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Comment by austincheney | Hacker News Reader

The article actually mentions kids. When talking about working in the bay area with technology people from the bay area I really get the impression that nobody there ever has children and everybody is sterilized. I don't think I have ever heard anybody talk about the bay area being great unless they were childless.

Outside of the bay area I can actually afford to have children and a house without being a millionaire. Yeah, I know, its weird. I have enough money left over (even though I have kids and a large house) that my wife isn't forced into labor to prevent immediate financial ruin.

I simply cannot imagine (I mean those words very literally) the horrid state of affairs of making six figures and still being on the verge of poverty.

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Hearing about the challenges of raising kiddos in the Bay is also refreshing to me. I've a lot of friends that would love to have kiddos, but the costs and 'hassle' of child-rearing in the Bay are just too much. Kids are hard enough without 2 hours of commuting per day.

Also, though the article is focused on tech workers, the Bay actually does have other inhabitants. I went out for an interview for a biotech position on the Peninsula recently. Overall, it went well and they offered me $60k. My jaw, of course, needed to be picked off the floor. When I mentioned that, per CA state law, even auto-mechanics make that without a HS degree in their city, let alone the BS/MS/PhD that they required for the position, the company said "well, that's the going rate". I asked if they had hook-ups/dump-points for the RV I would be inhabiting in the parking lot. The req. is still open all these months later.

Tech, and Prop 13, have severely distorted the CA property market to near total dysfunction for proper societal functioning.

Prop 13 only applies when people don't sell. There is actually a lot of property turnover in the Bay Area and that resets the tax basis to the current sale. A measure that would let people over 55 transfer their tax basis failed to pass. As a result difference in tax base due to Prop 13 it much less than you might expect.

>>I simply cannot imagine (I mean those words very literally) the horrid state of affairs of making six figures and still being on the verge of poverty.

NYC is rolling out free schooling for children aged 3 and up, known as Pre-3K[1]. It's not a full solution, but it helps alleviate some of the childcare costs in the early years.

The article mentioned: "One semi-local daycare in Manhattan quoted me a waitlist two years deep." Some daycares are in high-demand, but there are also other decent private daycares where the waitlist is (much) shorter or non-existent. While the caregiver outlay is believable, the waitlist datapoint sounds like it was cherry-picked. Depending on the age their child, the author might have had access to free public Pre-3K or Pre-K programs too.

[1] https://www.schools.nyc.gov/enrollment/enroll-grade-by-grade...

Day cares with wait lists is also something I have never heard of even though I have children and gone through the day care thing and socialize with people who have children. That is so unbelievably foreign to me.

It was also totally foreign for us too, but after the initial shock wore off we put in some time and found other options quickly enough.

In my experience it's not limited to large metro populations with high COL. We live in a mid-sized Canadian city (~400k population) with a relatively low cost of living and the preferred daycares here all have waiting lists. Basically, if you don't get on them soon after your child is born (or about 12 months before you intend them to start), you'll be left with a lot less choice when they're ready to start.

It is basically limited to places where child care is a) heavily regulated, and b) left up to private providers. Two obvious solutions present themselves: de-regulate and let the kiddos sink or swim; b) have the government either pay for daycare or run them. There are probably others, but no one in Ontario at least seems to have figured one out.

Hard to see either solution coming into play anytime soon. Option (a) is likely out due to recent-enough-to-be-remembered tragedies pushing regulation in the opposite direction and Option (b) seems antithetical to the recently-elected government's style. Also, incorporating this promise into the NDP's election platform didn't seem to help them much. As you can tell, I'm not optimistic ;)

I live in a 60k population town, and there's a waiting list for my son's day care.

Education in NYC specifically is a clusterfuck of school choice, because school choice doesn't scale up to a school district that has a million-plus kids.

As a result of citywide school choice, people don't really get gentrified out by parents looking for good schools. But many kids will also have really long commute time, and applying for middle and high schools is like a mini college application process, and only people with the time and money can truly navigate it.

I think pretty much any school district with a million+ children is going to have issues, whether school choice is implemented, or not.

Mayor De Blasio kicked off an integration effort[1] in Brooklyn with plans to roll something similar in the other NYC school districts in an effort to counteract the mini-college application process, with mixed reactions depending on where your child would have placed. Reforms are under way for both middle and high school admissions.

[1] https://nypost.com/2018/09/20/de-blasio-kills-admissions-sta...

There will always be issues, but school choice resulted in

- general confusion; the guide to high schools, for example, is bigger than the Yellow Pages, and that's with all the information of a high school summarized into a single-sided page. Couple that with Bloomberg splitting failing schools with five schools in the same building and it's just far too overwhelming.

- horrible commute times. Schools were designed to serve their local neighborhoods and usually aren't placed well, particularly in the outer boroughs. If you have to go to a school other than your neighborhood school it can be quite the schlep, especially once you factor in start times. It's impossible to design start times that work for everyone when students come across the entire city, and the lack of coordination also affects things like the overburdened public transport, which gets slammed when schools let out.

- extreme stress on parents and students. You have to go around and tour schools. You have to meet with teachers and principals. You have to attend multiple massive school fairs with staff pushing their schools on you. It's like a college application process, already stressful enough, except you're doing this to children going through puberty. It's absolute madness for even wealthy parents with time to do all of this; working class people working long hours or odd hours or multiple jobs basically don't have a shot. And can you imagine what not getting into your top choices does to kids' well-being?

If school choice were limited to the borough level, it would be more manageable. But at the city level it's far too much.

> When talking about working in the bay area with technology people from the bay area I really get the impression that nobody there ever has children and everybody is sterilized.

This is the great slow-motion tragedy of cities, especially in the modern era. The phrase I've heard is "IQ Shredder". It's probably not great for society in the long run to concentrate your smartest, hardest working, most conscientious people into a few large metros where an unwinnable rat-race leads to them having zero or 1 kids, since parental IQ has a large influence children's IQ.

But that is getting dangerously close to implying that different humans have different potential intelligence, and that's a very politically dangerous path to go down. The racial history of the US seems to make it a specially sensitive country to this issue.

I would hope on HN of all places people wouldn't devolve into political flame wars and race baiting just because a completely factually accurate statement offends their sensibilities.

I see that I'm wrong.

I wasn't attempting to race bait. I was mentioning that this is a hard issue to discuss in a lot of circles due to historical reasons. A lot of people hear race when you say "there are differences in intelligence and some part of that is genetic", a statement which doesn't mention race at all!

I'm actually quite concerned personally about the effects of high IQ couples not having children and low IQ couples having a lot but it's not an easy discussion to have since, as I mentioned, people see it as a racist argument when I don't mention race at all.

> different humans have different potential intelligence

Different individual humans do have different potential intelligence. Cities everywhere attract intelligent people of all races and genders, this has nothing to do with the racial history of the US.

There are plenty of well educated, hard working, intelligent people outside of major metropolitan areas. And there are plenty of lazy idiots in cities. And let's not forget that California is near the bottom of the list for average IQ[0] (which is a ridiculous measure, anyway).

[0] https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/we-compared-average-iq-sc...

> There are plenty of well educated, hard working, intelligent people outside of major metropolitan areas. And there are plenty of lazy idiots in cities.

I never said there weren't; the question is which what is the net internal migration? Do more smart people move out of cities and have more kids, or do they move into cities and have fewer?

> let's not forget that California is near the bottom of the list for average IQ

My point was about cities, not states. California has 3 large major cities, some minor ones, and a very large rural area.

> which is a ridiculous measure, anyway

IQ is not everything, but it's strongly correlated with a host of positive outcomes (longevity, educational attainment, income, cooperative behavior, etc).

Back when San Francisco had open space and people could actually build things, my grandparents got a 4-bedroom house there for $9000. They produced 8 kids. Kids were everywhere. The neighborhood was filled with kids. Kids played outside all day long, running up and down the street. Now the place is silent.

There is a bit of hope outside the big cities. Farmers tend to be smart. Not every software developer has been lured to the big city.

This.

I'm living in Boston, which admittedly also has a pretty terrible cost of living, although not yet quite NYC or SF. Somerville is trying really hard to catch up though.

It's hard enough here to be able to have space for a partner and/or kids, and maybe 100 sq ft of grass in a yard - but it's at least imaginable, and possible to have a semi-decent commute.

I don't know what Facebook or someone would have to pay me to move to SF and be able to imagine similar. $400-500k? Like, the concept of owning property in SF with any amount of space is mind boggling. Same with NYC. I don't want a 90-minute commute daily.

Priorities for me right now are:

- Space for at least a 1 car garage (in which to keep tools, projects, and a few motorcycles) - At least 100 sq ft of grass/yard - 3 bedrooms for myself, my partner, music and potentially family expansion - A decent commute (under an hour, preferably 30 minutes or less) - A decent kitchen and space to entertain a dozen or so friends for dinner - A down payment that isn't going to be $200k

This isn't going to happen in SF or NYC. Maybe if I live in NJ or San Mateo?

I'll stay with my already-higher than this article mentions salary, and have some prospect of space and such.

> Maybe if I live in NJ or San Mateo?

NJ commute into a Manhattan office from a suburban home like you describe would pretty much never be less than 50-55 minutes each way, and often longer.

New Jersey housing costs are completely crazy as well, at least for the places that have a reasonable commute to NYC. In addition to the high cost of the houses, you have to factor in the absolutely crazy property taxes. If you don't buy a house but instead rent, larger complexes have insane "maintenance fees".

Have a lot of friends moving to NJ - still relatively affordable and very close to Manhattan. Jersey City is quite nice and very kid friendly!

But it's New Jersey. Do you know anybody who doesn't get embarrassed telling others they live in NJ?

Only people who live in South Jersey.

(and they are quick to follow it up with "South Jersey is different.")

“Close” to Manhattan? Close as in I can see it across the river is not the same as I need to commute daily. Jersey City to midtown is minimum 45 minutes rush hour. You still have to add the time for the “last” mile part of commute to your office.

> maybe 100 sq ft of grass in a yard

IMHO, the unfortunate economics of high urban density in big cities means that the american dream of a patch of green grassy lawn might be something people need to abandon. Kids grow up and become functional, well balanced adults while living in condos, townhouses and apartments in dense cities like Amsterdam, Berlin or in the center of downtown Vancouver BC, without having their own yard. If you go fully condo lifestyle you can pick a location near good schools and public parks.

For some reason I'm reminded of a description written by William Gibson in one of his "Bridge Trilogy" novels about a person in the SF area, in his envisioned near future, maintaining a closely guarded tiny patch of pristine grass lawn...

The problem is that you're trying to own a house in a city. That's not the goal of city living. Nor is car ownership. In cities like SF and NYC, you should expect to rent forever while raising a family if you refuse to move to a cheaper COL area.

For reference, I live in NYC with a partner, kid and dog.

The problem arises when you have more than one kid and need more than 2 bedrooms. That's when single income can't afford a bigger apartment, and dual income can't afford double daycare. The kids will always share a bedroom. (I grew up in a family of five sharing one bedroom. Parents slept in living room)

The best you can hope for is to space them out so you never have to pay for double daycare: the new one is born when the old one starts free public school. But then you're at the whim of the quality of public schools.

How do I get a job outside the Bay Area? I've been trying to find a job since March, unemployed since August. Some people have suggested that moving to a tech hub is essential to get a job.

I've never lived in a tech hub and I've always been able to find a job. The first job was very, very difficult, but since then it's been fine. I just look for publicly posted job openings. I've solely worked in B2B companies.

However, sometimes it takes a while. Especially now that I'm really picky with jobs.

However, if you live out in the boonies where the only employer is Walmart you'll definitely need to move or get a remote gig.

If you have the means, relocate. Chicago has a lot of jobs, same with the Milwaukee area. While the COL can vary, it will definitely be better than the bay area. The other factor, leave your location off your resume. Sure it will show you worked at companies in a specific area. Just don't include an actual home address. And then have a "go bag" ready.

Where do you live? There is tech demand everywhere. You don't have to live in SF, NY, Seattle or DC to get tech jobs. But these are probably going to be standard office jobs at non-tech companies doing boring work. Pay is lower, but so is cost of living.

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