Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

>The world does exist outside of Silicon Valley. I can get exactly what you're describing in over half of this country, pick your state including the entirety of the midwest.

This is equivalent to saying sky-high housing prices in Tokyo didn't need fixing, since folks could always just live in Hokkaido--a pragmatic absurdity.

A city is a giant organism that needs people to play a variety of roles in order to thrive. All those people deserve (and arguably, for the health of the city, need) to be able to earn enough to live with some dignity. If only the wealthy can afford decent housing near a city, that city is no longer a functional community--it's a NIMBY bubble that creates a feedback loop of socioeconomic disparity.




>This is equivalent to saying sky-high housing prices in Tokyo didn't need fixing, since folks could always just live in Hokkaido--a pragmatic absurdity.

It isn't even remotely the equivalent of saying that. The land mass of Japan is a fraction of the US, and the jobs are highly concentrated in their large cities. The US, as a whole, is nothing like that.

Regardless, it was a pointless argument for him to make in the first place, he was just moving goal posts by trying to equate calling employees parasites to San Francisco zoning laws. There was absolutely no point going down that path other than to distract from his original (disgusting) statement and implying that somehow people wanting more than minimum wage should really be blaming the Mayor of San Francisco for high housing prices. Which again... is completely irrelevant to the vast majority of the population of the US.


It isn't even remotely the equivalent of saying that. The land mass of Japan is a fraction of the US, and the jobs are highly concentrated in their large cities. The US, as a whole, is nothing like that.

Most US industrial production is concentrated in about 5 regions. The US isn't that different.

Regardless, it was a pointless argument for him to make in the first place, he was just moving goal posts by trying to equate calling employees parasites to San Francisco zoning laws

Nonsense. Housing costs are the great misery-multiplier in the West and it isn't specific to SF. Look at Berlin or London or Paris or Toronto. Everywhere the dysfunction is the same and everywhere the working poor live with crushing housing insecurity, in spite of living in thriving job markets. With reasonable urban housing prices and rent most of the people in the "working poor" would advance to middle-class status and a lot of the inequality issues we have would be tractable. Instead, we just keep ignoring pricing theory and we just keep dumping more wealth into supply-constrained markets and we just keep wondering why these problems don't get any better.

There was absolutely no point going down that path other than to distract from his original (disgusting) statement and implying that somehow people wanting more than minimum wage

Ptooey! Pardon me, but I had to spit out all of the words you're stuffing in my mouth. I said nothing about minimum wage. You did. This is the same neurotic defective programming I'm talking about. The projection of intent in your response is what's disgusting.

Which again... is completely irrelevant to the vast majority of the population of the US.

Go look up what a lower-middle class family needs to pay for rent in suburbs in Atlanta or Austin or other cities with good job opportunities.




Consider applying for YC's W25 batch! Applications are open till Nov 12.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: