Comment by wahsd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wahsd | Hacker News Reader

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What you don't see to realize is that what you describe will be only a momentary and fleeing improvement. The problem is the irrational and unnecessary concentration of opportunities in that area.

So you build more buildings, create a housing glut even ... so now even more people move to the area because it's the only place where opportunities exist because it's where the wealthy sprinkle crumbs to their pest scurrying underfoot. All the sudden housing doubles from what it was before the glut and maybe you make 80% more, but all the asset owners are really the only ones who benefit and the wealth concentration cycle simply continues to distort.

What really needs to happen is that the whole area and other urban areas with similar concentrations need to be cut off from things like government funding, any tax advantages, etc. and put those and additional support into areas all around the country. That's really the only way that the cycle is broken, because what you are experiencing is a systemic cycle that no remedial action will have any kid of even mid term impact on without changing the system.

> The problem is the irrational and unnecessary concentration of opportunities in that area.

The concentration is not irrational. That's the problem.

The concentration is driven by the fact that you will, not might, get laid off at some point if your job is in the tech sector. So, what happens is that everybody thinks about where their next job is going to be while getting hired for their current job.

If I somehow manage to land, say, a VLSI layout job in Pittsburgh, PA, there is no point in going there as when I get laid off, there is no other VLSI layout job. So, I'll have to go back to Silicon Valley. So, why should I leave Silicon Valley in the first place?

You might think that, okay, Pittsburgh is a problem, but what about Austin? Oddly, same issue. A hardware company wiped out most of its Austin site, set off a big scramble and those people couldn't land jobs because there are no other ones there (people think of Austin as tech--but it's not really hardware tech). I know lots of people who got hired in the "Big Data Analytics" startup fad who are now figuring out that they basically signed onto "Actuarial Science"--but, if they have a family, they really have nowhere else to go. The single ones are either changing fields (becoming a chef seems to be popular--go figure) or going to Silicon Valley.

Whereas, in Silicon Valley, you turn right at the last light instead of left, and you're at your new job.

Yeah having lived (and worked in tech) in both Austin and SF, there's really no comparison as far as the number of opportunities here as well as the breadth. It's absolutely not irrational that people want to live in the Bay Area, that's the problem.

Trouble is that San Francisco is a terrible place, geographically, for a large and ever-expanding industry. It's a tiny sliver of land on the end of a peninsula. There's only three roads out of town and no room to expand. Austin is much more suitable, it's surrounded by nothing on all sides.

Sooner or later the global hub of the computer industry has to shift away from San Francisco to somewhere there's actually some goddamn space. That time is now, as evidenced by the ridiculous prices, which are pushing people out. This is a good and natural stage of the process.

The only question is whether we destroy one of the few genuinely pleasant cities in North America trying to hold on for another decade.

Sigh. It seems that every time I say something counter-circlejerklical, I take a karma hit which prevents me from posting for hours. "You're submitting too fast. Please slow down."

> Trouble is that San Francisco is a terrible place, geographically, for a large and ever-expanding industry.

So a bit like Hong Kong, Singapore, or Manhattan?

I like to link to this photo [0] when this discussion comes up. I don't think SF will ever look like this, unfortunately.

[0] http://7-themes.com/data_images/out/69/7008405-hong-kong-sky...

> Sooner or later the global hub of the computer industry has to shift away from San Francisco to somewhere there's actually some goddamn space. That time is now, as evidenced by the ridiculous prices, which are pushing people out. This is a good and natural stage of the process.

They've tried. Several times. It never works. As soon as the economy donwnturns, all the non-SV sites get shuttered. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. And now, people have been through enough iterations to know that non-SV satellite sites are full of crap.

The consolidation in the semiconductor industry isn't helping, either.

However, the solution is rather simple: sustained Series A investment in an area. This is the key point that drives Silicon Valley--as bad as the Series A situation is in the Valley, it's orders of magnitude better than anywhere else. So, if you funded 50 Series A's each year at about $5 million each, you wind up with about 5,000 employees and 500 companies for about $2.5 billion invested over 10 years.

Given the lack of Series A in the valley right now, THAT would create a new Silicon Valley.

Of course, at that point, the VC's in Silicon Valley would finally get off their asses and start funding Series A's, so now you are competing with them as they attempt to short circuit your ability to get another Silicon Valley off the ground.

So, is someone going to cough up a check for $2.5 billion to be contrary and make the next Silicon Valley? Or, instead, are they just going to go join the rest in the valley?

I know what I would do if I had that kind of money.

Anyone who calls the concentration of tech here 'irrational' doesn't understand anything about the benefits of networking. I pay a significant cost to be here because it is the tech capital of the world. That gives me the freedom to move between jobs easily, diversify my skills, and get raises.

One of the things that I like about various proposals for a Basic Income is that it would shift opportunities away from concentrations of wealth and toward concentrations of people (where those differ). That should reduce the pressure somewhat.

Again, you make lousy points but probably not downvotable points.

The Bay Area has a major tax disadvantage in prop 13. San Francisco is perhaps the highest taxed city in the USA.

If a geographical area is just slightly more appealing than another area, you would expect people to migrate there. So I'm not really sure why you think the concentration is irrational. It's really the opposite.

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