Of course they are. That's not an accident, it's a plan. It's one of the reasons everyone wants to move to those city's.
I grew up in Denver, and it's always been growing like mad.
I don't love all the ways it's grown and changed, OTOH, you have to be willing to grow and change to survive. You can't just place all these restrictions to contain growth and expect there not to be consequences.
Boulder also had/has this philosophy and it was maddening. Ultimately, limiting change is a fundamentally conservative attitude, which is ironic for an outwardly very liberal place.
I appreciated the importance of preserving open space and investing in public transportation, OTOH they also created lots of building restrictions, such as limiting building height, which forced prices ever higher, and eventually just pushed the growth out of town. So what did your pricey conversation program actually save on net? (Other than your guilty conscience?)
When you do this, eventually everything that made the place interesting in the first place is driven out, and all that's left are elites with nothing interesting to spend their money on.
That's the same as the going price on the other side of the bay where I build. I know exactly what those prices are because that's where I've been working since 1986.
It's also another reason not to go to SF. The places where I build they don't shit on the street, and the money is the same if your figures are correct.
The rest of it is meaningless. The people that live in SF get to decide what they want the city to look like, and where homes can be built. That you want to turn it into a hive doesn't matter, the folks who live there say no, and they're voice is the only one that matters. While I'm sure some would love to see Golden Gate park covered in low income condos, the people who live there now have the right to say no. And that's as it should be.
Yes, there's surely some endogeneity that can't be entirely eliminated but I think the results coincide with a gut check of 'if it's harder to build houses here it's going to be more expensive'.
As far as cities go I don't know, I grew up in the 80's and 90's when America's cities continued their emptying out that started in the 60's and 70's and our cities were not very nice places to live then. My dad worked as a private investigator in Philadelphia during those years and he had some... interesting stories.
I can’t imagine a ceo having to answer to his shareholders on why his company is remaining in SF when they have to pay so much more for labor just so they can live? Move anywhere different and slash labor cost significantly without lowering the quality of living.
You must not live in the part of Denver where I live. Anything that can be torn down to have more apartment blocks is being torn down & replaced, particularly if it's near a light rail station.
because that's where the talent is? Do you wonder why where ever you are from has no jobs? Its because the population is dumb and not worth employing.
I can’t imagine a ceo having to answer to his shareholders on why his company is remaining in SF when they have to pay so much more for labor just so they can live? Move anywhere different and slash labor cost significantly without lowering the quality of living.
That last bit sounds fascinating, btw.
But I do remember London as being more pleasant back before The Invasion Of The Yuppies, that occurred with the deregulation of the financial sector and the shift to an economy based on people shuffling other people's money around.
Of course I was also personally younger, and one always, invariably, looks at one's own younger days with rose-tinted specs...But that influx changed the character of the city, and the gentrification has continued ever since. And everywhere is more crowded, the open spaces slowly disappearing (very slowly, it's true, but it's a one-way process).
Change is normal for big cities, though, I guess. I think also that London has a different situation from US cities because it so disproportionately dominates the country, whereas the US has multiple large and important cities that to some degree compete with each other.
It's quite embarrassing feeling like part of some 'overclass' just because of the economic gulf that has openned up between London and the rest of the country. I don't know about San Fransisco, but surely what's really needed is to change the factors that make everyone feel obliged to cram into the same few small areas?
because that's where the talent is? Do you wonder why where ever you are from has no jobs? Its because the population is dumb and not worth employing.
That is what I was thinking too.6 figures isnt wealthy.
And the only place in the US that you can attract jobs is SF? Hardly.
So to be clear you’re saying large numbers of some of the largest, most innovative, and most successful companies in the world are making a huge, ongoing mistake in their choice of location?
Anything is possible but considering the amount of time and focus they clearly spend on talent acquisition that seems unlikely. What do you think you know that they don’t?
So to be clear you’re saying large numbers of some of the largest, most innovative, and most successful companies in the world are making a huge, ongoing mistake in their choice of location?
Anything is possible but considering the amount of time and focus they clearly spend on talent acquisition that seems unlikely. What do you think you know that they don’t?
It's the same (lazy IMHO) approach to human talent acquisition that companies have shown for years. Before it was more limited to "why should we train anybody, we'll just poach experienced talent from other companies" that led to HR departments putting in ridiculous requirements like needing a PhD and 10 years experience for an entry level job paying $28k. Now they're doing the same thing with geographical locations - why bother to cultivate the existing talent in a mid-sized city like Nashville or Pittsburgh when you (and every other company out there) can just more obsessively mine the existing talent pool in a handful of cities like NYC and SF while achieving a smaller and smaller ROI on your search investment as time goes along?
I sincerely doubt these companies have not considered this. In fact, it’s obvious they have as banks and tech companies have attempted to move their less talent constrained operations out of high cost areas for years.
The reason why the high skill jobs remain is that’s where they can recruit and retain the best people in the most important positions.
Yes we all realize companies are going to do whatever they want, that's not really the concern. The concern (to the extent there is one) is that cities like SF and NYC are exhibiting all the traits which progressives decry at rates orders of magnitude higher than the rest of the country. Whether it's income inequality, inadequacy of services for the poor, huge levels of bureaucracy and red tape that only serve to exacerbate existing problems rather than fix them, "regulatory capture" of government by the corporations in the locality - basically every single problem the left decries is more evident in the cities your political tribe runs than anywhere else. If anything it would be difficult to argue against the proposition that progressive governance is actually a direct causal factor in these problems rather than a solution.
Arguing is easy when you just make things up. I’m genuinely confused as to why you say things like this as it just makes you look dumb if you believe it and dishonest if you don’t.
If these cities are so bad at everything then surely the suburbs and rural areas will overtake them as the nation’s economic driver any minute now. I for one am looking forward to this as it would be nice for you guys to pay back some of the tax money cities have been giving to you for years.
It just seems to simple to me. Build more housing and the market will shake itself out. But with local control the existing home owners have a reason to constrain supply. It increases the value of their own land. IMO this is a failure in the system. But I don't have a good answer how to fix it.
Considering there's no official government definition for what constitutes "suburbs" versus the "urban core" it's actually fairly easy to make the argument that suburbs have long passed the cities. In DC the surrounding counties like Fairfax, Arlington, and Loudon in VA and Montgomery and Prince George's in MD run laps around the actual district. In Philly, the "Main Line" suburbs and Bucks/Montgomery Counties make the city a joke. Ditto for most of the cities you can think of. Cities like NYC with Manhattan being considered the "core driver" are more the exception than the rule.
https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/11/data-most-american-neighborhoods-suburban/575602/