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Comment by hueving | Hacker News Reader

>I'd like to know what we're doing to destroy communities and how we can prevent that.

Stop moving into small cities with workers paid significantly above the average of the existing residents. Restaurants open that they can't afford, the limited housing stock gets bid up quickly, good schools get overcrowded, etc.

It's not a pleasant answer, but realistically that's ultimately what upsets a good chunk of the people that complain. If you bring in 2,000 people into any small city who make $200k/year+ when the average is down around $50k/year, it's going to result in a backlash and there is nothing you can really do unless you ban your employees from spending money there. The only real strategy is to pretend you are concerned and wait for the problem to gentrify away.

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I understand the concern but as someone who grew up in Boulder, and now works at Google Boulder I feel like people are giving off this incorrect impression of Boulder. It's a small town (~120k people w/ students) but it was never a particularly affordable place. Unfortunately there's not a whole lot that can be done to shield a desirable small town from becoming more expensive as more people become aware of it's existence. You can keep Boulder small with minimal development and get the skyrocketing housing prices or you can attempt to remedy this by building significantly more housing. For a long time now it's been evident that the city council has chosen the first option.

Boulder may be the most quintessentially NIMBY community in the USA. And it's been that way for decades, so yes, this is a strange discussion to have about Boulder of all places. Importantly though, I suspect Boulder has an above average number of renters who will be disproportionately impacted by an increase in high paying job growth, as they will not see any return on equity.

This is very true, last census I saw which I think was a few years old said 65% of residents rented.

What if, instead, these cities relax zoning laws, and allow supply to meet demand in the housing market?

For every 1k Googlers who move to the city, the city should make damn sure that at least 1k apartments are built by developers.

It's not that simple. You can't add more land for 1000 more houses in the desirable areas of town. So people renting in the desirable houses are going to get forced out into the new apartments because the rich can outbid them for the good houses. People will still be pissed.

There is no solution to bringing a ton of people into a small area of land that preserves each person renting the same place for the same price. If you could turn Boulder into Tokyo overnight, it's still going to screw everyone who was there for single family homes and low density.

There is absolutely a way to preserve everyone's ability to live in the place that they were living before for the same price.

The solution is to pick a small, 1 mile square area, and make THAT the high density, 40 story, skyscraper area.

A single high density zone could double the size of many cities, while still leaving hundreds of square miles of area for the low density people to live in the surrounding area.

Sure, it would be a comparatively high cost of living to live in the high density area, but that's fine, as it is an extra area that you can choose not to live in.

There are lots of people who love high density living. And I think it is completely fair to give high density dwellers a single square mile of no limits 40+ story tall buildings, for ever 100 miles of area that the low density living people can choose to live in.

That absolutely does not work. The prices of all of the homes anywhere near the high density area would sky rocket. Do you realize how much a single story house with a yard within a block of Chelsea Market in NYC would be worth?

High rise costs to build are several hundred per square foot, so the cost to the tenants would be higher. Why would anyone pay several times the cost of a house a block away for a spot in the high rise?

> The prices of all of the homes anywhere near the high density area would sky rocket.

Why? I want you to genuinely think about this question.

Why is it that, non-high density areas, that are near high density areas, increase in price?

Is it perhaps because, high density areas, with tall buildings, are so amazing, so wonderful, so in demand, so useful, and so great to live in, that people WANT to live near them?

The NIMBY argument against high density areas, is that people don't like living there. But it is literally the opposite. High density areas are so great, that low density areas NEAR the high density areas, increase in price because EVERYONE WANTS TO LIVE THERE!

Thats why the price goes up. Not because of the increase in cost to live in the places, but because they places are amazing, and there aren't enough of them, and people are willing to pay a premium amount of money to live there.

So if everyone wants to live in these areas, then why aren't we building more of them?

These areas literally make everything more desireable!

And, because of supply and demand, if we build a whole bunch of these super great, amazing areas that everyone is willing to pay lost of money to live in, then the price will go down, and everyone will benefit.

Your argument is literally that we shouldn't make cities and place to live better, because if the places to live are better, then more people will want to live there.

I am of the opposite. I think we should make the world a better place, and we should make everywhere in the world better to live in.

But even so, the people who want to live in places that suck should absolutely have the freedom to do that. 99% of the land in the US is low density, and people who like those areas should keep it. But the OTHER people, who actually want to live in nice, high density areas, that are good to live in, should get at least 1% of the land to do with as we please. I am all in favor of freedom of choice for the low density people. Why can't they give the same freedom of choice to those who disagree with them?

>Why? I want you to genuinely think about this question.

You're not offering anything profound here. You are just admitting that a high density area can't just be built in the middle of a small city without affecting the prices.

>and so great to live in, that people WANT to live near them?

Of course people that love dense cities want to live in or near dense cities. People who like that will buy up the surrounding houses and keep pushing the prices up until they are on parity with the cost of the city itself. However, you know who doesn't want to live there? People who deliberately chose not to live in a dense city in the first place.

>increase in price because EVERYONE WANTS TO LIVE THERE!

That's not how supply and demand works. They increase in price because of limited supply and a large enough pool of people who like cities to outstrip supply. Expensive != everyone wants.

>and people are willing to pay a premium amount of money to live there.

Some people are. Some people are also willing to pay a premium amount of money to have a helicopter. It doesn't mean everyone wants or can afford a helicopter.

>Your argument is literally that we shouldn't make cities and place to live better, because if the places to live are better, then more people will want to live there.

No it's not. You're either being deliberately obtuse or you have never interacted with people that choose to live in small cities. Adding more density, increasing the cost of housing per square foot, increasing traffic, etc are all awful turnoffs for people who seek small cities.

>and we should make everywhere in the world better to live in.

And there is a good chunk of the population in smaller cities that would be happy for you to go ruin someone else's area with your idea of "better".

>But even so, the people who want to live in places that suck

Don't be vacuous, you have to fathom that that people like different lifestyles.

>should get at least 1% of the land to do with as we please.

There is plenty of empty land in the US for you to build your dream cities. You don't need to wreck a small city to build more dense cities. If everyone wanted to live in density like you claim, you could make billions building out cities wherever you want. Just stop screwing up existing communities.

>Why can't they give the same freedom of choice to those who disagree with them?

You have the choice, just build the density somewhere else. If you displace an entire community that likes small cities don't expect them to thank you for fundamentally altering their way of life for the worse (in their eyes).

Over half a million people live within commuting distance of Boulder. It may 'only' have 100k people in it, but you aren't forced to live in the city limits if you want to work at Google Boulder

But many will want to, and that's enough to impact the market there significantly.

No Googlers are forced to live in Mountain View either. That doesn't change the fact that Google employees fight for houses in Mountain View.

People with means who do not like commutes will buy closer housing. And guess what, most people don't like commutes.

sounds like a real reason to build more housing nearby...

Yep, then you're just displacing the existing residents via higher rent prices in downtown Boulder where everyone actually wants to be.

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