San Francisco Leads the Nation In No One Wanting To Work In an Office (sfgate.com) 143
An anonymous reader quotes a report from SFGate: Bad news for anyone hoping that Bay Area workers return to the office for good: San Francisco leads the nation in how many days employees want to work from home. According to a recent survey co-conducted by Stanford economics professor Nicholas Bloom, workers want to cut how many days they spend in the office by more than 53%, a nation-leading number. That's 4 percentage points more than New York and 6 percentage points more than Los Angeles.
San Francisco also ranks third -- behind New York City and Los Angeles -- in how much less they intend to spend in the city while they are in the office. According to a slide deck provided by Bloom to SFGATE, the average San Francisco office worker will spend an average of $5,293 less per year compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic. He first presented these findings at a conference at New York's Federal Reserve Bank, as first reported by Bloomberg. "Employers value working from home -- they really like it, as it's a huge hiring and retention policy," Bloom said. "Why wouldn't you do something that makes them more productive and happier?"
Bloom went on to say that "tech workers, on average, value working from home two to three days a week as much as an 11% pay increase," reports SFGate.
San Francisco also ranks third -- behind New York City and Los Angeles -- in how much less they intend to spend in the city while they are in the office. According to a slide deck provided by Bloom to SFGATE, the average San Francisco office worker will spend an average of $5,293 less per year compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic. He first presented these findings at a conference at New York's Federal Reserve Bank, as first reported by Bloomberg. "Employers value working from home -- they really like it, as it's a huge hiring and retention policy," Bloom said. "Why wouldn't you do something that makes them more productive and happier?"
Bloom went on to say that "tech workers, on average, value working from home two to three days a week as much as an 11% pay increase," reports SFGate.
Surprise! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Surprise! (Score:5, Funny)
And that was before I even left my apartment.
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I wouldn't mind having an office I can go to, but only if the hours were flexible, 4 day week and it was a decent, COVID-safe office.
If that isn't an option, I'm working from home.
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Paid time off when testing positive. UV sterilisation lamps.
Re:Your definition ignores reality. (Score:5, Insightful)
I am an occupational safety professional in construction and facilities management with a focus on electrical safety. In the workplace, we use different sets of controls to reduce risk presented by exposure to hazards. For example, handrails are placed on stairs to reduce the risk of a fall. We might use anti-skid strips in wet/damp locations. We install lights to illuminate the stairs. We educate people with signage reminding them to use the handrail, stay to the right, etc. All of those things are controls. They reduce risk but do not entirely eliminate the possibility of a fall. Despite this, a reasonable person would say the stairs are "safe". I could do a car analogy here, but you get the idea.
It's the same thing with covid. All the things I mentioned are put into place to reduce risk. A reasonable person (the GGP) would say that with those controls in place the office is "covid safe" compared to the alternative of doing fuck all.
If you take "safe" to mean absolutely and completely free from risk, then you might as well stay home and never leave the house. Guess what? That's not "safe" either.
I get the feeling you really didn't need this explained to you though. You just love covid debates for some reason. You know good and well what the GGP meant.
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Are you really scared of covid these days?
No. I gave examples of measures a workplace might take to reduce covid risk. That's all.
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Re: Surprise! (Score:5, Insightful)
And commute. Not all of these people live minutes from the office. Most live 30 to 60 minutes or more away. Right there gaining at least an hour or more is a huge benefit. If I were traveling to the office now I'd be on the road for 1-1/2 hours minimum a day, probably closer to 2 hours after having to pickup kids. That's 10 hours a week or 520 hours a year I'm doing nothing other than wasting resources, my time, increasing my chance of getting in an accident or shot, which has sadly been happening a lot in my area. And the economic impact of me not being in the office is nearly nil anyway since I bring my own lunch. I buy gas and burn it into the environment for no real purpose for 520 hours a year. Working from home has had nothing but benefits for me and the company I work for as well as the environment. I'm more productive and my personal life is many times better.
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And commute. Not all of these people live minutes from the office.
It is amazing how much time is wasted with commuting. Not only that, the roads are jammed at rush hour, and there is the air pollution factor. In Birmingham UK, where I live, I would not say that life is particularly dependent on cars, compared to what I have read about life in America. However, an engineer from Spain that I worked with noted that he had to do a lot more driving than when he worked in Spain.
There is a local government policy, to control road traffic with a view to reducing road congestion a
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In Birmingham UK, where I live, I would not say that life is particularly dependent on cars, compared to what I have read about life in America
Oh, the vast majority of America is ridiculously dependent on cars. Sure, there are some urban areas like San Francisco and New York were a lot of people use public transportation, but that is still by far the minority of the population. You simply cannot live in the majority of America without at least one vehicle for your household, regardless of income level. Even the poorest of the poor need a car unless they live very close to services they need. If you do live in a city and don't own a car, you've
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Re:Surprise! (Score:4, Insightful)
What cubicle? Nowadays the businesses expect you to take an hour to drive in, navigate whatever bullshit you have to from parking to building, then find a free spot at a table somewhere because designated seating is too expensive, then make sure you pick up everything on your desk anytime you get up.
I'm fully expecting at some point they'll move to making people work in mortuary cabinet drawers soon.
Re:Surprise! (Score:5, Insightful)
What cubicle? Nowadays the businesses expect you to take an hour to drive in, navigate whatever bullshit you have to from parking to building, then find a free spot at a table somewhere because designated seating is too expensive, then make sure you pick up everything on your desk anytime you get up.
I'm fully expecting at some point they'll move to making people work in mortuary cabinet drawers soon.
You're not wrong. Management has pushed open office, unassigned seating BS under the guise that employees "love it and want the flexibility" when the complete opposite is true for most people (except bean counters). What they've actually done is turned big-city, expensive offices into the 3rd word call-centers - loud, no privacy, no individuality, nothing to make it your 'home away from home'. People spent the last two years scrambling to make a home office livable and frequently made major life/home changes to do so. Now it's comfortable. It's theirs. It has all the creature comforts, trinkets, and whatever else they want.
Now you want me to come back to a shared office desk that's loud and I have to cart in my laptop, snacks, and favorite mug...oh, and I have to spend big-city prices for lunch instead of being able to make/cook/have anything in my fridge (without having to pack it up daily and worry about strangers eating it). I don't care how fancy the coffee machine is, it's not worth it.
And that's before you factor in the time and cost. 2 hours of daily commuting isn't uncommon for big cities and plenty of people have even longer commutes...10 hours a week or 40 hours a month. That's a full work-week, per month, spent on non-productive and unpaid time commuting...how about if companies want us in the office, they pay for that commute time?
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You're not wrong. Management has pushed open office, unassigned seating BS under the guise that employees "love it and want the flexibility" when the complete opposite is true for most people (except bean counters).
People want to nest, they want to setup their environment and it be theirs. Even the bean counters. Sure they may state out of one side of their mouth that having non-assigned seating has benefits (beyond possible cost savings for the company there are likely none), but in their mind, they won't be the ones impacted either. Maybe companies should pay an employee from the moment they leave their house to the moment they return home. Let them feel the more of the cost of commuting. I knew a farmer who di
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That's a full work-week, per month, spent on non-productive and unpaid time commuting
At the start of lockdown in the UK, I asked my immediate boss about how I was expected to manage my time, while working from home. He had noted that as far as his job is concerned, he was better off, because he was not wasting time commuting between two computers, as he put it. As far as he is concerned, for design engineering employees at least, you are not paid for the hours on the job, but for the results of your work. I put effort into getting results when required, but spend the rest of the time piddli
Misleading (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm guessing the 53% number is that low because of misleading questioning. I'd bet that the number that never want to work in an office again would be much higher if the question were phrased differently. The real number that would never want to step foot back into an office is probably somewhere around 95%.
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If you asked people how many people actually would like to sit home and eat oreos or play video games etc it's going to be over 95%. So?
It's fucking WORK. It's not PLAY. Those are antonyms for a reason.
It's not supposed to be fun; if it is, you're one of a small number of astonishingly lucky people. The simple fact is that the vast, vast majority of people work for a paycheck, done. They suffer to whatever degree they will tolerate for a paycheck that delivers a lifestyle they can accept. It's ALWAYS
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And you'd be wrong about that.
The actual percentage of those who never want to be in an office is around 20-30%. About 20-30% want a return to office full time. Everyone else wants a hybrid model. The to
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Nope.
Teams is just not a good communication hub. I felt very much out of the loop on projects and all around what was happening in the company. Started to feel like I wasn't even part of it anymore.
And we have useless Agile meetings three times a week, so... no. It's not about the socializing.
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I've been doing this for a year or so. It's just great.
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I can believe it.
For many folks' jobs, there's precious little reason to need to be in the same room with them.
I've been working remote from home for the past 9+ years in IT, and with our projects, many are VERY large, nation and world wide reach...we've had no problems using teams, etc for when we need to meet, etc.
My co-workers, even when I did work in an office, are NOT my friends. They are people I work with.
Whe
Transportation (Score:5, Insightful)
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... somewhere where the cost of housing is something you can afford
I think there is something dodgy about the housing property market. To me, rising property prices are a form of inflation. The rate of property price rises has exceeded the rate of wage rises for many years, so even quite well-off young people can't afford to buy their own home. On the other hand, people that are lucky enough to already own property are accumulating wealth.
With my socialist hat on, I think it is unjust that people are making money just by owning property, while there are people that need p
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For the free-market types, this just means that housing prices have been undervalued for decades and we're finally seeing market forces at work. They say that they charge what the market will bear and by God and von Mises they're going to find out what the market will bear to the goddamned penny.
Don't give them more ideas... (Score:5, Interesting)
"tech workers, on average, value working from home two to three days a week as much as an 11% pay increase," reports SFGate.
Great. Many bosses will read that and interpret it as, "So you want to work at home, we'll cut your pay by 20% if you want to stay there."
Thankfully plenty of tech jobs are in high demand. Changing jobs is super easy right now with many companies having huge numbers of open head counts. It's a great time to ask for more from your company, and if they are reluctant to give it, to start distributing applications elsewhere and finding places that will.
The workplace has changed, making it better for the workers. This is extra true for introverted people. Many managers hoped that the manager-strong, extroverted-focused workplace would return the moment the pandemic ended. Instead they're starting to realize the landscape has changed, and this leaves many managers terrified.
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At my place of work, before the pandemic, there was a tendency toward silly meetings and other stuff, that I think was supposed to encourage team working. Bloody waste of time, if you ask me. Obviously there needs to be effective communication between people working in a company, but I think that was happening anyway, just not formally or on paper.
I should say that though working from home might be a more efficient use of my time than the old commute, the effects of the lack of office companionship are noti
Re: Don't give them more ideas... (Score:2)
What I can't get over, is the 40 hours per month per employee, of wasted productivity companies are willing to sacrifice,
That's your time, not the companies.
On the other hand, management that can't measure productivity by any other means than how many hours your butt is warming an office chair might not be the greatest place to work.
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It's time that I'm not available to be On Call or scheduled for meetings to sync up with other time zones.
All my time is effectively company time. Any flexibility I have in how my time is used is an indirect benefit to the company.
Get over it (Score:3, Insightful)
If your job primarily consists of sitting in front of an internet connected computer, what difference does it make if you are sitting at home or are sitting in a soul sucking office? If productivity is dropping, that is not a location problem, but a motivational problem and should be addressed accordingly by management. I was less prodcutive in the office because I was getting constantly interrupted by coworkers who didn't feel like working that day, or people who are reactionary in their job demanding I drop everything to help them at that exact moment.
I find the only people who want to go back to the office are middle management in order to justify their existence. If they can't constantly monitor their employees by looking over their shoulder in the cube farm, what good are they? I don't mind going into the office if needed, but I don't need my home base to be setup there to be productive. I would think 2 days in the office would be perfect, One day at the beginning of the week to get the team on the same page, then the second day to follow up on the results from the week or for miscellanous collaboration.
Remote work is here to stay, if a company can not adapt to this, they will slowly go the way of the dodo. Capable workers will naturally gravitate towards a position that allows the flexibility of remote work.
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You can really tell who the managers are here in the comments. The people who own the real estate are the ones scared shitless. Their big fancy investment suddenly isn't a hot commodity and may lose value. Expect this to become a political issue because the same market who brought them wealth is now taking it away.
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Oh it already is.
Eric Adams (due to be indicted any day now) the foolish mayor of NYC, and Kathy Hochul, NYS Governor, are constantly trying to scream about how they want everyone back in offices. Because restaurants and hotels (yeah right).
It doesn't appear to be working, though. I think there's going to be a political reckoning, because these political figures are PAID by the very corporations they're trying to wrangle and keep in their cities. The real estate moguls and (honestly) mob really want people
Re:Get over it (Score:5, Insightful)
If your job primarily consists of sitting in front of an internet connected computer, what difference does it make if you are sitting at home or are sitting in a soul sucking office?
This is San Francisco. The only reason these people are making anywhere near as much as they are, is because of the location. Take that away, and you could massively cut their salaries. They're probably not thinking about that consequence.
Or to take it a step further, the last time managers started to think that remote work was a realistic thing, they just outsourced the entire department to a cheaper country altogether.
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I know increasingly large numbers of people who are working for SV companies but located elsewhere, and while most have taken a pay cut, it still is more than they could make locally by a very long shot. However, with the massively lower cost of living, they are taking home a LOT more then if they lived in the bay area still.
I bet a lot of people living there would be happy moving elsewhere if they could work remotely and have more takehome in their pocket after expenses. While yes, that theoretically means
Re: Get over it (Score:2)
For companies there are plenty of reasons to stay close even for remote workers.
Law varies by location, so (US centric but likely everywhere) staying in the same state is important. Taxes, insurance, reporting, assorted employment regulations, and more vary by state. Some vary by county and city. Those change extensively with international workers. So even if allowed to be remote, staying in state is a big deal.
Getting equipment is another big deal for tech companies. They usually provide the company comp
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I live near the border of two states. Long before Covid there were people crossing state lines to work. There are already agreements in place between the states on how to ha
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I live near the border of two states. Long before Covid there were people crossing state lines to work. There are already agreements in place between the states on how to handle taxes and all that. It is probably a pain for the accountants, but I don't think it's as necessary as you state to stay in the same state as your employer.
Yes, between those states they've got it worked out. The reciprocal agreements are nice.
It gets complicated real quick, otherwise. They withhold, report, and submit in their home state. People can gain tax liability in other states where they don't live if it was their own choice to work remotely, and if things aren't done right can result in a double tax even though that's potentially avoidable with lots of paperwork. My dad was an accountant, and I've heard plenty of horror stories both on the business s
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If productivity is dropping, that is not a location problem, but a motivational problem and should be addressed accordingly by management.
Actually, what I am finding is a lack of useful tasks. With not commuting and the rest of the usual useless faffing around, I have time on my hands. Sometimes, I actually have to ask for useful things to do. I will probably do that tomorrow. As far as I know, colleagues and managers at work are happy with my performance, so I should not complain.
As far as productivity is concerned, my employer managed steady growth during lockdown, and has acquired new manufacturing premises. There are I think some looming
This! (Score:2)
I keep telling people, this demand to 100% work from home is not practical for a lot of situations. Sure, you would PREFER it if they'd let you save a long, expensive commute to a big city office. Been there, done that. I get it.
But most I.T. work I've seen involves both a lot of time in front of a screen working AND some face to face interactions, or other reasons it's super useful for you to be in the office at just the right time. (Just yesterday, one of our infrastructure guys who works remotely from
Office or commute or private life? (Score:3)
But it's not worth the 1+hour commute one way. Or rather, I do things in those extra hours that I don't want to lose. Be with my wife and kids, go to the shop for fresh groceries, cook healthy dinner.
If my office were around the corner, I wouldn't think about it twice.
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Yeah, with a short commute and pleasant coworkers an office has much to offer, but I wouldn't even consider spending another hour or two of my life commuting every day. I mean, I already spend almost half my waking life *in* the office. No way I'm spending a quarter of what's left driving through heavy traffic for the privilege.
Selling the Commute (Score:4, Insightful)
How valid is any study on the heels of a work-from-home planet, with gas prices where they are?
Here let me answer that.
It's not.
A planet is leading right now in the demand to work from home. For reasons that are so obvious that Greed refuses to see it, which should tell you everything.
Itâ(TM)s the cost (Score:2)
Re:It's the cost (Score:2)
You've hit the nail on the head. Even the 11% increase is not worth the money you spend on those pointless day trips, and the time that no one pays you for. It appears that for most people's an average commute takes anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes. That's 2-3h hours wasted every day, and for no good reason.
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Yeah, I'm definitely starting to come down on the side of work needing to pay me for the commute and bundle it into the 40 hrs at this point. 2+ years working remotely, and it's abundantly clear that there is no valid reason to make me sit in an office cube every day.
I won't be happy to go back but if they pay for transportation and I'm in the office 9-3 I'd tolerate it. No way am I willing to pay for transportation and spend an extra 1.5-2 hrs of my day going back and forth at this point. They are getting
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It appears that for most people's an average commute takes anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes. That's 2-3h hours wasted every day, and for no good reason.
That does not seem like an average commute. That is an agonizingly long commute.
My commute is 3 miles across town. 15 minutes by bicycle or car.
Re: It's the cost (Score:2)
$6 an gal gas will do that! (Score:2)
$6 an gal gas will do that!
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I remember how it was (Score:4, Interesting)
So happy to wake up 2.5 hours before work to look like some employee manual suggests is "appropriate business attire"
So chuffed to spend an hour in traffic.
Getting the shoulder barge from that obnoxious ass from sales in the lift.
Pretending to be happy to see my boss every morning.
Pretending to be cool with the guy that never washes his hands as he made breakfast in the work kitchen.
Getting in on the meetings to be shown data streamed from the cloud while demonstrate "company values" in the presence of people that pretend as well.
Finally having a few minutes to chat with some cool colleagues only to get that manager looking in case the social person is being "disruptive" to "productivity".
Trying to get the work done as some other people get very excited about some effing celebrity or crying their celebrity crush OD'ed
Then when I finally had enough; spend another hour or two until the "time to go home" finally arrives and then have the joy of another hour or so in rush hour traffic.
I remember how working in an office was. I remember it well enough to not miss it and yes there are some positives but for me the negatives outweigh them heavily.
11% pay compared to saving at least 6 hours a week and the cost of commute? IMO it's a no brainer.
The Earth is on Fire (Score:2)
Everyone keeps ignoring the tide shifting (Score:2)
Cities exist, partially, because of the concentration of work. But in today's world, much of that work does not need to be physically located in the city.
Sure, I get that lots of downtown businesses suffer when people work remotely. But much like buggies and whips, times change. More restaurants will pop up near residential areas as demand shifts from downtown to the burbs or out into other states/areas where people want to live. It'll all even out overall.
There's no reason I should spend 1 to 2 hours
Intend vs Actually (Score:2)
Sources? We don't need sources. (Score:2)
"According to a slide deck" has to be a new low. People must be getting tired of hearing "sources say" or "anonymous sources say".
Lower speed limits to save gas? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've read a few stories like this:
"Drive Slow for America
The key to coping with “Putin’s price hike” is better driving habits."
https://www.theatlantic.com/te... [theatlantic.com]
You know what would help America more? 0 MPH because you work from home instead of commuting!
several factors (Score:2)
I used to work in that area and I can see why people would want to work from home.
Unless your grandparents owned a house in SF, you're not likely to live anywhere remotely close to your job, which means spending hours in traffic or on the SP. Working from home is like getting a significant raise and a large part of your day back.
I had already moved out by the time this had started, so only have reports to go by, but I'm told that law enforcement no longer responds to many kinds of theft. I haven't experie
well yea, of course (Score:2)
If I paid $2million for a run down 1000 sq ft shack, I'd want to get my money's worth out of it, too!
Re:How much? (Score:4, Insightful)
How much of this is not wanting to work in an office, and how much of this is not wanting to work in San Francisco? Maybe workers just don't want to have to dodge human excrement laying around on the ground.
I’d even wonder how much of this were people not wanting to suffer traffic. Maybe what we are seeing are people wanting to see better housing options, human oriented cities and less focus on the car to get to work?
While for a long time the car and suburban living has been an integral part of the American dream, I feel for many there are seeing the limitations of that dream.
To enjoy a walkable or cyclable city, along with convenient mass transit to the office, seems to be the new dream. The problem is zoning rules and lobbying are getting in the way of allowing cities to evolve.
Right now tech companies should be asking employees why they don’t want to back the office and work to deal with the causes, rather than the symptoms. I am also curious how geography of these businesses influence employees not wanting to go back to the office. I’d wager offices requiring excessive commute times in traffic are going to be top of that list.
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Hey now, don't bring reasonable, actionable and coherent reasons for the decline of an urban center. Just never visit the city in question and say "hurr-durr feces" because "hur durr democrats" because that's what Fox told you happens there.
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Have you visited, lived or worked in SF or other cities that follow its footsteps?
Government protected tent city squatting, human poop on the sidewalks, tax payer funded "safe" spaces to shoot up heroin.
Some parts better than others. But the democratic initiatives often are not based in common sense and lead to similar degradation.
Re: How much? (Score:2, Flamebait)
SF had a Republican mayor in 1964. He be being causing all of this. sad is still trying to be recovering from the Republican-caused damage. This is what Republicans do everywhere they rule, like SF, Baltimore, and Detroit. I know here in Seattle we all want to die since we had a Republican mayor in 1968. I know my rent is so high because of that Republican Braman clown that said he wants all of my kind to die. That is how Republicans destroy cities. They make everyone want to die so hard. Die so hard.
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No but I lived in Albuquerque for 7 years, including the period where breaking bad was filmed. Of course the circumstances were fictitious but the depiction was mostly accurate from Walt's suburb to the cartel ridden hellhole neighborhoods which make up most of the city. They actually cut pieces here and there to compose novel
Re:How much? (Score:4, Informative)
95 of the 100 poorest counties in the country are Republican controlled. This would be what you're referring to.
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I do find it rather odd that Republicans, who I assume to be the party of wealth, seem to be so terrible at providing prosperity for the citizens.
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I do find it rather odd that Republicans, who I assume to be the party of wealth, seem to be so terrible at providing prosperity for the citizens.
Conservatives the world over have done a great job of convincing people that only they can protect wealth from the parasitical hordes at the gate. Mainly because this is true, they just didn't tell you that the ones they are protecting are the ultra rich and the ones they protect them from are you and me (and I earn well above average in the UK).
Didn't think of yourself as a parasite... well I guess today's lesson is all about humility.
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From my past experience the two are nothing alike. Riding your bike to (and from) work is energizing... as is walking. It might get harder as we grow older, but that movement becomes more important.
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And it really sucks in the rain and the snow.
And in the case of San Fransisco, the shit.
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My experience is the opposite. You arrive sweaty and unfit for work and the ride itself is dangerous.
In many locations riding is dangerous, because the infrastructure is not adapted to anything other than the car. Sidewalks are sometime an after-thought, being nothing more than a grassy verge and as for cycle lanes they are often inexistent or some sorry marking on the street that is not always respected by the motor traffic. Don't get me started with the notion of "stroads [wikipedia.org]" (a term coined by Strong Towns).
Cities were transformed for the car, so transforming them for others identified users is doable, if t
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I just kept my work clothes in the office and showered in the gym or building. Not that bad, although rain was a bit demoralizing before work.
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Ok... but this is San Francisco. A city 7 miles by 7 miles, with most of the population in an area smaller than that. This is a city that has more bicyclists, pedestrians, and bus riders per capita than nearly any other place. The mix of those people very broadly spans economic lines. People walk and ride bikes to the grocery store and everywhere else.
Now, if you commute in, sure. But the city itself is all the things you seem to want. Ok, so the schools might suck for parents, and living with kids in the c
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It's difficult to get a big place in SF. Which makes it harder as kids get older and you want to give them their own room. There is a funny demographic effect. The middle class that cannot afford a 3-4 bedroom condo or townhouse end up leaving SF when their kids are old enough. The upper middle class that can afford it are able to stay. And those without the means to buy a house don't get the choice to leave SF.
You end up with a wealth gap in SF public schools as grades progress. By the time you hit high sc
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Don't forget the shithole that BART has become. I commuted to downtown Oakland from Castro Valley for 10 years on BART, it was bearable then. Now 7 years later, you need to watch for needles, bums, and thugs.
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The BART is worse now, but still better than trying to park in SF. Where your car windows will probably get smashed in by thieves once or twice a year. A lot of people don't even report the thefts and vandalism because it's not like anyone is going to return their property or cover their insurance deductible.
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No...not really.
At least not for me.
I hope I never in my life ever have to share walls with
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For you a detached home with good sound isolation is probably a great solution for you, but at the same time we should probably be encouraging more mixed housing neighbourhoods, so people have choice, especially in place where housing costs are just through the roof.
A mixed tenant building doesn't need to be simply large 12 story high rises and instead of an area of 4 story buildings, mixed in with commerces, so people don't need to go far for their essentials.
At the same time, I think homes should be made
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Higher density dwellings comes generally with lower classes of people that bring in crime.
That is a myth, probably perpetuated by bad city planning.
I live in Canada's second largeest city where we have many 3-4 story apartment buildings and these areas are among the most sought after. Crime isn't an issue and the occupants are overwhelmingly middle-class. The buildings are will kept and are appealing.
Granted, there are areas of low-income, meaning the property owners are often income-limited so they are bar
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Pretty much all of it is not wanting to go into the office.
New York (49.1%), Phoenix (47.9%), Dallas (47.6%), Los Angeles (47%), Washington D.C. (46%), Miami (44%) and Chicago (43.9%) are all in line behind San Francisco for % of people who plan to spend less time working in the office and more time working from home.
The pandemic proved that people can not only work from home effectively, but that productivity actually went up, employee satisfaction went up, people saved money on commute costs, etc.
Other th
Re:How much? (Score:5, Informative)
>Maybe workers just don't want to have to dodge human excrement laying around on the ground.
Is it really that bad? I was in SF a few years ago and don't remember seeing any poop on the ground, even when walking through the Tenderloin which is a neighborhood supposedly famous for that.
The city seemed clean overall, though there were more... how should I say it... "characters" walking around than I've seen in other cities like New York and Chicago.
But poop? Didn't see any. Maybe some trash and such but that's expected in American cities sadly.
Re:How much? (Score:5, Interesting)
I visited last year, and I couldn't believe how bad things were. I graduated from High School in Lima, Peru in the early 90s, and San Francisco scared me in a way that Lima during Sendero Luminoso didn't. Granted, part of that is that I expect better in the U.S. Still, in three days that I visited the city I actually saw two people taking a crap in public. People were laying around under cardboard or in tents all over downtown. At one point, without realizing it, I actually stepped over someone laying on the sidewalk. I thought he was just a pile of trash. I also watched a ridiculously brave McDonald's manager confront two homeless people that had come into the restaurant to brazenly fill their thermoses up with soda.
It wasn't just the city either. The public facilities at Land's End were completely unusable. They had two inches of excrement everywhere. It was literally terrifying.
Perhaps all of this is normal. I don't know.
We had a good time. San Francisco is a cool place, and I was traveling with my family, and I have enough older kids that we are basically a small street gang. I would go again. However, there is no way in the world that I would live there. I certainly wouldn't pay extra to live there. That's just crazy.
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None of that is normal. SF is especially bad but unfortunately the very populous cities that international travelers visit tend to be D strongholds and those are dumps. Get away from the big metro areas the mid-sized towns and cities things get better. Things even get better in the separately incorporated suburbs which tend to be conservative.
Democratic strongholds don't have poverty problems because of the Democratic governments. Those poverty problems already existed. The poor and homeless tend to congregate in cities because those cities provide the support services that they need to stay alive (soup kitchens, homeless shelters, etc.). The problem is not that those areas have proper social safety nets, but rather that the other places don't.
And no, Bay Area suburbs do not tend to be conservative. They tend to be wealthier, but they lean p
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If any of those safety nets were effective; the problem would solve it self. For the most part they fail utterly to break the cycle of dependence and only re-enforce it.
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If any of those safety nets were effective; the problem would solve it self. For the most part they fail utterly to break the cycle of dependence and only re-enforce it.
A large percentage of chronically homeless have significant psychological issues, often resulting from decades of drug abuse. That problem is not as easy to solve as you might think. For many, dependence is the only realistic outcome, unfortunately, because the only realistic alternative is letting them die.
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"The poor and homeless tend to congregate in cities because those cities provide the support services that they need to stay alive (soup kitchens, homeless shelters, etc.). The problem is not that those areas have proper social safety nets, but rather that the other places don't." The poor and homeless congregate in cities where someone earning a middle class income would be homeless and unable to afford to live because there are social programs... when literally any rural church in the country will give someone a meal, a place to stay, and get them a job that pays well enough to afford a home (literally any job in rural america) within a couple weeks? This argument doesn't hold water.
Look at what happens in those areas to drug addicts, schizophrenics, and other people who don't behave in ways that most people would consider normal. Usually, the answer is that they get thrown in jail. Now try again, and be serious about the amount of support that somebody reeking of alcohol and raving unintelligibly about the end of the world is going to get in a rural church.
A large percentage of the chronically homeless have serious psychological problems. Getting them a job that pays well enough to
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Sure. I have three close family members with schizophrenia (mother, uncle, and grandfather) who all broke down in rural IL. All of them ended up in mental health facilities once police had to be involved. It might surprise you but liberals have no monopoly on ability to recognize crazy and respond appropriately.
In the case of my uncle he actually became viol
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"Look at what happens in those areas to drug addicts, schizophrenics, and other people who don't behave in ways that most people would consider normal." Sure. I have three close family members with schizophrenia (mother, uncle, and grandfather) who all broke down in rural IL. All of them ended up in mental health facilities once police had to be involved. It might surprise you but liberals have no monopoly on ability to recognize crazy and respond appropriately.
The problem is that involuntary commitment for mental illness after treatment was found to be a violation of constitutional rights back in the 1970s. So they go in, get cleaned up, and then they can't hold them anymore, because they're stable while they're on their meds. And then they stop taking their meds. And you're back to square one.
So you end up with a lot of those chronic homeless in cities, and you don't want them living out on the streets, so you build shelters, and that attracts more homeless.
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Nonsense unless you are crediting them with the economic activity of companies simply because they put their corporate offices downtown as a status symbol.
"if you want to enjoy yourself you usually are taking the ride into the actual city."
For what I wonder?
I currently live in a suburb of the DFW Metroplex and it is uncommon for anyone to go to Dallas proper for those t
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You need to go visit again, it's much worse than even 10 years ago. I've not only seen poo, I've had the joy of witnessing someone dropping a deuce in broad daylight on a relatively busy sidewalk. It's not knee deep feces everywhere, but finding a pile would be one of the easier items on a scavenger hunt.
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It's not a real thing... but it is a very popular meme from people who desperately want to believe that California is a failed state.
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Homelessness in Cities is a big problem. Where it homeless people gravitate towards cities, because it is better than being homeless in the middle of nowhere. The larger/more successful cities will tend to attract more homeless than a failing city, because these cities actually have more resources to help them. However these cities who are successful also attract successful and wealthy people too, which then makes housing prices much higher, so unfortunately this makes the homeless person stuck, thus not b
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How much of this is not wanting to work in an office, and how much of this is not wanting to work in San Francisco?
SF is weird. People who live or work there REALLY want to be there. It is a big deal to them that they are in SF.
I know many people who live in SF. Some work in SF, some commute down the peninsula. I know several others who live on the peninsula, or across the bay, who commute to SF to work. They all really like it.
It is one of those places that is very polarizing... an "in crowd" thing. Either you get it... or you don't.
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Nice rant, but "they" already are letting us stay remote. My organization has extended it until fall while they survey and downsize their footprint. My wife's company is doing 1 day a week in the office for meetings but also shifting location to a smaller building. I see plenty of remote-only jobs out there to apply for, in almost all tech fields.
If your company isn't doing that, find a new job. We're quickly going to see a big split between companies that are fully remote and those few who are hanging onto
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"If you caused it, government, why are you toying with exit taxes as people flee your uselessness?"
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Giant cities are financially successful because giant, bloated governments make them so
I don't think that is true. Great cities attract talent and enterprise. I think you could say that about classical Athens and Rome. In the UK, London is still a magnet for people wanting to do better for themselves. The city is in my opinion a bloated monster, but I don't think any government is responsible for that. What probably needs to happen is government action to devolve power away from London, and put more power into regional government. Trouble is, once politicians have power, they are not inclined
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I have worked for software developers for most of my career, and one constant I see is that over 80% of the Dev staff are wearing headphones all day long. Vut to block out the noise, and allow them to concentrate on their work. Theses people happily went home 2 years ago, and will fight hard to stay there.
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Funny you say that. One of the companies I worked for tried to ban headphones in the office because managers had "difficulties communicating", read as "disturbing devs all day long". They backtracked on their plans when half of the dev team threatened to hand in their notices.
In other news, looks like my original post is being modded down by middle-level managers. xD