Salon's readers are "left-leaning, anti-growth, NIMBY" San Francisco types, so take anything they write with a grain of salt. That said, they make good points blaming San Mateo County and Santa Clara County for being NIMBY, but the real target should be Alameda County. It already has a lot of heavy rail transit with BART, yet barely any TOD. Oakland should be building 75% of the urban high-density housing in the Inner Bay. There is tons of space in a Rust Belt city transplanted to the West Coast like Oakland. This has blown up to a regional issue because Oakland is the place that's under-building the most. San Francisco is building thousands of housing units a year now while faster-growing Oakland is only building hundreds. Oakland has all the space too. Richmond, Berkeley, San Leandro, Alameda, and Hayward also should be supporting more urban development based around BART stations.

 

I've watched so-called "liberals" fight against housing development in the East Bay, and I've watched riots kill construction sites in Oakland. I've watched riots against TOD. These rents are simply a supply and demand issue. People fighting density don't understand the permanent generational shift underway back to urbanism. Oakland is the city that won't admit this. Oakland is also the city with the most evictions, and most dramatic gentrification in the history of the United States. It deserves the blame before anywhere else.

 

Progressives in San Francisco recognize they need to be more open to growth, hence why they're loosening up on height restrictions. There has been a political sea change over the last year in SF. The Mission Moratorium on housing construction failed at the polls because people in the Mission came to their senses. That ballot issue would have almost certainly passed in 2013 San Francisco. It only took two years for SF politics to start changing. San Francisco is dense, but it's no denser than Brooklyn as a whole. SF's constant comparisons to Manhattan only apply to the area north of Market, east of Van Ness. That's also the best part of the city and is loved by all. People love it because it's the only area with density that compares to Manhattan. Outside of the urban core, the city has hundreds (maybe thousands) of vacant lots to build on. Transit needs to be beefed up for sure, but a lot of young tech workers are biking to work now (especially from the flatter, southeastern part of the city with most of the vacant lots). The whole waterfront from the baseball stadium to the empty lot at Candlestick could easily support 100,000 additional people at current SF density levels. Thankfully, San Francisco voters are starting to come around. There is near universal agreement that the derelict southeastern waterfront needs to be developed.

 

Oakland is the political problem area since it's half as dense as San Francisco, yet has a much, much stronger anti-growth movement. SF has protests against development. Oakland has full-blown riots against development. That's the key difference. Developers are literally afraid to build in Oakland, and Oaklanders have demanded concessions as ridiculous as 100% affordable housing. Obviously, a project like that isn't viable, so it's dead in the water. Oakland is still littered with empty buildings and empty lots. It's insane.

 

Also keep in mind SF rents are leveling off while Oakland's are still soaring. The reason? San Francisco is finally building some high-rise housing. Oakland is way more NIMBY and anti-growth. Oakland property owners won't be happy until rents match or exceed San Francisco levels.

 

In terms of NIMBYs, Oakland is ten times worse than San Francisco. It deserves most of the blame for this housing crisis, not San Francisco. Oakland has long dreamed of this type of hyper-gentrification in the East Bay, and now it is finally happening. The property values are soaring, and people are getting very rich off of this.

 

*It's true that too much blame is falling on the City and County of San Francisco, which takes heat away from the real housing shortage culprit, Oakland. San Francisco deserves 25% of the blame. Oakland deserves 75% of the blame. Berkeley had a long run of NIBMY politics too, but that's starting to change. Oakland really stands out in the Bay for its greed-driven, anti-growth politics. It's totally stuck in the past.

I didn't read it. I just shared it because I know there's some here who care about the subject.

The original article needs to be read too:

 

San Francisco's Self-Defeating Housing Activists

Tech companies and workers are vilified while longtime homeowners who fight high-density growth continue to profit from rising rents and property values.

CONOR FRIEDERSDORF  DEC 29, 2015 

 

A recent This American Life episode, “Poetry of Propaganda,” describes a San Francisco after-school program’s production of an original musical starring young children. “I don't know what I expected,” said the writer Jon Mooallem, whose daughter played a tiny part, “but it wasn't this. Act One opened on a sinister tech-executive meeting with a corrupt mayor and San Francisco's board of supervisors.”

 

His daughter was a 6-year-old kindergartner at the time.The ensuing plot featured a cartoonishly evil technology company that conspired to oust salt-of-the-earth tenants from a multicultural group house to satisfy naked greed.

 

It was a commentary on gentrification in the city.

 

“The eviction song killed. Everything killed, which was strange, given something I haven't mentioned til now. Maybe half the parents in the auditorium worked in tech,” Mooallem wrote. “And now they were watching their own children spear them as cartoon villains, literally cackling and throwing money over flutes of champagne, as they plotted the eviction of all those nice people. No one in the audience booed, of course, or huffed or stamped out. We were watching our kids perform. But I can't imagine what it must have been like to keep smiling along as you suddenly realized that for weeks after school, your own son or daughter had been rehearsing songs that mocked both you and the job you were off working, which is why you'd been forced to entrust your kids to the after-school program in the first place.”

 

CONTINUED

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/san-francisco-is-confused-about-the-villain-thats-making-it-unaffordable/422091/

 

San Jose's rents are leveling off because San Jose is building a ton of housing, most of it TOD. San Jose gets left out of the conversation in the Inner Bay Area, but it's the largest city in the whole Bay, so it should be watched. There have been dramatic density changes in some parts of San Jose.

 

Oakland ascends to nation’s 4th most expensive rental market

By Anna Marie Erwert on December 21, 2015 at 4:03 AM

 

Last week, we learned the surprising news that San Francisco’s median rent took a dip in November, the first in many months of steady upward progress. But across the Bay, the news differs, according to Zumper’s National Rent Report.

 

“Oakland for the first time this November became the fourth most expensive rental market in the country, surpassing San Jose for the first time. One bedrooms increased 19 percent in the past year to $2,190, while two bedrooms increased 13.3 percent to reach $2,550.”

 

Oakland rent growth continues to outpace San Francisco’s, which isn’t much of a surprise given that S.F. rent started high and Oakland’s has far to go to match up with that former city’s median one-bedroom rent of $3,500 a month. But interesting indeed is Oakland edging out San Jose.

 

In fact, San Jose rents are down. Per Zumper, “San Jose, Calif., dropped to sixth place on our list, paring some of the gains seen so far this year. One bedrooms dropped 2.3 percent to $2,130, while two bedrooms were down a slight 0.4 percent to $2,710.”

 

...Zumper isn’t the only real estate/rental market site to notice Oakland’s striking market activity. To quote Smart Asset, “The East Bay was once an oasis of affordability in the otherwise pricey Bay Area. No longer. According to RentJungle.com, fair market rents in the Oakland area have nearly doubled since 2011. Meanwhile, median income in Oakland has increased by 11.3 percent, a significant amount but not nearly enough to compensate for the skyrocketing rental rates.”

 

The East Bay Express puts that income/rent ratio a bit more dramatically: “Oakland is slipping out of the hands of most of its residents. If the average Oakland renter had to move tomorrow into a market-rate rental apartment, they would need to pay a staggering 70 percent of their income on rent.” The recommended percentage for financial stability, incidentally, is 30 percent or less.

 

FULL ARTICLE

http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2015/12/21/oakland-ascends-to-nations-4th-most-expensive-rental-market/

 

No thanks. Watching football.

Huh, today I learned that jpop was banned.

 

SF is a fascinating situation to watch unfold. I'm currently being priced out of my beach community where rents are climbing by the hour. The idea of lobbying, rioting for worse writing a school play advocating for affordable rentals has never crossed my mind. 

One of the big new projects planned in SF last year shows better city leadership. Two new skyscrapers are planned at the corner of Market and Van Ness. While I think every condo/apartment tower in San Francisco should be over 500 feet tall, 400 feet is decent by SF standards. If BART could get an infill station here, it'd be an awesome area. I used to live in Mid-Market, and while it was slummy back then, the potential was huge. The Market-Octavia Plan is a big improvement over previous, lower density San Francisco plans. It represents some major changes in SF planning. Instead of capping everything at low heights, the city is considering letting developers build taller if these skyscrapers include more affordable BMR units.

 

Two 400-Foot Towers Planned at Civic Center Honda Dealership

Thursday, April 9, 2015, by Tracy Elsen

 

It has been nearly a year since the Honda dealership at Market and South Van Ness sold to Crescent Heights, the developer behind the NEMA rental tower just down the street. Now Crescent Heights has begun making preliminary plans for the site, which call for two Handel Architects-designed 400-foot residential towers in a complex that will include a total of one million square feet, the San Francisco Business Times reports. 767 units are proposed for the development, which would also have 20,400 square feet of retail. The project would join Build Inc's One Oak and Emerald Fund's trio of towers in a residential special use district that aims to create a high-density mixed-use neighborhood around the Muni station at Market and Van Ness.

 

http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2015/04/09/two_400foot_towers_planned_at_civic_center_honda_dealership.php

 

S.F.’s newest neighborhood for skyscrapers could pack in even more highrise housing

Oct 26, 2015, 2:44pm PDT Updated Oct 27, 2015, 10:22am PDT

 

San Francisco planning officials shared a clear message with some of the city’s most prominent real estate developers last week: We’re serious about allowing you to build taller towers in exchange for the construction of more affordable housing units.

The Planning Department will likely start an analysis this year of the more than a dozen city blocks that make up “The Hub” – an area of planned residential buildings around Market Street and Van Ness Avenue. One of the city’s most underutilized and ragged intersections sits next to the headquarters of tech companies and has incredible transit access to both Muni and BART.

 

FULL ARTICLE (with great history on Mid-Market)

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2015/10/sf-housing-rezoning-towers-for-affordable-housing.html

Glad to see this happening around there, that whole part of SF is weirdly eerie despite its central location...

 

I'm also really happy to read San Jose is densifiying.  Its downtown could be pretty nice if there was a lot more housing - plus unlike San Mateo Country (which does deserve a lot of scrutiny for its "American Dream" policies) San Jose is committed to getting BART service into its downtown to better link it with SF (though again it would be waaayyy better if the peninsula were to get on board as so much of tech is tied to the ridiculous Caltrain corridor which shouldn't be a commuter rail but instead should be setup more like BART or be a BART train).  I've also read Mountain View is on board and I've been looking at streetviews of its downtown and see that rowhouses and apartment blocks are replacing what was formerly low density industrial along the Caltrain corridor (and within walking distance of the VTA light rail), hoping for more of that on a bigger scale for the Bay Area and the tech industry's sake.

 

Anyways, this is probably the ultimate article on understanding the Bay Area's housing crisis - I hate all the direct blame of tech companies, though I do understand more enlightened protesters who wish to get the attention of the companies to lobby towards the bay's local governments, Sacramento, and Washington to get political policy to help the Bay get control of the crisis.  This is a long read and a few years out of date, but its pretty definitive on the subject:

 

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/

^Yep, I posted that in the inequality thread, and it was a great article detailing Bay Area politics.

Awesome news! I think this project was killed by multiple waves of riots, but it's back in talks. If this gets built, it will be a major political turning point for Oakland. This would be a great TOD addition to Oak Town. It's right by the 19th Street BART subway station, so it's a perfect location for a high-rise.

 

Plans for Tallest Residential Tower in Oakland Back in Play

December 17, 2015

 

Originally approved for development over fifteen years ago, the plans for a 33-story Downtown Oakland tower to rise at 1640 Broadway, upon the current parking lot at the corner of 17th Street, are back in play with Lennar now leading the charge and requesting a couple of changes, including the shedding of nearly 100 parking spots.

 

Currently approved for 375-foot tower with 254 residential units over 4,700 square feet of retail space and nine levels of parking for 326 cars, seven levels of which were to be above ground, the development team is now proposing to build the same number of units in a 380-foot-tall tower, but with 5,000 square feet of retail and four level of above ground parking for 232 cars.

 

At 380-feet in height, 1640 Broadway would be the tallest residential tower in Oakland, existing or proposed as the plans for a nearby 56-story tower were dropped by 23 floors to 339-feet in height.

 

FULL ARTICLE

http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2015/12/lennar-leading-the-charge-for-a-380-foot-oakland-tower.html

 

 

There is a building rampage in SOMA and South Beach right now. It's great to see. It's not nearly enough to meet demand, but it's much more significant than what Oakland is doing.

 

Jeanne Gang's 400-Foot Twisty Tower Gets First Approvals

Thursday, January 21, 2016, by Tracy Elsen

 

We've had our eye on the plans for starchitect Jeanne Gang's dramatic 400-foot twisty tower since they were first revealed back in the summer of 2014. The tower has attracted detractors complaining about the shadows it could cast on Rincon Park, spot zoning that would increase height limits at the tower's site from 300 feet, and traffic and congestion. Yesterday, the Commission on Community Investment and Infrastructure had a public hearing on the tower that ended in its first round of approvals.

 

According to Hoodline, yesterday's public hearing became a long discussion of benefits for middle-class residents from the project versus impacts on neighbors. If the project does go ahead with a height of 400 feet, it would hold 390 condos with 156 reserved as below-market-rate. That's a full 40 percent, up from the 35 percent required for the site. With the number of units in the tower and the higher percentage, that's an extra 44 affordable units up for grabs.

 

FULL ARTICLE

http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2016/01/21/jeanne_gangs_400foot_twisty_tower_gets_first_approvals.php

 

Oakland's new mayor has the right attitude and isn't bowing down to NIMBYs...

 

Map: The Oakland highrise boom could add over 3,000 units downtown

Feb 12, 2016, 2:07pm PST

 

A rush of proposals for new Oakland towers could add over 3,000 new residential units to the city's downtown, representing one of the largest building booms in the city's history. The projects would transform lowrise buildings and parking lots into a new glass, steel and concrete skyline.

 

But financing is still difficult to obtain, and only two of the 10 major proposals have set timelines to begin construction: Gerding Edlen plans to break ground on 206 units at 1700 Webster St. by May, and Lennar Multifamily said it plans to break ground on a 254-unit, 33-story tower at 1640 Broadway by the end of the year.

 

Approved towers at 1900 Broadway and 2270 Broadway are still seeking investors. Other plans are still being reviewed by the city and are in early stages.

 

There hasn't been highrise construction in the city since the Grand at 100 Grand Ave. opened in 2008. Such taller buildings require concrete podiums and are more expensive to build than midrise projects with wood frames, which has deterred development. Proposed impact fees for new housing projects could also complicate the economic dynamics of building towers.

 

City officials support denser housing downtown, which they say will provide much-needed market-rate housing and millions in fees and property taxes to the city.

 

Mayor Libby Schaaf wants to see 17,000 units of new housing built in Oakland in the next eight years, she said at the Business Times' 2016 Mayors' Economic Forecast on Tuesday. "I like tall buildings, especially near transit," said Schaaf. "Oakland is ready to densify."

 

FULL ARTICLE (with interactive map)

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2016/02/oakland-highrise-towers-libby-schaaf.html

Waylaid Oakland Tower Project Back on Track, Retail Added

March 21, 2016

 

Back in the year 2000, the plans for the Oakland City Center Project, a 2.2 million square foot development of four Downtown blocks between 11th and 14th Streets, were preliminary approved.

 

While two of the blocks have since been developed, the 1.4 acre ‘Block T12′ parcel – which is bounded by 11th Street to the south, 12th Street to the north, Martin Luther King Jr Way to the west and Jefferson Street to the east – has sat partially excavated since 2008, when Shorenstein Properties’ construction of a 26-story office tower to rise up to 390 feet on the site were abandoned.

 

Shorenstein’s plans for a tower to rise on the Block 12 parcel, which is also known as 601 12th Street or 601 City Center, have since been dusted off. And as proposed and environmentally approved last week, a 24-story tower will now rise up to 367 feet in height on the site, with 9,500 square feet of ground‐level retail space (none of which had previously been envisioned) and two public plazas, the largest of which would be located at the corner of 11th Street and Martin Luther King Jr Way.

 

CONTINUED

http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2016/03/waylaid-oakland-tower-project-back-on-track.html

Oakland approves high-rise hotel and apartment complex in Uptown

By Rachel Swan February 23, 2016 Updated: February 23, 2016 8:24pm

 

Oakland took a big step Tuesday toward dramatically transforming its cityscape by approving plans for the construction of a massive hotel and apartment complex across from Uber’s future headquarters in the city’s Uptown district.

 

The 27-story residential tower and hotel complex would be the city’s first high-rise building in 10 years, taking up a full square block on a lot across from the former Sears building, which will become home to Uber and the specialty food hall Newberry Market & Deli in 2017.

 

The City Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee voted Tuesday to approve a plan by San Diego developer Oliver McMillan and Oakland’s Strategic Urban Development Alliance construction firm to build 330 residential units — about 50 of them affordable — 56,450 square feet of retail, a seven-floor boutique hotel, and a parking garage on an empty city-owned lot at 19th Street and Telegraph Avenue.

 

Menlo Park firm Lane Partners, which brought Uber to the former Sears building at 20th Street and Broadway, is a strategic partner in the deal.

 

With the City Council poised to give the final approval in March, the 1911 Telegraph Ave. hotel project could break ground as early as next year.

 

CONTINUED (with map)

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-approves-high-rise-hotel-and-apartment-6850256.php#photo-9446980

Renderings of approved 1911 Telegraph Avenue Tower:

 

 

 

Existing empty lot behind Uber HQ:

 

In San Francisco's SOMA skyscraper boom, 181 Fremont is rising fast. I think it's the best tower under construction right now after the Salesforce Tower. At 802 feet tall, it's also one of the tallest. It will be a great addition to the skyline:

 

 

 

 

 

Salesforce Tower and 181 Fremont are both just about topped out. They look fantastic and add desperately-needed height to San Francisco's core. One Oceanwide Center also broke ground in December and will be right next to these two new towers. In just a few short years, SF will have completed three of its five tallest buildings:

 

1. Salesforce Tower- 1070 feet (2018)

2. Oceanwide Center One- 905 feet (2020)

3. Transamerica Pyramid- 853 feet (1972)

4. 181 Fremont- 802 feet (2017)

5. 555 California- 778 feet (1969)

 

Upzoning in SOMA has also led to many shorter skyscrapers being constructed. About a half dozen 400-600 footers are under construction right now, as well as a plethora of shorter high-rises (mostly residential). It is San Francisco's largest building boom since the original "Manhattanization" of the 70s and 80s, which led to ludicrously short height limits in much of the city. Recent zoning changes in SOMA and along Market Street have led to the boom in construction. While the city is still the world's most expensive, housing prices are finally starting to level off a little. Across the Bay in Oakland, only one or two towers have broken ground despite dozens of proposals and approvals. Riots and Oakland's extreme NIMBY anti-development politics have stalled most projects...some indefinitely. The contrast between San Francisco and Oakland has never been greater. San Francisco is finally putting on its big city pants while Oakland tries desperately to remain a sleepy suburb of The City.

 

 

While the city is still the world's most expensive, housing prices are finally starting to level off a little.

 

 

 

no doubt there are plenty of lists, because...lists, but right at the top of my search i see that hk has been at the top of the cnn most expensive housing list the past seven years in a row, which makes sense as you basically have around 2 billion people who would like to invest there, but the sf bay does have two of the top ten and cali also has a third top tenner in los angeles. it seems that with the rise of other china cities hk is dropping a bit and australia is flying apart off the rails as the latest hot safe place to invest in property:

 

1. Hong Kong, China

2. Sydney, NSW, Australia

2. Vancouver, BC, Canada

4. Auckland, New Zealand

5. San Jose, CA, US

6. Melbourne, VIC, Australia

7. Honolulu, HI, US

8. Los Angeles, CA, US

9. San Francisco, CA, US

10. Bournemouth & Dorset, UK

 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/23/architecture/2017-most-expensive-cities-hong-kong/

 

 

^Least affordable is not the same as most expensive. That list is ranking least affordable. Hong Kong is less affordable than San Francisco, but it's not more expensive (in US dollars per square foot). SF is affordable to many people due to high incomes, trust funds, start-up equity, etc. The Bay in general has much greater wealth than other metro areas (and also greater wealth disparity now). That's why so many multi-million dollar homes are sold for all cash. And you have to look at metro areas, not just core cities. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose obliterates other metro areas because the entire Bay is insanely expensive. Oakland costs more per square foot than most of New York City, but you get the quality of life of Newark! Newark is dirt cheap compared to Oakland. You've got to compare apples to apples. For the same rent or home sale prices, we get crap in the Bay compared to much cheaper cities like London and Hong Kong. Too many rankings are comparing a 400-square-foot studio in SF or Manhattan against an 800-square foot apartment in London, Sydney, and Hong Kong. This is all designed to make Americans feel good about getting fleeced compared to our overseas counterparts in superstar cities. It's similar with Toronto and Vancouver. While no doubt expensive cities compared to anywhere in North America besides the Bay and Manhattan, you get much higher quality of life and better apartments/condos/homes in Canada.

 

Los Angeles is less affordable than San Francisco, but it's not anywhere near as expensive for housing. LA has much lower incomes hence why it's less affordable. SF has way higher rents and homes values than almost any other city in the history of the world (but New York City is still close). Don't believe the American hype that overseas superstar cities are more expensive than our superstar cities! That's just meant to fool people into paying the high rents in SF and NYC! You get better bang for buck and higher quality of life in places like Sydney compared to San Francisco. San Francisco and New York City are the world's most expensive cities now. Thank the NIMBY politics.

 

*Though I'd bank on Honk Kong jumping up the rent list again. It has a lot of demand and little supply. London has a lot of NIMBY politics that could also cause it to jump back up. Five years ago, San Francisco was cheaper than these cities, and it wasn't that hard to get an apartment. And certainly no Googlers were living 10-deep in bunk beds in the Mission unless purely by choice.

 

The Most Expensive Cities in the World for Renters Are in the US

 

Everybody knows the rent is stupid high in San Francisco, New York City, and Boston — it's one of those sad running jokes, an absurdity that's nonetheless become an accepted fact of life at this point. But a new study by London real-estate startup Nested shows that America's most notoriously expensive rental markets are now the priciest in the whole world.

 

Rent costs more per square foot in San Francisco, New York, and Boston than in Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, or London itself, whose property market has been rocketing higher for years, fueled in part by international billionaires and oligarchs with an apparent taste for fish n' chips.

 

The five American cities with the highest rent per square foot, at least among the 10 U.S. cities in the study, were:

 

1. San Francisco ($4.95 per square foot)

2. New York ($4.75 per square foot)

3. Boston ($4.10 per square foot)

4. Washington D.C. ($3.33 per square foot)

5. Seattle ($3.07 per square foot)

 

Dense and wealthy Hong Kong was the priciest city for rent outside the U.S., at £3.08 (or $3.78) per square foot, followed by Dubai and Singapore. London, at £2.30 ($2.83) per square foot, was tied with Los Angeles, the sixth-most expensive city in the U.S.

 

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/these-3-u-s-cities-are-now-the-most-expensive-rental-markets-in-the-world-242549

you didnt look at the link.

 

the cnn article is about ownership, which i take as most meaningful when someone makes the claim you did, "While the city is still the world's most expensive, housing prices are finally starting to level off a little."

 

you also mention wealth, and if you would have looked the link, which is fresh info btw, you would find cnn's source uses the median multiple principle, which does take into consideration income as well as prices.

 

and then your article is just about rent.

 

so ok lets look at rents too. sf would certainly be at the top for rentals by price, but since you brought metro wealth into play, given that factor it turns out sf is not the most expensive place to rent, that would be beijing and even nyc is higher than sf. this is as you might expect, given much bigger cities with much more variation:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/beijing-named-most-expensive-global-city-to-rent-in-a6996961.html

 

 

soooo annyways, like i said, lists.

 

no doubt the bay area is expensive to live or rent, but outside of straight up rental prices in relatively compact sf, it ain't at the top of most expensive in anything else.

 

 

What percentage of New Yorkers rent versus own? What percentage of San Franciscans rent versus own?

 

The majority of people in these cities are lifelong renters, hence why it's the more salient statistic.

 

*Also, your Independent link is likely outdated data. Right in the header they say 2011. SF has doubled in price since then. We need 2016 prices in all these cities and metro areas. There is usually a substantial data lag in the global rankings. Local real estate sources are going to be more current.

 

And again, least affordable is not the same as most expensive. Hong Kong is way less affordable than SF, but not more expensive. Hong Kong is dirt poor compared to Silicon Bay. Right in that list, they say Hong Kong rents are only $$1,930 a month versus San Francisco's $2,824 a month. Honestly, both those numbers seem insanely low these days. In raw dollars, SF is more expensive than New York City which that article proves. But that list from the Independent (reliable news, just could be outdated data) just shows how insane rents are in San Francisco and New York City compared to other global cities. 70% of San Franciscans are renters, so it matters more than the 30% of people who are homeowners/landlords/overseas investors.

 

**In terms of affordability, SF should not even be top 10 least affordable at this point. The majority of middle class and upper middle class residents are long gone. Look at the percentage of all-cash and overbid home sales in 2016 to see SF's insane wealth. It is very affordable to a large chunk of people the Bay. If anything, SF may have gotten more affordable (for the median net worth person, not median income person) as home prices spiked since so many people have cashed out their equity, and there has also been the flood of international millionaires and trust fund kids. People under 100k salary have been fleeing the Bay in droves to Portland and Seattle.

 

I never said SF was unaffordable. I just said it was the most expensive city. San Francisco is very affordable compared to many global cities due to the wealth of high-income jobs, inherited money, and tech millionaires/billionaires. In what other city on earth do gender studies majors walk into six-figure jobs straight out of college? :-D

 

But I get where you're coming from on this. Since SF has basically zero unemployment and there is a huge labor shortage, even though the city is expensive, it's likely easier to live in than global cities with weaker labor markets like Hong Kong, London, New York City, etc. I'm more familiar with LA since I used to work there, and I know despite LA's much lower home prices/rents, it's a harder city to live in than SF. LA is super competitive compared to the Bay. Many of the humanities majors in Oakland pulling easy six-figure salaries on 30-hour work weeks wouldn't last a month in Los Angeles!

 

Ditto with New York City! New York City is way more competitive than San Francisco-Oakland for jobs, and the vast majority of Oaklanders (and maybe a quarter of SFers) are pretty much unemployable in New York City.

 

In terms of global hardship, SF is not even close to the highest ranked city. It's an easy place to find high-paying jobs that pay the rent. The wealth to rent ratio evens out better in SF than in other global cities, hence why affordability index is another number people should look at too. SF has the world's highest rents, but it certainly does not have the world's highest percentage of financially-burdened people.

 

In fact, I don't think there is any other metro area on earth with more retired 20-somethings than San Francisco-Oakland. That makes the Bay a unique situation. I've never seen hordes of 20-something retirees working on Burning Man floats in Brooklyn like I have in Oakland...

Home prices, metro area in 2015. I'm surprised how cheap NYC still is, but places like Newark really bring down the average. The problem in California is the price of ghettos and suburban areas.

 

10 Most Expensive Cities Where You Need a Large Salary to Buy a House

Want to live in San Francisco? You need to earn big bucks to buy a home there. Settle instead for Pittsburgh or Cleveland where you only need about $30,000.

 

1. San Francisco

Minimum salary needed to afford a home: $142,448.33

Average interest rate (30-year mortgage): 4.02% (jumbo rate)

Median home price: $742,900

 

2. San Diego

Minimum salary needed to afford a home: $95,432.68

Average interest rate (30-year mortgage): 4.07%

Median home price: $493,100

 

3. Los Angeles

Minimum salary needed to afford a home: $89,664.86

Average interest rate (30-year mortgage): 4.07%

Median home price: $450,900

 

4. New York City

Minimum salary needed to afford a home: $87,535.60

Average interest rate (30-year mortgage): 4.22%

Median home price: $390,000

 

5. Boston

Minimum salary needed to afford a home: $80,049.93

Average interest rate (30-year mortgage): 4.05%

Median home price: $383,200

 

https://www.thestreet.com/story/13056716/7/10-most-expensive-cities-where-you-need-a-six-figure-salary-to-buy-a-house.html

*Also, median home sale price in San Francisco city is $1.325 million. It has gone up 92% since 2011. Oakland has gone up a whopping 182% since 2011!

 

https://www.paragon-re.com/sf-real-estate-news/26

 

Even Oakland real estate is now worth more than New York City real estate (and Oakland is structurally the Newark of the Bay, but with even higher crime rates). According to Zillow, median home value in Oakland is $670,500 while it's only $637,900 in New York City. So New York City is not only overshadowed by San Francisco, but NYC is also overshadowed by the most violent city in California, Oakland. I won't even get started on how insane prices are in San Mateo County and Santa Clara County for teardown housing. And in Oakland, a huge chunk of those homes are teardown housing too. The value is in the land. I wouldn't call most of the housing in outer Brooklyn, Queens, and Bronx teardown housing like I would in the Bay.

 

https://www.zillow.com/new-york-ny/home-values/

https://www.zillow.com/oakland-ca/home-values/

 

Newark has only a $231,900 median home value, so Oakland is triple the cost of Newark for fewer urban amenities. Newark has better transit, better urbanity, and less violent crime overall than Oakland.

 

https://www.zillow.com/newark-nj/home-values/

 

Oakland is the third most dangerous city in America after Detroit and St. Louis. It's crazy how much money people pay to live in high-crime neighborhoods in the Bay. That's a key difference from NYC and other global cities. No other metro area on earth has ghetto real estate priced as high as it is in the Bay. We're talking the worst of the worst in America, which is really saying something.

 

https://www.forbes.com/pictures/mlj45jggj/3-oakland/#73f19ee37d73

 

**People pay this in the Bay due to just how insanely expensive the Bay's housing has become. The slums of Oakland are expensive, but still not as expensive as San Francisco or Palo Alto or Berkeley or San Jose or Mountain View or San Mateo or Atheron or Burlingame or etc., etc., etc. As a metro area, the Bay is total insanity.

 

Do metro areas like London, Hong Kong, Sydney, etc. have anything as violent as Oakland? And if they do, are those violent areas as expensive as Oakland?

 

Hell, do they even have anything as bad as Newark? That's the problem in a nutshell in America's global cities. We've got a ton of overpriced ghettos right now. Even though Newark is "cheap" by New York City standards, those prices are insane compared to nicer cities in the Midwest.

 

Chicago has a median home value of only $219,900 and it's a global city in every way. Chicago is by far the best deal in America for a big city. When you compare Chicago to NYC/SF/LA, it's a total steal! Chicago may be the cheapest global city in the world, and I imagine it also ranks high on affordability. Sure, wages are lower in Chicago than in the saltwater cities, but not by anywhere near enough to offset those housing price differences.

 

https://www.zillow.com/chicago-il/home-values/

 

Oakland is the third most dangerous city in America after Detroit and St. Louis. It's crazy how much money people pay to live in high-crime neighborhoods in the Bay. That's a key difference from NYC and other global cities. No other metro area on earth has ghetto real estate priced as high as it is in the Bay. We're talking the worst of the worst in America, which is really saying something.

 

 

 

hmm, well oakland is the same size in every way as cle and cinci.

 

 

it had 85 outright homicides last year and 83 the year before.

 

http://www2.oaklandnet.com/oakca1/groups/police/documents/webcontent/oak062295.pdf

 

 

cleveland, for example, had 136 last year.

 

ive been to oakland several times and really i think you need to readjust your views of what's ghetto and worst of the worst.

 

 

^visiting and living aren't the same thing. Have you ever been to deep east? Seminary? Otherwise, you likely don't understand Oakland's intractable violent crime issues, which are unique in the United States due to Oakland's batshit crazy politics and resulting cost-of-living. Though even hyper-gentrified slums like West Oakland still have tons of crime. Other than murder, Oakland's crime is very widespread across the city's basin. And the last few years have been flukes with murders (more aggravated assault victims surviving). Look at the total number of aggravated assaults in Oakland. That's relatively steady and one of the highest rates in the Western world. Oakland had 2,678 aggravated assaults last year. That's about the same as 2012.

 

http://www2.oaklandnet.com/oakca1/groups/police/documents/webcontent/oak062295.pdf

 

Murder is only one statistic that targets a small number of people in specific neighborhoods (especially West Oakland and East Oakland, but even Downtown too). Oakland has the highest rate of robbery in America. That's right, higher than Detroit, St. Louis, and Cleveland. As a tourist, you're unlikely to be a victim, but if you were, you'd find the cops slow to respond, if they even come at all.

 

You need to take off the rose-colored Oakland glasses. Just because a neighborhood is well-kept and wealthy doesn't mean it's safe. Police do practically nothing in Oakland and those homicides remain unsolved. It is a lawless city with the lowest rate of police officers in the nation, hence the frequent rioting. And Cleveland has one of the highest violent crime rates in America too, so I'm not sure how that being almost as bad as Oakland makes your point (Cleveland also ranks top 10 for overall violent crime rate). They both are top 10 most violent in the nation any given year. But unlike Oakland, Cleveland is dirt cheap and has superior urban amenities. Anybody claiming Oakland is better than Cleveland is nuts...other than in terms of high-paying jobs, which duh, it's Silicon Bay. :-D Six-figure tech/non-profit jobs rain from the sky in Oakland while Cleveland still has one of the nation's highest concentrated poverty rates (ditto with Detroit, ditto with Toledo, ditto with Buffalo, etc.). Oakland is swimming in tech and trust fund money. You're comparing one of the nation's wealthiest cities to one of the poorest, which proves my point that Oakland is the world's most expensive high-crime city. And of course Oakland's wealth trajectory is only going up while Cleveland still struggles with Rust Belt issues plaguing the other Lake Erie cities. My question was what other city as expensive as Oakland has that high of a crime rate? Cleveland is not SOMA 2.0 like Oakland is lol. Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, Memphis, etc. have comparable crime rates to Oakland, but there is a key difference- Oakland is one of the world's most expensive cities. Those other crime-ridden cities have tons of poverty and a lack of high-paying jobs. They are dealing with real economic issues that the new trust fund crowd in Oakland can't even fathom.

 

When Google busses start barreling through homeless camps of evicted Clevelanders, then we can start comparing Cleveland to Oakland. :-D

 

When modern-day Silicon Valley Patrick Batemans start terrorizing your neighborhood, then we can start comparing Cleveland to Oakland.

 

When trust fund hipsters retire at 27 to work on Burning Man all year, then we can start comparing Cleveland to Oakland.

 

Oakland: Robbery capital of America

By MERCURY NEWS | [email protected] |

PUBLISHED: May 7, 2013 at 8:27 am | UPDATED: August 12, 2016 at 5:10 pm

 

Oakland is the robbery capital of America.

 

In a city where the murder rate is tracked like a stock index, robberies are actually the crime that sets Oakland apart from other violent cities, putting everyone at risk.

 

Oaklanders endured one robbery for every 91 residents last year. That not only was the city’s highest robbery rate in two decades, it was the highest of any major American city since 2000, according to FBI figures analyzed by this newspaper.

 

During the first half of 2012, the most recent period for which the FBI has comparative data, Oakland’s robbery rate was a staggering 36 percent higher than the second-ranked city, Cleveland.

 

Locally, Oakland’s robbery rate was nearly double that of Richmond’s and more than three times greater than Hayward’s.

 

Police say Oaklanders are being preyed upon by a growing number of stickup men and purse snatchers who have been lured from the drug trade by a thriving black market for cellphones. The new breed of robbers are younger, better armed and much less likely to get caught than their predecessors. And they are encountering an understaffed, technologically deficient police force that has struggled both to make arrests and document the number of arrests that have been made.

 

“Things have gotten really bad the last two years,” said Steve Ma, whose Lake Merritt area restaurant, Woody’s Cafe, was held up last year by two gunmen, who also robbed all of the customers inside.

 

Ma said the gunmen were calm, and so were his customers, very few of whom have deserted him. “People are just getting used to this being the way Oakland is,” he said.

 

Oakland reported 4,338 robberies last year — the most since 1993. That’s 12 robberies a day. It’s nearly four times as many robberies as the 1,208 reported in San Jose, a city with more than double Oakland’s population.

 

CONTINUED

http://www.mercurynews.com/2013/05/07/oakland-robbery-capital-of-america/

^And this crime and lawlessness is a big part of the reason so many Oakland projects keep stalling forever. When riots target construction sites, that makes developers think twice about working in Oakland. It's just as expensive to build in as San Francisco, but with much higher risks, more NIMBY politics, and more violent roadblocks. That's why SF is seeing almost all of the development in the Inner Bay. Its politics have changed, particularly in the Inner Mission and SOMA. Mixed-income housing is now being built in those neighborhoods.

 

Oakland's demand is completely insatiable among the young, rich, tatted, white people crowd, but the supply will never catch up until the city fixes its crime issues and NIMBY politics. And there is a lot of pride in Oakland about these riots.

 

the rise of oakland’s riot culture

when the bay area’s futureless generation found each other

 

The fires lit by Ferguson in the Bay Area further cemented the region’s claim to “riot capital” of the US. But how did the Bay Area become the arena of one of the most intense millennial revolts of the decade? Doug Gilbert traces the emergence of the Bay Area’s “riot culture” through the last six years of street clashes and blockading, as well as the region’s unique situation of gentrification and rising costs of living.

 

...In many ways, Oakland was the second front of the Ferguson rebellion and only added to ‘the Town’s’ reputation as the “riot capital” of the US. Throughout these intense weeks, riots continued into the early mornings with stores being looted, police and their vehicles being attacked, freeways being blocked, businesses being vandalized, and hundreds of people being arrested. Police themselves were pushed to their limits, performing long hours of overtime night after night, often missing key holidays with their families. “It has never been like this before,” stated one police officer on the protests, “There is no breathing room.”

 

http://www.maskmagazine.com/the-anniversary-issue/struggle/bay-area-riot-culture

SF is a shitty place to develop real estate in too. All those high prices people love to complain about in the Bay are very much a result of policies put in place to greatly limit the ability to develop to keep up with demand.

 

Based on what I've seen I think they enjoy how wild the prices have gotten. It gives all that new money something to whine about. If housing costs were more normal there'd be nothing real to complain about. It's how you wind up with articles about families making hundreds of grand a year complaining about having to "scrape by." It's the only way they can make it seem like living in the Bay (with the exception of Oakland) requires any grit.

^There is actually way more grit in San Francisco than in Oakland lol. SF is a much more competitive and hard-working city. SF is more live-and-let-live and far less judgmental in the insecure college sort of way that Oakland is. Oakland is more like Portland, but with even softer hipsters. Oaklanders are obsessed with being "chill" or "laid back." Many of these rich kids are actually terrified of fast-paced San Francisco and never go into The City. It's too dense and urban for them! They like the suburban pace of Oakland much more. Oakland is as soft and sheltered as it gets in America, which is funny given the crime rates. It attracts a lot of wealthy liberal arts grads from expensive schools (and people terrified of opposing viewpoints, which can lead to the searing hatred of San Francisco). Berkeley's influence is big in Oakland. Culturally and politically, there is not much of a difference between Oakland and Berkeley. SF is a completely different world from the East Bay. By contrast, San Francisco has more of an East Coast influence, so it's grittier than Oakland-Berkeley. SF's obsession with New York City is due to so many New York transplants...though of course coastal California softens them up a bit (not that New York City is gritty anymore either lol).

 

The theory that Oakland has so much crime due to its soft residents does hold some water. Keep in mind many of the criminals aren't actually from Oakland. They drive in to do the crime. Many of the rioters come in from out of town too. Oakland is by far the easiest city to get away with crime in due to the lack of policing and generally compliant residents. Oakland's hipster crowd grew up in wealthy safe spaces, and these kids usually are the targets of street robberies. And let's be real, there is an endless number of rich people in Oakland. There is more to steal. Robberies are high in Oakland partially because it's such a wealthy city.

 

*Though of course all of the Bay is extremely soft compared to hardcore Rust Belt cities like Cleveland and Toledo lol. The average modern-day Oaklander would be a terrified in a Rust Belt city, even if they're technically safer than Oakland. It's due to huge cultural differences. Rust Belt culture is intimidating to West Coasters in general.

 

This video sums up Oakland's new culture in a nutshell:

 

Chicago has a median home value of only $219,900 and it's a global city in every way. Chicago is by far the best deal in America for a big city. When you compare Chicago to NYC/SF/LA, it's a total steal! Chicago may be the cheapest global city in the world, and I imagine it also ranks high on affordability. Sure, wages are lower in Chicago than in the saltwater cities, but not by anywhere near enough to offset those housing price differences

 

Even though wages are lower, if you play your cards right you barely have to drive which does drive down expenses even more.  Jobs are reasonably high paid as long as you are a professional.  Chicago's problem is that there is a legacy rust belt city that's had a global city built on top of it and the other city is very ugly (It may be a reason why prices are so low, reputation esp after Obama isn't so great given that Chicago was used as a punching bag in the GOPs war on the Dems).  We also need a lot of work on corruption and may need help from the feds to overcome our financial issues help that might not be coming.

 

You keep talking about how Gen Zs coastal migration wave will come to midwestren rust belt cities, IMO if you are right about that, Chicago and Minneapolis will be on their radar long before the rest of the midwest as we have more in common culturally with them than say Cincinnati/Cleveland or Detroit.  Chicago is where the cosmopolitian city meets the rust belt, pure rust belt may be too much to handle for some San Francisco trust fund kid who's been priced out of his own city.

^visiting and living aren't the same thing. Have you ever been to deep east? Seminary? Otherwise, you likely don't understand Oakland's intractable violent crime issues, which are unique in the United States due to Oakland's batshit crazy politics and resulting cost-of-living. Though even hyper-gentrified slums like West Oakland still have tons of crime. Other than murder, Oakland's crime is very widespread across the city's basin. And the last few years have been flukes with murders (more aggravated assault victims surviving). Look at the total number of aggravated assaults in Oakland. That's relatively steady and one of the highest rates in the Western world. Oakland had 2,678 aggravated assaults last year. That's about the same as 2012.

 

http://www2.oaklandnet.com/oakca1/groups/police/documents/webcontent/oak062295.pdf

 

Murder is only one statistic that targets a small number of people in specific neighborhoods (especially West Oakland and East Oakland, but even Downtown too). Oakland has the highest rate of robbery in America. That's right, higher than Detroit, St. Louis, and Cleveland. As a tourist, you're unlikely to be a victim, but if you were, you'd find the cops slow to respond, if they even come at all.

 

You need to take off the rose-colored Oakland glasses. Just because a neighborhood is well-kept and wealthy doesn't mean it's safe. Police do practically nothing in Oakland and those homicides remain unsolved. It is a lawless city with the lowest rate of police officers in the nation, hence the frequent rioting. And Cleveland has one of the highest violent crime rates in America too, so I'm not sure how that being almost as bad as Oakland makes your point (Cleveland also ranks top 10 for overall violent crime rate). They both are top 10 most violent in the nation any given year. But unlike Oakland, Cleveland is dirt cheap and has superior urban amenities. Anybody claiming Oakland is better than Cleveland is nuts...other than in terms of high-paying jobs, which duh, it's Silicon Bay. :-D Six-figure tech/non-profit jobs rain from the sky in Oakland while Cleveland still has one of the nation's highest concentrated poverty rates (ditto with Detroit, ditto with Toledo, ditto with Buffalo, etc.). Oakland is swimming in tech and trust fund money. You're comparing one of the nation's wealthiest cities to one of the poorest, which proves my point that Oakland is the world's most expensive high-crime city. And of course Oakland's wealth trajectory is only going up while Cleveland still struggles with Rust Belt issues plaguing the other Lake Erie cities. My question was what other city as expensive as Oakland has that high of a crime rate? Cleveland is not SOMA 2.0 like Oakland is lol. Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, Memphis, etc. have comparable crime rates to Oakland, but there is a key difference- Oakland is one of the world's most expensive cities. Those other crime-ridden cities have tons of poverty and a lack of high-paying jobs. They are dealing with real economic issues that the new trust fund crowd in Oakland can't even fathom.

 

When Google busses start barreling through homeless camps of evicted Clevelanders, then we can start comparing Cleveland to Oakland. :-D

 

When modern-day Silicon Valley Patrick Batemans start terrorizing your neighborhood, then we can start comparing Cleveland to Oakland.

 

When trust fund hipsters retire at 27 to work on Burning Man all year, then we can start comparing Cleveland to Oakland.

 

Oakland: Robbery capital of America

By MERCURY NEWS | [email protected] |

PUBLISHED: May 7, 2013 at 8:27 am | UPDATED: August 12, 2016 at 5:10 pm

 

Oakland is the robbery capital of America.

 

In a city where the murder rate is tracked like a stock index, robberies are actually the crime that sets Oakland apart from other violent cities, putting everyone at risk.

 

Oaklanders endured one robbery for every 91 residents last year. That not only was the city’s highest robbery rate in two decades, it was the highest of any major American city since 2000, according to FBI figures analyzed by this newspaper.

 

During the first half of 2012, the most recent period for which the FBI has comparative data, Oakland’s robbery rate was a staggering 36 percent higher than the second-ranked city, Cleveland.

 

Locally, Oakland’s robbery rate was nearly double that of Richmond’s and more than three times greater than Hayward’s.

 

Police say Oaklanders are being preyed upon by a growing number of stickup men and purse snatchers who have been lured from the drug trade by a thriving black market for cellphones. The new breed of robbers are younger, better armed and much less likely to get caught than their predecessors. And they are encountering an understaffed, technologically deficient police force that has struggled both to make arrests and document the number of arrests that have been made.

 

“Things have gotten really bad the last two years,” said Steve Ma, whose Lake Merritt area restaurant, Woody’s Cafe, was held up last year by two gunmen, who also robbed all of the customers inside.

 

Ma said the gunmen were calm, and so were his customers, very few of whom have deserted him. “People are just getting used to this being the way Oakland is,” he said.

 

Oakland reported 4,338 robberies last year — the most since 1993. That’s 12 robberies a day. It’s nearly four times as many robberies as the 1,208 reported in San Jose, a city with more than double Oakland’s population.

 

CONTINUED

http://www.mercurynews.com/2013/05/07/oakland-robbery-capital-of-america/

 

 

i would say death is worse than robbery or other stuff. thats me though. wanting to live.

^True, though robberies have a bigger chilling effect in terms of urban development since they are more widespread across neighborhoods in Oakland (and riots frequently target the extremely expensive downtown core where there is the most demand for new construction). Like in many cities, murders tend to be concentrated in certain areas like deep East Oakland and West Oakland. Assaults, robberies, etc. are far more widespread. Oakland's situation is unique in the world, which was my main point. It's the only place as expensive as it is with such high crime and such a high number of riots. This is largely by political choice, particularly the riots since OPD and city officials let them happen.

 

*I'm not trying to downplay the crime situation in Cleveland. It's really bad like in many other Rust Belt cities, and the recent crime trends are very concerning. At least in Oakland, most crimes have leveled off or are on a slow downward trend. Cleveland's crime issues likely stem from very high amounts of concentrated poverty and limited job options in the slums. I imagine Cleveland's crime patterns are quite similar to its brethren like Detroit, Toledo, Buffalo, etc.

 

Oakland's situation is different. Oakland's politics, housing crisis, and insane level of inequality are what's to blame. There are unlimited job options in the Bay, but even 100k salary is not enough to make it anymore. Oakland still has more middle class/upper middle class residents than San Francisco does where most people are now truly rich, even by Silicon Bay standards. The crazy, self-destructive politics of Oakland have no equal in the United States. And it's certainly holding back development. Demand is unlimited for housing, but until the crime situation and riots are dealt with effectively, Oakland will have a perpetual housing shortage.

Salesforce Tower on 4/1:

 

 

Salesforce is celebrating the capping of the tallest building west of Chicago, and the views are astounding

— By CNBC's Harriet Taylor

Published 6 April 2017

 

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and San Francisco officials are marking the laying of the final beam — a construction milestone known as "topping off" — at its new global headquarters in downtown San Francisco.

 

"They take the last structural beam and everybody signs it," Elizabeth Pinkham, Salesforce executive vice president of global real estate, said in advance of Thursday's planned ceremony. "Then they hoist it up to the top."

 

The building rises 1,070 feet high and is the tallest U.S. office building west of Chicago. Salesforce, a cloud-computing company that specializes in customer relationship management, is the "anchor tenant" and will occupy floors three to 30 and the top two levels, 60 and 61. Rather than designating the two top floors for executive offices, Salesforce will keep them open to all employees and their guests, Pinkham said.

 

CONTINUED WITH PICTURES FROM TOP

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/06/salesforce-tower-san-franciscos-tallest-building-views.html

It is a great new tallest for San Francisco.  It shifts the skyline from the Pyramid/Bank of America but makes it work.

I love the Pyramid tower, I've never been to San Fran but to me it is an iconic tower. 

 

What I took away from this though was that the largest tech company in San Fran employs 6,000, I thought it would be more than that for some reason.  I know Tech jobs in Silicon Valley though probably pay more than say P&G jobs in Cincinnati on average, but I think P&G has about 10k employees in the Cincy area.  Interesting to me, as the narrative is that it's all tech in San Fran, but it must be spread out among many many companies.  What are some other big industries besides the tech scene in San Fran?  Insurance?  Banking?  Do they have the Fed Reserve there or any type of stock exchange there?

I love the Pyramid tower, I've never been to San Fran but to me it is an iconic tower. 

 

What I took away from this though was that the largest tech company in San Fran employs 6,000, I thought it would be more than that for some reason.  I know Tech jobs in Silicon Valley though probably pay more than say P&G jobs in Cincinnati on average, but I think P&G has about 10k employees in the Cincy area.  Interesting to me, as the narrative is that it's all tech in San Fran, but it must be spread out among many many companies.  What are some other big industries besides the tech scene in San Fran?  Insurance?  Banking?  Do they have the Fed Reserve there or any type of stock exchange there?

 

Probably banking/finance. There is a Federal Reserve Bank and a mint. There used to be the Pacific Stock exchange. But there is also tourism, apparel (Gap, Levis, are based here), port/trade/transportation, and healthcare.

I love the Pyramid tower, I've never been to San Fran but to me it is an iconic tower. 

 

What I took away from this though was that the largest tech company in San Fran employs 6,000, I thought it would be more than that for some reason.  I know Tech jobs in Silicon Valley though probably pay more than say P&G jobs in Cincinnati on average, but I think P&G has about 10k employees in the Cincy area.  Interesting to me, as the narrative is that it's all tech in San Fran, but it must be spread out among many many companies.  What are some other big industries besides the tech scene in San Fran?  Insurance?  Banking?  Do they have the Fed Reserve there or any type of stock exchange there?

 

Tourism, Finance/Venture Capitalism (tied to tech), and Healthcare. SF also has three major universities right within the city limits (USF, AAU, SFSU) and smaller schools too like UC Hastings and UCSF.

 

There is a Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. And keep in mind the vast majority of tech jobs are not at big companies like Salesforce, but thousands of smaller startups. 6,000 employees is huge for a tech company.

 

*And of course there is a still a robust trust fund economy that fuels a lot of local business and venture capitalism/seed rounds for smaller startups. Most of the trust fund hipster kids moved to Oakland, but they still go out in SF for the highest quality stuff since Oakland has very limited amenities. Their money is invested in SF too since even trust fund kids know Oakland is a bubble. San Francisco is where the A-team talent is at. Oakland's economy is really going to crash fast since so much recent growth is tied to non-profit incubators for unsustainable tech startups, food delivery apps, laundry apps, and just general commuting into SF. There isn't a single Oakland tech startup with a real business model, not even Pandora. The old saying "Oakland: 400,000 people who wish they were in San Francisco" is still mostly true (except for hipsters since Oakland is their homeland now, even moreso than Portland).

 

SF would still be a healthy, booming city even if every tech company collapsed tomorrow and Salesforce declared bankruptcy. More inherited rich people would move in to take the spots of tech workers. It's one of the world's most desirable cities and will always have insatiable demand. Tourism will always be a gigantic industry in SF. It has the highest per capita number of tourists in a day of nearly any city on earth. Hence why Airbnb started here and hotels have always been strained. Tourism is the real San Francisco backbone that keeps it healthy during recessions. Since it targets the high-end crowd, it gets the people insulated from economic reality. This is quite different from LA and San Diego which have more pronounced busts during recessions.

 

You could build hundreds of 1000-footers in San Francisco, have every company in them lay everyone off, and those towers would be converted to housing and Airbnb rentals in no time. SF's economy defies all middle class logic.

 

*SF's tech economy is the world's most diversified and the marketing, sales, and engineering talent is top tier. It's not nearly as concentrated in a few sectors like it is in Austin, Oakland, Seattle, LA, NYC, etc. It also isn't lacking the sales and marketing talent like those secondary markets do. This was a big lesson learned from the first tech bubble, which Salesforce survived precisely because of its focus on business fundamentals.

 

Look for those secondary tech hubs like Oakland, Brooklyn, and Seattle to crash hard while San Francisco experiences minimal damage during the next recession. 2008 was a good example of just how resilient San Francisco is compared to the rest of the West Coast and other American cities.

Lol...a touch hyperbolic there at the end, no? The average 1,000 foot office tower is 1.5-2 million square feet. 350,000,000 square feet or so (two hundred of these supertalls) of residential space averaging 1,500 square feet per unit would be nearly a quarter of a million housing units. SF isn't that nice.

 

San Francisco is just as potentially fragile as any other city. The loss of the tech industry would be absolutely devastating to SF and the Bay area.

^I strongly disagree. The demand curve in SF is way higher than in any other West Coast city. This is because San Francisco is the only East Coast urban city west of the Mississippi River! There is nothing else like it. It has diversified, global demand that the other West Coast cities are largely lacking.

 

The bubbles are in Seattle, Oakland, Portland, Austin, and LA. Most of the questionable tech startups are those cities too. Of course companies like Twitter are going to go under, but they've already gone through so many layoffs, damage will be minimal while that space is rented to smaller startups in no time (or converted to much-needed housing). Uber could collapse too, but I think Bay Areans would rejoice!

 

San Francisco is just as potentially fragile as any other city. The loss of the tech industry would be absolutely devastating to SF and the Bay area.

 

It employs a much smaller percentage of workers than people realize. And most of the new tech crowd is already indecently wealthy. It's mainly attracting Harvard and Wharton types, not middle class Midwestern grads like in the last bubble. If you go look at graduates on Linkedin, you can see that Michigan is the only public Midwestern school with a large alumni base in the Bay. But UM is barely middle class these days...

250,000 housing units would be an increase of 71% over the current number of housing units in SF. There's no such thing as that much demand. That's not realistic at all.

 

If the tech industry ever starts operating like the rest of the capitalist world it'll be a huge problem. So much valuation, capital, etc. in the tech industry is based on things that hold no actual worth outside of said industry. Valuing a company that can't make a single penny and with no viable revenue source at billions of dollars isn't sustainable and will eventually fall apart, likely with huge consequences.

250,000 housing units would be an increase of 71% over the current number of housing units in SF. There's no such thing as that much demand. That's not realistic at all.

 

If the tech industry ever starts operating like the rest of the capitalist world it'll be a huge problem. So much valuation, capital, etc. in the tech industry is based on things that hold no actual worth outside of said industry. Valuing a company that can't make a single penny and with no viable revenue source at billions of dollars isn't sustainable and will eventually fall apart, likely with huge consequences.

 

SF needs to triple its inventory to even come close to median home values of other West Coast cities. The tech startup game is a giant casino, and this is how it is played. The venture capitalists know how to protect themselves from downside risk. Unsustainable startups are what made San Francisco this rich in the first place, and people have been preparing for a tech crash for years. It's not going to be any shock to the system. If anything, people are shocked it hasn't happened yet and are pissed there is nothing to short due to lack of IPOs! San Francisco tech investors know how to manipulate economies and profit during declines. But lately, SF investors have only been focusing on the absolute top talent and business ideas. The more questionable stuff has been outsourced to other cities. The big crash will happen in Oakland, Seattle, Portland, Austin, etc. Those cities could be decimated like a Detroit auto collapse. And those Oaklanders will move right back to SF....a good chunk of the Portlanders and Austinites will too...

 

San Francisco exists in a bubble that defies economic logic. It's like 2007 Wall Street, but fully prepared for 2008. It's a global power center of the world's .01% (with far less ethnic/racial diversity than other power cities like New York, Toronto, London, etc). Wealth is much more concentrated and protected in SF. The traditional FIRE industries are unbelievably talented here. Lower tier tech workers could get hit, especially millennials who recently moved to the Bay, but the power players who live in The City will be fine.

 

If the tech industry ever starts operating like the rest of the capitalist world it'll be a huge problem

 

But it never has nor was it ever designed to. The goal of most startups is to threaten an established player with new technology and get them to buy your company so your executive board can cash out as millionaires. That's why so many companies are just 10-20 employees. Everybody gets rich in that scenario since they have equity. Sustainable business is not the goal of most startups....threatening the companies who have sustainable business is the goal.

 

*And that's why Uber is so bizarre. I do think they're run by mad men, and not trying to sell to Ford or Mercedes could a be a deathblow down the line...

 

I would bank on ancient auto companies like Ford, GM, and Mercedes taking out Uber with self-driving taxi fleets. And good for Detroit and Germany...

Not everything in SF is Tech orientated. As much as SF and its surrounding area is saturated with tech jobs, there are many co's hq'd there that are not associated with Tech.

 

1. Charles Schwab

2. Gap Inc

3. Levi Strauss

4. Pacific Gas & Electric

5. William - Sonoma

6. Pottery Barn

7. Ghirardelli Chocolate Company

8. Gymboree (children's clothes)

9. Wells Fargo Bank

 

None of these have anything to do with Tech.

 

 

 

^Yep, it's still a diversified economy, though of course most employment growth has been in tech. But SF still has a lot of relatively stable Fortune 500 companies and a massive finance industry.

 

College kids don't think of Williams-Sonoma, Levi's, or Wells Fargo as "sexy," but they still have a lot of good jobs in SF. Though Charles Schwab has been outsourcing to real America...

 

*And there is no downplaying the size and importance of the tourism economy. SF has always been insanely popular with tourists and always will be. Hotel demand and Airbnb demand prove this.

California isn't going to secede from the United States, so it looks like tech is going to buy an island and move everything there within ten years:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/technology/new-zealand-tech-industry.html?_r=0

 

Think about it -- Peter Thiel, the unabashed right-winger, has hatched a plan for tech to have its own country.  They'll answer to nobody and pay no tax.  If all the money from tech is funneled into New Zealand instead of the United States, they'll be able to raise their own mostly-mechanized military. 

Not everything in SF is Tech orientated. As much as SF and its surrounding area is saturated with tech jobs, there are many co's hq'd there that are not associated with Tech.

 

1. Charles Schwab

2. Gap Inc

3. Levi Strauss

4. Pacific Gas & Electric

5. William - Sonoma

6. Pottery Barn

7. Ghirardelli Chocolate Company

8. Gymboree (children's clothes)

9. Wells Fargo Bank

 

None of these have anything to do with Tech.

 

 

 

 

Williams Sonoma owns Pottery Barn.

@mattyglesias

2h2 hours ago

 

The most unrealistic thing about Star Trek is the idea that San Francisco’s zoning would allow for the construction of Starfleet Headquarters.

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/973671658488848387

That's funny. The CBD will be full of massive 1000+ ft skyscrapers. The western neighborhoods still 2 story single family homes.

The Sunset and neighborhoods south of Twin Peaks are some of the blandest areas on that whole peninsula. It's a shame that the NIMBYs aren't allowing for any additional denisifcation even in the most characterless areas. Even replacing some of the two story single family homes with 5-7 story walkups like upper Manhattan would really help, but it's probably not going to happen any time soon.

did anybody see the salesforce tower crown lighting?

 

its got video, color patterns, etc etc

 

its...umm...fittingly groovy, man.

 

https://sf.curbed.com/platform/amp/2018/2/16/17021040/salesforce-tower-lights-top-led-art

 

lots more on instagram too.

 

A state law aims to permit BART itself to develop housing on land it owns near stations:

https://sf.curbed.com/2018/4/19/17258720/bart-bill-housing-ab-2923