from Hacker News

They Can’t Leave the Bay Area Fast Enough

by camillovisini on 1/14/21, 4:59 PM with 26 comments

• by stevecalifornia on 1/14/21, 7:00 PM

  As a visitor to the Bay Area for the last 30 years, the biggest change I have seen occur is, by far, the proliferation of tent camps and strung-out homeless. I have been to 30 countries including North Korea and most of the Stans-- and the Bay Area, specifically SF/Oakland/Berkeley is the Hall of Fame for sketchy and unsafe. I suppose New York in the 80's was worse...but currently seems like Bay Area. I stayed at a rather swanky Hilton in SF but all night listened to the sounds of homeless people fighting outside-- it was very dystopian.

• by PragmaticPulp on 1/14/21, 5:08 PM

  Anecdotally, my Bay Area friends are all excited about the prospect of decreasing pressure on their cities.

  Plenty of people still want to be in the Bay Area. The previous situation was far too oversubscribed for the amount of space and housing available. Release some of that pressure and the city could become more attractive again. They will still need to solve the crime issues, though.

• by guenthert on 1/14/21, 8:16 PM

  "‘I just had a burrito for $6. It was amazing.’

  The last burrito he had in San Francisco cost $15."

  I remember burritos going for $2.50 in San Francisco in '96 ($4 got you a monster burrito, I never could have finished one of those).

  Now burritos is not where most money goes, but I can't help to wonder if the absurdly increased cost of living in the S.F. Bay Area in the last 25 years isn't an impediment for start-ups. Most of those won't be able to pay 'competitive' salaries, but feed their employees promises and hope instead. FAANG employees can afford to live in S.F., but how do those living on a shoe-string budget and working for a start-up manage?

• by filereaper on 1/14/21, 7:11 PM

  For all the people leaving SF/Bay-Area and particularly California, I wanted to ask these two questions.

  1. California has the strongest non-compete laws in the nation, was this something that influenced your decision?

  2. California has IP laws which are to the effect that "what you create in your own time with your own resources cannot be used by your employer" (disclaimer IANAL). This has a grey area for large FAANG type employers that can enter any domain, but Bay-Area has lots of companies doing amazing things. So it opens up opportunities to start new companies in new frontiers.

  The above two are still major factors that are preventing me from leaving California at least despite the high taxes, rents etc...

  Bay-Area is still the best place w.r.t to getting investment and finding interesting tech-companies.

  I'm curious what thoughts others have here.

• by notJim on 1/14/21, 7:52 PM

  I hope that places like Austin are forward-looking enough to absorb the new people without running into the same issues as SF. To be fair, it's pretty hard to actually do worse than SF, but there are still issues to watch out for. The biggest thing is housing. When tons of people suddenly show up who consider a million dollar house affordable, it can really do a number on people who don't earn tech salaries. It looks like Austin is still working on getting away from the exclusionary zoning paradigm, I hope they're successful.

• by sahin on 1/15/21, 3:38 AM

  Great article. I am so happy that Nellie Bowles added me in the article.

  "So he and his family moved to Austin. For the same price as their three-bedroom apartment in Cupertino, they have a five-bedroom home on an acre of land. For the first time, Mr. Boydas has outdoor space. "

• by proc0 on 1/14/21, 5:58 PM

  Bay Area is large, it should be fine. Fires sucked but hopefully this can be mitigated in the future. I'm not sure about SF though, it might become a cyberpunk dystopia with high tech downtown surrounded by filth, hopefully not.

• by 1234asdfzxcv on 1/15/21, 1:45 AM

  I still love SF but after moving to NYC the quality of life here is just way better. Much cleaner and safer.

  Pace of life is a bit slower but that is kind of nice too if you’re older and have a family.