Tech Workers Who Swore Off the Bay Area Are Coming Back (nytimes.com) 62
Critics said the pandemic would make the industry flee San Francisco and its southern neighbor, Silicon Valley. But tech can't seem to quit its gravitational center. New York Times: The pandemic was supposed to lead to a great tech diaspora. Freed of their offices and after-work klatches, the Bay Area's tech workers were said to be roaming America, searching for a better life in cities like Miami and Austin, Texas -- where the weather is warmer, the homes are cheaper and state income taxes don't exist. But dire warnings over the past year that tech was done with the Bay Area because of a high cost of living, homelessness, crowding and crime are looking overheated. Mr. Osuri [Editor's note: anecdote in the story who is the chief executive of Akash Network] is one of a growing number of industry workers already trickling back as a healthy local rate of coronavirus vaccinations makes fall return-to-office dates for many companies look likely.
Bumper-to-bumper traffic has returned to the region's bridges and freeways. Tech commuter buses are reappearing on the roads. Rents are spiking, especially in San Francisco neighborhoods where tech employees often live. And on Monday, Twitter reopened its office, becoming one of the first big tech companies to welcome more than skeleton crews of employees back to the workplace. Twitter employees wearing backpacks and puffy jackets on a cold San Francisco summer morning greeted old friends and explored a space redesigned to accommodate social-distancing measures.
Bumper-to-bumper traffic has returned to the region's bridges and freeways. Tech commuter buses are reappearing on the roads. Rents are spiking, especially in San Francisco neighborhoods where tech employees often live. And on Monday, Twitter reopened its office, becoming one of the first big tech companies to welcome more than skeleton crews of employees back to the workplace. Twitter employees wearing backpacks and puffy jackets on a cold San Francisco summer morning greeted old friends and explored a space redesigned to accommodate social-distancing measures.
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I know how you feel bro. I went to slashdot to try to read the comments on articles, but instead, I encountered a long-ass wall-of-text rant.
I'm not surprised (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not surprised: I've been to Texas.
Actually, Austin isn't bad... but it's main problem is, it's surrounded on all sides by Texas.
Re:I'm not surprised (Score:5, Funny)
But on the bright side it has a reliable power grid
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But on the bright side [Texas] has a reliable power grid
Yes but not reliable in a good way.
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Yes, the solar cells are fine for bitcoin mining, which is all that matter in the "new economy". Not so reliable for air conditioning, transportation, or farming.
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Except when it snows.
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Trust me if we could box up Austin and sent it (back) to California we would!
WTH is "we"?
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Exactly this. You can find tolerable parts around Dallas but same thing. San Antonia is pretty cool I hear but I ain't been there yet.
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Even without the surrounding Texas, Austin also has the added drawback of miserably hot weather ten months of the year, peaking to unbearably hot for four of those ten. Here, we only get maybe three or four *weeks* worth of bad weather in a given year; and those days aren't contiguous. And at the moment it's a nice and comfortable 56 degrees outside.
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That's what brought me back.
Currently I'm in Humboldt, which is one of the few regions of the country which hasn't been unbearably hot of late. Instead, it's been unseasonably cold, but that still just means typical foggy coast weather.
Re:I'm not surprised (Score:5, Informative)
And it's hot. I'm surprised that the summary indicates people leaving the Bay Area for Miami and Texas, when the weather in the Bay Area is just right. Maybe they're the idiots who confuse San Francisco for the Bay Area (or even mistakenly thinking that SF is a tech hub).
Percentages needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
It might be true that some people are returning but the question is what percent of tech workers that left are returning? If it's 10% then that's something but not a lot. If it's 1% then that's not very remarkable. If it's 50% then it's a story. Sadly without a study we're only going on anecdotes.
It is notable that housing prices have dropped 20 percent which may account for some people returning. Without real numbers, this is just gossip.
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SFGate and other papers got the mail forwarding records from SF. Folks moved around for better rents or moved to the surrounding cities / burbs.
They didn't leave the SFBA, a lot of already rich people did ... i.e. C level and investors. So, those who actually work for a living just moved around.
Also, housing prices have increased dramatically, and finding rentals is damn near impossible. Rents in neighboring cities to SF haven't dropped that much at all. If you are buying a house.... prices have skyrocketed
A better question (Score:2)
It might be true that some people are returning but the question is what percent of tech workers that left are returning? If it's 10% then that's something but not a lot. If it's 1% then that's not very remarkable. If it's 50% then it's a story. Sadly without a study we're only going on anecdotes.
It is notable that housing prices have dropped 20 percent which may account for some people returning. Without real numbers, this is just gossip.
A better question is what is the % of workers who left SF. I suspect (and I could be wrong), that the exodus out of SF wasn't that big in terms of proportions (not more than 1%)
Regardless of proportions, I actually called this. When we move out of metro areas and onto smaller/cheaper ones, we trade access to larger job markets for lower rent and mortgages.
And from experience, it sucks to be in a shallow job market with only a few players. It is too much of a vulnerable position to be when the economy go
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The city population shrank by about 50,000 which is more than 1%. The thing is, SF imports ~80,000 new graduates every year, and a lot of them leave after a year anyways. So now we're getting the 2021 crop of graduates, and in 2022 we'll get another crop. And most will leave, but some will stay.
It's nice to have a vacation home in the country, but it's difficult to leave the epicenter of tech.
Home sweet home (Score:2)
Tech Workers Who Swore Off the Bay Area Are Coming Back
Retitled: vacations are over, time to come back home
Temper tantrum meets bills (Score:3)
Not really surprising. It's easy to say things, harder to DO things and at the end of the day we all have bills to pay.
warmer weather? (Score:2)
searching for a better life in cities like Miami and Austin, Texas -- where the weather is warmer,
Silicon Valley (Santa Clara County / San Jose) gets high-90's to low-100's every year. I'm not sure how much warmer it needs to be for people to be comfortable.
I get if someone doesn't like the cold foggy weather of living in the Outer Sunset of San Francisco, but move 15 miles in any direction and you can have different weather.
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I lived in the Sunnyside neighborhood, on the south side of Twin Peaks, and it was indeed almost always sunny. I could see the fog blowing up over the nearest hill to the west, it would condense and rain on a single house, and then dissipate. I saw lots of fog, but only from a distance. And that's still inside the city limits. Just going half a mile south the temperature would be 10F higher.
And of course most of east bay is an oven.
The weather is something people other places, with worse weather, talk about
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I like San Jose weather. None of this messing around with dressing in layers like in the City. If it's August you can wear shorts all day and all night.
Santa Cruz weather is entertaining, we like to watch tourists at sunset getting blasted by a cold wind. Driven into gift shops to buy overpriced hoodies. Hopefully they enjoyed the nice sunny days even if swimming more than a few minutes is out of the question. While humans don't like the cold water, the sharks are happy.
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Mvoe 15 miles and you get better weather AND half the housing costs AND fewer hipsters.
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Sadly 1 bedrooms in both SF and Mountain View are around $3k. There is not much in the Bay Area that is cheap anymore. I managed to live in a rent controlled apartment in San Jose for many years, but those are harder to find now. The cities really don't seem keen on making more rent controlled apartments, they want to give developers huge breaks in taxes and zoning laws to build luxury apartments. You'd basically have to move to Fresno or Merced if you want to live affordably in California, and the weather
It's all about the Benjamin's baby (Score:3)
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What's scary is if remote work means businesses will pay market rate rather than relative to cost of living, with the inevitable race to the bottom. Market rate for Hydrabad or Pune would be a might bit difficult for someone living in the Bay Area.
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I did a little research on the baby of Benjamin and learned about Loshen Hora.
Super annoying (Score:2, Informative)
Traffic is getting worse.
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I wish all these people talking about leaving California would just leave already.
The west coast tech hubs (Score:2)
Hope they stay put! (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:Hope they stay put! (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm with you on all of that. I will never say never, but just the thought of paying those sky-high prices for small houses and no property just sends shivers down my spine. I love having 10 acres for ~$150K, and then having the surrounding 80 acres farm land....NO NEIGHBORS!!! I get calls from the big 3 (Facebook, Amazon & MS) all the time for which it is typically the "Thank You for your time, but I'm not interested in moving".
Personally I just love watching people from the city move out into the country to live their dreams only to find that there are no Starbucks, there are no deli's with bagels for 15 miles and the closest restaurant is 10 miles...and no, they don't serve sushi. Typically it is about 6 months before their property is for sale so they can move back.
Neither volume MATTERS (Score:3, Insightful)
All such stories are mere clickbait garbage.
I'm gonna call BS on this one... (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is behind a paywall so I couldn't read it but the summary contains no metrics - merely assertions that people are coming back. Yes, some of the offices are reopening but many of the employees are remaining remote. More people are leaving CA than arriving. That is without dispute -> https://www.usnews.com/news/us... [usnews.com]
Many of the people writing these kinds of articles are sitting on large corporate real estate portfolios and thus have a vested interest in having the public believe that people are not fleeing SF and LA and NYC.
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Yeah, because the 24 year old Millenial who wrote the article, Kellen Browning, is a corporate real estate magnate. The kid probably earns $35K a year and lives in a studio apartment in NJ.
So it wouldn’t cost much to pay that kid to write whatever you wanted, right?
Re:I'm gonna call BS on this one... (Score:4, Interesting)
You should check mail forwarding. It shows folks NOT fleeing the SFBA. Only C level and investor types ... i.e. rich people.
There are plenty of articles with these metrics. GTMF.
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So the smart people are leaving...gotcha.
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Consider the editors give no fucks and are evidently proud of that.
Amazing (Score:1)
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Amazing how motivation by threats can cause people to find a better job.
article is a lie (Score:1)
San Fran is having population implosion
https://www.newgeography.com/c... [newgeography.com]
Correction (Score:3)
Correction: the ones who aren't good enough to get remote are coming back.
YAH WELL (Score:1)
I'm GOinG to bUILd My owN SILICON VallEy, WIth bLaCkJaCK, aND HookERS.
IN fAcT..
ForGEt ThE siLIcoN valLEY.
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Dude...where is the blow & booze? You gotta have the blow & booze with the hookers...everyone knows that. Amateurs...sheesh. Did you learn nothing John McAfee?
The Exodus was always overblown (Score:4, Interesting)
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I for one would rather move to a bigger city with better public transportation instead of hiding further in the woods where it takes an hour to drive anywhere. People leaving big cities that don't want to be there make them more attractive to people who do want to be there.
They never left! (Score:1)
CA Unemployment changes this week and Sept 5 (Score:2)
Another factor is the expiration of pandemic-related unemployment payment changes.
During the pandemic the requirement to search for work was modified to just being required to take it if it was offered out of the blue. Starting this week it's back to "must do something to look for work every week - such as contact employers - and document it".
On the first full week of Sept the federal programs extending and augmenting the amount of unemployment expire. People who lost jobs before last fall go off the roll