They won’t be doing that unless the highly interconnected VCs and angel investors and ibankers move, and they’re not going to leave a beautiful, vibrant region of the country with good weather for Detroit or Cleveland (let alone the exurban and rural boonies of Real America™). Wealthy people who live in the Bay Area really enjoy that lifestyle, as do those who live in NYC. It’s all part of what Bill Bishop calls “The Big Sort”.
Also, as much as remote work should be the norm for workers in the tech industry, founders and executives and investors (along with their high-priced legal and accounting support) really do need to meet in-person to negotiate deals, arrange partnerships, finalise mergers, etc. So they tend to congregate in certain desirable cities and regions where the worst thing they’ll have to deal with in that regard is having to take one of a dozen direct flights daily to another such desirable place 5 hours away.
What may happen is a variation on what the financial services industry did in NYC in the 1990s: the back-office stuff was shunted across the Hudson to cheaper office parks and facilities in NJ while the executives and client-facing managers and creative types remained in Manhattan. Exactly how this would play out in terms of location would depend upon a change in perception about what software coders want as a lifestyle choice and what the companies are willing to give them.
Another approach might be taken if Amazon chooses a beta or gamma global city (like Pittsburgh or Raleigh or Nashville) for its second headquarters. It would take the strain off of Seattle (part of the original motivation, I’m sure) without placing it on one of the already stressed alpha cities like NYC or L.A. or Toronto. Of course property values and the cost of living in one of those choices would skyrocket, but it would be manageable early-stage stuff compared to what would happen in an alpha city.
If the city and municipal governments accept private organizations serving a small subset of society as a solution that strangles the services for the rest of the community … and that the political class has been ensnared by the wealthy and the elite whom happen to be the same race and/or class as the small subset listed above … then that subset is the one saying and doing it.
It is kind of interesting the way that gentrification often kills neighborhoods, kind of like Aesop’s scorpion crossing the river.
Someplace economically depressed, either because an industry dies or something else.
Rents (both commercial and residential) become cheap. This allows interesting shops and people to afford to live and do business there. The buildings age and become “interesting” by comparison to new construction.
The neighborhood become interesting, possible with a nice night life.
Slightly better off people want to live in an interesting area, and are willing to put up with the disadvantages (noise, crime etc.)
Better off people than that move in and have less patience.
Rents go up, interesting residents and small business have to move out.
Expensive boutiques and chain stores replace antique shops. CVS replaces movie theaters. Trust fund kids replace starving artists.
Boring, safe yuppies and business centered on them dominate the neighborhood.
I don’t think that is really the case so much. San Francisco has its own considerable tech scene now, with a lot of startups and some big established companies (like Salesforce) having offices in the city. This is leading to a lot of gentrification and pushing up what were already sky-high housing costs. The Mission I think used to be a somewhat gritty area known mostly for awesome Mexican food, but it is turning into a tech hub, and not all residents are happy about that.
That’s a fair point, and I’ll concede that there are still thriving businesses in several industries located in SF. Still, the trend toward people living in SF and working outside the city is undeniably headed upward.
You say “accept” as if the private organizations were doing something egregiously illegal or improper. They’re not. And if they are doing anything illegal (e.g. blocking streets, double parking, or what have you) then by all means the cities should take action. But that’s not really the thrust of the argument here – the argument is that some people don’t like it. And that’s not an objective or legally actionable viewpoint.
Strangle how, exactly? Would you prefer more cars on the road instead?
I lived there while Roxbury flipped, it was pretty wild how fast it happened. Northeastern started building, then Brigham circle started happening and then boom.
The difference from 2000 and 2010 was stark. Same with lower Allston- once Harvard decided it was theirs, it was only a matter of time.
But this is not true for the main workforce in a well-established company. That’s why I mentioned Facebook and Apple, not startups. Also, I don’t mean remote work; the whole company campus should be airlifted elsewhere.
These are already too crowded (esp. Raleigh) and suffering from the early stages of what SF went through. A once-great now-declining industrial center would be better for everyone. Italy did this with their automotive and appliance industries in the mid 20th century; unfortunately, Google’s leadership is neither as civic-minded nor creative as FIAT’s was.
From what I’ve read, a huge part of the problem in San Francisco is that the city is super-conservative in approving zoning for buildings taller than a handful of stories, because they don’t want the population density to get too high, so they can maintain the right “vibe.”
But then when they do approve a skyscraper – they can’t freaking build one incapable of leaning over and presenting a major risk to the city.
Maybe people who are pissed off about the rising cost of living in San Francisco could shift some of their blame to the city itself, and encourage the city to, I dunno, approve denser housing units to be built, ones that won’t fall over, even. The city really does seem to want it both ways – they love the demand, they love the gentrification and higher tax revenues, but they also want to maintain the hip vibe. Sorry folks – at some point, cities need to start to change.
Maybe when the next “big one” hits and they have to rebuild the city once again, they can keep this in mind. Or maybe when that new skyscraper finally does fall over, it will knock down enough other stuff, where they can rebuild with more units…
That’s part of it. There is also the surrounding areas happy to have the new business parks but not allowing for new housing for all the employees that will be working there which forces them to live in areas that have hellish commutes. So your options are spend 4 hours driving, taking transit that crosses zones and still isn’t anywhere near close to work for the last stop or take the company bus.
You have the right to live where you want if you can afford it. It should come as no surprise (nor need further debate) that I don’t get to have an estate in Portola Valley if I can’t actually afford it.
Wait, are you seriously telling me that you want to live in a country where the government gets to tell you where you’re allowed to live? Really? Surely I misread your statement, because that surely does not seem like an improvement over the current system, however broken it may be.
The happy medium, IMO, is Federal-level subsidization to encourage all types of investments, as yes, part of a socialist system. Lots of ways to encourage certain things economically, that still allow for certain useful market dynamics to take place.
I think the happy medium is for San Francisco (and yes, all the surrounding areas) to build more housing. In SF, though, that has largely been blocked (for literally decades) by NIMBYs.
That’s not going to happen with either large company in the near- to intermediate terms. Apple just completed a huge new HQ and is already scouting out new cities Amazon-style for a second one. Facebook also is putting a lot of money into Bay Area and SV office space. They aren’t startups but they do a lot of M&A and have venture funding and investment arms of their own along with a mix of in-house and consulting lawyers and accountants.
That kind of infrastructure investment to provide work space for the entire workforce means that they’re committed to the area for the at least the next 5 years and likely the next 10. At that point they might consider moving the main workforce to a brand new campus in a less stressed place, but that’s a while off and would have a lot of serious implications for existing employees.
Looking at the list of final candidates for Amazon’s HQ2, the only cities that describes are Columbus (Gamma- global city), Pittsburgh (Gamma- global city), Indianapolis, and perhaps Newark (very close to NYC) and Nashville. So it might happen, but whatever the choice, costs are going to go up dramatically.
Rounding out the major companies, it doesn’t look like Google is looking anywhere outside already strained areas for their large new offices. In addition to expansion in SV they just expanded their already huge presence in NYC and plan to build a prototype “smart city” and accompanying office space in Toronto, for example.
Unless Amazon sets a new tone by locating their new HQ2 in one of the cities mentioned above I expect all of these companies will continue to build their main office spaces where they already are and in other desirable alpha global cities. If they do that’s where the startups will continue to flock as well.
IMHO, San Francisco has always belonged to the newcomers. The city has seen waves of immigration from the beginning. Past groups have come here for economic opportunity, but also to create a new community, many having come from places they were unwelcome. The most recent arrivals are here to make a buck, little more it seems. That’s too bad, but their right. Finally, yes, SF was a pot-smoking, artist haven. If you don’t think so, you must not have been here then.
I landed here in 1990, and love it still. There is no place I would rather live. I will soon be facing a move, and likely having to leave the city. I would still rather be in the Bay Area than any place else in the country. I’ll take Valejo over Baltimore, or whatever else. There are damn good reasons it’s so expensive to live here. Many of them.
So how would you propose building affordable housing?
I hear some form of it’s all simple, just supply more! all the time and sure it sounds appealingly simple, but it breaks down in the fine grain.
For one thing, how many housing units in SF are underutilized or SROs? Or vacant? And what does SF’s comp plan have to say about density targets? Further, is it ethical to allow service workers to be priced out, because “that’s how the market works”?
There is nowhere in SF that it is possible to build affordable housing without massive subsidies.
