I live in SF and spend a fair amount of time thinking about its poor 5-year economic outlook. It's not great, but I am curious how it compares to other metros?
If I were to move from SF, wanted to live in a metro area, and was uncomfortable living in a very red state - where should I consider? Where is thriving? I have a good amount of friends in Portland, but Portland is adjacent SF in terms of poor economic recovery and it's not especially tech-focused. So, I think there's at least a bit more at play here.
There's a seismic shift occurring with WFH, Starlink, etc. Yes, San Francisco is near the bottom of many post-Covid economic recovery lists, but are there other metros that are on sound financial footing if 30%+ of their populace chooses a more suburban/rural lifestyle?
2. Pre-pandemic, there was barely room to walk on the sidewalks in many parts of NYC, now it is better (presumably as people come in 2x a week, not 5x). Some subways have seats now, but many are still standing-room-only.
3. For the last 8yrs pre-pandemic, I used to go to SF/SV 4x to 5x a year for work/conferences...My last Cali trip (cancelled) was literally April 2020 for NVIDIA GTC...I havent been in Cali since 2020. Most has been replaced with Zoom, some has gone to other cities.
A "booming" NYC is not necessarily a purely positive thing.
SF and NYC used to be fairly comparable as far as cost of living goes but now renting in SF is comparable to a dozen other metros (eg. $3k for a 1 bed, under $4k for a 2 bed) but in NYC it's a now an absurdly expensive outlier eg. $5k+ for a 1 bed in a convenient area in Manhattan or Brooklyn.
Beyond that eating out/going out/uber+taxis all seemed much more expensive in NYC than SF when I visited last month.
NYC is indeed absurdly expensive (and getting worse), but: you're being taken for a ride if someone is trying to rent you a 1BR for $5K.
I live in a convenient (and "cool") area and pay less than a third of that. The only 1BRs that I'm aware of that go for anywhere close to that are "luxury" rentals, which tend to be worse anyways (newer construction means thinner walls, etc.).
You're suggesting paying $1600/mo for your own place is a really good area of NYC is more the norm than paying $5k?
That's simply untrue. Average 1 beds on Zumper for all of Manhattan is $4k. In more central areas downtown it's absolutely going to be more right now. https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/manhattan-ny
And if you rent something that requires a brokers fee then that's another ~2 months of rent you're paying on your initial lease.
I said I live in a "cool" area, not midtown Manhattan. I don't live in Manhattan at all, although I did for over 20 years.
Looking at 1BR rentals in Bushwick and Ridgewood (not my areas, but similarly considered "cool"), the average is between $1800 and $2500. Studios average $1400 and $2100.
Yes, it's possible to rent for cheaper in the outer boroughs hence why I specifically said central and convenient. If something is $1800 it's because it's a dump or a tiny studio. It's not a normal amount rent someone is paying at all for their own place right now.
I don't know what to tell you: I pay about $1600 for my part of a three bedroom, which is two bedrooms to myself (one is my office), a private back yard, a front patio, and a furnished basement. I don't think I got a particularly good deal on it either, from talking to my neighbors and friends. It's not "luxury," but it definitely isn't a dump either -- from seeing other units in the neighborhood, it's probably strictly average.
The rates provided on these kinds of sites don't necessarily reflect the median housing stock in neighborhoods in Brooklyn, which are frequently buildings where the owner lives in one of the units.
I read that whole exchange eager to learn the secret of an affordable one bedroom apartment in New York and the secret is rent part of a place with roommates. I can only chuckle.
I'm talking about what it would cost an individual to live in their own 1 bedroom in a central and convenient area not a shared apartment with roommates.
How was I able to sense that you lived in Bushwick before you stated it? :P . That said, Bushwick only makes sense (to me) if you don't need to commute.
(I live in another North Brooklyn neighborhood, one with much better subway access, including to Manhattan. I agree entirely about Bushwick not being an ideal neighborhood if your commute involves Manhattan.)
What is with the bad economic outlook talk? The job market is amazing. Business revenue is benefiting from high prices.
A lot of outdated commercial real estate in SF needs to be converted to public housing but that doesn't mean the economy is bad. I think there is a narrative from NIMBY's who think it's bad that housing is going to be created.
Personal politics, IMO, is not a good reason to avoid living in certain areas. I'm a liberal-leaning moderate but many of my favorite people (friends and family) are conservative, and many of my hobbies tend to be populated mainly by the conservative demographic. You'll always find people here and there who won't give you the time of day if you're not on Team Blue or Team Red, but my take on it is, if I can't make friends with people who hold beliefs different from my own, then maybe I'm the asshole.
That said, if it really matters that much to you, you'll find plenty of swing states with mid-sized cities in the Midwest. Upsides are low cost of living, 20 minutes from the center of the city to cornfields. Downsides are you can't go too far north if you don't like cold winters.
No area is thriving right now thanks to the recession, but it sounds like you are aiming for remote work anyway, so why does that matter? If I were in your shoes, I would pick a place that has the geography, climate, and cost of living I am looking for and not worry so much about the politics and economic prospects of the area.
The thing is that personal politics don't end up being a personal thing because they result in real policies that guide real material outcomes.
At this point saying one is uninterested in living in a red state could be about party politics, but it also could just as much about not being inclined to subject onesself to starkly higher risks of being shot and killed (the outcome of someone's personal politics).
> In reality, the region the Big Apple comprises most of is far and away the safest part of the U.S. mainland when it comes to gun violence, while the regions Florida and Texas belong to have per capita firearm death rates (homicides and suicides) three to four times higher than New York’s. On a regional basis it’s the southern swath of the country — in cities and rural areas alike — where the rate of deadly gun violence is most acute, regions where Republicans have dominated state governments for decades.
Avoiding red states to avoid being shot would be extremely dumb for many reasons.
1. Cities and neighborhoods in any state can be safe, even in the states with the most shootings
2. If you have enough money to choose to live in another state, you're probably not going to be living in an extremely poor area that is the most likely to be beset with gun violence
3. Other commonplace things are much more likely to kill you than being shot (cars, for example).
Mass shootings aren't correlated with poverty. Guns are expensive.
Most mass shooters are disaffected folks in the "middle class" who have money to acquire weapons (or access to weapons via relatives) and time to spend immersing themselves in online right-wing cesspits.
Actual poor people are too busy trying to grind and survive.
Most of those cities on the less than 100k list have Dems in government as well, but imo this isn't a Dem-GOP issue and more of a "urban" versus "rural" issue - specifically these are all cities that have been left behind due to an oversized population of minorities (eg. Anchorage+Fairbanks for Native Americans, Memphis+Pine Bluffs+Monroe+Alexandria+Little Rock for African Americans, ABQ+Lubbock for Latino Americans) and severely deindustrialized (eg. Memphis, ABQ, Lubbock, Little Rock, Danville) due to bipartisan support of globalization in the 1990s and the collapse of the energy sector in the 1990s-2000s
Mass shootings are technically any that have a victim count over a certain number and the vast majority of those are committed by criminals with cheap weapons.
Guns are not expensive, they're way cheaper than a car. The Hipoint C9 retails new for $199. If you can afford a mobile phone (read: almost everyone in the USA) you can afford multiple guns.
School shooters (let's be precise, as that is what people are talking about when talking about mass shootings, not gang violence or other stuff) want to look cool, and ARs are cool looking and everyone markets them up on both sides.
Which is why my simple modification to solve it all is mandate that all firearms be hot pink with a hello kitty logo.
It might be the outcome of racist policies or general racist attitudes but they are statistically correct.
There is a high correlation between between ethnic or racial makeup of a certain area and crime and gun violence. I’m not sure simply handwaving this by calling everyone who points that out a ‘racist’ is the most productive attitude…
Generally the same applies to poverty though which is probably a more direct indicator than race.
We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and for using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of what you're for or against.
Some Red States are an absolute mess. Some of their stats resemble third world countries.
Their education systems are shoddy. Their drinking water systems are dangerous to health. Taxes are shameful: low taxes for the wealthy but high sales taxes which hurt the poor the most.
Not a fan of the GOP and I have actively worked with the DNC, but using HDI (which is the goto metric for comparing development across regions), most US states Red and Blue are roughly comparable to other western European peers.
The states that do lag significantly (MS+WV) are comparable to Portugal/Poland/Greece on developmental metrics, but they only represent ~1% of the entire American population and are anomalies due to historical social economic factors (that said, this should not mean that we should give up on them - we should in fact double down and invest in upgrading social infrastructure in laggard states).
That said, every single American state and territory fall strictly in the "Very Highly Developed" category from a development standpoint and calling them "3rd world" is only minimizing the actual suffering that exists in less developed countries as well as orientalizing actual poverty upliftment in former "3rd world regions" like China, India, Turkey, Mexico, ASEAN, the Warsaw Bloc, the Balkans, Southern Europe, South America, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.
I'd recommend comparing at the region level instead of by state government c. 2010-2023.
Different regions of the US became developed/first world at different times. The Mid-Atlantic and New England for example largely industrialized by the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Midwest by the 1930s, the Western US and Southwest by the 1950s, and the Southern States, Appalachia, and Puerto Rico by the 1980s-90s (thank you LBJ for your War against Poverty in the 60s).
A better comparison would be blue and red states within the same region in the US - for example, Blue Minnesota versus Red Wisconsin or Red Florida and Blue Virginia or Red New Hampshire and Blur Vermont.
The same issue exists within the EU as well btw - this is why Sweden can have some of the best developmental indicators in the world while Bulgaria can have developmental indicators comparable to developed regions of China and India.
> Some of their stats resemble third world countries.
Have you walked through the TL?
Comparing California and Texas can be interesting because the states are both dominated by a single party, so you see how both ideologies can go wrong. With Texas being like a developing country, I'm reminded of the winter power outage. They love free markets. It's not worth it to harden the electric grid for an event that rare that only lasts a few days. Picking on California, its K-12 education is in the bottom quartile.
I live in the SFBA and have far worse uptime and far higher prices than Texas. The smugness from Californians wrt/grid does not make any sense to me. I would trade for Texas electrical grid performance in less than a heartbeat.
There was a five hour long outage on Monday while the weather was perfectly lovely. And more than a week cumulative outage in March when the weather was merely a little wet.
Sorry, I didn't really mean to direct the comment at yours, but rather intended to build upon it. I meet a lot of folks around here who point to the Texas grid failure and snicker about how much better California is at regulating the grid. Yet I routinely put up with outages longer than Austin's under less-severe conditions.
Most of the SF Bay Area gets its power from PG&E, which is an investor-owned utility. Palo Alto and Santa Clara are exceptions; they have municipal power companies.
Most of the gun deaths in red states are suicides. So maybe the states are just very depressing places to live in? Like Wyoming outside of Jackson Hole, is a tough place to l is so has the nation’s highest suicide rate.
Native Texan living in the city. There has been only one time in my life I was near gun violence and it was 1/2 mile away. That didn't make me hate guns, it just made me consider concealed carrying again. Zero people I know have been near shootings or are worried about shootings, it's a nonissue in the real world and only seems scary because of news coverage.
This is such a propaganda piece. NYC has a per capita murder rate of 5.5 according to its latest report. There were 40 states with a lower murder rate [1]. The highest murder rates are all in blue cities [2]
Except we're not talking about overall murder rate, but rather about violence (both individual and systemic) specifically targeted at gender, sexual, and racial minorities.
What percentage of gays and minorities were shot in Provo or Lincoln compared to cities like San Francisco and Chicago? I am assuming you have statistics to back your statements.
The highest gun violence rates are in heavily blue cities like Detroit, St. Louis, Memphis and Baltimore.
Shooting isn't the only form of repression. It's not even the most prominent or insidious form. There's a big difference between murder and a hate crime.
Cop violence isn't counted in murder stats, by the way, because it's "lawful" and they're effectively above the law.
Edit: Actually I checked 2017-2020 and every year had way more hate crimes than Texas. CA has ~33% more population, but had triple the hate crimes. In 2021 CA somehow dropped from thousand+ hate crimes to like 40, so I'm guessing something is up with the data there.
> In 2020 California had more hate crime than Texas
Well there were significantly more cases of rape reported in Sweden than in most African or South Asian countries (and I mean up to 40 times more or so…). Something similar might be at play here.
I understand what you’re getting at but 94% of precincts in Texas reported these stats willingly and 97% in California, so I don’t think it’s underreporting.
Is the definition of what constitutes a ‘hate crime’ the same in Texas and California? (Probably one of the main reasons which explain the situation in Sweden)
Are people in Texas just as willing to report it as in California?
etc.
I’m not saying that hate crime is necessarily more prevalent in Texas. I have no clue. It just seems like a weird comparison to make when it’s not that clear you’re not comparing oranges to apples..
I mean both stats are from the FBI's database and they use all of this data to track hate crimes, so it's as close to apples and apples as you will get.
I find it more weird that you're immediately doubting the data because it goes against pre conceived notions.
Also from the website itself the definition is:
"The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program defines hate crime as a committed criminal offense which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias(es) against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity."
Looking at the data again personally I find it interesting that there was no anti white crime reported in CA but it was the third most reported hate crime in Texas
I don’t think so no. I’m curious what you think is a better source of data than the FBI who has a standardize definition of hate crime and collects it from all 50 states?
I’m not sure how much more comparable you can get, and if we go along your logic then the original point of this thread, which is that some people feel threatened in red states (apparently) because of their sexuality or similar, then there is no data that would ever validate or go against that mentality, since the data from each state by the federal bureau is not comparable right?
Then if we start going with anecdotes it gets nowhere because I’ve lived in both Texas and California and have traveled to many blue and red states and have seen way more discrimination/racism in blue states. But that’s a personal anecdote
if there are no reports of “ anti white crime ” in California however it’s not uncommon in Texas is it more likely that white people are never the target of hate crimes in California or that is’s under reported there (or over reported in Texas)?
> Florida and Texas belong to have per capita firearm death rates (homicides and suicides) three to four times higher
It makes no sense to put suicides in the same bucket as homicides, please stop trying to manipulate the discussion this way. There are more gun deaths from suicide than murder and accidents put together, so it massively skews the numbers.
Although many of the highest homicide states are in the South, such as Mississippi and Alabama, many are not, such as New Mexico and Illinois.
Region-wise, the contention "the region the Big Apple comprises most of is far and away the safest part of the U.S. mainland when it comes to gun violence" is not supported by the data. Taking the latest FBA violent crimes (2016 is the latest I could find online broken down by Metropolitan Statistical Area) homicide rates per 100,000 inhabitants:
The safest MSAs in America, tied with zero homicides in 2016, are:
Albany, OR M.S.A.
Bangor, ME M.S.A.
Casper, WY M.S.A.
Columbus, IN M.S.A.
Dalton, GA M.S.A.
Danville, IL M.S.A.
Iowa City, IA M.S.A.
Lewiston-Auburn, ME M.S.A.
Missoula, MT M.S.A.
Ocean City, NJ M.S.A.
Oshkosh-Neenah, WI M.S.A.
Rochester, MN M.S.A.
St. George, UT M.S.A.
These are all relatively small, here are some larger MSAs with lower homicide rates than New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA M.S.A.:
Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH M.S.A.
Gainesville, FL M.S.A.
Midland, TX M.S.A.
Santa Fe, NM M.S.A.
Urban Honolulu, HI M.S.A.
Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR M.S.A
College Station-Bryan, TX M.S.A.
Fargo, ND-MN M.S.A.
Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI M.S.A.
Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH M.S.A.
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA M.S.A.
El Paso, TX M.S.A.
Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island, FL M.S.A.
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA M.S.A.
San Diego-Carlsbad, CA M.S.A.
Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, FL M.S.A.
Thus the contention of "the Big Apple comprises most of is far and away the safest part of the U.S. mainland when it comes to gun violence" does not appear supported by the data.
(EDIT: The most violent top 20 MSAs in the USA belie the notion of homicidal violence as being associated with a particular political party, on either side; it is a pan-American issue: Guayama, Puerto Rico M.S.A.
San Juan-Carolina-Caguas, Puerto Rico M.S.A.
Ponce, Puerto Rico M.S.A.
Fairbanks, AK M.S.A.
Detroit-Dearborn-Livonia, MI M.D.
New Orleans-Metairie, LA M.S.A.
Memphis, TN-MS-AR M.S.A.
Mayaguez, Puerto Rico M.S.A.
Mobile, AL M.S.A.
Philadelphia, PA M.D.
Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD M.S.A.
Savannah, GA M.S.A.
Auburn-Opelika, AL M.S.A
Flint, MI M.S.A.
Hammond, LA M.S.A.
Salinas, CA M.S.A.
Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights, IL M.D.
Albany, GA M.S.A.
Montgomery, AL M.S.A.
Shreveport-Bossier City, LA M.S.A.)
If you're a person who anticipates ever needing reproductive health care, it's not a matter of Team Blue versus Team Red. It's not limited to elective abortion either.
> Personal politics, IMO, is not a good reason to avoid living in certain areas
State laws have benefited me or the people I care about in the following ways:
-my wife had 8 more weeks of parental leave
-16 of my wife’s parental leave weeks were paid leave from the state’s family leave act
-state laws provide paid family and medical leave in case I should need it in the future
-my wife and daughter have an easy time finding access to all women’s healthcare, and will not have to worry about their body and well being being sacrificed during pregnancy
-minimum wage laws require a much higher minimum exempt salary, and overtime laws prevent having to work all day without commensurate pay
-non compete bans ensure we have a more balanced playing field against employers
-free breakfast and lunch in school for all kids
I cannot list them all, and it is not all rainbows and sunshine, but claiming that the way a state is managed has little effect on one’s life is nonsense.
There are also LGBTQ rights. What if your child ends up coming out to you? Just because you're not part of it is not a valid reason. It's like saying you don't care about racism because you don't personally experience it even though you don't belong to a minority yourself.
I think the default is not to care about anything that doesn't affect you personally. I think it's the wrong approach to think folks should care because it's so obvious to you that they should. It's far more effective to explain why someone should care from their point of you than hand-waving 'everyone should care about racism because racism bad'
>Personal politics, IMO, is not a good reason to avoid living in certain areas. I'm a liberal-leaning moderate but many of my favorite people (friends and family) are conservative, and many of my hobbies tend to be populated mainly by the conservative demographic.
This is a comment that originates in privilege. The concern for many people is not simply that they would have to be friends with conservative people. The concern is that the government and the local community will be hostile to them. This is true for a variety of targeted groups including LGBT+ people, ethnic minorities, or even just women. For example, it is objectively riskier to be pregnant in places like Kansas City because local abortion laws rule out certain medical procedures that could save the mother's life[1]. That isn't something a woman in a blue state needs to worry about.
> …hostile to them. This is true for a variety of targeted groups including LGBT+ people, ethnic minorities, or even just women
I suppose that’s a personal design and a trade off that you and others need to make.
I live in a “red state” and am described by several of the groups you mention and don’t feel the government nor community is hostile to me. I think it’s hard to understand beforehand what is hostile and how much hostility is worth peace of mind, prosperity, etc. That being said, I think it’s possible that everywhere has some unpleasant aspects and I wish that it wasn’t a “pick your poison” situation of having to choose between $5k/month rent and piles of human poo and not having to travel out of state for an abortion.
>I suppose that’s a personal design and a trade off that you and others need to make.
And that was effectively my point. The comment I replied to stated their opinion that it is universally bad to make this decision on a personal level. My counter did not say it was universally bad for people who belong to any of those groups to live in a red state. I said many people in those groups would feel that the local government and community are hostile to them. That isn't disproven when some members of those groups, such as yourself, don't feel the same way.
OP was applying how they feel to everyone likely because they don't need to worry about any of these concerns. I was reminding everyone that many people don't feel like they have the choice to ignore politics. And yes, if we want to be pedantic everyone technically does have that choice. We have the personal freedom to live our lives as the "this is fine" dog if we want (not saying that is you in this instance, I'm just speaking generally).
My point is that likely GP and others are aware of these concerns and make their decision knowing the consequences, not that they are oblivious due to privilege.
I was trying to communicate that we should assume best intentions and not that someone is stupid and “privileged.” I put privileged in quotes not because it doesn’t exist, it does, but assuming someone’s privilege is not a good idea and few know others well enough to do so.
>My point is that likely GP and others are aware of these concerns
I don't think OP was aware. They did not say that letting politics influence where they live was a bad decision for them personally. They said they believed it was a bad decision. There was no qualifier. They were stating it universally.
They are also elsewhere in this thread not understanding why a trans person would have trouble making friends with conservative people. I don't think this person deserves the benefit of the doubt you are giving them.
I also didn't call OP "stupid" and "privileged" is not an insult.
"Privileged" is an insult (in popular culture) and if you claim otherwise you are being disingenuous or you are very badly out of touch. (Or you're saying "well I didn't mean it to be an insult" and yeah sure you're very smart.)
is there really no middle ground (not an American)? What about cities like Seattle or Boston (just guessing here)? For me, the thought feels a bit like just going back in time. I mean there are still issues everywhere but this is so drastic and feels like you're back to constantly fighting for really basic rights.
This comment also reads a bit like it's ok for you if you don't personally feel hostility, so this might only be true for your personal situation. I don't think it's really that much of a personal question because different groups feel different amounts of hostility. Will you just ignore them?
> is there really no middle ground (not an American)? What about cities like Seattle or Boston (just guessing here)? For me, the thought feels a bit like just going back in time. I mean there are still issues everywhere but this is so drastic and feels like you're back to constantly fighting for really basic rights.
Keeping the political and social narratives focused on fights for basic rights ensures that no one passes laws that impact the ruling class.
Kinda like the Trump era tax cut, or how minimum wage hasn't changed. Meanwhile all everyone is talking about is guns and abortion.
> places like Kansas City because local abortion laws rule out certain medical procedures that could save the mother's life
What?
The headline of the article you linked literally says:
> Missouri, Kansas hospitals that denied emergency abortion broke the law
Also from the article you linked:
> But federal law, which requires doctors to treat patients in emergency situations, trumps those state laws
> In Kansas, when Farmer visited the hospital, abortions were still legal up to 22 weeks. It’s unclear why University of Kansas Health refused to offer Farmer one.
It's clear that the hospitals in these cases were the ones breaking the law by refusing to treat these women in need of emergency care.
What federal investigators say after the fact doesn't change what happened in the moment. The hospital refused the treatment during a medical emergency. The article also quotes a hospital spokesperson who sticks by their behavior suggesting they will do this again in the future.
At the very least, doctors need to think about these issue during medical emergencies in many red states in ways that they don't have to in blue states. I personally don't want my doctor to have to consult legal counsel before giving me the treatment the doctor knows I need.
It's now difficult in many states for a doctor to know ahead of time if actions they take for the health of the mother which risk terminating a pregnancy will be determined criminal in a court of law. And in some states, literally any relative of a fetus has standing in civil court to sue a doctor if the doctor's actions result in termination of a pregnancy, with huge minimum payouts for successful litigation. Idaho for example [0].
When faced with competing laws, doctors without law degrees are not going to sort things out as efficiently when compared to lawyers in a 10 year court battle.
This sounds like a comment about privilege that originates in privilege.
The person just expressed his or her opinion, and bandying words like "privilege" shuts down communication by route of shaming someone.
Not everyone is LGBT+, ethnic minority.
If someone was to offer someone $20 million per year to do a job in Kansas, I guess many people would turn it down to make a point, but no reason to crap over someone who wants to make that $20 million.
The fact of the matter is that in most red states, there are blue cities.
Texas - Austin (Travis County) - 72.8% voted for Joe Biden
Georgia - Atlanta (Fulton County) - 72.6% voted for Joe Biden
Arizona - Phoenix (Maricopa County) - 50.3% voted for Joe Biden
North Carolina - Charlotte (Mecklenburg County) - 67.5% voted for Joe Biden
Tennessee - Nashville (Davidson County) - 61.7% voted for Joe Biden
Florida - Miami (Miami-Dade County) - 53.3% voted for Joe Biden
Ohio - Cleveland (Cuyahoga County) - 68.1% voted for Joe Biden
Indiana - Indianapolis (Marion County) - 60.2% voted for Joe Biden
Missouri - Kansas City (Jackson County) - 60.7% voted for Joe Biden
Utah - Salt Lake City (Salt Lake County) - 62.9% voted for Joe Biden
And remember, geographically, California is MAJORLY red. Look at the last election map. What happens if someone moves there. Sure, you get abortion in California, but your neighbors are going to still be hard-core MAGA Republicans.
I must say, it is extremely disheartening when people throw around words like "privilege" just as an easy way to shut down communication by shame. I know you'll most likely deny it, what else can you do, but it is what it is. So I'd appreciate it if people would argue their case without these types of coded words. Just my opinion, don't tell me I'm privileged or misogynist or transphobic or fat-shaming or the million other words designed to immediately shut down a conversation by name-calling. I mean, I know that's the game these days - continual virtue signalling, de-platforming, gotchas for showing the world how virtuous one is and tallying up one's "I'm good" checkmarks. And if you say you aren't or that isn't the purpose...right, ok, sure. If you say so. Whatever you say. I believe you. Right.
can you elaborate why you think the comment about privilege is wrong, rather than emphasizing that you don't like that the word was used?
> Not everyone is LGBT+, ethnic minority
yes, but some are, and ignoring concerns which apply to them because you're not personally affected by the concerns is, well, privileged - you literally have the privilege of not having to worry about right-wingers driving a car into you only because you're the wrong ethnicity or nationality, like one just did in Texas
if you feel shame as a result of this, look inward and ask why, because nobody here is shaming you for simply being privileged
The assumption that people from the LGBT+ community must be of certain political beliefs is in itself prejudice.
People don't have to do what anyone believes is best for them. They don't need anyone pressuring them to behave a certain way. They don't need that from society, or anybody. What they wear is their's to choose. What they spend time on is their own. They can do whatever and be whoever and nobody else is in any way an authority of what is or isn't good for anyone other than themselves.
Edit: I changed single person wording to reflect the actual purpose of the message.
> The assumption that people from the LGBT+ community must be of certain political beliefs is in itself prejudice.
this is an assumption you made, if anybody did, as I did not
> People don't have to do what you believe is best for them.
I didn't claim otherwise here, either
you seem extremely confused at what I said, so please re-read it, because I literally didn't mention political beliefs or forcing people to accept what's best for them at all
perhaps you're upset that such people are choosing for themselves to avoid right-wing hate, and you don't like their reasoning (they don't want to be restricted / harassed / threatened / murdered by right-wingers) ?
we can't be surprised there, given said right-wingers don't care about politics when they're mowing people down with a range rover on a sidewalk, or in a shopping mall with a gun, just for looking different than them
BTW, you never explained why you felt the comment about privilege was wrong.
My comment wasn't really meant for you. It wasn't a criticism of you. It was a message indicating that everyone should be free to make their own decisions and shouldn't feel pressured based on how anyone else perceives them. Perhaps it was poorly worded.
You however, tossed in a "are you mad?" I won't engage with you further.
In the future, to avoid such misunderstandings, it would be best if post replies were replies to posts.
> You however, tossed in a "are you mad?" I won't engage with you further.
Not sure what imaginary "are you mad?" you're referring to, but nobody can force you to respond to the actual points in the posts you reply to, so go ahead and don't.
>I literally didn't mention political beliefs or forcing people to accept what's best for them at all
To him and to me, you didn't literally say it, but you implied it. You don't have to say something explicitly to have people know what you meant. Certainly Donald Trump didn't explicitly say for people to attempt an insurrection, but every one of those cretins knew exactly what he was saying.
>perhaps you're upset that such people are choosing for themselves to avoid right-wing hate, and you don't like their reasoning (they don't want to be restricted / harassed / threatened / murdered by right-wingers) ?
On the other hand, the poster you are replying to did not say nor imply anything of the sort of thing that you are saying.
>we can't be surprised there, given said right-wingers don't care about politics when they're mowing people down with a range rover on a sidewalk, or in a shopping mall with a gun, just for looking different than them
You are using emotionally laden wording here, rather than just having a healthy dialogue where you disagree.
>BTW, you never explained why you felt the comment about privilege was wrong.
Because the person you responded to above didn't use the word privilege. I did in another comment, which I just explained in my response to you on the other thread. I just logged back on right now and answered your other statement to me.
If you are going to respond, perhaps respond to only the other one as it is difficult to have two separate conversations happening at the same time.
Because "privilege" is a code word and a slur on those who do not agree, and a way to try to shut down rational conversation. Words can have more than one meaning, they can be nuanced, and they can mean something else entirely to the "in-crowd."
>like one just did in Texas
This could have happened in any state, including New York City or San Francisco or Seatle or any other liberal city and you know it. You are arguing unfairly.
>if you feel shame as a result of this, look inward and ask why, because nobody here is shaming you for simply being privileged
I didn't say that I felt that way. This is yet again another way that you are using ad hominem attacks by saying that I feel shame.
I'm sorry that you feel that you have to try to use shame to shut down dialogue.
And you seem to indicate that I am privileged. How do you know I am not a black lesbian trans woman? You have no idea.
All I am asking of you is to have a dialogue without using loaded language.
.
As it says in wikipedia:
*Loaded Language:*
"Loaded language (also known as loaded terms, strong emotive language, high-inference language and language-persuasive techniques) is rhetoric used to influence an audience by using words and phrases with strong connotations. This type of language is very often made vague to more effectively invoke an emotional response and/or exploit stereotypes. Loaded words and phrases have significant emotional implications and involve strongly positive or negative reactions beyond their literal meaning."
And read again the last sentence.
*Ad hominem attacks*
Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself. This avoids genuine debate by creating a diversion to some irrelevant but often highly charged issue.
Dog whistle language
In politics, a dog whistle is the use of coded or suggestive language in political messaging to garner support from a particular group without provoking opposition. The concept is named after ultrasonic dog whistles, which are audible to dogs but not humans. Dog whistles use language that appears normal to the majority but communicates specific things to intended audiences.
Choosing broadly appealing words such as "family values", which has extra resonance for Christians, while avoiding overt Christian moralizing that might be a turn-off for non-Christian voters. Same with many words on the left.
Code words
A code word is a word or a phrase designed to convey a predetermined meaning to an audience who know the phrase, while remaining inconspicuous to the uninitiated.
.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you are not familiar with these terms, but now that you are, maybe you will use discussions to the fairness of both sides of the discussion.
And to repeat, I'm not really taking sides in the actual argument. I'm saying that your language usage is unfair, both to the original person you responded to, and to me in response to my last comment.
If you have more to say to me, I'd appreciate it if you didn't use the automatic words of things like "privilege," "white supremacy," "transphobic," "toxic masculinity," "patriarchy," and all those types of language.
But it is a free world, we have free speech, you can do as you wish. I'm just asking this as one rational person to hopefully another.
> "privilege" is a code word and a slur on those who do not agree, and a way to try to shut down rational conversation.
I'm not convinced this is the case, or that it is indeed "loaded language" as claimed, as the only evidence behind such claims is you, a random person on the internet, claiming them
in fact, it's beginning to seem like maybe you don't know what privilege is at all. Perhaps you could illustrate that you do, and get back on topic at the same time, by explaining the privilege shown by the post at the beginning of this thread (rather than repeatedly trying to shut down rational conversation with your tone policing)?
Conservative hobbies are like hunting, fishing, NASCAR, watching football, going to church, a lot of that is regional. A conservative in Saudi Arabia is going to have different hobbies compared to one in Utah.
Yours is a naiive position positioning itself as enlightened
Firearms are worthless without organization and there is no actual revolutionary force in America even at the seed stage that is approximating anything near even Taliban levels of insurgent capabilities.
Your 2A “movement” has neither the coherent holistic political philosophy nor the competent leadership needed to actually create a viable social structure
So no, you’re cosplaying as a hollow copy of the Taliban with none of the threat, risk or even dedication to a real cause.
It is so weird how you guys belittle those that appreciate 2A as though it's not useful until we have "Taliban-levels of capability and organization" but if we did, you'd immediately cry "insurgency! This is too dangerous for our democracy!"
There's no winning with you people. That's why the 2A movement is progressing finally. You're impossible to please.
Oregon and Washington — both blue states — are examples of other states that have begun to lean more heavily into restricting gun rights (whether you agree or disagree with the motivation & justification).
So, agreed, it’s accurate to say that there are examples of different states imposing legislation that restricts some sets of freedoms depending on the state’s political leaning.
>>California’s gun control laws suppress the rights of many people
Seriously?
I have a relative who lives in CA and bought a pair of AR-15s a few years ago, just because...
I've never seen any serious gun proposal that would actually infringe on any actual right. They are all about ensuring that background checks apply to all sales, waiting periods, red flags, etc.
People seem to forget that allowing any mentally ill incompetent full and immediate access to the highest caliber and rate-of-fire weapons at any time is the exact opposite of "a well regulated militia" (citing the exact words of the Second Amendment which grants that right).
Please cite some actual legislation entered for consideration (not right wing "They're coming for our guns" rhetoric) that would actually restrict that right for any sane, stable, and responsible citizen. This is not a rhetorical question, I would like to know if there is any actual such legislation proposed.
And no, I don't consider restricting weapons above certain levels of high power, high caliber, high magazine capacity, high rate-of-fire, etc. to be illegitimate. I actually think it should be a sliding scale of qualifications according to the above criteria, e.g., kid's 22 requires a basic safety course and you're good to go, but semi-auto high-power require solid marksmanship skills, combat training, proof of mental stability from licensed psych, insurance, etc., and all qualifications mean you can be called up for militia service at any time.
So, seriously, under "as part of a well regulated militia", what actual proposed legislation in any state would actually restrict such a right?
There was just a vote in SCOTUS to attempt to put an end to NY and CA's last-ditch attempts to deprive people of obtaining CCW permits without ridiculous requirements and mind boggling wait times.
Also, yes, while you may be able to get ARs, you're subject to dumb arbitrary restrictions[1] on what you can put on that AR.
And finally, CA and NY are doing their best to ban body armor. That makes me laugh, because now you can't even own methods of self-defense that aren't meant to injure anyone.
I consider CA and NY foreign nations at this point[2] (among a few others). It seems they do whatever they can to keep the common man down. They're good at one thing though: making it easy to "cheat" your reproductive system, and evade the responsibility of parenting while maintaining your rabid degeneracy as much as you want. I'm not even religious, and I find the rise in abortion disturbing. Although I guess the demographic that tend to get abortions will just be unbreeding themselves out of plurality, by definition.
[2] Should not be construed as me implying that red states are great. They're simply the lesser of two evils. I at least feel comfortable in red, although there are many things I disagree with.
>>deprive people of obtaining CCW permits without ridiculous requirements and mind boggling wait times.
Again, in the context of A WELL REGULATED MILITIA, what is the problem with qualifications and a wait time? (yes, if they are actually egregious, it can be an effective ban).
Beyond that, what is so mandatory about concealed carry? It is the right to bear arms -in a well-regulated context- not the right of any mentally-ill person to sneak arms into any place at any time.
The well-regulated militia part is an example of why the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, not the sole reason for its existence. Also, well-regulated in the context of the time of its passing was "well-equipped and organized." Not our current usage of the word, which means "added layers of bureaucracy and restriction." It makes zero sense to have a militia capable of maintaining a free state that's entirely at the behest of the state it's trying to keep free. For the same reason we laugh at internal investigations: "we launched an internal investigation, and found we did nothing wrong." Otherwise, it's just a second military. Which wasn't the point of it.
It's been ruled this way in the courts, and it's also just kind of obvious if you're reading it with no anti-individual prejudice/bias.
The definition of a militia is a body of non-professional (ordinary citizen) soldiers not part of the regular army, who stand ready to be called up in an emergency.
Notice the being called up part - the militia is to be SERVING IN and to be UNDER THE COMMAND of the ordinary military hierarchy.
A militia is NOT as you are implying, some kind of batch of citizens ready to raise an insurrection to fight against the army. That is the exact opposite of "being necessary to the security of a free State".
While I'm not for bureaucracy, even the Army has qualification standards of who can join. While militia standards should be lower, we cannot argue that they should be zero, enshrining some "right" for any mentally-incompetent and/or skilled-incompetent person to buy any armament and carry it in any situation.
If you are a sane, competent, and responsible citizen, no one is even proposing a law infringing your right.
(and FTR, I used to argue a "gun control is using two hands" approach. But accumulation of facts and a bit of thinking has changed my mind.)
This country recognizes state-affiliated militias, and independent militias, both in law and court precedent. The state-affiliated militia would effectively be the national guard in modern times. That is not what I am talking about. Nor is it explicitly the kind mentioned in the 2A, which was clearly intentional.
The fall of nearly all great nations of this magnitude in history have been due to internal corruption and decay of the institutions. You don't protect against that with state-affiliated paramilitary organizations. You end up being the one protecting the decayed institutions and corruption. And if you refuse, and join a group of people trying to fight against it, then what? Oh interesting, an independent militia.
Your side's arguments really make the founders sound like idiots. They were not. They considered all of this. And they made a pretty simple and clear statement about it: it's a right of the people, to keep and bear arms. And it shall not be infringed.
If you don't like it, then amend the Constitution. That's how this place was supposed to work. But I guess society has decided we can forgo that step entirely.
"all 50 states have some provision in their state law, whether it's their state constitution or their state statutes, that prohibits private militia, private paramilitary activity. " [0]
"In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled in a major gun rights case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, that citizens had a right to own a firearm for purposes other than being in a militia, namely for self-defense. The ruling affirmed the right of states to restrict militia-like activity." [1]
So, it is pretty much decided that independent militias, unaccountable to the state(s), can be illegal under the constitution, and are in fact illegal in all 50 states.
So, either the founders were either not actually interested in unregulated militias (hint: they did say "well regulated", not "unregulated, independent"), or SCOTUS has gotten it wrong — very possible, but it is very unlikely that a different SCOTUS would help, as this is the most right-wing SCOTUS in a century and it still upheld outlawing independent militias.
And again, there is nothing that says that independent militias would not, or could not have qualification standards. In fact, they'd be idiots not to.
Again, I do not see any right to buy arms & ammo as easily as a bunch of bananas, or that the right is enshrined for insane, incompetent, or irresponsible people. Being required to pass a background check, not have demonstrated inability to control your own violence, and demonstrate basic safety and skill with firearms is not infringement.
I live in Massachusetts, with some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country. It is a minor inconvenience, certainly nothing resembling infringement. We need to attend a 2-3 hour safety session and iirc get the cert signed off by the Chief Of Police in the town[2].
The results are clear [3]. While the nation has hundreds of mass shootings every year, there have been only 2 in MA in this century (the only one in the last two decades being in the Boston Marathon Bombing, an international terrorist act), and only 4 in the last 33 years.
Yet, if I want to, I can go get qualified and get a firearm next week.
You can have a private militia, so long as you don't take your operations to the public realm. And if it gets to the point where your militia is useful, then I don't think that law matters anyways.
Also, I still find SCOTUS too milquetoast to represent me. They still ruled in favor of permitting, which is blatantly unconstitutional, and to argue otherwise is totally disingenuous.
I don't think you're worth my time, nor am I yours.
>>You can have a private militia, so long as you don't take your operations to the public realm. And if it gets to the point where your militia is useful, then I don't think that law matters anyways.
That sounds kind of self-contradictory. If your 'militia in the private realm' is doing nothing, it seems to be a meaningless organization, or at best a proto-organization, and if it is a useful militia, as in threatening the power of the state or federal govt, that's clearly illegal.
And if you believe that requiring a basic firearms permit to be unconstitutional, it seems that that standard might only apply to 18th-century weapons. An AR or even a good hunting rifle is more deadly than a cannon of those times (and also required more fiddly knowledge & skill to shoot effectively).
I've seen no law or proposal that is anything more than a modest inconvenience for any sane, competent, and responsible person. I don't see how any of the founders would be objecting to that at any level. And this society is both much more complex and the weapons orders of magnitudes more powerful.
And yeah, I agree SCOTUS has enough problems for everyone, about which we could commiserate until the cows come home, and then some.
Again, what part of "Well Regulated Militia" do you not understand?
None of these would be restrictions under a non-absolutist interpretation ignoring the entire start of the 2A. Granted, this does prevail now after decades of relentless promotion. That does not make it right.
Red flag laws are for people who have actually demonstrated their inability to control their own violence. There are a number of incidents of mass shooters who would have been prevented or slowed by such laws. And again, these people would be drummed out of any well-regulated militia.
Similarly, regulating or registering certain types of weapons does not seem out of bounds in a well-regulated militia, especially in urban environments.
I do have some problem with allowing police to seize weapons on suspicion, depending on the definition of suspicion, and the process to get them back. There are obvious circumstances where it should be not only allowed but required, and others where it is blatant state overreach.
Concealed carry, again in the context of a regulated militia — how is that a problem? You may have to show that you are armed.
Remember, even in the military itself, while weapons are issued and frequently used, they don't have people carrying any kind of weapon everywhere at any time, e.g., [0].
Again, the stated right is NOT any person of any level of mental or skilled competence can have access to any weapon at any time and any place.
It is:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The very first words are about regulation.
And the current results are proving the idiocy of a policy of unfettered access:
51 years of war 101,813 deaths
3 years of US gun deaths 133,759
US Death count in War
Vietnam War 1955-75
58,281
Korean War 1950-53
36,516
Iraq War 2003-11
4,614
Afghanistan War 2001-21
2,402
US gun deaths 2019-21
133,759
Every other western nation has similar levels of video games, mental illness, or whatever else you want to blame it on. Yet this only happens with any frequency here.
So, again, considering the ACTUAL constitutional intent of a well-regulated militia, what restrictions ACTUALLY INFRINGE ON RIGHTS OF SANE AND RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE.
I still have not seen a single instance of any actual legislator actually introducing a law that would broadly prohibit responsible gun ownership.
See District of Columbia v. Heller - "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home."
Yes, that is a decision based on the idea that the actual text of the constitution can be ignored - the literal first two phrases of the original text: "“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, ...".
The SCOTUS has now clearly shown that such precedents are not binding, leaving the door open for a decision that does account for the actual text of the constitution's Bill Of Rights.
And again, even with that Heller decision, and with many other posts, not a single respondent has shown a single proposed law by even the most liberal state representative that would infringe on a right of a sane, competent, and responsible person to keep and bear arms.
And if we are going to say that there is no restriction, then why isn't anyone arguing that we should be allowed to have .50cal machine guns, rocket launchers, or nukes? These are simply armaments with different rates and power, so why should the state restrict those? Hell, it's perfectly OK under the law for someone to walk into a theater or shopping mall and mow down dozens of people, why shouldn't they be able to just blow up the mall or nuke the city (provided they have the funds to buy the armaments)? That's half in jest, whole in earnest.
> Yes, that is a decision based on the idea that the actual text of the constitution can be ignored - the literal first two phrases of the original text: "“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, ...".
This is a fundamental misunderstanding. It’s not that the prefatory clause is ignored — it’s that its presence doesn’t negate the operative clause.
Notably, the second amendment neither prefaces the word “people” with “sane”, “competent” or “responsible”, so it’s not entirely clear to me as to whether you’re arguing on a basis of constitutionality or on something else altogether (is it both and neither simultaneously, maybe?)
While the initial clause may not negate the "shall not be infringed", it obviously, on it's face, modifies it.
The "shall not be infringed" part does not stand on it's own. If it did, the "well regulated militia" part would not have been written.
The claim that these are some kind of absolute, unqualified, unrestricted rights is just wrong on it's face.
The constitutional part of the argument is that — that there is a right, but it is qualified by the well-regulated militia requirements.
The fact that there is no specification of what counts as well-regulated means that we must use our knowledge of the intent of the founders, and of our own reality to make reasonable restrictions.
Since the army of the time was primarily citizen soldiers (the actual army numbering in the hundreds), they would have had some regulations and qualifications. I do not see anywhere that Washington insisted that every deranged village idiot be issued or permitted muskets. We can also use current-day standard military practice, where people qualify, are issued weapons, and have rules about where they can be carried or loaded.
And the original question is based on reasonability - are any even proposed laws actually going to infringe on the ability of a sane, competent, and responsible person to keep and bear arms (and no that does not mean instantly acquire and carry in all situations).
Yes, that is a decision based on the idea that the actual text of the constitution can be ignored - the literal first two phrases of the original text: "“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, ...".
Wait, you’re saying the Supreme Court read it wrong, but you read it correctly?
Two years ago, I would not have made that argument, as SCOTUS actually practiced their stated policy of stare decisis — The doctrine or principle that precedent should determine legal decision making in a case involving similar facts — SCOTUS overturning it's own decisions was a rare event.
However, in the last two years, the court has repeatedly overturned, either explicitly or by the shadow docket, many large precedents set by the same court.
The impetus from the court politically skewed by senate leadership (note Merrick Garland, Amy Cohen Barrett), and the nature of the cases taken by the court and these reversals is obviously political.
This opens up as fair game all prior SCOTUS decisions, as they are obviously not settled law, but open to change on a whim. The SCOTUS has degraded its status from a determiner of settled law to a set of umpires for the current inning.
So, yes, it is entirely reasonable to question prior SCOTUS decisions, especially now.
Not only is it allowed in America, but its is likely sometimes correct, insofar as a matter of interpretation can be said to be (at a minimum, the Supreme Court has been wrong, one time or another) as the Supreme Court has reversed itself on the meaning of Constitutional provisions.
WOW, that is a remarkably bad argument. Straight-up appeal to authority, condescension and social scorn, without substance.
It ignores that all SCOTUS cases are seriously contentious and most were differently decided by multiple appeals courts on different sides of the argument. Then, very few cases are decided 9-0; there is almost always at least one, if not multiple dissenting opinions among the SCOTUS justices themselves.
They are not all wrong, they were on the losing side of the argument.
Before this court, it might be argued that these were at least settled law, but since the current court has obviously decided that precedent is no longer important, the decisions are simply the current state of the law.
At least bring an actual argument with substance on the point of the topic, not "that piddling hobbyist must be wrong" (to agree with the dissenters on a now-notoriously fickle SCOTUS itself). Sheesh.
He purchased them specifically before the law against purchasing them went into effect. I'm no in CA, but I'm quite sure he still has them (or at least did while I visited after the law was in effect) and that the law did not require confiscating previously-owned firearms, i.e., they were grandfathered in.
Well, I've been there, in his living room in California, about 5 years ago checking them out, which he'd bought a few years prior. He's an executive and very conscientious and law-abiding, not some scofflaw with nothing to lose.
No, I didn't check the laws, serial numbers, registration, etc. But your comment did make me do a quick search which turned up many references to "California-Legal" AR-15s.
The 1989 law was basically a list of products, so it was easily evaded by making similar products and slapping a different name on them. California tried to tighten up the law in 1999 by specifying features, which was then worked around by adjusting the features. The 2016 San Bernadino shooting provoked another tightening, and I presume he bought it before that went into effect.
Here's a key quote: "In 2016, California enacted a law to provide a statutory definition for the term “detachable magazine” to clarify that firearms outfitted with bullet buttons are restricted. People who lawfully obtained these types of guns before Jan. 1 2017 could retain them as long as they registered them with the California Department of Justice in time." [0]
The article found after a quick search indicated that he needn't have been so worried, as the manufacturers also found quick work-arounds to that set of restrictions. It also mentioned that there were something like 189,000 currently registered... so yes, obviously extremely possible to have one.
QED was nothing, except that you know almost nothing about the topic; perhaps consider refraining from posting stuff about which you are obviously ignorant and then doubling down. Sheesh
Maybe, but is anything I said inaccurate? Try telling a trans person that the local political environment shouldn't impact their decision on where to live. Your best case scenario is an eye roll.
Only certain people are given the freedom to ignore politics.
> What's wrong with your kids being LGBT? Why wouldn't you support that?
There is nothing wrong with your kids being LGBT. I believe you are misunderstanding HDThoreaun. They are talking about why they wouldn't want to live in a red state. Read their comment again with that context in mind.
It says if they were living in a red state they couldn't tell their LGTB child that they support the child. Presumably because HDThoreaun feels if they would really support said LGBT child they would move out of the red state.
It sounds like you read their hypothetical as if HDThoreaun has some problem with their kid being LGBT. I don't believe that was the intended message, quite the contrary in fact.
You are supremely out of tough if you think red states preclude you from being vocally proud of your kids. Most conservatives got over the lgbt thing decades ago. Dont give voice to the extremeists of either party as if they are the norm.
> You are supremely out of tough if you think red states preclude you from being vocally proud of your kids.
Of course you can be vocally proud of said kid. But are you able to "in good faith tell my lgbt child that I support them". Supporting someone is not just words. But perhaps living in a place where they are not handicapped by laws.
> Dont give voice to the extremeists of either party as if they are the norm.
Sure. What about the extremists who are writing the law in those red states? Can I be concerned about those?
Some red states are beginning to enact legislation that makes it more difficult for lgbt children to come to terms with who they are. I think the abortion issue is a much bigger deal, but I would definitely feel guilty about raising a lgbt child in that environment.
I think the parent comment is suggesting you can't move to such an area and say you're supporting your LGBT child, that it would be in bad faith to tell them you support them having made the choice to move there.
Or in other words, perhaps they'd like to say they support their child, but it'd be disingenuous.
I'm sympathetic to concerns that some kids (mostly girls) are doing it because it's a trendy thing to do. I'm worried things like The Genderbread Person send the wrong message by gendering clothes and activities. It tells a boy wearing pink and playing with barbies he's a girl.
If my kid's LGB, I'm glad they found what they're looking for, and if they change their mind, that works too. The trans bit worries me because it's permanent.
I think both sides have gone too far on this issue, and find California and Florida equally scary.
The Romans managed their empire with divide and conquer tactics.
Guns, abortion, trans issues are just red meat the corporations throw to the masses to keep their eye off what's really going on.
What's really going on? The pensions and retirements of the middle class are being drained away with inflationary monetary policy to pay for wars around the world and keep the corporate class on top.
We are free to fight to the death about sex and guns, but there's no effective discussion of the murderous, planet killing US war machine and the parasites who profit from it in the public discourse. What a coincidence. Divide and conquer.
Absolutely anything to distract folks from class identity. I'm 50-50 on whether or not the intergenerational conflict articles[1] are part of a psyops program.
1. The sort of "Boomer hate Millennial" or vice versa or "Zoomers have no idea what a record player is"-type clickbait.
> Personal politics, IMO, is not a good reason to avoid living in certain areas.
Policy climate can br a very good reason to avoid living in certain areas.
Failure to recognize this in time can be a very bad way to avoid living entirely.
> I'm a liberal-leaning moderate but many of my favorite people (friends and family) are conservative, and many of my hobbies tend to be populated mainly by the conservative demographic.
I have had friends all over the political spectrum, but “ability to make friends” is not the reason people avoid particular political climates. If you are privileged enough not to need to ubderstand that, congratulations.
> No area is thriving right now thanks to the recession
> > Personal politics, IMO, is not a good reason to avoid living in certain areas.
> Policy climate can br a very good reason to avoid living in certain areas.
While there's clearly substantial overlap, I think there can be an important difference between choosing not to live somewhere because your personal politics disagree with the norm there, and choosing not to live somewhere because of the actual impact of the policies that are or may be implemented there.
When folks say stuff like this, I feel like they're imagining two buddies arguing over tax reform or something. I'm absolutely fine being friends with someone who has conservative economic beliefs.
What I'm not fine with is being friendly with someone who supports policies designed to hurt my friends and family.
It turns out that befriending people who hold opposite and even toxic opinions is actually a great way to bring them back to more moderate and rational thinking.
There is a Jordan Harbinger podcast about a black man who single-handedly dismantled multiple KKK clans literally by befriending them. The trick is to approach the other person with curiosity and reason, not with judgement and adversity. Not everyone can be talked out of being a racist (or whateverist) of course but at the end of the day we all have more in common than we have in difference and a surprising number of people are willing to change their views on an entire demographic if they aren't being shouted at, shamed, or just silently shunned.
"Disagree with a point of view" and "don't want to be beaten up" (an example) are not in the same ballpark.
People are undoubtedly victims if they get beaten up or have to live under daily threat of it. (Again, example).
That is relevant to the KKK a few comments up. It's not that long ago the KKK wouldn't stop at beating someone up, when they could get away with torture and murder and be let off by juries who approved - in some states.
Replace "beaten up" with any other kind of serious harm to get the point. There are plenty of examples today, whether you care to recognise them or not.
> Personal politics, IMO, is not a good reason to avoid living in certain areas.
Of course it is. Imagine your daughter getting pregnant and being unable to abort the pregnancy even if her survival would be at stake, or your son ending up gay or trans? Both of these not-unlikely events can have real, deadly impact depending if you are living in a red vs purple or blue state!
> but my take on it is, if I can't make friends with people who hold beliefs different from my own, then maybe I'm the asshole.
These people may simply beat you or your children up for not conforming to their narrow worldview. Hate crimes have exploded since 2016, and on top of that comes the everyday gun violence.
Beliefs are one thing - I'm a socialist and still enjoy debating with libertarians. But some things - like the right to self-determination about your body, reproduction and sexuality or the freedom to believe in anything else (or nothing) but Jesus - these are existential questions, and I cannot (and do not) reasonably engage in discussion with someone who 'd like to see me or my friends and family dead.
Is it not a good reason to avoid living in red states if your rights are being taken away? I'd love to keep living in my blue city in the south, but I'd also love to keep getting the health care I need.
> No area is thriving right now thanks to the recession
We're not really in a recession. Tech was probably in a recession in 2022, but Google and Meta both had good earnings reports, so maybe we're through that. Finance is having its own issues. Everyone else is a little nervous, but doing ok, except for inflation.
> Personal politics, IMO, is not a good reason to avoid living in certain areas.
> but my take on it is, if I can't make friends with people who hold beliefs different from my own, then maybe I'm the asshole.
It's not only about getting along with people on an individual level.
"Politics" is why Massachusetts has a social safety net for many, there are abortion rights, the first gay marriage in the US was a short walk away, my trans neighbor can walk down the street without being hassled, there's countless different flavors of churches and other religious meeting places (as well as many seculars), and education and science are generally valued.
And when some people traveled to Boston to promote aggressive right-wing ideas, an overwhelming number of locals showed up to tell them to take a hike, and sent the message that they had the backs of the people the clowns were threatening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Free_Speech_Rally
This Blue State is far from perfect, but I see plenty of practical reasons for someone like myself to live here rather than in a Red State, no matter how nice and decent the typical Red State resident might be.
Why can’t a trans person “make friends with someone who hold beliefs different than their own”?
Nobody is saying “make friends with someone who hates you”. That’s true of anyone.
But can a trans person make friends with someone who disagrees on that minors should be able to start transition therapy without informing their parents?
Sure, why not?
If you can’t be friends with people who don’t hold 100% of the same political views you do, you’re going to have a very lonely life.
I've learned that I prefer mini-metro areas with population on the order of 250k people... you get most of the upsides of a city without many of the downsides, while also retaining advantages of smaller areas like more green spaces and lower cost of living.
Yup, that's the sweet spot. Richmond VA is a great example of such a mid sized city - housing is affordable, traffic is manageable, and it's big enough to have things to do and find like-minded hobbyists.
DC is it for me. I don't want to own a car or drive, I want to ride a bike or take the train everywhere I go, and DC has the infrastructure to support that lifestyle.
The downside of Richmond is that you get to add an extra ~2 hours to most trips to the west coast. Either by the need to change planes in ATL/CLT/ORD/etc, or by having to drive to DCA/IAD to take a direct flight.
RIC is getting more direct flights as volume picks up. Breeze flies to SFO direct, but its not super regular and apparently they cancel them last minute (yikes!).
Living in big cities within "red" states is not like living in the state itself outside the city, other than you are all affected by the same state laws (unless the latter is the main concern).
Atlanta GA, Austin TX, etc. are all "blue in a sea of red" as they say. Lived in the former myself for many years. Yes you're affected by state laws, but most of the folks in large cities are going to be less like the stereotype associated with the state.
Unfortunately, this is becoming less and less true as GOP-run states strip autonomy from cities and steadily increase state control over them. Take Texas as an example,[0] where they've banned cities from
-enacting paid sick leave
-enacting mandatory heat and water breaks for manual labor jobs
-modifying their police budgets
-restricting fracking within city limits
-restricting greenhouse gas-intense products
Cities can compete against each other to attract businesses - no? If businesses can deal with a patchwork of sales taxes and building codes, they can handle other bylaws just fine. These laws have the hallmark signs of a partisan power-grab as they are limited to a number of on red-meat issues.
> Cities can compete against each other to attract businesses - no?
We've seen this with Walmarts. They get cities to compete for their stores. Amazon did it for HQ2. The problem is the winner's curse. The winning city will often bid so low they take a net loss.
I mostly agree with you, but let's be honest: this is not the motivating factor for republican state legislatures grabbing power from cities. If it were, the legislatures would be getting rid of tax rebates and tax holidays cities offer to attract businesses, and instead have a uniform tax structure across the whole state for "uniformity"
Republican politicians in many red states have been aggressively exerting political control over their blue cities and towns in recent years. It's worth considering the political trajectory of a state, not just its red/blue orientation.
There are several red states with no state income tax. Texas and Florida for example, so I assume you're talking about property taxes and taxes on items like gas or food?
Tax is tax, does not matter whether it is income tax, sales tax, car registration fees, tolls, unemployment insurance, estate tax, etc. If it is mandatory, and it eventually goes into government coffers, it all falls into the “government expense” bucket for an individual.
I like to think of property tax as a wealth tax for the middle class. My understanding is that the per capita taxes of those states aren't really much different from others, but they're structured more regressively.
First, there is no middle, it would be more useful to describe socioeconomic classes of people by decile, or even quintile.
But the top 10% surely owns more real estate than the bottom 90%, so low property tax is very regressive since it allows them to hoard real estate, while the rest of the population pays to secure it via funding the police/legal system.
Second, the lower socioeconomic classes are going to spend all of their money on rent, and goods and services, like consumables and healthcare and food and tolls. So sales tax and usage based taxes for things necessary to live are the most regressive.
Third, property tax can be broken down into land value tax and building value tax. The former being low is a problem since it incentivizes hoarding land at less than maximum economic usage, ultimately reducing supply of housing, ultimately increasing rents on the lowest socioeconomic classes amongst other phenomena like food desserts.
So if the goal is progressive taxation, then a very high land value tax, and no building value tax would be the way to go.
Funny you say that, because not only do 'red' states have higher crime rates than 'blue' states[0], but 'red' cities within those red states, like Jacksonville or Oklahoma City, also have higher crime rates.[1]
Athens, GA is good if you want something that feels a little more small town but still has (free!) bus stops everywhere, the occasional rainbow flag, and enough food and entertainment options that you'll never be bored.
Not all industries will be equally impacted by WFH. SF is being gutted because the only equipment a programmer needs is a computer. If you're looking for a healthy metro area that will weather the WFH realignment, look for one whose primary industries require equipment that you can't pick up at Best Buy. Things like healthcare, biotech, and research universities (just to name a few) will still require butts in seats. Off the top of my head, Boston, Pittsburgh, Cleveland will be fine. NYC might be impacted because of the finance industry, but it's also plenty diversified.
(Furthermore, in the long term SF will be fine because the geography and climate is beautiful, and people will always be clamoring to live there regardless of industry, in the same way people desire to live in Honolulu. But it's in for a rough time in the near term as the tech industry diasporizes.)
> SF is being gutted because the only equipment a programmer needs is a computer
I think that's only half of it. The other half is a lot of people were only in SF for the money. When given the opportunity to leave and make the same money, they did.
I don’t think you received great answers besides New York. I myself am trying to move from SF to New York. The reality is that in the US New York is the only city that seems livable if you are not a car. Chicago is the only one I can think of that’s dense and has life as a pedestrian, but the winter there is intense. It’s too bad because real estate is cheap there.
I agree even though you’ll always get responses talking about other US cities where it’s technically possible to live without a car.
I found living without a car in SF not so ideal because it ultimately means living your life in a pretty small subset of the overall metro area. That slice of the metro area is also disproportionately gentrified and has that kind of yuppie vibe (with prices to match).
I feel the same from visiting other cities like Seattle, Chicago, DC, Philly, etc. New York is the only US city I’ve been to that I would say is actually comparable to other global cities. All the other US cities pale in comparison.
You definitely don't need (or want) a car in Boston. Boston is extremely pedestrian friendly and correspondingly hostile to cars. 95% of the people who complain about getting around here are commuters from outside the city.
Unfortunately this isn’t true in all of greater Boston or even within the whole metro core. If you live in Watertown, Quincy, Waltham, Newton, etc etc you are going to have a very different experience
My main complaint with Boston is that even if you’re happy with just the walkable city center, it’s still tough commuting if you can’t walk/bike and you aren’t going to/from downtown Boston.
For example if someone in Somerville takes a job in Boston Landing they’re looking at a multiple seat commute over an hour most likely, to effectively travel maybe 5-10 miles. Driving still ends up winning.
Somerville to Boston landing is kind of a tough example, but I agree it’s annoying that there’s no way to go “sideways” on most public transport in Boston - everything goes to the center
This is true of even the most public-transit-centered cities like Tokyo and NYC. It's easy to find commutes that are short as the crow flies but cover a much longer distance on public transit.
Yep, the drive and bike times for my example are roughly the same at rush hour according to google. For someone interesting in biking as a commute, Boston/camberville is probably one of the best places to live+work. If you can deal with the winter anyways
> You definitely don't need (or want) a car in Boston
I have never been to Boston, but if this is true then why is the public transport map so weird? There's the subway for inter-city travel but if you're commuting then commuter rail does not seem practical at all because of this weird gap? To me it made the impression of a neglected system, presumably because everyone commutes by car. Is there still space downtown for e.g. bicycle lanes? Otherwise this surely would have been fixed for decades now.
Or is it just painful to commute because there's a livable downtown with public transit, bike lanes etc., which was not completely sacrificed for cars, but just without a great commuter solution?
The public transit system is shaped by natural barriers and landfill, so the weird layout really has nothing to do with neglect (though there's plenty of that too!). The subway system actually covers a large area including Boston and the urban area surrounding it. The commuter rail mostly serves the urban cores of suburban communities outside Boston, so people drive to the commuter rail and then commute by train from there.
Before covid (no idea what the numbers are now) only 40% of people in the Boston metro commuted by car alone, roughly the same share as those who took the commuter rail and subway. 20% of people commuted by car and bike. The share of people who commute by car in the core of Boston is extremely small. At least 50% of roads in the city are single lane and one way. Parking is expensive and scarce. Driving 2 miles (as the crow flies) can easily take an hour, which makes walking pretty competitive as a mode of transit.
I live here and the winters are not that bad. I lived in the midwest and west previously and they were 10x worse due to needing to potentially drive somewhere in it (and the supermarkets being wiped out in the days leading up to inclemate weather). Here in NYC you just put your boots and coat on and go on your way. The subways still run when it's snowing. The coldest day of the year only dipped below 0°F once in the past 15 years.
No need for a car != agreeable to live as a pedestrian. For example, I don’t need a car in SF but I wouldn’t compare it to a real and agreeable walkable city like we have in europe or asia. It’s mostly large streets designed for cars, residential areas, with shops only allowed to exist in limited commercial streets.
Both considered commuter hubs for DC. And I think they're alluding to being able to utilize the DC metro 'inside the beltway' (I-495) hence the distinction there, which is true to an extent, but I wouldn't live in NOVA or MD without a car personally. There is Amtrak service to areas outside of the beltway, but my experience with Amtrak has been extremely poor. I know many people in DC and they all own a car because the metro, while great for getting in and out of DC, is somewhat limited when it comes to going anywhere else.
The outlook isn't good, and the shortfalls mean there will likely be service cuts, driving people away from city centers even more. SF will probably be worse off because of how poorly it's handled homelessness, theft, and drug use.
This problem is not at all unique to SF. According to Cushman & Wakefield, Austin has 23% vacant offices, Manhattan has 23%, Brooklyn 24%, and SF has 25%, same as Minneapolis and Chicago, while Houston has 26% vacant.
Unless you are the owner/lessor of commercial real estate, why does this matter? NYC is happening these days, even if not everyone is going back to the office every day. They're still here in their homes (which are renting out for record high rates) and going about their daily lives in the city, which is absolutely packed.
Look, I'm not gonna argue with you that NYC has always been better than SF (it obviously has), but post-pandemic now the difference is even more stark. NYC's economy is much more diverse than SF's, and also has much more housing within city limits, to the point that it hasn't suffered nearly as much from the pandemic, and indeed right now is booming whereas SF is withering.
Ehn, SF is returning to its pre-2010 roots (heck, even the population in SF has fallen to the same level as it was in the 2000s).
The entire sofrware+hardware industry before the 2010s was south of Redwood Shores and the biotech industry was always situated in northern San Mateo County. Before the 2010s, SF was primarily a hub for the Northern California legal+investment banking industries, both of which cratered during the GFC.
There's a reason why "FiDi" is called that - SF used to be the Wall Street of the West until the GFC, and most private sector white collar jobs in the city back then were legal and finance related.
SF was a much different place pre-2010. And it's going to be rough getting back there from here. In particular the city's expenditures are way higher now (but without revenues to match), and the homeless crisis is way worse.
It's still as crummy now as it was then. I remember seeing drug addicts on market as a kid, as well as the gang crap in Hunter Points (what's now called Mission Bay - India Basin has been renamed Hunters Point) and Mission District.
The difference is Mission, Northern Tenderloin/"Lower Nob Hill", Western Addition/"Hayes Valley", and Hunters Point had been extremely gentrified at a shallow level by transient white collar workers and creative types (artists, musicians, etc) in their 20s and 30s (aka. Most SF HN commentators)
Neither group started families let alone sent kids to public schools in SF, nor were either group actively connected with electoral politics within SF (voting isn't connected), and the same issues that I saw in K-8 in SFUSD continue to persist.
Also, a massive proportion of SF's population cannot vote due to immigration status (around 40% last I checked). Add to that an addition 10-20% to represent unattached transplants and townies and the voting pie shrinks massively, so SF politicians end up pandering to the subset that votes instead
I haven't scrutinized this heavily, but, at a glance, it appears that the best recovery for "Work Trips" is still down 13.2%, New York is down 26%, and the worst, SF, is down 32.7%. In no way do I see these numbers as booming - they all make me question how the cities are going to balance their books as commercial real estate gets devalued and undermines taxation.
Those numbers are almost a year old; NYC is expecting a significant rise in tourists[1] and for business travel numbers to return to pre-pandemic levels[2].
To my annoyance, rent has continued to rise as well.
Are you planning on owning commercial real estate? If not, why does this one particular metric matter?
NYC is booming in all senses of the word that apply to the daily experience of your typical person living here. The streets are PACKED with people out and about having a good time at all hours of day and night, and rents are at record highs because so many people want to live here. So what if not everyone is commuting into the office 5 days a week anymore? Don't buy an office building and you'll be good.
No, I am not planning on owning commercial, but I am interested in avoiding having taxes raised on me to fill a budget deficit. Taxes on commercial real estate generate a significant amount of revenue, commercial rental agreements are usually ~5-7 years, and so, at least in SF, there is a looming wave of devaluations which has yet to be realized. The city already has an estimated 800M budget shortfall without assuming commercial real estate devalues by 50%. When that happens the only quick fix is to bleed money from the populace. If commercial buildings aren't being used in NY then this will also occur there.
I think you're being too speculative here. If you're really trying to minimize paying taxes, then you should be moving to a state with no income tax, don't buy property there (because states with no income tax tend to make up for it with high property taxes), and don't live in a city because cities will have local taxes. But you move to NYC, you do so because NYC is awesome and living here is great. I wouldn't pay less taxes to live in the middle of nowhere.
> ... you should be moving to a state with no income tax, don't buy property there (because states with no income tax tend to make up for it with high property taxes)
Remember not to rent too, otherwise landlords would passthrough the high property to you.
This isn't true in many places for lots of reasons. E.g. in California the owner could easily have grandfathered-in low property tax thanks to Prop 13, that you as a new housing purchaser couldn't benefit from. Or there could be NY-style rent regulation that controls the allowable rental price and doesn't take property tax into consideration at all. Or it could simply be that property taxes go up in a neighborhood (which you'd have to pay if you owned) but that rents do not, for whatever reason; this happens all the time.
As a renter, all you care about is what the rent is. If the rent is good, then you're good. Property tax is very much NOT priced into buying a property, and is an ongoing expense to worry about that moves in way that rent does not.
Can confirm: packed streets, packed theaters, restaurants, etc - even the subway is recovering. NYC is going great aside from older, overpriced midtown buildings that are failing to lease.
I bike and walk most places, but I'm perfectly fine taking the subway for longer distances. Even that question itself sounds like it's out of the past from three decades ago.
The problem everyone seems to miss is that SF is one of the few places that had a recession due to COVID (not necessarily a GDP recessions, but definitely a weak businesses closed en masse recession) and a lot of other places (illogically) boomed during COVID.
Given recent history (Phoenix MSA’s 2011 GDP was lower than 2007 GDP, whereas SF never went below 2007 levels), it’s not unreasonable to think that other cities are simply in artificial bubbles from the $3tn that was given to consumers over the past 3 years.
And, interestingly enough, an increasing number of people have moved to NYC to work remotely from here. Living in NYC is a legitimate attraction in its own right, and is appealing to a lot of people even if they're not working here.
As long as people are living where they can afford and enjoy, that's awesome news.
Personally, I prefer to live in smaller cities, but I lived in a huge metropolitan area for decades. I just grew tired of it. In that regard, remote work for me is a blessing.
It's booming in the sense that wealthy people are buying up property.
That isn't the same as being a new hub for a lot of business creation and frankly haven't seen a lot of evidence established companies are eager to make it into a new hub or that there's a bunch of growing startups there with real traction.
The Chicago to Miami move is primarily an income tax avoidance scheme common in the HFT industry within Illinois, especially after the state instituted a 5% income tax after the IL budget crisis in 2017-18.
LA...albeit housing is still expensive.
The other thing is...SF downtown at least in real estate is having a downturn, but I have to imagine, the region in and of itself isn't doing too badly.
I think Chicago and IL are slept on in general but have a lot of long term positives. IL (thanks to Pritzker and a post-Magidan House) is starting to shore up fiscally, Lake Michigan (for both recreation and water supply) and a decent public transit system make it very appealing.
Chicago is a good choice but a lot of people wouldn't be able to tolerate the winter.
It can be brutal to get through. The bonus on the other side of it is that the summers are amazing with all of the public beaches and summer events going on.
States change over time. Colorado used to be quite red a couple decades ago.
And states aren’t monolithic just because they “red” or “blue”. You’ll find liberals and conservatives in every state.
I understand not wanting to live in a state that has laws you can live under, whether abortion or gun control or marijuana, but remove those and there are still a ton of options.
In terms of density, San Diego is like a stretched out San Francisco. The best places to live are along the coastline and an ocean view is very expensive. My tiny condo, with a view, has a higher cost per sq. foot than $3m victorians in San Francisco.
But you're right, at this point, I'd still rather be in SD than SF.
+1 for San Diego. It's small enough you can be familiar with most of the neighborhoods and still big enough there's always an interesting event or new restaurant to check out. Apple has expansion plans in the region. The military/larger federal government presence is sort of nice, I sense that plus the large tourism numbers helps keep SD away from the extreme end of California politics.
The weather is a huge plus, and I anticipate the city will handle global warming a little better than other regions. The county has made a lot of good decisions with water management too, from keeping the reservoirs full to supplying almost 10% of the water supply from a desal plant.
I disagree that the coastline is the only "nice" place to get a house, the ocean is pretty accessible from most parts of the city due to the highway designs.
Of course, there's issues with homelessness, retail theft, poor public transit, expensive housing. But it all seems a little more tame to me than the same issues in LA/SF/Seattle.
> I disagree that the coastline is the only "nice" place to get a house
Maybe it is just me, but if I'm going to move to a beach city, I'd want to live at the beach.
> it all seems a little more tame to me than the same issues in LA/SF/Seattle.
It is just more spread out. The police are a lot more on top of pushing the homeless around to different parts of town.
Here at the beach, the parking lots will get a few people living in their cars/vans/whatever, then it'll get more as word gets out... then all the sudden, the police will come in and hand out tickets. Over night, they will all be gone.
Isn't there a housing shortage? Rezone these buildings for apartments on the upper floors.
Edit: Even if it costs a lot to convert (that is where tax incentives would usually help if done correctly). Having them sit empty costs more eventually.
I would love to see these offices turned into housing as much as anyone, but I also recommend reading this amazing NYT article on why it's not quite so simple as just rezoning or a simple interior remodel - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office...
This is very interesting, but it assumes the predicate that separated apartments with individual kitchens and bathrooms are the right way for people to live. And 1 BR and studios at that.
These are buildings designed for communal occupancy as offices, why not lean into that as residences? Think like a 1-2 floor cooperative housing for a community of 50-100 people in 25-50 family units. Everyone gets private bedrooms, storage, and a den. But the expensive amenities that foster community are shared:
Large commercial-style communal kitchens and bathrooms. That would enable other big shared amenities on the floor like a gym, a daycare, or coworking desks.
The epidemic of loneliness plaguing millennials is in my estimation largely due to a lack of community. Think of the kind of community that was east to build at university - why can’t we have that in the conversion of these big floor plates
Agreed - a friend in Tokyo mentioned that his neighborhood had small apartments that didn't have their own bathrooms but instead came with unlimited access to the public bathhouse down the street. If you were down with that tradeoff you could get an apt in a super desirable neighborhood for ~$300/mo.
Sounds like an amazing option to me, but totally prevented by zoning / regulations in the US.
that's actually a great idea. While it's certainly not for everyone, if you don't like it there's every other apartment to choose. It's great to have options from the monotony of the usual apartments.
Renovating commercial office space for residential use would be very expensive. Just re-plumbing alone would not be cheep. Probably cheaper than building a brand new building, but I don't know the numbers on that.
I've read that in cases where it is not a skyscraper it is more expensive than knock-down and rebuild.
And unless it's a really cool old industrial building, you end up with crappy residential buildings that aren't tremendously desired unless the location is really, really good.
It's not as easy as rezoning. there is significant overhead retrofitting commercial real-estate with the plumbing needed for residential. ( as well as many other changes) It's doable but the right incentives would have to be put in place by the city. However, everything i've seen of the city is their policies are very anti landlords.
If your city can’t keep Walmart, Whole Foods, and Nordstrom due to rampant and unchecked crime, homelessness, etc, then how would you compel normal citizens and employers to remain. If you forfeit your security, protection of private property and clean streets, then society will rapidly devolve and you will end up with such vacancies. And it doesn’t matter if this is deliberate and ideological or if it’s just incompetence or ignorance, the same outcome will arrive. SF is in decline and total denial about it. California is too. Anyone who doesn’t see this is in total denial.
I know it’s not as easy as it looks to convert office space into residential but I wonder if there’s an opportunity for better schools.
The UC system is at its limits for admissions and UCSF doesn’t have an undergraduate program. I wonder what it would take to covert some large section of downtown into a UC. Could revitalize the businesses that support the office buildings. Housing would be a problem but with BART and light rail access it seems like that could be addressed (dorms in West Oakland could be one stop on Bart away)
This is no one's problem except the commercial real estate crowd. Being obstinate and pushy for two generations of economic growth, leveraging to the hilt and beyond, and living on the work of others has hit a state transition and they dont have a way out.
San Francisco is no stranger to boom and bust, decadence and plague. Please wave hello to your quiet and strong neighbors, the ethnic Chinese community. San Francisco has one of the highest proportions of ethnic Chinese overall of any USA metro. I predict this will increase, as the masters of Finance deteriorate into public and ridiculous escapades.
Convert these empty offices to living space, turn roads into space for walking and dining and small shops. I so wish this would happen to London UK. Cleaner air, friendlier and happier people, tourism and living space are better than stressed workers rushing to jobs they can do via email or zoom.
Tangential, but how is retail ft² doing? There was a report in 2018 that the US had 23.5ft² of retail space per person, followed by Canada at 16.8ft² and Australia at 11.2ft². Every other country polled had 4.5ft² or less. When covid hit, people used this report to claim that the US would see a retail collapse. Did any of this come to pass? All my searches just come up with alarmist articles from 2019-2020.
tbd. no collapse yet because commercial leases typically last multiple years. Many leases are coming up for renewal in the next year, however. Might very well see a recession in commercial real-estate soon.
As I understand, it’s better for them to keep the retail spaces empty than drop rent. This was true when money was free, but it’ll be interesting to see how they adapt to renewals with the new rates.
How is this possible lol? Do offices not want to locate in SF. I for one make the 1 hour commute daily from SF to my office in the Bay, I honestly think a large number of employees would prefer offices in SF
I love being in the city and working side by side with my coworkers. But I absolutely do not want to commute two hours daily. I have kids, so I must be home by 5pm and also must help get them ready for drop off at 8am. That leaves no time for work + commuting.
Mass transit in the bay area sucks. Bart is packed, loud, and uncomfortable. I feel unsafe at my station (Fruitvale). So my only other option is to take the bus which is an hour each way because of traffic.
> “I strongly believe the office experience should be at the same level as luxury residential and hospitality,” Shvo previously told The Chronicle. “In the last two years, we’ve made our homes into our offices, now it’s time to make our offices feel like our homes.”
Private bathrooms for every employee? No commute? The office can never "feel like my home", my home doesn't have my co-workers in it. It's an environment 100% of my design.
I think I will go into the office if it is nice enough. A few years before the pandemic I started working for an old school company with offices including doors, windows, nice furniture and privacy. Now we mix in office and remote work but I don't mind going to the office because I can be more focused there.
When I look back over past jobs, the question I wish I had asked more in advance is where will I sit here? I am never going to work in a barn again. It's not just about open plan seating, which has pros and cons. But when the company stacks people like boxes, it turns out they think of you as something fungible.
Ironically, my employer, which is starting to demand RTO, is taking away many office amenities and even forcing people to alternate days and share desks. The higherups are making the offices worse and thinking people want to come back to that. Their heads are so far up their own asses it's amazing.
Same, I built my own private office and I don't have to deal with traffic to get to it, or deal with constant interrupts because other people have decided they're not working so I shouldn't either. My productivity is through the roof since going fully remote 6 years ago.
I’ve been fully remote since before the pandemic, and I have a dedicated home office, but a private office space would help me at least consider spending some of my time in the office. Being away from the responsibilities of home can help with focus. Wouldn’t consider a mandatory or full-time return to office, though.
I've never had to work in an actual cube farm or open concept (the one time I was technically in a cube farm was when I was one of five people in a farm built for 50+) but a private office is nice in ways you just can't really articulate.
We had a nice setup for awhile that was a central meeting/conference/open area, with offices all around it, each of which had a large window looking at the meeting area. You could close a curtain if you really needed to, but otherwise it was sound-proof; people could easily see if you were available but you could work privately, make calls, etc.
I'd be willing to consider commuting for something like that again in the right job.
I wouldn't mind working remote if my commute is walkable. I purposely live in Boston to have access to the T, but many companies in Boston are opening up offices in Seaport which is the most awkward place to get to using public transit.
The issue is that most offices (especially the bio/chemistry ones) are at the far end, also the silver line blows; unless your office is less than a one mile radius (even then depending on the street it can be painful) it's just a bad time.
Owners who hate the lack of oversight with WFH are not the ones who like private offices with doors for workers. They don't mandate RTO out of concern for your privacy and ability to focus.
It's probably a statement about SF zoning too much commercial rather than allowing property owners to figure out how to use buildings. Or maybe it's a statement about how our building codes make it very difficult to repurpose buildings.
Well, if you assume California is socialist it all makes sense. There's just one tiny little problem: it isn't, and not only is this office space privately owned but the problems causing these vacancies are probably principal agent problems directly attributable to the structure of the free market controlling them (landlords either want to bet on a recovery or agreed to credit terms that would cascade a single write-down).
>directly attributable to the structure of the free market controlling them
This is completely wrong, city zoning does not allow commercial buildings to be used for housing. Local government literally has direct control of the allowed uses for buildings. Additionally, even if you completely got rid of zoning it is very risky to be a landlord in CA now because of government eviction policies.
As a tenant in CA you can just stop paying your rent and it can take over a year to be evicted. See the show Silicon Valley, where Jared sublets his apartment and it is basically stolen from him because the tenants just stops paying rent. It's so well known that it's become a joke.
The problems here are created by zoning and eviction regulation (i.e. government regulation), not the free market.
Looks like I hit a nerve. I can't help but notice that you conspicuously avoided addressing the explanation I've been hearing for the commercial real estate problems:
> landlords either want to bet on a recovery or agreed to credit terms that would cascade a single write-down
and instead substituted two theories of your own, one of which has nothing to do with commercial real estate and the other of which has zero explanatory power for "why now." We can get to those, but first could you explain why you think the explanations I've been hearing are wrong?
Uh? Where did you get that comparison? China's top income tax rate is 45%. I cannot see how that could ever be "far below" what someone's income tax rate would be in California (37% federal + 12.3% state). Mind that the top bracket starts around $140k in China, whereas in the US it's about $590k (federal or Californian).
yeah so we need a new category for California since they set thenselves up to seize more of the means of production than the communists/state capital socialists
If I were to move from SF, wanted to live in a metro area, and was uncomfortable living in a very red state - where should I consider? Where is thriving? I have a good amount of friends in Portland, but Portland is adjacent SF in terms of poor economic recovery and it's not especially tech-focused. So, I think there's at least a bit more at play here.
There's a seismic shift occurring with WFH, Starlink, etc. Yes, San Francisco is near the bottom of many post-Covid economic recovery lists, but are there other metros that are on sound financial footing if 30%+ of their populace chooses a more suburban/rural lifestyle?