Stripe cofounder here.<p>This is an issue that I know a lot of HN readers care about and I'd encourage anyone interested to get involved. (Feel free to reach out to CA YIMBY, your local representatives, or any of the other organizations doing good work in the field.)<p>Bad housing policy is one of the biggest impediments to overall economic growth[1] and to individual economic opportunity[2][3] in the US. Our current restrictive policies disproportionately hurt poorer, younger, and (frequently) non-white[4] people. I really hope we can change them.<p>[1] <a href="https://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/chang-tai.hsieh/research/growth.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/chang-tai.hsieh/research/gr...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/83656/2000907-strategies-for-increasing-housing-supply-in-high-cost-cities-dc-case-study_1.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/83656/...</a><p>[3] From the Obama administration: <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/Housing_Development_Toolkit%20f.2.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images...</a><p>[4] <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Color-Law-Forgotten-Government-Segregated/dp/1631492853" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Color-Law-Forgotten-Government-Segreg...</a>
California and the Bay Area is so screwed. The Powers-that-be looked at SB827 like it was the work of lunatics, and did not engage in any of the significant concessions that were made. The bill was completely impotent at the end ... local demolition control + 4-5 story buildings. It drew no interest nor alternative proposals to actually help solve the housing crisis.<p>So yeah we're going to end up with middle class social housing lotteries, 1.5 hour commutes and crazy inflation of basic service costs ($3k/month child care, anyone?).<p>Every neighborhood can't be a wealthy enclave of SFH. There is literally no where to live in the central Bay Area on teachers salary much less a Social Security Disability paycheck. The homelessness epidemic will grow.<p>It's a rentier economy of land owners and the rent-controlled incumbents. How "Progressive".
Best thing a tech company can do to solve CA housing crisis is let workers who desire to do so work remotely from other states without taking a pay cut (beyond actual reduction in productivity, if any). Market forces will take care of the rest.<p>The effect will be many-fold:<p>- Increase in employee satisfaction and quality of life. Those who leave will have a much lower cost of living and can enjoy the extra money. Those who stay here will be here because it's worth the money to them.<p>- Lower real estate costs for employer.<p>- Reduction in employment and resulting housing demand in California.<p>- Increase in tech populations in other areas leading to networking effects and economies of scale, making them more attractive to work at, further reducing housing demand in CA.<p>- Better distribution of tech talent and benefits in the country, reducing anti-tech resentment and political backlash.<p>- Loss of (tens of?) thousands of dollars in income and sales tax revenue for CA, per employee, imposing a real fiscal cost for not implementing housing supply friendly policies, and creating proper political incentives.<p>- Loss of demand for local businesses and services, leading to a negative feedback loop to reduce local opposition to increasing housing supply.<p>- Opportunities for tech and other businesses that embrace and help facilitate remote work.<p>- Tech companies being closer to average people, aware and solving their real world problems instead of SF techies' scooter and/or food delivery needs.<p>Stuffing more employees into the Bay Area and throwing a few bucks to YIMBY is not a serious solution, it's a fig leaf.
Housing a persistent issue that comes up a lot on HN. It seems to me that as tech-workers, we feel the guilt associated with economic pressure adversely affecting the civic-environment we coexist in but strangely feel that it is inappropriate (inconvenient?) to take part in the political machinery that addresses these tragedy-of-the-commons-type problems.<p>Perhaps there is a collective disillusion with how slow building civic-consensus is (i.e. too much bureaucracy). For those who may feel this way, I strongly encourage your support of political action groups like YIMBY. They provide a low-cost way for you to associate yourself with a group of people focused on trying to fix NIMBY forces within the housing market.
Investing in better public transportation is important too so that people can live further away from the city and commute in a reasonable time.<p><a href="http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/03/14/bay-area-cities-outrank-l-a-on-list-of-longest-commutes-in-u-s/" rel="nofollow">http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/03/14/bay-area-cities-...</a>
I'm all for YIMBYism, but it's framed in a couple ways that I often disagree with.<p>First, I actually doubt that loosening zoning restrictions to allow multi apartment dwellings will harm owners of SFR properties. It'll change the neighborhood, and may lower housing costs per square foot of living space. I personally thing that it it's done properly, SF will be a more interesting place (outside of SF, I've lived in NY and Paris, and the denser places were nicer and more interesting <i>to me</i>).<p>The other thing is... well, NY (Manhattan) and Paris (left bank) are also the only places I've lived that are more expensive than SF. And the higher density neighborhoods in SF are among the most expensive per square foot.<p>I think a YIMBY SF could well turn out to be more interesting, more livable, and, more expensive. More density might just amplify network effects and create even more economic activity.<p>This is why I do think that for affordable housing, we really do need a first class light rail and subway, like Paris and New York (and a few others). Just building density isn't going to do it.
If you are in California I would suggest you look up Michael Schellenberger. He is a democrat running for office and pro Nuclear.<p>Here is a good interview with him where he lays out some of his opinions on amongst other things the problem with NIMBY.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-7DIv3AU1o" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-7DIv3AU1o</a>
More and more young people come to CA to start their careers, but then take the experience (and ability to command high salaries) and move to a cheaper state. We're eroding our talent pool with the crazy high cost of living. The area will just become full of transient college grads.
Simple summary of YIMBY and NIMBY platforms:<p>YIMBY:
Build more housing and higher density in desirable places (places next to transit, places close to work). This will raise rents in areas that are more desirable (to market rates) and lower rents overall as there is more supply in the city. This will also deplete supply of rent-controlled buildings as it becomes profitable to demolish old buildings.<p>NIMBY:
Preserve the right of people already living in a neighborhood to continue living there. Obviously as a "desirable" area gets more residents and buildings, it will displace some existing residents. Keep in mind this doesn't specifically mean poor people (it is not a requirement to be poor to get rent control), but inevitably some of those residents will not be wealthy enough to continue staying in the same area due to simply market dynamics. They most likely will have to move to a slightly less desirable area. But since more housing is built, they most likely will not have to move that far. While new developments will cater to the higher income people, older housing will be vacated for lower income people.<p>The problem is without letting the market build housing where it makes senses (economically), which is in desirable areas, housing doesn't get built at all. Overall this hurts the whole economy as it increases average housing prices everywhere (while lowering average housing prices in desirable places), and makes it hard for people that weren't lucky enough to be in an area to have affordable housing.
There's also <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180503005513/en/Stripe-1-Million-Contribution-California-YIMBY-Support" rel="nofollow">https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180503005513/en/Str...</a> (via <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16988367" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16988367</a>), which contains a bit more info, albeit in a press release.
Feels inappropriate for a payments processor to wade into general political fights. Stripe is becoming the backbone for payments processing and should strive to stay above politics.
What are peoples longterm views on the viability of just expanding housing? The view currently seems to be that prices are so high, so if we enable <i>x</i> more housing units to be built, prices could come down. This might be true, but in the longrun housing prices are high because it's a desirable area to live in and they'll inextricably skyrocket back on up as those <i>x</i> become entrenched and now a new <i>2x</i> want in.<p>Take Hong Kong as the extreme example of this issue. It's currently the 4th most densely populated area in the world with 7.4 million people spread around 427 square miles. But that density didn't solve anything as its economic desirability remains high and it is also one of the most expensive areas in the world. The same was true of Tokyo decades ago when Japan was the effective technological leader of the world - the main reason housing is <i>somewhat</i> affordable there now is because they've gone through decades of recession and decline.<p>Anyhow, I'm not sure if I'm missing something here because I think this issue is fairly self evident, but seems rarely discussed.
California is already is the state with the largest population by a long way. Sure you could squeeze a few more million into the bay area but SF has geographic restrictions, esp with water. Surely it would be smarter to encourage more tech firms to move to places where there is more space, like Denver, Chicago, Austin. Basically anywhere off the coasts. Just give on on SF already.
Below comment from nytimes (and linked article/tweet thread) captures the stupidity of the SF politics very well.<p>-----------------<p>These are the kind of people Square is supporting: racist, ageist developer shills.<p><a href="http://www.sfexaminer.com/sb-827-rallies-end-yimbys-shouting-protesters-color/" rel="nofollow">http://www.sfexaminer.com/sb-827-rallies-end-yimbys-shouting...</a>
As economic opportunity becomes further concentrated in urban areas this issue will only become more significant. Tech companies have a strong incentive to combat malignant housing policy in cities like SF so that they can continue to attract talent. Stripe is doing a great thing here and I hope other companies follow suit.
Startups could further help this issue by hiring remote and/or setting up shops in low cost areas. (I have no clue if Stripe does this already.) The only reason for startups to be in high tax, high cost SFBA is to raise money. Once you hit escape velocity there’s no reason to stay.
If you believe housing prices are a core problem to the growth of your business why continue to grow in the bay area rather than try and move to a less expensive region of the country?<p>Massive growth in the SF housing supply is just politically infeasible at this time, a million dollar donation won't change that.
With all due respect to the people who think this is _the_ defining issue of our generation, I think you are wrong. Climate change is the biggest issue of our generation, period.
@pc: Any consideration to closing your SoMo office (similar to what Automattic did [1]) and migrating towards a fully remote org? That would improve the quality of life of your workers currently required to be near SF by allowing them to relocate to lower cost of living areas, as changing California housing policy and seeing the results in lower housing costs due to denser construction is going to take decades [2].<p>[1] <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/automattic-closes-san-francisco-office-to-let-everyone-work-remotely-2017-6" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com/automattic-closes-san-francis...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.sfexaminer.com/solve-affordability-crisis-bay-area-housing-stock-must-grow-50-percent-20-years/" rel="nofollow">http://www.sfexaminer.com/solve-affordability-crisis-bay-are...</a><p>Disclosure: Worked for a popular and well run fully remote startup for two years.
So one thing I always have trouble with on this debate is that it feels totally one-sided. There's smart people on the YIMBY side making the case for building. But then NIMBYs are always portrayed as a caricature of the self-interested rich guy. So I read this article and then I click through to <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-bill-failure-equity-groups-20180502-story.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-bill-failu...</a> this article and I see lots of poor people opposed SB 827 as well. But even then there isn't really a strong op-ed or anything like that making the case against YIMBY. Where do I go to read that? If you're a YIMBY what's the toughest NIMBY article or argument you've come across?
One of the things that tech companies could have done is to diversify the locations across USA instead of just investing in California. California is subject to earthquakes, potential attack from north korea, insane illegal immigration and overall leftist hippie policies.<p>It would have been great if all the large tech companies would invest also in Nevada, Oregon, Arizona etc. and give good competition to Calfornia.<p>I am worried and California's response to housing crisis might end up creating even more worse crisis for us.
YIMBYism, that is, additions to housing stock made by private developers, is a false fix. The idea that additional housing stock is needed is correct, but the idea that more and more powerful landlords and developers will create space for vulnerable people is plainly wrong. More luxury condos, buildings rented by foreign investors that never occupy them as a place to park money, and all the problems of the powerful setting the agenda for everyone develops.<p>Instead, we need public housing, strict regulation, and yes more units built at the behest of the state.