I just had a long-overdue visit to Berkeley this last weekend – had lunch at La Mediterranee on College. So good.
I agree in principal (I was there too) but I think it’s more nuanced than that. Putting people in close proximity of each other – as in, walking down the same hallways – has an enormous impact on collaboration. I work with people in close proximity, and I work with people across town and across the planet. The difference is night and day.
I have no data to go on, but I would guess that it’s because you need either:
Most of these other cities (like the one I live in) have really neither or, at best, sorta one and some suburbs not too far away that are okay.
“Why don’t we locate our offices in pretty town like Des Moines or elsewhere, where the cost of living is affordable, where techies would contribute to local communities rather than drive poorer people out?”
If the Californian transferred [with no salary change] to Des Moines, then you’d have the same problem! The ex-Californians would drive up desired real estate prices and probably increase traffic congestion too. Then we’d have old timey Iowans carping on Boing Boing…
Agreed. If the higher income people move out and property values go down, people complain “it used to be so nice around here”. If people with high incomes move in and the property values go up people complain “I can’t afford to live here any more!”
Not liking change–or being unable to adjust to it–are an aspect of conservatism. I guessing I wasn’t expecting that to be as common of a characteristic of people around here as it seems to be.
Which city, might I ask? Would it fall under what most people would probably think of as “Tier 2 or 3?” It may be a bit smaller/less economically sustainable than, say, Baltimore – which is a shadow of its former self by many measures, but still has a functioning economy, jobs, institutions, etc.
I should’ve emphasized that moving to places with more affordable cost of living would also come with a reduction in salary. I know a company here in Portland that relocated its offices to … wait for it … Rochester, NY in lieu of raises. It was a hard sell, but once people found that the cost of living had nearly halved itself they weren’t too disappointed (I have a couple of friends there).
I remember that place. They always had little meals almost like tapas – they had this eggplant dish which I have spent years trying to duplicate. We lived up in the Gourmet Ghetto so whenever I am in the area I have to get a pizza slice at the Cheeseboard.
I agree that teams seem to work better in physical proximity. But if you’re an application team, you don’t need to always be in physical contact with the tools team, or the server back-end team, or whatever. A lot of tech jobs break down along modular boundaries.
Yes, mostly due to the increasing unaffordability of Tier 1 cities. There will always be an attraction to them, but the future looks good for Tier 2 and 3 cities that already have or are willing to invest in: good mass transit; direct air connections to major business centres; several quality post-secondary institutions; and generally good quality of life (low crime, green spaces, culture, etc). Cities like that will likely see more businesses founded or located in them, but they are also quickly going to see higher costs of living and gentrification.
The places large companies won’t be moving in the U.S. are to the exurbs and small towns (what conservatives call “Real America”), which will be lucky to keep local businesses around. They will increasingly become places for the poor, the disenfranchised, the powerless.
For reference, here’s a summary of various rankings of global cities:
On the GaWC study, Baltimore is listed as Gamma-, which means they consider it a global city.
That’s fascinating, and in a sense I’m almost surprised Baltimore is in there. But I guess it does make sense – lots of people live here and work in D.C., for instance. Baltimore just has this way of popping up, for instance in cyberpunk literature, which makes me especially love it! It is a locale in Neuromancer, and The Expanse! 
What I should do, is probably buy a couple more houses, rent them out, and make a killing in 5-10 years…
One, at least based on the list of global cities, that doesn’t make the cut–though it’s bigger and has a higher GDP than some on the list. Maybe we’re too close to Chicago. 
But they have a crystal clear choice of where they choose to live. When you choose to live 45 miles away from the office you should think about the impact on the community at least a little unless you are completely self serving. They are not victims of circumstance, if they are the breadwinners for their companies they can organize a little and tell the powers that be to park the bus in off-peak areas.
Remember that bit I said about this being a free country? I guess that went unnoticed. They have every right to live where they want to live. Notably, you don’t get to say otherwise.
I see the people get on the buses every day. I can promise you that most buses are carrying much, much more than 5 or 6 people. By the time they get to 16th and Valencia, lots of people have already gotten off at earlier stops.
If it’s Detroit, hey, at least you have techno! 
I’m a strong advocate of completely open borders, whether they be at the city, state, or national level. However, the stress this puts on places like SF (and my own city) is genuine and severe.
I don’t think there will be any solution until some large fraction of the tech industry is motivated to pick up and leave the Bay Area. The change can’t be effected by SF, it has to come from the State (for example in the form of extraordinary taxation) or from the Federal government. There is no earthly reason why Facebook or Apple can’t operate out of (say) Detroit or Cleveland now that they are big, well-established companies.
Unfortunately, I don’t know if there is political will for this.
One of the most clever scams enacted by our wealthy oligarchs was to convince the public that tech workers were responsible for their problems. It’s an opportunistic variation on the old trick where they convince the middle class that the poor are stealing from them.
This is the notable weak bit of your argument. I absolutely think that municipalities should have more muscle and resources to enforce the rules, but i also think people should be expected to obey the rules and others have the right to express irritation (at them) when they don’t. I’d actually suggest that confirming to the rules is about the minimum that can be expected, but should not be the benchmark of what is right (in whatever sense).
That said, I have no opinion on buses, private or otherwise, in SF.
ha! that’s rich. literally.
the whole history of property is that you don’t have the right to live where you want.
people born white and wealthy have an immense advantage in their choices. everyone else has to make do. ( and actually, people of color currently and historically are even actively forced out by banks, by eminent domain, by neighbors regardless of their rights. see redlining. )
the whole point of society is to decide together about what to do with limited resources. america currently says if you’ve got a bunch of greenbacks ( and you’re white ) then that’s your access. it doesn’t have to be so. it’s just paper ( and racism. ) it’s arbitrary and human. not divine.
What would be the equivalent to the Dunning-Kruger effect in which
“mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is”
is replaced with
“mistakenly assess their ability to be good neighbors as greater than it is”?
Attention, all techbros: DON’T move to western Tennessee! You will positively hate it here, oops, I mean there.
Easy fix, three parking violations and the driver’s license is suspended for six months. No drivers, no buses.
Of course, if this was enforced selectively against tech buses only, it would almost certainly be thrown out of court. So it would have to be enforced against all commercial vehicles. I call that a win-win.
