translated. No. Imigrating today is no fun.
I was just reading about how the tech industry is exploding like crazy. Plus, everyone keeps whining about US export laws, and I think Ireland is part of the EU. So you get the much nicer EU laws. Heck, there can't be many drawbacks.
People *will* leave if there start being good alternatives. I suspect most tech-types (under 40, often not married) will find it very easy to pull up roots and move.
Are you trying to insult us Mississippians? Eh? Eh? Don't make me get my gun (ok, I don't actually own any guns).
I don't think that anyone would argue that rent control kept prices artifically low and discouraged improvements.
But for anyone who's just scraping by (and their numbers are large), being capable to paying the rent is far more important than the spiffy consumer icons and having a really good $3 cappucino within walking distance, because there's no way you'd be able to afford it anyway.
Full time, minimum wage, you're not gonna come close to being able to pay $1200 for rent. $600 you can swing okay if you don't have a car.
No one's arguing that free markets arn't downright peachy for the well to do. But if your funky bistro came at the expense of their home, don't ask youself why when the SUV gets torched.
(This comment should not be taken as an endorsement for socialism or property defacement.)
I dunno. I don't really think SUVs are all that cool. I kind of like my little old Ford Tempo...nothing flashy, just a decent car. You get lots of space to manuver in a lane and when turning (not like your SUV, which requires a deft hand to avoid wiping out that many $K paint job).
Heck, my father drives a '79 Toyota Corolla, and swears by it.
I dunno...if had any desire whatsoever to try to show up the Jonses, I just don't think I'd get a huge SUV...
Make of it what you will, but over 50% of the land in SV is reserved, by government decree, for automobile use: freeways, streets, and parking.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
Yeah. Little cars are the best. Not little to the extreme to try to be trendy (Geo Metro), but just decent small cars. A lot nicer to drive.
You're assuming that the wealth creation driving new house buys is sustainable. Most of the new wealth in the last four years has been created by rising internet/tech share prices. If Yahoo and Ariba and the rest don't quickly (next two years?) bring their profits in line with their very ambitious valuations, Wall street will move on to the next big thing, and the resulting share price crash will take a lot of froth out of the housing market.
Time to pull down "Earthquake" a few times to clean out the city...:-)
I've read news stories about Atlanta becoming the LA of the East as far as traffic congestion is concerned. The EPA is also clamping down on road construction because of the air polution problems, making the traffic congestion worse. It's too bad that bus systems across the country all seem to have one thing in common: they have routes and schedules that seem to encourage people to drive instead of using the bus. A friend of mine in Phoenix said he checked into riding the bus to work, but because of the screwy schedule and the number of transfers involved, it would be faster for him to ride a bike.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I been looking at house / apartment prices in the Auckland central city suburbs. I have been earning in excess of 4 times the average New Zealand wage, yet and the prices of houses are still making them completely unobtainable. Villas in Grey Lynn / Ponsonby start at $350K for something that doesn't require immediate work. Banks are asking for a 35% deposit when buying an Apartment.
I've lived and worked in the states as well, I came back to NZ because of everything *except* house prices. Auckland house prices have gone past the point where they are going to be having a negative social impact in 20 years time.
first, do you reallly think your 4.7L V8 gets anywhere near 15mpg in NYC??
second, I think mini vans are ugly, and if I needed the space, I'd probably go with an SUV also
third, what I really dont like about SUVs is that most people get them 'cause they're "cool" and dont give a damn that they only use it to drive 5m/hr in traffic on their commute...it's like people that go out and buy the biggest and best computer they can get, just to surf the web and send email...and they only do that cause "everyone" is doing it
fourth, jeeps i can understand, Mercedes-Benz M-class? who's really gonna take one of those off road? get a hummer!
and I hate the whole term SUV, its a jeep wanna be.
I wouldn't say that is "Tenent Favouring Law", I would say that is standard contract law. I mean, if the fool landlord is stupid enough to cash the check...DOH!
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Every city in the country is trying to become "the next Silicon Valley"; some claim that they already are. But thats ridiculous, its not something you can plan. Its like saying "lets be the next Motor City", well too late Detroit beat you to it. SV was SV 20 years ago when being geeky wasn't cool.
And I don't think anyone here thinks that this is the only place to find great CompSci people. Heck, most tech people here are like me, they moved here from out of state to get a job.
As someone who has lived in the Bay
...
Area in 91, here's a perspective:
Back when I moved here, a high-tech
company in San Francisco (where I actually
live) was pretty unusual. The ones that
existed (like, say Dolby Labs) existed
because the founder wanted to have a good
commute to their SF home.
Now, in 99, when you look at "Bay Area IPOs"
for a quarter, SF companies take two or three
of the top 10 slots. Even assuming the other
7 are all Silicon Valley, that's a big change.
It happened, in part, because for a while there
was lots of abandoned industrial space in SF
that was available for cheaper prices than a
Silicon Valley office park. At this point,
those days are gone for SF.
However, there are other Bay Area cities where
there is space like this -- Richmond, Oakland,
Alameda, all the blue-collar East Bay cities that
thrived in the pre-container-ship maritime era,
where lots of people and space were needed for
a railroad/shipping hub.
Yes, right now a lot of these neighborhoods are
pretty rough -- but so were the SF neighborhoods
a decade ago. Take a neighborhood like West
Oakland, surrounded by docks and freeways, a
lot of empty buildings -- it doesn't take much
imagination to see 10,000 cubicles in these
buildings in a decade
These are the cities that also have good rail
servive -- West Oakland has the best BART
service of any station in the system, because
all the trains funnel into it to go under the
bay to SF.
Yeah, I was in Santa Cruz during the big crunch in late 96. Over that summer people suddenly decided that driving the 17 daily wouldn't kill you. Housing prices went up, and the yuppies came in droves.
All of a sudden there's a starbucks, and a multiplex downtown. It was like culture shock without having to move.
But anyway, the place I was living got torn down, and I was out of an apartment, everyone who was starting school had moved in -- add the SV peeps and there was literally NO housing at a livable cost. I was still in school (at the UC) at the time, and a lot of people found themselves in the same boat... the school went so far as to set up a shelter for the homeless students in the gym for a few weeks.
After that I tried living in doorways and going to school, for a few weeks, but it didn't work very well and I wound up having to drop out and move.
The send them all to UCSC thing makes a lot of sense, seeing as there's a LOT of space and very few people there as it stands.
Just how many immigrants do you think are living in Silicon Valley? How many do you think are squeezing you out of a technical job?
I'm not so sure some guy floating to Florida on a raft or Pedro, moving up from some South American city where you can't find clean water or employment is going to be stealing your IT job from beneath your feet.
You're more likely going to be squeezed out by the effect of some companies on the bottom rung who hire employees who think Linux is an air-conditioner manufacturer and are baffled by the Windows Registry Editor (and pronounce SysOp Sigh-Sopp). This has to have some residual upward effect on the rest of us, no?
---
seumas.com
He couldn't just pick up a phone, call the gas stations, and ask? Too bad I don't have the money, but I would like to get a VW diesel Jetta (or maybe a Bug). They get something like 48mpg and have an 800 mile range with one tank of fuel. It would be nice to visit my family and only have to fill up once. I tend to like smaller fuel efficient vehicles, not because I'm a tree hugger wanting to save the planet, but because I'm a cheapskate. I don't like paying much for anything. As a result, Linux appeals not only to my Unix geek side, but the skinflint side of my personallity.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
San Jose requires 2.5 parking spaces per living unit.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
I was using the term loosely.
In the Bay Area, the transit systems are operated by separate agencies, which may or may not share tickets as you describe. It's a mess.
The major systems are:
BART: serving everywhere except Silicon Valley and San Mateo county (heavy rail).
SF Muni: San Francisco transit agency. Some bus lines in SF have higher ridership than BART lines costing 100x more.
Caltrain: SF-San Jose train line with a terminal 1 mile south of downtown or the nearest BART station in SF.
Santa Clara Valley Transit: a bus system with some light rail. The major agency serving SV.
There's a web site describing this at transitinfo.org
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
Flamebait?
I'm making a point, not poking a fight. The point I'm making is you can find excellent living at dirt cheap all over the place with great salaries at techy jobs without living in any kind of city, or technology centre, where everyone is overpaid to the point that they can't afford life any more.
OFTC: By the community, for the community
Lotsa high-tech companies around campus, good environment, good food (at least at CMU...wow :-) ), low violent-crime, research all around you...
Ya. Staying in college sounds good. Get one of those inflated IPOs, sell out, and just have a good time.
Sounds nice. No big-city confusion and bustle (I can live without metro entertainment/excitement/whatever people get off on in big cities). Just nice, quiet, and inexpensive.
As for jobs, I wish more people could telecommute. I have a prof who likes talking about a software project where 3 people were in LA, 2 in NY, one in Florida or something like that, and 2 more in Europe. We keep hearing about how great telecommuting is. I want it to be here now...
I'm not much of a large-city fan. My little town in West Virginia has cable modems ($40/month?) and the basic luxuries of larger cities. You can't go downtown and get a really good collection of computer equipment, but aside from the stray cable, I happily buy most of my stuff over the 'Net. You don't *have* to live in Dallas/SV/Boston/Austin, you know.
No, see, it makes sense. Police can't afford housing and move out. Crime rises. Property values drop, companies move, salaries decrease (less demand). Police move back in.
ooo, I don't think the stockholders would like that. Labor's the most expensive part of running a business like that, profits would slip tremendously. Never pay a worker more than you absolutely have to.
If they can't find a place to live, there's plenty of other parties that the employer could point a finger at (as we've seen here today.)
That would be cool. The Metaverse. We could all telecommute.
hehehe... but do note the operative word "involuntary" prior to "servitude"..
"The value of the stock is determined solely by how much investors expect Microsoft to pay them in the future in dividends."
So the investors looking for a 10% return (very low end) on their money are expecting MS to eventually pay out $50 Billion a year in dividends? Pretty darn unlikely!
Even the experts don't agree on a method to assign a "value" to a stock. And market value is tossed around by earnings estimates, growth rate, volatility, and even good old fashioned speculation.
Funny thing is, Buffalo's a big college town (as is Rochester), but the kids all pack it in and head back to Lawn Guyland.. Sad, really, but if you're not a polar bear the winter winds can really knock you for a loop I guess.
Too bad Pataki doesn't get smart and turn western NY into a huge 'Silicon Icebox' or something.. Offer tax breaks, financing, and services for entrepreneurial tech. Buffalo really needs something to replace its rusting heaps of industrial decay...
(Besides, can you even get a decent wing in CA?)
My advice? give up your job. move to montana. buy 300 acres for pennies. start your own company. that is the only way to avoid big city (and surrounding area) rent/house costs. even though we all come from technical backgrounds we're forgetting that the very same technology we create permits us to do our work outside of the major met. areas. just fly to your clients every once in a while and develop off site. I know that this is not the best solution for most, but it can become the best solution if enough people adopt it. you say that demand is the reason why costs are so high? well, then eliminate the demand.
----- this is my sig, do you like it?
A 2 bedroom place in Fremont (about 45 minutes from Santa Clara/San Jose) is $1300 for a fairly nice place(pool/tennis court/jacuzzi/gym.) A similar 3 bedroom is $1500. My same apartment was $1090 3 years ago though!
Presently, I make about $60,000 on 4 years experience. I would say you need to make $75,000 to live comfortably in the apartment I live in but I share the place with another person.
Development in already-urbanized areas is much cheaper than building in the middle of nowhere. SV was never planned ot have a balance of jobs and housing, or planned at all. That's why the jobs are at one end of the valley, the housing is at the other, and the rest is freeways.
Well. Good point.
Try Canada. Sure, this might make some of you cringe....
I make just a hair under $37000CDN a year. I'm the systems manager for a medium sized company. I'm highly skilled at networking, very versatile, and have had no problems finding jobs over the past few years. I don't meet a lot of people that could do what I do on a daily basis (that could just be the places I look, though.)
And I live quite happily! I eat out constantly, drive my own car, live in a nice apartment, have medical coverage, dental, all that crap.
It really gets me sometimes when I hear 'entry level (junior) sysadmin position in California. entry wage. $50,000 USD. Man! That's like $80,000CDN! That's more than double what I make.. so howcome all the people I meet in the US that make that kind of money are always pinching pennies and I'm not?
I'm not bashing the US here... just pointing out that it's all a matter of where you live and what your expenses are compared to your salary.
F*** the East and Left coasts of America. $100k/year in Ohio would probably be like $600k/year in California. ;-) Besides, the people are nicer in the midwest anyway. You don't have a lot of those snobby lusers like in California.
If there are two places to avoid in FL though, they'd be Miami (LA's long lost twin) and Orlando. Be prepared to have high electric bills, due to using AC a lot.
I second Orlando as a place to avoid. It is the worst suburban hell I have ever seen -- mile after mile of gated developments combined with poor schools and low pay. In addition, the wind blows from the south, so it has come about 300 miles overland and is therefore really hot.
Add to the mix the never-ending line of clueless people in rental cars, and you have a disaster.
If you want to live in Florida, try the Tampa Bay area (specifically Pinellas County). It's crowded and relatively non-cultural, but the cost of living is low and the pay is good. In addition, we have lots of tech companies (Jabil Circuit in St. Pete, Paradyne and Digital Lightwave in Largo, IMRglobal and Tech Data in Clearwater, ABR in Palm Harbor, and Reflectone in Tampa) as well as a decent public school system, a top-ranked community college (SPJC) and a well-respected university (USF).
And you can't forget the beach. 35 miles up the Pinellas County coastline, and one of the top-ranked (by Conde Nast) beaches in the world on Caladesi Island.
Also, Florida has a 6% sales tax (with a 1% local option by county) and no income tax. And I pay $1.21/gallon for premium gasoline.
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
Unless I'm reading that incorrectly, you're saying that Orange County (and in particular, Irvine) is a good place to live.
Perhaps I'm missing something?
I've lived in sacramento, san diego, san jose, and in the east bay area. I'm currently in OC now, and it's by far and away the worst of the crop.
If you put LA and San Diego together, eliminating all the positive aspects of these communities and accentuiating the negative, removed any scrap of culture, paved the whole damn thing and moved it inland, you'd get Irvine.
It is a bleak, grey, concrete hell.
Okay, housing's still cheaper but that's changing damn fast. The 1br I'm in now was 500 two years ago, now it's 700 in the door.
Yes. Whining complete.
One day without a car in the valley and you might as well be living in the desert! Everything is far apart.
Your rent has gone up about 5.9% a year over those 17 years you've lived there. That isn't so bad.
I share a very small 3 bedroom apartment with two other people, right around Cleveland Circle. We pay $1650 all together, and next year it's going up to $1800. I'm moving out, because the place is too damn tiny to deal with for this sort of money. Good location, crappy apartment. I wish they hadn't gotten rid of rent control in Boston & Cambridge.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I never really liked Jacksonville very much. While there's no high speed access AFAIK, the panhandle's Gulf coast is a much nicer place to live.
If there are two places to avoid in FL though, they'd be Miami (LA's long lost twin) and Orlando. Be prepared to have high electric bills, due to using AC a lot.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
That's really funny. Living in Calgary, Alberta, your $43.5KUS equals about $75K CDN, which would be enough for me to live in probably one of the nicest... no wait, to , in a few short years (5) BUY one of the nicest plots in town, build a house, buy a fancy car, and retire early.
That's more than double what I make now, and I'm comfortable now.
If you are renting in the valley, then housing is expensive: no doubt about it.
But if you are buying, then housing is not an expense, it is an investment. A very good one, lately. My wife and I moved to San Jose less than three years ago and bought a house for $400K; it's worth at least $750K now. Viewed this way, the cost of living is extremely low. Negative, in fact: the appreciation in the house is easily more than all the money we've spent living here. (Of, course we have to move away to realize the profit.)
Don't move here. Please. My home town is now a shithole, thanks to some rating in a magazine about how great it is to live here. Well, it isn't great anymore. Population doubled in a decade. New people change our laws and way of life (and get mad at us natives for telling them to STOP.) And housing has nearly doubled in price, while wages have not (our old $325/mo apartment now goes for $700, and you're likely to be killed living there.) What used to be a 10 minute drive now takes up to 45 minutes. It used to be unheard of here, but now people get shot execution style so often, it rarely makes the front page.
Thanks, but we've had enough.
I've been studying the idea of living in a motor home. Most companies in SV have more land devoted to parking than to business, and these lots are empty at night...
In SF if you go down to China Basin there are actually a large number of people living in campers and cars. There's actually a "vehicularly housed resident's association" there. It's the future.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
We sure will not take second place to California on grounds of hill beauty ;) I've had friends visit from _Canada_ who were captivated by the beauty of Vermont and bitched about how, with the aid of a glacier, we stole all their good topsoil and deciduous trees ;) ;) if you can't handle serious cold, don't even come here in the winter. On the other hand, you might like to come here for the skiing, for which we're also famous :) ;)
I have a friend who's been looking for an at least three-bedroom house, that has to be nice and not need much work. Her price range is pushing $100K, not $600K.
I'm not 'pro' yet: and Vermont takes good care of its people- I'm taking advantage of low income housing and such things. I have a third-floor apartment, freshly painted, I don't pay heat in the Vermont winter and I don't pay hot water and the security deposit was negotiable. I have a bedroom almost three times the size of a queen bed to fit my twin-bed into, and a living room twice the size of that, and a view of the sunset over the mountain, and I'm right in town (for fairly humble values of 'town'.)
The rent is $396 a month total, of which housing assistance is helping with most of that. My own yearly income is almost, but not quite, _eight_ thousand a year, and I'm not homeless. There's some chance that I can turn pro and start making some sort of a geek salary- possibly many times my eight thousand a year. It's very humorous and gratifying to me that geek salaries are normally supposed to be these outlandish figures- here in Vermont, you could buy whole towns with that. I'll stay here, thanks- even if I could only earn a max of 50K or something. Hell, the _luxury_ apartments here with a view of the river are only pushing $900 a month, and those are three times the size of my whole apartment, which is already twice the size of urban studios. o_O
It _is_ hot: this is July. It's pushing 90 degrees these days. We're more known for cold
Come to Vermont... you know you want to...green mountains, fresh air, a more relaxed, human pace...
Why don't businesses read this story by KPMG:
http://www.kpmg.ca/vl/surveys/xs990311.htm
They studied 10,000 cities around the world to find the best place to start a business. The city where I live, Sherbrooke, Canada ranks best.
I prefer to live here and make $30,000 CDN per year than be broke at $70,000 US and live in a polluted city...
JM
Let the stampede to Columbia, SC begin...
We have an awful lot of software-development jobs going begging down here for a metro area of about 200K people. For 13 years, I've made a pretty good career at various shops around here writing documentation.
Columbia's a university town; kids come here from the Northeast because school's relatively affordable, and many of them like the mild winters so much that they don't leave.
I'm living in a 1.4K sq.ft. 3br/2ba ranch on 1/3 acre; I paid $69K for it in 1991. I wonder how that compares to the Valley.
OBTW, we got wings places until your eyes cross, too. There are endless good-natured water-cooler arguments about where the best wings are to be had. I personally can vouch for Carolina Wings & Ale on St. Andrews and D's Wings on the River.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
shhh... keep this place a secret! I'd like to keep on buying some good land to enjoy over the years... I'm still starting out and want some for myself. The last thing I need is for property values to skyrocket!
Actually, the winter winds aren't really all that bad (IMHO). What bothers some people more I think is that every once in a while a storm will pass over Lake Erie and dump a couple of feet of snow on us. Which is great for winter sports, btw. The temperatures themselves aren't usually all that bad since the lake tends to moderate the temperatures of the region. And summer is great - hot and dry for the vast majority of the season. I've been to CA, and I really think that western NY has more beautiful scenery, more comfortable summers, and in many ways a higher quality of life (long commutes due to traffic are almost unheard of, real estate prices are reasonable,etc). [end of blatant plug :)]
:)
Also, Buffalo doesn't get earthquakes, floods, huge fires, hurricanes, and other natural disasters that are common in some other areas of the country.
I like the "Silicon Icebox" idea. Especially since with all the good schools there are in upstate NY, finding talented people shouldn't be a big problem. There is high tech work in the Buffalo-Rochester area, but more would definitely be a plus.
Japenese style, live in the company apartment block.. Office space comes with apartment space..
I don't know if I'd go for that.. If the place was nice enough and the rent was cheap enough...
Could go home and take a nap well shit compiles..
I'm willing to bet there would be rather more housecoats at work then the japenese model though.
You can do the same in KCMO (just not in KC Metro), but you'd prolly have to live east of Lee's Summit! (the horrors of I470 and that f<beep>ing Grandview Triangle are reasons alone to move. . .)
God help you if you work in Johnson County (heh, I work in Office Park). They drive like freaking idiots here. No wonder Overland Park police are out at Metcalf and {College,115th,119th,I435} EVERY day cleaning up wrecks while I watch from the 9th floor of Vader :o) It's just a bowl of hell during rush hour. The only reason I survive is because I time-shift to drive AFTER rush-hour by a couple hours.
--
--
Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
I live in a relatively upscale high-density private housing project called "The Crossings" in Mountain View and I attended the city council meetings when the place was being developed. The local city interests were terrified that allowing any more high-density land use would create slums and lower housing values, so the city built in all sorts of ridiculous restrictions on the land use which had the side effect of making the developers less able to build and sell what people want to buy.
For instance, there are a couple of corner units which ought to just be housing but are zoned for commercial retail. These "retail" units have little available parking, almost no drive-by traffic and no walk-by traffic, but somebody on the planning board thought it would be nice to have a bookstore or a coffee shop there to serve the nonexistent demand from the nonexistent CalTrain passengers at the essentially unused San Antonio station.
Heck, I'd love to see a bookstore or coffeeshop there too since it would be convenient to me, but there's no way any business owner in his right mind would locate one there; any such place would go bankrupt in six months. So these "retail" units go unused and vacant; they've been empty for over a year.
There would be no shortage of cheap housing in Silicon Valley if the state and local government simply chose to _allow_ developers to build cheap housing. It's purely a political problem. There is a demand but no supply because building high-density housing is illegal unless the developer is really good at flattering, bribing and convincing government officials to let him or her build what people want to buy.
I play Nerd-Folk!
That's true to some extent, here in Boston. However, the A branch of the Green Line (which ran from Comm. Av. to Watertown Sq. (IIRC) was ripped out some years back. The E branch, which runs south of the rest of the Green Line is probably going to get ripped out sometime in the near future. Extensions to the Orange Line have been a joke for years, and the Silver Line is just glorified buses, not really a subway.
Additionally, unless you live in just the right places, the T is not all that convenient. I wouldn't even bother with public transit to get from Cleveland Circle (where I live) to someplace as close as Brighton Center. Easier to drive it.
What *is* really useful is the commuter rail. Now if only some kind of orbital line could hook up the outer ends of all of the subway lines, and the commuter rail lines. That would be cool.
Oh, and Boston is not a grid. The Back Bay, which is a relatively small part of the town is a grid, but everything else is more or less random. Christ, try to get anywhere in the Financial District.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I lived in Manhattan for a while, in the Flat Iron district, in a nice 1 bedroom condo (~850 square feet), and my mortgage was $280K. Sure, that is more expensive than where I'd lived before (DC, Houston) but NYC is different than the bay area: * fantastic public transportation. If you can't afford to live in the city you can live 30 miles out on Long Island or New Jersey, etc. and still get to work in an hour The other thing I think you missed is it isn't so much the tech workers that are in trouble, it is all the other people that make up a community, people who work in restaurants, police and firemen, teachers, etc. Can you imagine trying to recruit police officiers "it's a great job, we're just asking that you put your life at risk every day and you'll make enough to qualify for subsidized housing!! What a great community, please join it!!". Sure, you can tell all the teachers to hit the road if they can't afford it, but then what future are you planning for?
Burlington sounds like a bad place to put something like that. 95 gets pretty jammed up around there, and I don't even like to think about 3. If I were building something (not knowing about the various town's reactions/zoning laws) I'd suggest Dedham. It's close to Boston, it's on a slightly better strech of 95, near 93, 1 and 9 (sort of).
I might have said Waltham, but it's pretty full already and Pike traffic is not to be sneezed at.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
NH has lots of balls, but they're having a big problem related to their infinitely shitty public education system. And don't go thinking that they don't have taxes, cause they do. I got a kick when I heard about their trying to mooch off of other states in a scam related to the Seabrook Nuclear plant.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
The food is better up here. To take one
...
example, there are about a dozen small
bakeries making fresh bread every day,
and shipping it to the supermarkets by
dawn. Plus, some of the better supermarkets
have their own onsite bakeries as well,
so you can stop off after work, and pick
up bread that was baked two hours ago.
When I lived in LA, it was hard to get fresh
bread at all
Yup. In Houston, not exactly a high-teck hotbed, there is more serious work than in a lot of places. IIFC, there are more supercomputers in downtown Houston than in any other location in the world, and they are all doing serious work, 24/7. Want to do Cray work? Come to Houston. Want to work with files that are over 1TB in size, on a daily basis (in fact, not worry about anything smaller)? Come to Houston. Want to work with serious CS, all the time? Come to Houston.
... want to make $60/hr at 22 (that is about $120,000/yr)? Yup, with a CS degree. Undergrad. That's right ... come to Houston!
Oh, and I almost forgot
Pretty good. First I'd find a house I liked. Then I'd plant some drugs. Then I'd confiscate the house and move in. Obviously the policemen at least are not going about this the wrong way. ;)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
The NEA has opposed the following, tooth and nail:
1. tracking and IQ testing (used to be standard)
2. expelling insane students
3. "gifted and talented" programs for smart kids (as opposed to "for everyone")
4. single sex education
5. uniforms, dress codes
6. more homework
7. promoting teachers based on merit, as opposed to tenure
8. across the board standardized testing to see how the kids (and teachers) are doing
They have pushed the following as hard as they can:
1. The idea that dumb kids really aren't dumb, just disadvantaged, the victims of discrimination, suffering from low self image, and so on
2. turning schools into holding tanks for loonies as opposed to getting rid of the kids who are homocidal, so high they can go duck hunting with a rake, etc.
3. adding gerbils and quiet time to classrooms instead of more homework
4. dumbed down and factually inaccurate but very PC texts that teach nothing
5. paying unqualified and sometimes marginally literate teachers a lot more and refusing to hold them accountable for performance
6. supplying completely dumbed down standardized tests that a radish would have difficulty failing
7. race-norming
8. sex-norming
Seems pretty clear to me.
I recall when, during the 1980s, Mark White tried to do stuff like introduce no-pass/no-play in high schools in Texas and actuall teacher ranking, the NEA took out ads in the newspapers accusing him of trying to ruin Texas public schools.
Do you really know the NEA?
Or are you more interested in "respect" than performance?
It's my opinion that we pay dearly for "what this got the auto workers." Because of the auto industry, we have a whole class of people working at jobs that require only basic skill levels, who are making salaries normally associated with white-collar, college-educated professionals. In other words, the labor, for what it is, is tremendously overpriced.
We don't need unions for this - we need to let the market take care of itself. Either someone will find an ingenious way of dealing with the problem, or the problem will become so bad that very qualified candidates will begin to consciously steer clear of these locations. If companies want to keep the best talent, THEY'LL have to figure it out.
What good is an $82K/year job if you're dumping most of into an outrageous mortgage payment (or worse, high rent), have to spend hours on the freeway to get to and from work, and on top of this, deal with the stress of the work itself? Some people may actually thrive on this, but personally, I think life has a little more to offer.
Oh - and I'd REALLY hate to be one of the "lucky" homeowners should the market take a dive.
I don't know if I'd live that far away from work, but I did used to commute. I used to work in Overland Park, KS and had a SO in Buckner, MO 55 miles away on I435. I also developed a good relationship with my lawyer who helped me keep my driving record clean, despite getting 5 nasty speeding tickets in one year. That was an expensive girlfriend, but it sure felt worth it at the time. I seem to be repeating history as I keep getting into these long distance relationships...
Yikes STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM SAN ANTONIO. Mega social problems, gang bangers, a economic system based on tourist and a crashing millitary. Also when Kelly AFB goes forever in the next year or so ,look for crushing unemployment. Low wages, crappy schools (the only schools rated Exemplary by state of texas were the manget high schools).
Hordes of unwed teen mothers. Horribly uneducated population. Traffic problems are growing by leaps and bounds, 1 out of ever four drivers are ARMED (I experienced this first hand),and less then half have auto insurance (had a co-worker seriously injured by a uninsured motorist and there was not crap he could do). It used to take me 40 minutes to an hour to get just under 10 miles to work.
San Antonio is supposed to be the like L.A. was 5 years ago, with the same traffic, pollution, and social problems growing the same way. The local government is not even doing shit about it. Its just as bad as living in Mexico.
On the other hand if you can make 40k+ a year you can live like a king.
2 years in San Antionio, and I was GONE!
If we had more trains, it would be great (or terrible, because high-tech people would crowd out everyone else in the East Bay).
The state is essentially tying growth to services, telling builders that slapping down 1000 houses means somebody needs to step up capacity to provide all sorts of services from police to fire to electricity to water to garbage disposal to gas to roads to schools, and jobs since not everybody is going to work for an internet startup.
It sounds like the area is suffering from a bad positive feedback loop, where merely dropping regulation and letting thousands of cheap homes go up would cause a population explosion that in turn will choke up all the over-strained infrastructure.
From Gdict:
me.di.an 'me-d-e--*n n 1: a medial part 2: a value in an ordered set of values below and above which there are an equal number of values
mean 'me-n n 1a1: something intervening or intermediate 1a2: a middle point between extremes 1b1: a value that lies within a range of values, that is computed from the range according to a prescribed law, and that represents the range; specif : ARITHMETIC MEAN 1b2: the arithmetic mean of the two extremes of a range of values 1b3: either of the middle two terms of a proportion pl but sing or pl in constr
So saying that the median home price is $410K indicates that half of the houses are more expensive than $410K and the other half is below that price. Too bad they don't report the average and the standard deviation.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I live in San Jose and I've done that if you count a Volkswagen van as a motor home. I'll probably do it again some time within the next few years. The thing I'd really miss the most about my place is my dsl connection.
Anyway, having lived like that I'd encourage you to at least try it for a few years. Save your money and buy some land in a rural area. Next time I'm in SF I'll try to find that association you mentioned too.
I live in that area and sometimes I see posters on the telephone poles offering a fifty dollar reward for information leading to an affordable apartment.
Southern California may have a nasty reputation as far as highways go, but it's actually quite reasonable as long as you avoid some of the stupid commutes (anything involving the 405), and make an effort to commute a little bit off-peak (sleep in an extra hour, stay a little later, or if you're an early-riser, do the opposite).
And, unlike the Bay Area, you can actually find and afford an apartment in reasonable neighborhoods.
If you're an IT person, just hop on board at an idealab! company, and live in Pasadena. It's every bit as pretentious and annoying as the Bay Area.
Yeah, that is accurate. I just got a place outside of town and coped with the drive in. The Mexican nationals here are a problem, as 80% are not legal, and most are armed, and then you have the rednecks, and then you have the poverty. I lived in Monterrey for a few years, and it was a lot nicer. I have to commute to Tijuana for a year (long story, to a plant), and San Antonio is not quite as bad, but getting there. They don't call the outer loop "The Death Loop" for nothing ...
Austin, however, is just as bad as LA, just with less pay. Don't do it.
The rest of Texas is pretty nice, though. El Paso isn't that bad, Houston is OK (but humid), Dallas is, well, Dallas is Dallas (a little pretentious). Every place pays better than San Antonio and Austin, too. And no state income tax.
Too many SUVa, but yeah, it is very nice. And you can leave Houston at the end of the day, too!
Too many SUVs, but yeah, it is very nice. And you can leave Houston at the end of the day, too!
I got a large house with a large yard (I have a few large Labs) for $160,000, and a friend who was visiting from Silicon Valley (I don't know where, exactly -- outside of San Jose) was so floored when I told him how much I paid (cash) that he didn't say anything for about ten minutes. His wife started crying. He is shopping around here right now, his wife is gone from her job in another two weeks and will be out here soon. They had been (with 2 kids) in a two bedroom rathole and were paying $2000 a month for it so that he could drop her off on his way in -- they couldn't afford two cars on their salaries. They both had Masters' in CS. They moved out here and close to doubled both their incomes.
Money isn't everything, to be sure (I have two fuzzy black critters to remind me of that with supersonic tails every evening) but it helps not to be starving.
Auto-Workers wouldn't put up with this, they would have the UAW Union going to bat for them in a heart-beat. And you can be absolutely certain that government employees wouldn't accept this kind of predicament.
I'm not suggesting that Unions are the absolute answer to everything, because they inevitably become corrupt (can you say NEA?). However, they do serve their purpose, and it would be better than making low-wages, working double-hours, and living in low-income housing.
It is confusing sometimes, when you see people who have three children and work at McDonalds, but have a fairly nice apartment, cell phone and a nice late-model car. Meanwhile, a lot of us are struggling to pay our ISP each month (and our connection is a vital part of our employment!).
And for what it's worth, a lot of places are having this problem. Portland and Seattle are horrible. In fact, a house gutted by fire (the roof, two walls, and the entire interior) was just sold for almost a quarter of a million dollars! I also know people who are paying $600/mo for a studio-apartment that is the size of three or four small cubicles, and they feel they have a bargain.
---
seumas.com
Thats a good point. However three years ago it was $650, which comes out to over 13% per year lately (since the last sale of the building). If this is a blip, well and fine, but if the curve is exponential, might as well move now .
BTW, I was born here, I didn't choose to move to this area. I just don't like the thought of losing friends I've had all my life, otherwise I would have moved long ago.
Jim
Uh, hello - but you are describing MESA and TEMPE, not Phoenix!
For those who care, Mesa and Tempe do not represent Phoenix or the surrounding area very well - for one, in Mesa, you damn near can't smoke ANYWHERE - not even at the park! So if you smoke, avoid that place like the plague. Tempe is a "college" town (ASU), though it does (or did?) have the Valley Arts Theater - and it has a pretty good weekend scene (down Mill Ave).
Phoenix, OTOH, if you dare venture into the inner city, you can find cool architecture (including one impressive burned out church they are restoring) downtown. Cost of living isn't high - my apartment is a two bedroom with washer/dryer, all appliences, basic cable included, hot/cold water included, $150 electric allowance (crank the air down and enjoy!), and a nice large (about 300 sq. feet) patio, with plants everywhere. Unfortunately, all you can get here is @Home service from Cox, DSL from US Worst doesn't reach yet. For all of this, I pay $800.
In other areas of the Phoenix Metro Area (and I am including Mesa and Tempe in this), you can pay anywhere from $400 to close to $2000 for an apartment. After you get close to $900, though - it is time to look into buying a home (which, in areas, can be cheap - in fact, my girlfriend's former drug-addicted sister and her boyfriend are going to buy a house out in Sunrise - even though he makes only $6.00 an hour, and she can't declare her income), which I am looking into doing.
If you are willing to commute, Payson is only 1.5 hours away, and you can live like a king there with a salary of only $30,000 (though the commute will beat the shit out of your vehicle)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
this is pretty funny, actualy. it amazes me that they let this go so far without trying to do somthing about it.
and I don't see why hey can't pay there teachers, etc more. I mean if the average house is ~640k, you would think that they would make a *lot* more in taxes to pay the teachers. so I don't see why they don't. I wouldn't want to raise a kid in a school district where most of the teachers were less than 26.
talk about poor planning
Silicon vally, where you make millions of dolars, but you don't actualy notice....
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
This works for the tech companies, but what of the others? There are many other professions that this won't be any help for - police, teachers, waiters, shopkeepers, etc. These people can't just make a remote branch and they can't telecommute.
Sounds good,
;-)
But... where in Canada? And could I get a job there with you?
Actually I'm looking at the tail end of a BSC - CS in a few years or so, im thinking about masters since my BSC seems easy. But I'd like to stay in Vancouver after school... what does it look like? Right now im doing coop with a nice 60 minute bus commute... dont make enough to buy a car, so commute it is. Damn it sucks let me tell you. With a car I'd be here in like 20-30 minutes max.
Nevertheless, yeah, hes right, so many people take pay cuts to stay in Canada... its a great awsome lifestyle.
take it easy people.
Silcon Valley is a high-tech sweatshop so I'm not surprised the laborers can't even afford to live there. The high demand of property there is fueled by people not willing to commute and people who want to flaunt their wealth.
"College kids can't afford high rent so most college towns have cheap apartments and tons of bandwidth" doesn't apply in Silicon Valley. Chockful of colleges--San Jose State University is in San Jose, Santa Clara University is in Santa Clara, and Stanford University is in Palo Alto--and the students are crunched like everyone else, but worse.
That's like $800 us ;) Still pricy but you can get some good condos out here for even less. We seem to be in the middle of a building boom. The only things you have to put up with is Winter and our government.
-- The unsig...
Looks like people will soon be moving into storage closets to afford living. Snowcrash may not be too far off.
are a joke! The scheduling sucks, the routes are crappy, and you can ride on a bike faster than taking the bus (though you will sweat your ass off in the summer). All this, plus they don't run late at night or on Sundays!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
That's the kind of cr*p that made me write my book "Seven LEAN Years." There is a growing underclass of millions of college-educated, highly-skilled people that society (read: corporations/The Man) throw away. Then the big-shots weep to Congress for training money for high school kids and massive importation of desperate foreigners.
Visit http://www.os2hq.com/ for more details.
I think some people are starting to get wise to your idea. Zenguin, a new Linux startup, just opened up in the East Bay, and I've heard a lot of talk of other tech companies considering locations in Oakland when they get VC. While some parts of Oakland have very high crime, other parts are reasonably safe, and really rather lovely and affordable. A guy I know has a nice 2br by the lake; I bet he pays less than $1,000 for it, which would be unthinkable in SF or SV.
Yes, please stay away. All us folks in Austin would much prefer this place to stay the way it is and not grow any bigger or more crowded like CA.
first, do you reallly think your 4.7L V8 gets anywhere near 15mpg in NYC??
;) BTW: The only reason to look at the MX300 was the dashboard CRT, and I don't think GPS is available! Bastards! BTW: A guy in my folks' neighborhood has a fire-engine red Hummer.. For anyone who knows German, that's one of the funniest things to see driving in front of you.. 'where are the claws? Hahahaha!'
:0
Says so on the trip computer: 15.6mpg. Not very good, but I can live with that.
second, I think mini vans are ugly, and if I needed the space, I'd probably go with an SUV also
I dunno, I'm actually kind of fond of the Dodge Caravan 4wd, but they're slow as hell and they don't get that much better mileage.
third, what I really dont like about SUVs is that most people get them 'cause they're "cool" and dont give a damn that they only use it to drive 5m/hr in traffic on their commute...it's like people that go out and buy the biggest and best computer they can get, just to surf the web and send email...and they only do that cause "everyone" is doing it
There are definitely those kind of morons, who can usually be differentiated by cellphone use while driving.. Look at it this way: I'm a geek, I live alone, and can afford only one vehicle (lease, insurance, gas, parking, etc). I like to drive, I like gizmos and complex fiddly bits, I like to ski in the winter and go camping in the summer. I like speed, and I need a nice comfy ride to work. Plop all those parameters into your car-selection algorithm, and you basically get the Audi A4 and the Grand Cherokee and its wannabes. Scratch the wannabes: they're either too small or they aren't built with unibody construction (for better rigidity and less noise). Scratch the Audi, because the best gizmos come with the overpriced and slow-as-shit A6, so where are you left with?
fourth, jeeps i can understand, Mercedes-Benz M-class? who's really gonna take one of those off road? get a hummer!
The Mclass, LX/MX Lexi, all of em are girly-trucks..
BTW: The Jeep's other bits include an infrared temperature sensor which checks your body surface temp and adjusts airflow and air temp.. How geeky is that? A computerized ignition system with authentication that detects a particular code on your key's integrated microchip which will kill the motor after a couple of minutes of operation.. (I want a programmable valet/kid option that lets me assign privs to a key, like a certain max speed, max mileage, no-radio, no-change-temp, etc)
and I hate the whole term SUV, its a jeep wanna be.
On this, I wholeheartedly agree.
And I wouldn't be so touchy, but you've got ignorant natives in NY painting all Jeep owners with the same brush. My Jeep weighs 3800 pounds, which is less than many Benzes (including the SL 2 seaters) or cabs, though other pretenders can weigh over 5000 pounds (Navigator/Expedition).. It's shorter and narrower than a cab. Gets only slightly crappier mileage on the highway. People just aren't aware, and go '4 wheel drive bad, 2 wheel drive good' like some braying sheep from Animal Farm..
BTW: it's my second Jeep, the first was an '89 Cherokee strippo w/4.0 + AC/Auto. The current Jeep is, quite possibly, the nicest all-around vehicle on the market. If only it came with Michelins and had better mileage..
I recently was terminated from MSN Hotmail... I only made 43.5k working from them, and could hardly afford a 1 bedroom junior apartment (with smaller square footage then most shitty slum-quality studios)...
The sad truth behind this article is that without roommates, living in the bay can virtually be impossible.
I remember my boss yelling at me when requesting 43.5... he wanted to pay me 38k or 33.5k... I mean fuck, I could hardly even afford living with a roommate paying half the bills when we shared a 1 bedroom apartment. (one of us staying in the bedroom, the other staying in the living room.)..
It's a tragedy that managers in the valley consider this acceptable pay for doing junior, mid-level, or senior administration.
And what's the saddest thing of all is that this kind of treatment came from Hotmail. Microsoft. figures. at least i dont work for the man anymore.
I'm muddling through the idea of buying a house here in Southern California. For anyone curious about the market, you might like to visit David's Dream House. And if you don't live in Los Angeles, it might be worth a laugh or two.
As a nice contrast to this, may I recommend The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit?
D
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One of the strengths of the US is the ability of its system to support entrepreneurship, and is consequently able to attract the best foreign talent.
There was a report recently that said something like 30% of the startups in Silicon Valley were founded by immigrants. So if immigrants go, growth in Silicon Valley goes as well -- in a very economically painful way, simply because entrepreneurship and talent goes.
Right on to this!
I can't understand those who buys SUVs (some of which look like they could be serious off road vehicles) and simply use them to commute or drive to the mall! As far as a Hummer is concerned, well, let's just say I have only seen one off- road ONCE. I take my truck off-roading quite a bit, even though it isn't 4WD (it's a 2WD Ranger). I enjoy it - and once I get it paid off, I am looking to either make it 4WD, or trade it in for one.
As far as a geek vehicle? give me one that DOESN'T have the fancy gizmos - especially all the shit in the engine compartment (take a look at just about any vehicle that is pre-70's - you damn near can sleep in the engine compartment, it will be so roomy) - hoses, electronics, etc. Don't get me wrong - the computer in a car has plenty of potential for hacking - but if you screw up (very easy since it is damn near impossible to get the specs to do I/O), you will blow it - and set yourself back anywhere from $200-1000!
Old cars and trucks - all the parts are there, if you want to modify something, it is all mostly mechanical, and easy to do - remember, the assholes in HS could work on a car - why can't you? Many involved in computers aren't gearheads, and aren't inclined toward the heat, sweat, grease and blood that comes when working on a car, but I am sure some are.
Anymore, nowadays, it seems to take damn near a rocket scientist to simply change the oil on your car without fucking something up (not really, but certain things, like timing adjustment, or fuel flow rate adjustment, etc - this requires some work with the fucking computer - which almost always is encased in epoxy)...
Ahh - rant off...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I live near the bay area, I state near. It takes me about 45 minutes to get to San Fransico WITHOUT traffic and traveling at 75+mph, and it's still expensive! Out here a house will go for about $450K+ for about 3K sq. ft.
Why is it so expensive? Many reasons, one the terrain is beautiful, two demand and three everything is so taxed that prices naturaly go up. A gallon costs $1.69 at Chevron, to make maters worse, oil companies CANNOT buy gas from out of state, so when there is a production problem the gooey stinky smelly stuff hits the fan and evenly distributes. It is so bad I have a friend who is living in Jan Jose with a roomate in about 700sq ft for about 1200 a month (both combined). What really makes things bad is the beautiful terrain, just outside San Jose there are 1K+ ft hills. This terrain makes it difficult to build large plots on, plus people want to keep the hills clean and pretty, so you can't build there. This alone causes a downward spiral. I could rant and rave for a long time with what's wrong with California, but I forget all about it when I go for a drive in the hills not far from where I live or when I go to the Mountains about 2 hours away. It's a strange place!
---- Fight to protect your right to keep and arm bears! ummmm... ya I think that's right....
"Maybe because my involvement with the true technical part of computer businesses are rather weak, but *why* does everyone have to locate in SV?"
Read Jane Jacobs, _Cities and the Wealth of Nations_, _The Econonmy of Cities_, _Death and Life of Great American Cities_. In particular, C&tWoN goes into this question in some detail.
Essentially, people have always gathered, physically, whereever economic activity was/is hottest. It allows greater commonality of understanding, easier exchange of ideas, faster formation of new businesses. When trade was the key to wealth, Philadelphia, New York, and Boson flourished. When heavy industry was king, Chicago and Detroit. Now technology is the key, so wherever there is a successful center of technology people and businesses will flock. Success breeds success.
I have heard that the average techie stays in a SV job for 14 months. Bad for the HR dept. perhaps, but those people changing jobs are tremendous carriers of information, knowledge, and business capability. Exactly the same thing happened in Cleveland and Chicago during the early machine age: young man apprentices himself to the owner of a machine shop, learns the trade, rents a garage down the street and strikes out on his own. That kind of process can only occur when the cost of changing jobs is low. Telecommuting notwithstanding, that means geographic co-location.
So don't expect a sudden exodus of high tech jobs from SV any time soon. The former headquarters of Spyglass is right across from my building in Champaign, IL, empty and waiting to be rented! While Netscape may be part of the AOL borg, they still exist in SV.
sPh
I've just moved from London to Menlo Park. In London, I lived North of Greenwich, and was paying only 200 pounds a month. Friends living 5 minutes walk away from Marble Arch are paying a bit under 800 pounds each (six of them). So, it's not right to compare the Valley with London - maybe London and LA, as they are both cities of (roughly) the same size, but that's a different matter. The cost of living *is* uniformly high here, especially if you're not a local or don't have local contacts. You can't do anything without a car, and though food and drink are appear fairly cheap, once you've added tax and tips, it's much much more expensive then London (you should see the prices on basics, like bread - over a dollar! Compare that to Sainsbury's or Kwik Save).
Still, despite the complaints about gas prices, this is still a lot cheaper than the UK! (but my Texan buddies tell me gas is about a dollar a gallon there! Grrrrr)
... and N. California is way more beautiful than London!
that my friend's truck is way better than an SUV - ok, so it's a 1975 Ford dump truck - has some kind of 6 cylinder inline diesel engine, and is a 10 wheeler. Dirty as all hell, smokes like a sonuvabitch, and is loud. Damn near need a ladder to get in the cab - and once inside, you find the cab has more dirt in it than the outside has on it!
My friend hates bicyclists - so he gets in front of them, then guns the engine - smooooost! and dumps a big boatload of diesel smoke in thier face (generally causing them to veer and crash). EVERYONE gets out of the way (ok, we give 18 wheelers and trains the due right of way), and when you are high up in that cab, you feel like a king! No one will cut you off, not even a fucking SUV, because you CAN'T STOP ON A DIME! Especially not if you are hauling a full load of chipped granite!
So outta our way, SUV muthafuckas! Or be cr0shed!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I live in San Jose and a saw on the new a few weeks back that Santa Clara is now offering "low income housing loans" for people making under $100,000/year. As well, I recall that the richer part of Colorado Springs (or where the host ski spot is), also has low income housing loans for the poor saps making $100K.
What I want to know is, where is the *cheapest* place in the US to live including cost of a T1/cable modem? That's one thing you don't hear much in reports of housing out here. There are hundrededs (well probably not that many) of ISPs here and internet access is cheap because of the competition. Now, I don't think I could live anywhere that leaves me with a modem as my only option.
-- Virtual Windows Project
Here are the corrected ones:
:-(
http://www.amazing.com/david/dream-house/ - David's Dream House
http://www.behere.com/ruins/ - Fabulous Ruins of Detroit.
Sorry
D
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The sale price of a house is an almost purely fictional value.
No more or less so than any other price. The price of housing, like the price of pork bellies or any other commodity, is just exactly the equilibrium value between supply and demand. Things cost what they cost because that's how much people will pay in order to maximize the profit of the buyer and the seller. There is no more "real" quanitity underlying price. If you want to put it that way, all prices are "almost purely fictional."
So, of course they want to sell it for as much as possible.
Uhm, real estate is not exactly unique in this respect. Where I come from, people who sell things generally do so because they want to make money. When I buy a sandwitch from the deli, they want to sell it for as much as possible. As it turns out, "as much as possible" turns out to be about $4.50, because if they charged any more, the losses from people who don't buy sandwitches will outweigh the gains from the increased price. Ditto real estate. The only difference is that people want a house a LOT more than they want roast beef on sourdough, and that difference in desire maps directly onto an increase in price.
There hasn't been enough of a tangible change in that property to justify it's suddenly increased value.
Yes there has. Silicon Valley has suddenly become a black hole of employment for anyone under 30 with a university education. It's nearly impossible to work in Silicon Valley if you live in New York. Therefore lots of people want to buy houses in S.V. More people want it, therefore it is more valuable. That's all there is to it. If a real estate prices a house at more than it's worth, the agent will get offers that are below the asking price. If the agent won't sell for less than the asking price, the buyers will go buy a house fron another, more reasonable agent, who will soon be much richer than the first one.
You keep referring to "the concrete value" of a thing, as though there really were such a thing, outside of how much people will pay for it. There isn't. Take gold. What is the concrete value of a gold bar? Can a chemist measure it's "concrete value" with the right tools? What are it's units of measure (in metric, of course)? The price of gold has been falling for years. Is there some undocumented physical process going on by which the "concrete value" is seeping out of the world's gold? Of course not. There's no such thing as "concrete value." There's just "value." It's units of measure are Dollars (or Yen or Pounds or Euros or whatever), and the only way to measure value is to try and sell it and see what people will pay.
You're right, liquidating MS would not produce $500 billion in assets if liquidated right now. But so what? The people who are paying for Microsoft stock think it's worth $500 billion, and so it is. Part of their calculation of that value is that Microsoft is extremely unlikely to totally liquidate itself in the near (or even long-term) future. It may be broken up by the courts, but that arguably will not result in the destruction of that much value.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" -Salvor Hardin
Does anyone know the economics on constructing modern highrise buildings for a place like Silicon Valley? If the costs of earthquake-proofed tall buildings are not prohibitive, it sure seems that it would be worth it to rezone places to allow highrises with hundreds of apartments/condos, gigabit ethernet connections in every room, with startup-incubators, meeting rooms, etc. for the entrepreneurially inclined in the same building.
What are the obstacles?
Welcome to the dark side of the free market.
It's not like everyone out here is gouging. In fact, it's all too easy to find stories of people putting their house up for sale and receiving offers above the asking price. Interest rates are low, money is plentiful (for the moment), and housing is in very short supply, so prices are high for those units that are available.
Apart from building more houses and easing the space crunch, it's difficult to see how this problem could be addressed. I can assure you rent control will not go over well here. It's also difficult to make the ethical case that some outside agency (government, whatever) should be able to tell people what they can/can't accept for their property.
However, one of the Bay Area's hallmarks is its commitment to open space preservation and well-planned, environmentally sensitive growth. So it's not really possible to plop a couple thousand housing units on a vacant sector of land. One needs only to look at the Los Angeles Metroplex for an example of what happens with unplanned development.
This problem will eventually solve itself as more housing units are built and companies establish remote offices or encourage telecommuting (the advent of the Internet makes this even easier than before). Howver, I think a rather more serious problem needing worrying about is what is going to happen to the banks holding mortgages on these properties when the bubble finally bursts. I'm concerned that property values may fall to as little as half their present level, and banks will be left with X dollars loaned out against collateral worth X/2. About the best we can hope for is that the fall won't be precipitous.
The first speedbump in this roaring market will happen around 1 January, 2000, if for nothing other then purely psychological reasons. If nothing else, it's going to be an interesting ride.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Based on the numbers, stay in Athens!! As usual, the cost of living in SV looks to be more 'adjusted' than pay is :-)
Personally, I'm in Lithonia (next to Stone Mountain).
Here are the corrected ones:
:-(
http://www.amazing.com/david/dream-house/ - David's Dream House
http://www.bhere.com/ruins/ - Fabulous Ruins of Detroit.
Sorry
D
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Damn, I start my new job in Austin the 26th! Now you tell me everything sucks.
Jarod
"Are you on crack? Have you ever been to Boston? A grid?"
Boston is clearly not a grid. But Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York (somewhat, also clouded by ease of water transport) _are_ all railroad cities. By that I mean that the outer edges of the cities, and the inner ring of suburbs, were developed around commuter railroads in the 1860-1920 period (although oddly enough this pattern continues today in Chicago). As the cities were filled in around the railroads, they naturally developed in patterns that made it possible to live using only public transportation.
Today, although automobiles have been overlaid onto this structure, the underlying pattern still exists. Therefore it is possible to find ways of life that don't involve dependence on the auto. {Disclosure: when I lived in Chicago I owned two cars, but I did 60% of my _commuting_ on public transit. So I am neither a transit fanatic nor a car hater)
If, however, this pattern doesn't exist, it is almost impossible to overlay it on an automobile-based design (modern St. Louis, Atlanta, LA, etc). The infrastructure and patterns of life just aren't there. Plus the zoning laws make it impossible to build "the old way".
Although... I was reading in "Trains" just the other day how development of commuter rail was pushed forward 3-4 years after the last big California earthquake (Loma Preita? I can't remember). New track was laid on abandoned ROW, trainsets borrowed from Toronto, and rail service started in 2 weeks while the rubble was still being cleared from the highway overpasses. So maybe there is some movement for change.
sPh
We're growing too fast right now, and ridiculous housing prices, 1-2 hour commutes, horrible traffic, and high stress levels are merely symptoms.
And what about people working for non-hitech companies? Every community needs a share of low tech jobs to be able to survive. These people must also live somewhere.
What's odd is that even though the population is largely professional people, I don't see a lot of business growth there. (I'd love to see more high tech jobs in Columbia.) Maybe it's turning into bedroom communities for Northern Virginia and the Rockville/Germantown corridor? More of a commute than I'd care for, but some folks don't seem to mind spending three hours a day driving to and from work. (Some folks are stupid, IMHO.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Unfortunately the skyrocketing cost of living in San Francisco (the cultural center of Silicon Valley) is forcing many of the artists, freaks and activists out. It was the diversity and character that made San Francisco an incredible place, and it's turning into Pleasantville.
In my neighborhood, the Mission, there is a psuedo political movement to encourage the hipsters to vandalize the yuppie's vehicles. An SUV was set on fire up the street from me. Hee hee. Vandalism is not the answer... is there an answer?
Yeah Atlanta or Athens would be cool,
if you like running around in the woods
with a white cloth around your body.
Or if you are into dragging car-less minorities
from your truck bumper.
I think I will stick to the drive-by's in LA.
I moved into a small one bedroom apartment in Sunnyvale in 1982, and I still live there. In that time my rent has increased from $360/mo to $950/mo. There has been no significant work done to the apartment in that time other than regular maintenance. The building has changed owners twice, and both times a large rent increase followed. As the article mentions, if I wanted to move I'd have to pay at least $150/mo more.
I do independent contract work, so sometimes have to survive some months between jobs. This has been getting harder and harder as the rent has increased and its beginning to be a real problem. I can relate to the possibility of not being able to stay housed and will probably relocate to a studio while I can still afford one. Its obvious that I can forget about retiring around here.
San Francisco isn't much better, but they have rent control. So once you've moved in, you can get a relatively cheap price by just remaining there for some years. Or if you're really lucky, find a lease to assume.
Jim
I agree with most of what you put in there. However, I feel "homework" is vastly overused as a teaching aid. Honestly, do you remember stuff just because you did homework on it? I don't. I don't remember stuff I crammed for a test either. I DO remember stuff I liked to learn, when I learned something at all. I was "advanced" and the school system had nothing to teach me. I took the "honors" classes, and the "AP" classes (Advanced Prep, basicly college level courses) and all I got was more homework. The classes were not any harder, and I didn't learn any more then my classmates in the "normal" classes. Just more homework. And it should be noted that they knew just as much about the subject matter as I did 90% of the time. Homework is not the pancea people make it out to be. The soultion is a complete revamp of the entire education system, top to bottom. Creating a setup where students are given a list of requirements to pass grades and such and must demonstrate compentance to get out of school. It would provide a way for "advanced" students to excell and learn or get out of there and into college where they can learn and provide a way for the "slower" students to get the help they need. It's better for everyone. Of course, it's different, so people hate the idea.
I was excited to learn when I was in school. But they had little to teach me. Math was about the only thing I could learn something in. And the only advice the so called counsolors could give me was "take the easy A". Duh. If I wanted to sit arround on my ass and learn nothing for a grade I would have taken all the easy classes instead of the "honors" stuff. So I left and did my learning elsewhere. And I don't regret it. Because of this I will be teaching my children myself. I don't trust the "system" to do it, it has proven itself incapable.
Don't tell anyone, but I have a *great big* house (4 bed 3 bath) in Mill Valley (30 minutes to the City) where it's quiet and my neighbors are trees and birds for $2900. It's worth about $600K.
I just graduated and got a job with IBM in User Tech. Did an apt hunting trip; I found a 1 bedroom, 735sq ft. in a brand-new gated complex .5 mi from the arena and downtown. Only $1395 a month, and thats a special, next year I'll have to pay $1495 for the same place. South of San Jose, a coworker has 2br2ba for $1200. I have a 20min no-traffic commute south, I can't complain. Although between rent, car, and retirement saving I don't have a helluva lot of disposable income. Guess that new linux box will have to wait. If only I made 10k less I could get the reduced rental rates for low income family's, 20k less and they might let me in a shelter. Otherwise next year I'm moving into my office or heading south!
Thank god for healthy compensation and good benefits, besides the fun job, because if I want a house it will take a 200 to 300% increase insalary or a some fat bonus checks! Back in Seattle I was in a spacious 2br with a roommate, my share was only $400. My rent only went up by ~300%
-Jay
-Jay
> Boston and Cambridge are in the longest period
> of economic growth they've ever had, and that
> growth would have been stillborn (or at least
> stunted) if rent control were still in effect
> today, IT industry or not. There's a spiffy new
> Star Market near Central Square, with one of
> the biggest ethnic foods section I've ever seen.
> No way in hell that would have been built ten
> years ago.
There is more going on in the Greater-Boston area than meets the eye. Remember, MIT and Harvard, through their endowments and various shadowy shell companies, own VAST amounts of property in this area. The Star Market in University Park was put there by MIT --- as a part of its overall plan to gentrify Central Square and prepare the area for the next century of MIT's growth. I'm not kidding here, MIT has development plans with timescales of decades...
Remember, MIT and Harvard have multi-billion dollar endowments, get further billions in government (taxpayer) funding, and each recieves hundreds of millions each year in alumni contributions. They consciously create new technologies and spin-off companies. If anyone thinks this is just the "free market" and "profit motive" at work, then they are quite naive.
I just moved from Hampshire to Marin County. For the price of miserable food at Sainsbury's, I can buy beautiful fresh organic food at Whole Foods. For the price of a crummy bottle of wine, I can buy something drinkable. And I don't even want to talk about cars or bus fare or parking or ....
Sorry, but the cost of living here is nothing compared to England. And I make 20% more.
So the young doctor on the Trapper John MD TV series was on to something. Get an old RV and park it where you work. That would be great if you could plug it into an electrical outlet or hook it up to a water source too. What would really be nice is to have it parked at a campground way outside of town, have it hooked up to electricity, water, & phone, and then telecommute. Sometimes I wish I could do that all the time. Unfortunately, the times I've tried working at home, the family gets in the way and I can't get as much done as I could at an office.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
San Francisco does have tenent favoring laws.
For instance, if a wannabe tenent sends in the rent check for a place with his/her name, AND the landlord cashes it, then that tenent is no longer a wanna be. As good as being on the lease.
A friend of mine was offered $15k by his landlord to move. He moved.
One word: Telecommute.
Thats what I'm going to be doing. I currently live in San Diego, but am moving to Spokane, Washington, but keeping my San Diego salary.
Live in a beautiful/cheaper area, less stress, work from home, and essentially make %20 more with the same salary.
For example: For what I'm currently paying for a 2 bedroom apt. in a *hot* section of town, I'm going to be living in a 3 bedroom *house* with a garage yard etc..
Aren't computers great?!?!
.. compared to New York City. Not many can
even consider buying a house it the city. One
room studio apartments run $1200/mo + 2k fees + 2K
up front and the weather is not as nice as
Silicon Valley. ( A two bedroom condo can run
300-500k )
Indianapolis is ok, but you forgot that if you live in Marion county your property taxes are going to be much higher than surrounding counties.
Also even though the cost of living isn't as bad as elsewere it's still on the high side.
When I moved here last year, I looked at some apartments near Apple in Santa Clara. $3400 a month! Holy cow. It was less than 900sq ft. You can freakin buy a humongous mansion anywhere else for that kind of money. The funny thing is, I almost took the apartment.
-- Virtual Windows Project
This is simply not true. Do you think people are idiots here? Alternatives to apartments like houseboats or trailers are also grossly overpriced (in terms of marina fees or trailer park fees) compared to the rest of the US and are also extraordinarily over subscribed and thus hard to come by.
Maynard
What's your problem with the National Education Association? So what if they are one of the greatest lobbying forces around? Education is a good thing! Teachers, frankly, get no respect. They have a thankless job, have to deal with larger and larger classes every year with smaller and smaller budgets, and aren't paid all that well either. My mother and uncle, who have been teaching for almost 30 years, make less than someone with equivilent education gets to start at your average high-tech company. Granted, teachers don't start teaching if they're planning to get rich, but it seems like they never get the respect they deserve.
PARTY CREWS, DRUG DEALERS, that ought to lower prices.... but they have concequencies :)
Hey, before you start moaning about high housing costs in the valley area, have a look at the prices in London (try for example http://www.net-lettings.co.uk/, and don't forget that the pound is currently about 2 US$ and that salaries are lower here). And in addition to these ridiculously high rents the flats you can get are usually terrible.
Want an example?
A 2 room flat (plus kitchen and bathroom, about 40 sqare meters) goes for >=750 Pounds/month + charges + council tax. And then you usually end up in a shitty area and have to travel to work for 1 hour (one way).
The flat then has electric heating (very expensive), and is "furnished" with the cheapest furniture the landlord could find. But you are not allowed to remove the furniture.
I will be moving to Paris shortly. It's actually a bit cheaper there and you get real value for money!
I last visited the Dallas area about a year ago and was appauled at the lack of planning the city has. Businesses seem to be clumped together in such a way as to cause horrendous traffic problems (and we're not talking collaberative enterprises -- we're talking a mile-long stretch of gas stations or fast food). The city (like towns in SV) seems to have congealed more than actually evolved properly.
;-)
I used to listen to stories ad nauseum about how well the Phoenix area was planned (he's a commercial real estate broker there), but I had no appreciation for that until I visited Dallas and had to deal with their traffic. Oddly enough, living in Santa Clara (and working there, too), I've run into less traffic problems than I did on my visit to Dallas (mostly North Dallas).
I don't mean to start a "my city's better than yours" flamewar, but I think folks need to consider the following when moving: 1. Visit, but try your potential commute for a couple of days before commiting and make sure you can live with it. 2. Make mapquest your friend and look up all apartments there (relative to potential employers) so you get the hang of where everything is. 3. Make sure you can live with the culture shock. 4. Check any resource that compares cost of living with where you're living now and don't forget to account for changes in the tax rate if appropriate.
Moving to Silicon Valley, I was ready for this, and the $1,500/mo for a 2BR/2BA was no particular shock. I had a number that my potential employer had to beat before I'd work for him/her, and I more than made it. On the whole, I have ~$500 more in disposable income/month than I had in Phoenix, much better weather, a much more interesting job, and more opportunity than I can shake a stick at. It was a good move, and fairly well-planned.
Cliche time: People don't plan to fail, they fail to plan.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
yep, you summed up the SF situation perfectly, and I agree, the same dynamics will almost certainly see West Oakland get yuppified. Which is sort of a mixed blessing, but anyway, my hat's off to you for seeing things clearly. ...but it seems California politicians don't have the same drive to make things work that, say, New York City politicians do. Can you imagine what would happen if the NYC subway started acting like BART? Man, heads would roll...
If only we could all telecommute
Some of you people are getting screwed. I live in a "low rent" area in the Northeast. I could get a 2 bedroom apartment for $800/month if I wanted.
I started off at 42K out of school. I was given a raise six months later (to 49k). Now I make 55k. That's like a 31% increase in less than 2 years.
This is all in the same company.
Plus I have consulting income and income from investments.
The guy next to me is getting screwed: he's still getting less than 40k or so right out of school.
If you are so easily replaceable that you can't get more money, then get some better skills or move somewhere where companies are desperate and have NO CHOICE but to pay up or lose valuable employees.
Obviously all you know about the southeast comes from watching "The Dukes of Hazzard" reruns. The Klan has more members in Massachusetts than Alabama, and more members in New York state than in Georgia. If you don't believe me, check with the Southern Poverty Law Center. As for the dragging comment, that was Texas, not Georgia. Of course if you had ever travelled more than 25 miles from your house or opened an encyclopedia you might know a little more about geography. I used to live in California. There are as many rednecks in the central valley as there are in any southern state, and there are even inbred hillbillies in the Sierra Nevada (saw a special on them on a local Sacramento station).
I didn't go to UGA, but Athens does have some cool factor going for it, as the alternative music factory back before Seattle became the hotbed.
Dig yourself out of your hole and travel around a bit. Heck, just check out the Monster Board to see what kind of job's we have here. You might be suprised.
true enough dedham is an excelent place for a business... needham is also good
but waltham would also be a good place... sure its got parametric oracle and lycos and all but its huge (land area wise) and there is a substancial amount of under developed and under occupied land (prospect hill is almost half empty)
burlington area isnt that bad... but there is already alot up there... sybase, sun, Bare Bones more that I dont remember, its already prety developed
summerville is pretty good too
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
I've asked myself the same bus vs. bike question, while looking at the bus route poster, and took a car, because (a) car is faster, (b) riding a bike will involve being run over by an ignorant soccer mom (SUV) or equally ignorant "yuppie" sales/marketing type(BMW).
It's been said, with varying levels of seriousness, that the Atlanta transit system is meant to move the poor folks to and from their jobs, basically keeping low-rate labor available. The more I look at it, the more I see that statement as less of a joke and more of a description.
put in a real e-mail address and I can send you lat/long for CO's in the south bay.
First off, I live in the Valley. Mountain View, to be precise. I used to live in Boston. I've gone from spliting a $1500 1400 sq ft flat to a $1200 600sq ft 1-br. Not alot of fun.
The problem here is a simple one: No space for new housing, and an influx of people. A secondary issue is the massive amount of wealth that has been suddenly created by the Internet IPOs over the last 2 years. It's a simple Adam Smith problem of supply vs. demand (and ability to pay).
As other people have mentioned, there is a heavy commitment to retaining the larger open spaces here for recreation and preservation. And I can't say I'm really sorry about that (it's actually nice to go biking along the San Andreas :-). The result, though, is that the only real places to build, given the geography, are East (Walnut Creek and such) and North (Marin County).
Now we run into the Curse of Silicon Valley: the world's shittiest public transporation system. There are like 6 million people in the Bay Area. Yet, for all practical purposes, you can't ride any public transporation to work. The system is really a conglomeration of about 15 independently run trains, buses, and light rail, none of which are coordinated with eachother, or connect in any sane manner. So you have to drive to work. And there are huge choke points to getting places, which can't really be fixed (like the GG and Bay Bridges). So, living in Marin County and working in Cupertino isn't an option (can we say a 3-4 hour commute?)
Moving from Boston was a harsh blow on this regards. You could actually live 50 miles from work and only have to drive to the local train stop (maybe 1-2 miles) to get into downtown. Hell, the bus/subway system was so good that you could practically get from any point inside of I-95 to any other point inside with only a couple of blocks walking, total.
Don't I wish this was the case here in the Valley.
Until the Bay Area gets it's head out of it's ass and manages to coherently plan and build a regional transit system, the housing prices will get worse. 'Course, the system should make the Big Dig ($10+ Billion) look like chicken feed when it comes to cost. But it's the only way. Too bad it won't happen before I leave.
I'm buying a house this winter. Expect to pay about $.5m for it, and get a lower-middle-class house I'll do work on. Figure to sell it about 2005 and move somewhere else where the housing prices are sane. 'Course, I might just make $100k or more, since prices are climbing about 10% or more per year.
What's the old saying? Takes Money To Make Money?
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
In western New York, a community the size of Jamestown, NY (home of the crescent wrench, Lucille Ball, 10,000 Maniacs, voting machines and quality furniture) with a population of about 40k, has three Web development firms, one of which does additional software development. But not for Linux, though.
With low real estate (somewhat dampened by higher taxes), cheap municipal electric power of less than 4 cents/kWH, Chautauqua Institution right around the corner, it makes an ideal spot for raising your family. Schools and libraries are all equipped with Internet access in these parts. (Your school taxes are higher here, but a lot of the money is being spent on producing more capable children.)
No matter where you live, look for the cultural gems that make your community unique. Look hard enough and you will find them.
As far as the snow goes, I prefer snow to oppressive heat, earthquakes, hurricanes or flooding. I'll stick with western NY as long as possible.
--
Gleepy the Hen. More intelligent than the average hen.
This makes no sense to me. Why would anyone want to live is SoCal and spend four hours a day in traffic?
I live 12 miles from work, it's a 15 minute drive through three towns and one national park. With today's communications infrastructure, it no longer matters where you live. Why live there?
The biggest problem I see is the street layout is "off the grid." In Chicago proper, the streets are straight and laid out at right angles, with few exceptions. It's so easy to drive, well, except for the new fad of double parking. Even when the Edens Expressway was shut down for two years, there wasn't the traffic catastrophe you see in SV. The cars just melted into the grid.
In the western 'burbs, like Arlington Heights and such, the streets are curly-cue like in SV. Multiple massive housing developments dump in one or two eightlane arteries that are ALWAYS choked. There is no way to develop mass transit with these housing patterns.
The phenomema that causes sky-high housing prices is that curly-cue streets, while causing traffic congestion, also cause a low density of housing, which causes a shortage, which drives up prices.
Putting housing and streets on the grid results in a high density of housing, which increases supply and lowers prices.
The best thing about grid layout, though, is you can actually walk to places from your house or apartment. Walk to the park, restaurant, store, whatever. In curly-cue, you drive to the Jewell, then get back on the drag to your next stop. You're just adding to congestion and stress.
For me, the best move was not geographic. It was getting out of towns with messed up streets, and moving back to a place with a rational street layout.
Visiting Dallas I saw a strip mall with a liquor store, a gun store, and a bail bonds store all in a row. Convenient one stop shopping!
The other issue is that, as mentioned, development is discouraged in the interest of saving space. Which is fine, open space is nice, but you have to expect the consequences. In any case, the high cost of housing should at least discourage people from moving there, and cause jobs to move elsewhere in some numbers as well. (Since people won't work there for the same rates with housing so expensive)
No, Boston is an old fashioned city laid out on the grid. Enough people are moving in one direction at any one time to make a train worthwhile.
SV is laid out on squirrelly streets, and everybody is going in their own direction. There will never be mass transit in SV. LA spent $10,000,000,000 on a system that no one uses. It's hopeless.
I went to Comdex Chicago this spring. Drove into the northern suburbs, which is easy, parked at the Skokie Swift, and took that into downtown. So easy and cheap. SV will never have anything like it. Go back to Boston.
That's almost exactly what happened here in Sweden about
8 years ago.
Many companies thought that investing in real estates was a
good business, so they bought a lot of houses, especially in
the central areas of bigger towns. This increased
interest in real estates led to higher prices, which made more
people think that investing in real estates would be worthwhile,
buying more houses and accelerating the spiral even more.
A lot of companies then started to take expensive loans, using
their allready bought houses as security and the banks were
just all too happy to make even more business.
This sudden demand for new houses made the construction
companies very busy and they had the time of their life. Building
more and more new houses, making more of a profit and
employing more people.
Then, when the companies discovered that there was not
enough demand for their appartments (after all, we're just 9
million citizens) they panicked and tried to sell them
as fast as possible and that way bursting the bubble.
The result was that a lot of these real estate companies and
building companies went bancrupt, spreading chaos in
the economy.
The government had to intervene and shell out loads of
money to prevent the involved banks from going bancrupt,
which otherwise would have wrecked even more havoc to
the economical system.
I graduated from Cal Berkeley last year and work in Livermore (near the Valley) as a hacker/physicist. I make 60k. I have some investments but also student debt so my net worth is not high. But I'm doing ok. For now at least. My wife goes to school in the Valley so got an apartment in Fremont, mid-way between her school and my work.
When I started work, 60k seemed pretty good and I thought I would finally be able to get out of the renting trap. No such luck. Lower price housing developements in the East Bay are starting in the low 300k. After talking to more than a few lenders, I can't get financed for houses that high because almost all of my paycheck would have to go to the mortgage payments.
So I continue to rent, trying to build up a large enough down payment to get the mortgage payments low enough to handle. It's tough to save, however, because the rents are so high everywhere. Unless you move out east past Tracy. But a commute from there will eat up your savings in the form of gas ($$$) and car maintenance bills. Not the mention the cost of Prozac you'll need to take because of the stress of the commute over the Altamont Pass and Sunol Grade.
And worse off, it's not just the fact that housing is so high priced but more importantly that the rate it's going up is so high. Everytime I blink, the base price for housing increases by another 10-20k. My perception is that cost of housing is increasing 7-10% SEMI-annually. I can't prove that amount but I think most locals would agree that I'm not too far off base. I wouldn't mind buckling down and saving for a reasonably fixed goal, but the capital needed to break into the housing market is increasing faster than I, and most people, can save.
The people that are able to buy new houses around here are people who already have a house and substantial equity in it. These buyers can sell their old houses at a substantial profit because of the heated market and use the profit to move into +500k units even if they aren't making huge paychecks. Because there are so many of these types of customers, most new housing developements are building expensive homes with all the anemities. Home builders are not building the lower priced starter homes/townhouses/condos that are desperately need in this area.
I live in Santa Cruz county, which is just west of the vally, about as far west you can go without falling off the continent, and staying in CA. Housing isn't any better over here. The problem is two fold. One, there are all the people who find it possible to live over here and commute over to the vally, and there is the recent developments in the UC system. Specifically, the current lack of affirmitive action laws in California ment that the UCs didn't need to limit the number of students to ensure a certain percentage of minority groups, which has led to an influx of people. Now, this is ok, all in all, except for one small problem. The UC board decided to send the overflow of accepted students to UC Santa Cruz! ALL OF THEM! This has done hell for the already shit poor state of the housing in this county. Not only that, but we have one of the most popular junior collages in the state, Cabrillo, having it's highest enrollment rate in it's history, and many of them are not locals with established housing, which means that much more of a burden. Not an easy problem to solve.
my boss lives in our office half the time...
-- your knees hurt, don't they?
Its just supply and demand. A lot of people with a lot of money are looking for housing. The thing is there are a lot more people looking for a place to live than their are places. So prices go up. The only way to solve it is to cut demand or build a *LOT* of new units.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
There's a lot to do in the city (see Metromix for some good listings), there's good public transportation if your destination is the city (within the burbs public transportation sucks just like it does everywhere else), and there's a large and diverse geek culture. After all, it is the third-largest city in the United States. And you can get the best pizza and hot dogs and polish saussage in the world here.
About the only downside is the weather, because we have a real winter here. And the winter isn't all that bad; just learn how to drive in snow and you'll be fine. It's not like Michigan or some of the other northern states where snowfall is measured in feet...
If anyone wants to work in the Chicago area writing Mac & Windows software in C++, drop me a note. I may be able to hook you up. ;)
I go to Johns Hopkins (in Baltimore.) I saw a sign
:)
in one of the bathrooms on campus that said,
"We may be illiterate but at least our mayor isn't
on crack!"
What's the difference between Barry (mayor of DC) and
Schmoke (mayor of Baltimore?) Schmoke wants to
legalize drugs and Barry thinks they already are.
Old joke but still funny.
I wonder how long that deal will last? The civil engineers
in Howard county (where Elkrdige is) seem to have
gone mad. That place is growing like a wild fire
and it seems as if there is a tree anywhere around
there it must be cut down in order to build houses
or a supermarket. If I had money to invest in land,
I'd invest it in Howard county.
Of course in your part of Howard county things
might not be as bad.
First, it's understandable that existing businesses aren't going to be moving anytime soon.
It's also understandable that most employees will want to be near a major cities for their cultural/ entertainment needs.
And then there's the factor of being close to other similar business in order to do business with them.
But, as the ad from an IBM commercial above indicates, why not start these startup companies in other tech-savvy areas of the country - Dallas, Houston, Boston, etc.? The internet make nearly all business-related concerns negliable - You can video conference, share code and documents, and a whole bunch of stuff, and rather cheaply too.
IMO, I cannot find pity for the situation save for those 'poor' workers. I was in SF about 2 years ago for a few days, and even then, saw was the Valley's cost of living is. It's a situation that seems to have been let build to this point by the 'high culturites' of SF and those that provide the services of living.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
I'm glad State keeps me busy. Otherwise I would have to shoot myself.
:)
It is always hot.
It rains all the time. (Read: muggy)
There isn't a darn thing to do. (I don't hunt or fish, thanks
I'm gettin outta here as soon as I can. Oh well, could be worse. Could be Alabama or Louisiana. Hehe.
This sig is false.
You people are on top of the world right now. You're making a killing financially. Leave this kind of whining to the NBA.
-LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
They are cheap to buy (many companies loose money
on the small cars so they can sell a lot of large
cars and still increase the average gas milage of
their cars.) They are cheap to run. It is
easier to find parking for small cars in the city
and they zip in and out of traffic with no problem.
I do love my Toyota Tercel!
So clearly the local zoning boards are happy with the current situation - high prices and all (more fools they). Although if firemen, cops, and teachers can't live there, then the quality of essential services will decline, putting a damper on property values in a most unplesant way (the market will not be denied).
Disclaimer: I don't live anywhere near Silicon Valley - I live in NJ. (But some things are the same all over.)
--
An esoteric scratched itch:
Homeworld Map Maker Tool
Allowing people to freely trade value for value, the free market allows for the efficient matching of supply and demand. When the government decides to set artificial prices on the grounds that a politically-determined price is "fairer" than one voluntarily negotiated by the market of free buyers and sellers, it merely contorts the economy.
When price is artificially restricted, so is supply. Why get into a business where the price is controlled when there are so many more sensible options? I could refurbish one of those old warehouses and turn it into apartments, but we have rent control (to give "power to the people"), so I'll turn it into office space instead. No law says *I* have to help solve the housing shortage.
Oh, it's only zoned for residential? Okay, at least with the office building, I would have been paying property taxes to support local schools, but now I think I'll just pass on the building entirely, which means I won't pay property taxes in this district at all. All those renters trapped in run-down apartments that they can't afford to move out of, so their landlords don't need to repair even if they could afford to do so, they'll also get to send their kids to run-down schools.
There. That's fair. Power to the people!
Here in Boston, which boasts the second biggest IT market behind the valley, they got rid of rent control a couple years ago. Rent doubled in the large, poor sections (slums?) of Boston, Dorchester and Roxbury. Of course, the rest of the area is following. In the last two years, my friends living in a 2 br in a high rise in one of the nearby suburbs (Malden) have seen their rent go from $875 to $1300. If you want to live in Boston, you'll pay $1200-$1700 for a 1 br and $1500 to $2500 for a 2 br, if you can find one available. A recent survey indicates that in the Boston metro area the vacancy rate for rental properties is now under 0.5%, so it is only going to get worse for a while. I just moved here from Ohio, where I was paying $630 a month for a large 2 br in a nice complex with garage, clubhouse, pool, jacuzzi, tennis & sand volleyball courts.
Its no secret that a lot of WC companies are moving more operations to the East Coast. Sun just built a massive facility in Burlington MA. It will eventually hold 2,500. Oracle just announced that its build a new campus in MA for 1,000 people and it will still have a NH campus for about 500 people.
****
"I'd never want to join a club that would have me as a member" - G. Marx
> massive importation of desperate foreigners.
Oh please... what about your ancestors, you moron?
Were they also desperate foreigners?
If a 'foreigner' does a better job than you do,
why should a company hire you? And don't tell
me about that B.S. about lower wages. No normal
manager would like to deal with the INS and
H1-B visas just to save a few bucks on his
employee's salary.
Silicon Valley; Austin; Research Park; Boston; Seattle; etc.
what do they share?
Booming tech sectors.
why do they share them?
because the talented, motivated, and creative people have clustered there. Now, I am not an essentialist (ask your english prof), and I am not saying people elsewhere lack talent, motivation, and creativity. But you cluster lots of brainy people together, and you can see them play off each other, develop their ideas, get more motivated with personal interconnections. This should be obvious.
Now, what do the geographical regions at the top share? well:
a. existing tech sectors -- many employed geeks.
b. universities -- freshly-hooded geeks.
c. government/military/huge commercial labs -- think SLAC, think the labs around Research Triangle Park, and west of Boston. Think of _all_ the freakin' labs clustered in SV. Several huge chip foundries around Austin, along with a well-sized dept. of Defense UT-Austin lab (friend of mine makes railguns there).
d. i had another example, but I just ran out of coffee.
see, successful geekiness is often synergistic -- it doesn't happen alone. so it's the places that have the people that will create new businesses, and it's the rich humus of new|growing|dying|proposed commercial ventures that defines a tech sector. IBM has installations all over the world, but they don't qualify as tech sectors by virtue of that; besides, small companies hire more people than the mega-corps anyway, at least in gross.
hope this answers your question.
$1600 for a midsize 2 bedroom in the western addition, and i count myself lucky that i found it.
it sucks, but SF is still worth it... for a little bit longer anyway. when i talk to family and friends that don't live here i realize that i have started to take it for granted that everyone has high speed net access, knows how to compile a kernel and build a pc from parts, and comes up with a great new internet startup plan over morning coffee (at noon)...
its a great time and place to be if you can hack the rent.
you're nuts. boston isn't a grid.
l.a.'s subway was a stupid idea, not b/c of squirrely roads, but because la is too freakin' big. You can't hope to have a subway system in a place where you have to walk 20 blocks from the stop to where you're going.
mass-transit vs. car-oriented: both of them have feedback loops. You really can't have both in the same city, and la has already chosen car, car, car!!
Many of the problems discussed on this page (especially the public transportation issues) could have been anticipated with a couple of runs with Sim City... :)
--
An esoteric scratched itch:
Homeworld Map Maker Tool
I lived in Jacksonville FL for a year. I had lived in other places in the midwest and south, and Jacksonville housing seemed pretty cheap to me---probably 1/4 of what it is in The Valley.
I would guess you could get a pretty decent 3-4 bedroom house (not a shack, but a pretty nice house) in the $150-$250k range. You're close to the ocean, and Media One has cable modems. Not a very cultural city, but your buck goes a loooonnnggg way.
Get real.
Just what do you think the UAW could do about this anyway? Send hit squads to rough up all the landowners and real estate agents? Try to convince the municipalities to enact rent control? BWAHAHAHA...
Government workers? I don't understand your comment there. Almost all government workers are not unionized/organized, so what are they going to do about it. What about all of the government workers who currently live in the bay area? What makes you think government workers have any more control over the real estate industry than anyone else.
OK, lets say that all of the IT workers in the bay area did decide to unionize. Explain to me how they would deal with the problem. The real estate industry is a free market, so what control could they possibly yield? There is no equivalent of a strike in this case. It doesn't cost the landowners any money if their tenants walk out of their apartments. What else are they going to do, threaten to go homeless?
I love all the political replies to this
like "It's the zoning laws." Hey - there is
a finite amount of land IN THE VALLEY - it
IS a valley after all. There are now
something like 8 to 10 MILLION people
living here. You do the math.
As for the prices being high - so what's
new? When I moved here in 1982 I had rent
a room from a college room-mate for
a year and save up the down for a house
too. That's almost a time honored
tradition around here.
The other fact is that the valley really
has just two income levels..those in the
high tech fields were the average salary
is probably 70K to 80K for only 2 years
of expeience and those in service situations
where the average salary is more like 20K-40K.
Those are the folks that have the real
problems.
Life in Silicon Valley....
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Hey -
Silicon Valley isn't the only place that has high prices on real-estate:
Boston is climbing that ladder too. Right now, the average price per square foot of office space in Boston is higher than Manhattan's. That's saying something. The average 1 bedroom rental is around $800/mo. A lot of this is due to the abolishment of rent control, and the "gentrification" of various neighborhoods.
The prices of homes in the Boston area (all the way out to Rt 128, which encircles the greater Boston area) seem to be at a minimum $300,000. While this in no way compares to the situation in Silicon Valley (a single floor ranch that an older couple sold, went for 2.1 Million), it is indicative of a series of related problems...
1> The sale price of a house is an almost purely fictional value. Think about it - I mean, I know "land appreciates in value" - but does the house as well? Almost anything else you buy depreciates over time. Granted, land is in finite supply - thus it's value will increase as the demand for it increases - but the house on that land should really depreciate, unless it is substancially improved.
2> This increase in price stems from a vested interest on the part of two parties - the owner, and the real-estate agent responsible for selling the property. Keep in mind that the agent gets a percentage cut of the sale price! So, of course they want to sell it for as much as possible.
3> Like the stock market, the real estate market is so over inflated it's incredible. Essentially they are creating money out of nothing. There hasn't been enough of a tangible change in that property to justify it's suddenly increased value. However, when the property changes hands again, the goal is of course to sell it for even more! Thus further inflating it's price without regard to it's actual concrete value.
4> We are, in the age of "information" and as such, we are often concerned more with increasing the value of things rather than the actual worth of things. By value, I mean percieved dollar worth of something. By worth, I mean the tangible concrete value of something.
Look at Microsoft - they are worth over $500 billion - the next closest company is GE, and they are only $300 billion or so. If you liquidated MS - would their assets in any way come close to $500 billion? I know that value is based on their possible future earnings (ignore any possibility of an OS revolution here for a moment) - but do you really think that 5 years from now they'd be worth 500 billion in assets?
Sorry for the rant - but this is something I feel pretty strongly about. The housing situation in some parts of the country is merely a symptom of how far out of whack we've become. Just because someone will pay it doesn't mean you should take it.
- Woodie
I live at college. My rent? $1500 a SEMESTER. My bandwidth? I easily sustain 600K/sec transfers across the net. My advice to you guys: Stay on campus ;) - and if you must leave, stay close to campus. College kids can't afford high rent so most college towns have cheap apartments and tons of bandwidth.
The suburbs around here are expanding like there is no tomorrow. The Mid Cities (Arlington, Grand Prairie, Grapevine) have wonderful housing for $100k or less. If you want to live near a high tech area (Frisco or Plano) consider McKinney's Stonebridge Ranch, which is a country club and planned housing subdivision for only $120k for a 3br2bath.
I had two friends who left college to go work in Silicon Valley, and they were both back within 18 months. It's just not worth the hassle. There MUST be a job for you in the D/FW area, and if not here, then somewhere else. No way would I put up with living like that, and I don't have to. Right now I pay $460 a month for a 750 square foot 1br apartment in Denton (admittedly a college town, but hey) and can live perfectly fine on just $20,000 a year.
So come on down and enjoy the party. But if you're not looking for a big hassle, don't work in downtown Dallas. Pick somewhere else. :)
The Tulip Bulbs are always going to be priced the highest near the center of the trading zone.
Rent prices have risen so dramatically only because they were artificially depressed all those years. You look at the high prices and think "that's bad", but you ignore the upside and you never saw the downside of rent control.
1) Houses that were *never* repaired. If the Govt only lets an owner charge $400 for an apartment and its real market value is $800, not one red cent will go into improvements. Why would you spend any money when you cannot ever recoup your investment? Further, since other costs are not controlled and continue to go up, the only way for landlords to make a viable profit is to spend zilch on maintenance. Since I moved to Cambridge two years ago (after living in the 'burbs for three) I've seen one rundown house after another being fixed up into nice places. That would never have happened under rent control.
2) Businesses would not open up in rent controlled areas. Who wants to put their business next to crummy looking houses? No supermarkets, no funky bistros, no quirky shops, no Dunkin' Donuts. So without any new businesses, people living in those areas would have nowhere to work. You get a nice little feedback loop going and...
3)Presto! You've *created* slums by concentrating low-income people in areas where there are no jobs and no businesses to serve their needs. Crime goes up, now businesses definitely don't want to go there, and the vicious circle deepens.
Boston and Cambridge are in the longest period of economic growth they've ever had, and that growth would have been stillborn (or at least stunted) if rent control were still in effect today, IT industry or not. There's a spiffy new Star Market near Central Square, with one of the biggest ethnic foods section I've ever seen. No way in hell that would have been built ten years ago.
Yes, prices are up. I'm buying a place in Somerville (previously known as 'Slum-erville') because it's cheaper. And I hate Volvos and Starbucks as much as the next guy. But if rent control were still in effect people wouldn't even want to live here -- you'd pay $600 a month for rent but there would be no restaurants, bars, stores, etc. and you'd have to worry about your safety just walking around.
Sure, when I lived in Northwest Florida (the "Redneck Riviera", as we affectionately called it) I paid $345 for an apartment, and now I pay $1200. First, I would never get paid as much as I do here. Second, I'd gladly trade the pool for Fireworks on the Charles, Fenway, and the cappucino at Cafe Vittoria.
Think about it... Vermont has the some of the freest gun laws in the country, and NH has no personal income tax.. Libertarian paradise... And NH sells alcohol on highway rest stops.. How could you not love a state with those kind of balls?
And it's not so damned hot as TX or CA...
In the end it just got more and more expensive and unlivable. I was paying 2k a month for a *small* 2 bedroom house and trying to pay that + keep my family in clothes and food... I just got very tired of not getting ahead, even with 10% to 30% increases every year... I packed up and moved to Sacramento last year, still in high tech, working for a good company and enjoying it very much. I bought a house with a giant yard, perfect for my kids to play. I also now get a reliable 56K from my hosue :-) leaving the valley was the best decision I made.
Multiple massive housing developments dump in one or two eightlane arteries that are ALWAYS choked. There is no way to develop mass transit with these housing patterns.
Why can't you develop mass transit with those housing patterns? Because the roads aren't laid out in a perfect grid? Please, if Boston (which has the most f*cked up roads of any city I've lived in yet) can do mass transit any city in America can.
which brings us back to unions...cool the conversation went full circle :)
You know if you're a redneck if ....
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
With small houses going for millions of dollars, why isn't housing being built under the bay? Seems like you could build a nice custom underwater home/lair/fortress for a few million. I wonder who owns the land at the bottom of the bay?
And what about houseboats of some sort? Or floating baloon cities (especially great during earthquakes!!)? The people out in SV really seem to lack creativity.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Or Houston (where I live just fine in a 2100 SF 4BR ranch I lease for $695/month) or San Antonio or Austin. (I hear Austin is a nice town to live in if you can stand to be that close to the legislature. Fortunately, it only meets every other year, and they're done for a while.) For that matter, you could go to Oklahoma City, Des Moines, or Jackson, MS. As for Internet access, Houston has flat-rate ISDN and DSL (cable modems may or may not be coming soon, depending on who you ask,) at decent prices. (Can you say DS-1 speeds for well under $100/month? I thought you could.)
However, the decision of where to put a company is not made by the workers. Not that it should make any difference. I know that if I were to start a company, I wouldn't do it in Silicon Valley because the costs are too high. I would think that it's cheaper (and probably easier) to hire people in CA and move them to someplace cheaper than it is to pay them a living wage near SFO. The thing is, I suspect that few of the bosses read /. (It's something to think about when you want to start YOUR company, though. Your nest egg goes that much farther if you don't have to squander it all on luxuries like housing.)
To be sure, you can't "go water skiing in the morning and snow skiing in the afternoon" in Houston, TX like someone once told me they did in LA, but if you're supposed to be working 80 hours/week (or doing some other ridiculous things for the benefits of your boss and the detriment of yourself) there's no time or energy left to go skiing at all.
I certainly don't wish ill on my colleagues in the Bay area, but if you haven't put down roots, yet, and you're sick of paying vastly too much for your housing, food, and whatever, you might pick up some out-of-town newspapers and do some hunting, or just go to The Houston Job finder and look and see what's there, or, rather, what's here.
Brokersys (the company I started) isn't hiring, though, so please don't send any resumes.
... Does that include crack? Or has your mayor smoked it all?
/ rant>
<rant='morons_who_elected_barry.rnt'<ObDCSwipe<
Look, companies like Microsoft, IBM, Sun, HP, Yahoo, etc. can afford to pay their workers more. The solution is not special tax breaks for the companies or increasing the H1-B quotas or cracking down on workers. Just pay 'em more, then they can afford housing.
FWIW, I bought my first house recently, after Ghost was purchased by a U.S. concern. We're based in New Zealand, and my partner and I have a house + self-contained-flat/office (4br, 2bath overall) on two acres of land for around US$70K total (it's a semi-rural locale and I tele-commute lots). Relaxing for us, bloody awesome for those with kids.
;-) but quality of life, let alone lower overheads, is nothing to be sneezed at. One of the things about being technically astute is knowing better than to disrespect people for the reasons the traditional elite do (where you live, what clothes you wear, etc...). That kind of pigeonholing is part of what we all would like to break down.
... the quality of your ideas, your software, and the people you work with are what matter in the long term.
Now, I've spent time in SillyconV and I love the energy there (San Diego is cool too). But my gut feeling is that while most businesses would love to have an address like 1 Infinite Loop, that _real_ real estate is an overpriced commodity relative to the marketing pull. It doesn't make up for weakness in your product, it doesn't get you market credibility... and if your employees really are the creative engine in your business, their interests are a major part of your business equation.
Why was _The Matrix_ done in Sydney, again? It's not like a Kiwi to to praise the Aussies
It's not about whether you live on a farm, drive a pick-up and drink beer, or live in an inner-city apartment and swill lattes with the cafe set, or live at your desk
Cheapest place to live has to be Mississippi. The question is, do you want to live there? Not unless you like hunting, fishing, monster trucks, red necks, and shotguns in rear windows. A liking for chewing tobacco can help too (grin).
:-).
Really, the biggest problem with going with a really cheap place like that is one of job diversity. I lived in Louisiana for quite some years (same thing as Mississippi, except with better food, grin), and while I had no problem finding a job, they were all pretty much the same -- specialty software for local conditions (e.g., school administration software to handle Louisiana state laws, accounting software to handle Mississippi rules regarding contractors doing business with the state, etc.), or if you were more of a consultant than developer, you got to install lots of Windows NT LAN's. That gets boring after a while, unless you LIKE wearing suits (because you have to spend a lot of time in meetings with government bureaucrats and businessmen).
I'd suggest going to one of the larger cities that have a reasonable cost of living but are not in the Silicon Valley. It's even better if there's recreation nearby. Atlanta is ok in the Southeast, though the Blue Ridge park is a bit far if you're an outdoors type and there's a few too many "suits" for my tastes. Phoenix, where I live now, has a lot of mountain preserves if you like hiking, plus a national forest (no trees in it though, it's desert!) for longer hikes and water sports (well, there is a river through it, though the dams stop all the water before it gets to Phoenix). Raleigh-Durham? Better have at least a MSCS, it's more of a think-tank type environment than a Silicon Valley-ish startup type environment. Dallas? You can make lots of money in Dallas, but it must be the most boring city on the planet. Dallas is so boring that half of Dallas crosses the border into Louisiana on the weekends to visit the gambling casinos and eat Louisiana food. Austin is great, lots of jobs, lots of outdoors activities nearby, a really rockin' music scene. San Antonio is nice too, though not as much variety in high-tech jobs, and not the same kind of music scene as Austin (still has a good variety though).
Somebody mentioned Jacksonville, Florida. While that's reasonable if you like the beach, it's otherwise a quite forgettable city, and while hurricanes usually diverge northward or southward, it IS on the coast, and hurricanes usually do hit within a few hundred miles of Jacksonville on a regular basis.
Anyhow, I think I managed to insult everybody here (especially Yankees up north, who are probably furious that I didn't mention their favorite ice-shrouded corrupt dirty expensive city in the Rust Belt!), so I'll go now
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
A new group of townhouses is being built near where I live (Elkridge, MD; 30 miles N. of DC) and they're going for $120K. I live in a mobile home myself, a very fancy one with a fireplace and all, in a park with underground utilities and other upscale trimmings. Total cost $600/month. And cable modem service is readily available.
I got a job feeler a few months ago from a Silicon Valley company for a salary 25% higher than I was (then) getting here. There was no way I could have afforded to make the move.
Oh, well. I'm old enough to remember when San Jose was cheaper than San Francisco, not that anyone I knew wanted to live there. Too tacky!
As far as $350/month rents *in* DC, yeah, that's only in shooterville neighborhoods. Anyplace in town where you have a fighting chance that your car won't get broken into regularly, a decent 2-bedroom apartment with secure off-street parking (which I need for my limousine) goes for $1200+.
For some reason, I don't think they understand the word "commuter" like New Yorkers. My commute takes an hour and forty five minutes, door to door, each way. You could like in like, Muir Woods at that rate.
I was looking at a place in Pacifica. It's on the coast, north of the valley (a little closer to SF than the valley) but for peace of mind it was ideal. Cheaper and the weather is sooo much better (cooler - but foggy).
If you have too many people in one area and there not much horizontal space to move, go vertical.
Like Hong Kong.
My suggestion is for the government to impose laws to get some of these hi-tech companies out of the valley. Big scare to the global economy is that there an active earthquake fault that runs through the valley. Big earthquake, big problem.
Here's a solution that seems to cover the problem space nicely. The companies want workers to be able to work for them, but not have to pay them a fortune to cover housing. Workers want to be able to live as close as possible to work, to maximise free time.
Solution: Live-in offices!
That's right, the companies could just say - "It's Ok if you sleep here", install a few more showers and kitchens, and you're set. Lots of people sleep all the time at the office anyway, so why not just make it official. I imagine there might be a few zoning issues, but those could be worked around. It beats a shelter, or a space on someones living-room floor.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In California, it is illegal to raise local taxes to fund things like schools without a 2/3rd majority vote. Obviously, this never happens, so there is the same amount of money for schools that there was several years ago.
Also, it is illegal to raise property taxes on a house unless it has just been sold. Thus, the person who's house cost $100,000 in 1980 is still paying taxes based on a $100,000 value (it might be raised 1% a year, I don't remember, exactly), rather than a price closer to what it's actually worth.
-Dean
I live in Athens GA outside Atlanta, $315 a month for a studio and I am making like in the mid 40s a yr so sounds like in the Valley Id be near homeless but here I Am raking in the money of course alot of things are adjusted, like helpdesk here ususally pays like $25-30 and in the Valley helpdesk is more near $40-50.
Please don't go to Austin. It blows! 6th street is lame, music 24x7 is terrible, all the micro brewries make bad beer, cable modems and DLS here are slower than 14.4kb/s, the lake is polluted, barton springs is no longer flowing, the greenbelt is now has no trees, IBM, Tivoli, Vignette, Garden.com, drkoop.com, PenComm Systems, AMD, Trilogy, pcorder.com, and Dell vired all employees and moved to NYC.
So there, no good reason to move to Austin!
Jim
And the new mayor (Williams) is actually (at least) trying to make things better there.
-lee...though the city was so fucked when he got that that it'll take a while.
I hope I'm not the only one who thinks the article was a bit whiny with respect to the people who live and work in Silicon Valley. There are places in this country, and this world, that cost a LOT to live in. Nobody should be surprised by this. Nobody would be shocked to discover that a 1 bedroom apartment which is twice the size of my closet could cost $1200 in New York City, but people still flock there in droves, or they flock AWAY from there in droves, but they don't whine about it, because its unlikely to change.
Silicon Valley is a land of new innovations, technology at the bleeding edge, full of rags to riches stories. People flock there for a reason. But if you can't afford to live there, then don't.
If you can't afford to live there, then don't do that either. There are jobs all over the US, many of them very close to affordable housing. But they're not Silicon Valley. If that makes the difference, then you may be "forced" to live out your startup years in a homeless shelter. But thats a decision that YOU have to make.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Reading the article made me think because when I graduated college in May I had, among others, a job offer with a well-known-to-Slashdotters startup in the Bay Area (their banner ad is flashing above the text box I'm typing this in) and a two-year analyst position in NY (*not* in the IT department) with a very well-known investment bank. Although very tempted by the former I ended up choosing the latter, despite the loss of potential stock options and such that come from joning an organization that hasn't grown past 40 people yet, because I figured that, if I so chose down the road, I could make the transition from Wall Street to a startup a lot easier than the other way around.
Thanks to the commute and the job's hours I have to get up about 4:50-5am every day, so I am looking to move closer into work (located in the financial district, south of Wall St) by buying a studio or 1-bedroom condo; going rates for the places I'm looking at (Brooklyn Heights/Park Slope, or someplace downtown) is +-$120,000. No renting, please; if I'm going to pay $1200 a month at least let me get some equity out of the deal. (Those who get the Sunday Times: I am looking for *exactly* the kind of place the Princeton grad on the cover of today's Real Estate section found; I'm quite envious). I don't have time to look for a place, but my employer will pay the broker's fee so I may end up going down that route.
Anyway, while very happy with my job I have occasionally wondered whether satisfactorily resolving my housing situation would have been much easier had I taken the SF job. As my hours would have been somewhat more reasonable and as I like the academic environment, I was thinking of living in Berkeley or Palo Alto and commuting into work. I never had to pursued the matter very far, of course, but now I see that my housing situation may not have been much better at all out in California.
I've lived in California all my life, and in many ways I agree with the people calling it's cities cesspools. But then there's cities like Irvine that make it all worth while. I can't understand how all these people are flocking to Silicon Valley, I mean are they expecting to run into some rich CEO or something in a Starbucks? And the living/working conditions. Horrible. At least from what I've heard from friends who moved up there. Sure you have a nice house, but your 80 hours work week doesnt let you enjoy it much, neither does the 400k price tag. Some of these startups could always come down here to southern California, housing is cheap, workers are abundant, and if you know how to properly use the net in your business, you're never too far away from anyone.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
"Eliminate zoning laws, and the price of corrugated steel will skyrocket. A severe shortage of refrigerator boxes would ensue"
I can't agree. You might want to scan through _Crabgrass Frontier_ or _A Pattern Language_ (don't have the authors at hand but both are in print) for a better written discussion than I can provide. But here goes:
Although zoning has many purposes, chief among them is to enforce social conformity and keep "undesirables" out of certain areas. Zoning provisions such as miminum garage/driveway sizes, maximum FAR (floor-area ratio), mimimum lot sizes, mimimum setback provisions are very often designed specifically to keep out "bad" development: row houses, low price houses, apartments, etc. Which just happens to be the type of housing that lower income people can afford.
Even something as subtle as the stair standards in the Uniform Building Code have their affect. The stairway code is dictated largely by the NFPA (fire protection codes and standards). Now, I can understand why firefighters want pitch and headroom restrictions on stairs. But the fact is the UBC stairway code makes it impossible to build an _affordable_ two story house on a reasonably sized lot. If my turn-of-the-century craftsman four square is blown away by a tornado tomorrow, I would not be allowed to rebuild it: there just isn't enough room for the stairs and the setback requirements. Despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of these have existed in the Midwest since 1900.
I have a hard time believing that fire fighting requirements are the _only_ reason that is so.
Anyway, that's my rant for today!
sPh
Unions are NOT the way to go. In industries such as the auto industry or even the airlines, there's a lot of homogeneity to the workforce - a riveter is a riveter, a pilot is a pilot (at least at that level). Unions assure workers of a certain level of compensation and benefits and assure the employer of a certain unit cost of labor they can use for planning. You're right: in the right places unions serve a useful purpose.
The "tech" industry is quite different. Part of the problem in perception is the wide swath painted by mainstream use of the term "tech worker." Not to incite any flames, but there's a world of difference between an HTML author and a C++ programmer. They're not in the same league. So all these reports of low tech wages are somewhat misleading. The great thing about the technology industry is that you really can get ahead by strengthening your skills if you want a better job.
As far as workforce homogeneity is concerned, anyone with any experience knows there are great differences in talent among engineers. A really good programmer should be paid more than a not-so-good programmer because he adds much more value to his projects. If unions normalized tech wages, the not-so-good programmer would get paid more than he's worth, and the good programmer would be paid less. I believe this would have a chilling effect on the whole industry. One of the great draws of this indistry is that you can really set yourself apart if you're good, and individual talent actually makes a big difference.
You may have a good idea for the "high-tech hamburger flippers" as you call them. My point is that there are many different areas of high-tech work and unions are definitely not appropriate for all of them.
csimpkins@mindspring.com (simpkins.org temporarily out of service).
I am quite anti-union and the point that I was making is that there are many fields that do have people to stand up for them, since you can't always just stand up and walk away. If that were true, why are so many of my friends and acquaintences busting their hump 80-hours a week for 40 hours of pay and thankful that they have been graced with a job at all?
I know a lot of people who put up with far too much simply because they know if they said "Look, you have to start paying me at least enough so I can live in a cereal box and afford the food from the vending machine down the hall", they would be laughed at twenty other people will be banging on the doors, begging to have his place.
No, Unions are a poor answer, especially for this field -- but there does need to be greater unity among those employed in it. Thankfully, my employers know that if I become fed up with working for them, I'm out the door -- period. But I do work with people who would probably work twice the hours for half the money, because they must keep their job.
In the case of Silicon Valley, there's not a lot that can actually be done. It appears that more government programs are what everyone sees as the solution. I think most of us know there are no government 'solutions'.
In the end, the market will dictate what happens, though it's unfortunate for those sacrificed in the mean-time.
If people are complaining that they're only making $37k and that "I was shocked to find I was below the poverty level", isn't that a good thing? I mean, if that is the poverty level, that indicates that people in general are doing extremely well.
There are a lot of places in the control I could not live, because I could not afford it with my current job and could not possibly compete with those already in that market/city. That doesn't mean that the city is in need of a fix. It just means that it's above my means.
As I said, the market should win out in the end. Even if prices continue to soar, companies will just move out of the valley. Big deal? They'll move into other places and by dispersing, they will enrich other communities with more business and more high-paid workers. That is a Good Thing
.
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seumas.com
Try Central Illinois. you can get a decent ( 1800 sq ft.) house in a city lot for about $60k-$80k. we are getting aDSL in the next few months. we are under 2 hours from St. Louis and 4 hours from Chicago. very low crime rate (the big news 2 years ago was when some old man shot and killed some intruders in his home. that was the last killing here in taylorville). the job market may not be what it is in the San Francisco area, but if you look hard enough, it is there. with a bit of expearance and a college degree, 75k / year would be possible. remember there is more to illinois then Chicago and East St. Louis. also you are about 3 hours from Kentuckey where the states bigest income generator realy isn't leagal and contains a bit of THC. it isn't hard to find good moonshine down there also :)
Posted by rgparker:
When large proft margins exist in an industry with low barriers to entry the normal result is that new suppliers come into the market and drive down prices with greater supplies.
Okay, so why can housing stay so expensive in Silicon Valley for a long period of time? My guess is that governments there prevent the building of large amounts of multi-story apartment and townhouse buildings.
What's the rationale for this? That unplanned growth creates problems? How can these problems possibly be worse than the problems caused by long commutes. How can these problems be worse than the burdens that so many SV residents carry in high monthly rents?
Deregulate the housing market and huge numbers of units will be built. Then prices will come down.
It is really that simple and hardly worth a discussion about life on Slashdot.
http://www.150california.com/docs/home.htm
I pass by it every day, it isn't topped off
yet (i.e. the ironworkers are still adding
floor beams).
Christopher Alexander et al are the authors. Fascinating book, but you might be better off starting at his overview, A Timeless Way of Building. Visit Amazon for them, there are some interesting reviews there, too.
I found both books to be compelling reading - I was a little surprised the quality of writing was so high.
D
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Excellent post. I don't have any ideas to improve the situation in SV, but I think I have a better idea altogether: make a new "Silocon Valley" somewhere else, somewhere more sane.
I'm really tired of the arrogance surrounding "the valley." I once saw a Silicon Spin episode on ZDTV which irked me tremendously. The topic of discussion was Michael Crichton's venture into computer gaming. The location of the new venture was North Carolina so all the "pundits" on the panel (a bunch of damn journalists who probably never wrote a line of code in their lives) declared that the venture would fail because it was not headquartered in Silicon Valley. With great unfounded confidence they explained that the only path to tech success was to locate in SV and "lock a buch of 22-year old programmers in a basement." What a bunch of crap.
I'm really tired of the attitude that all coolness and intellectual talent resides in Silicon Valley. MIT isn't in SV. Carnegie-Mellon isn't in SV. Cornell isn't in SV. Georgia Tech isn't in SV. Sure there are great minds in SV, but there are plenty elsewhere as well.
Don't misunderstand me. I've lived in CA before and I love the place. The perfect weather, ocean, and mountains are what draws companies there IMO, not any innate intellectual superiority. It's just a nice place to live.
So I say let's make a new Silicon Valley somewhere else. My top candidates are Research Triangle, NC, and Atlanta, GA. Both places have excellent universities to provide the talent pool, and their costs of living are very reasonable. Yeah, it's hot and muggy, but that just makes the sweet tea taste better!
csimpkins@midspring.com (simpkins.org temporarily out of service)
It only helps the 'squatters' that have been at a particular place for a long time. This obviously encourages inefficient use of space. New renters face higher rents because supply is artificially constricted by people not moving from their rent control apartments. Rent control also leads landlords into many unethical means of evicting tenants in order to get fair market value for their property. GET RID OF RENT CONTROL. The free market is far from perfect but it's much better than BS government regulation.
California is based on the idea that parking must be free, even if housing is enormously expensive. If you give up you preconceived notions of living in a plywood hut, you can live in a Winnebago for practically nothing.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger