Techies are paying $700 a month for tiny bed ‘pods’ in downtown San Francisco::px-captcha
It’s funny to me how many of the things we were told communism would bring about are now being experienced under the current economic system.
But that’s obviously because of the socialist elements left in the system. /s
All people need to do is realize the country is a lot bigger than California and New York. There is still a lot of affordable housing, just not in those places anymore. Stop shunning the “flyover states”.
A lot of those states are overflowing with fascists.
Get out of your echo chamber.
The problem is that there is not nearly as many good jobs in the rural areas, and most of the good jobs in tech related fields are moving employees back to the office, which means forcing people to work in big cities.
I realize it’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Business go where the workers are and workers go where the businesses are. But there is no reason tech has to be done in Silicon Valley. Any city in the country could be a tech hub, all it takes is for a successful tech company to put down roots there, and with the way things are going people shouldn’t need to be at a “tech company” to have a job in tech. And there are also other jobs that people can make a living at.
People moved to California, because that’s where the jobs are, but the jobs could just as easily be somewhere else if a company chooses to set up shop there, and use a low cost of living as a selling point. During the Industrial Revolution people moved to the rust belt for jobs. People have been moving based on available jobs for as long as there have been jobs. If these coastal mega cities are no longer viable due to housing prices. It’s time for another migration. And if people do think climate change is going to be a major issue in their lifetime, why not move now while it’s cheap and lock down a house?
Just because a city isn’t as big as LA or NYC doesn’t mean it’s rural. Chicago, Philadelphia, Columbus, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Denver, Oklahoma City, and Nashville are all bigger than Portland, which seems to be an area people have no problem moving. All except the last 3 are bigger than Seattle, which is big enough for Amazon, and Microsoft is not far away.
People moved to Cali cuz Cali is awesome and beautiful. Iowa/ Nebraska not so much.
People went to California because of the gold rush. They quite literally went there in hopes of getting rich. Then they went there for Hollywood, which was again chasing fortune and fame. Then for tech, which was the gold rush of modern times. California became the symbol for the American dream, which has become harder and harder to achieve in California due to the cost of living ballooning out of control.
Without the gold rush bringing the initial people there, it’s unlikely Southern California would be much today, as it’s not really setup to support a large population, due to a lack of fresh water. What it has now is a result of humans forcing it there, which has not been great for the areas it was taken from. And California has to deal with water rationing and things of that nature as a result.
There are a lot of beautiful places in the world, most of them are nothing more than tourist destinations, because there aren’t any jobs there, outside of tourism.
But my point is that Ohio is not one of those places…nor is Iowa. They both suck to look at much less the economy.
It sounds like you’ve never been to Cali.
So easy to fall in love with it.You think if it looked like Nebraska anyone would have stayed after the gold rush??? Lol
I’ve been to Cali a few times. Traffic, housing, and natural disasters aren’t things I want to deal with regularly. I’ll visit, but that’s about it. Of the places I’ve been, it’s not at the top of my list of places to go back to.
As a native Oklahoman, don’t tell people to move to Oklahoma. It’s a shit hole state.
I don’t think thats true. Housing prices are high everywhere, I have friends and family in the midwest their shit is out of control too. New York and San Fran are the most extreme for sure but costs of renting or buying have like tripled everywhere over the last decade
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The USA is better than this. We should not be forcing people to live in tiny little dorms to work in our tech hubs due to housing costs. Build more apartments, fund it through corporate taxes and actually make San Francisco affordable for our brightest tech workers.
Tech workers shouldn’t be working from an onsite location unless they’re touching hardware…there shouldn’t be a central location they’re all at anyways.
I don’t know about shouldn’t. I think that there should always be the option to work remotely, but I much prefer to work in an office where I can have a separate mental space from home and be able to build meaningful relationships with my coworkers.
Ok but most of this can be solved by going to literally any co-working space.
And as far as getting to know coworkers–wouldn’t you rather pick your friends from people you can choose to be around?
Sorry, don’t take my spicy opinion personally. I think I’ve read too many dumbass return-to-office mandates that use stuff like your preference as leverage. Obviously, it’s not your fault they do that.
It’s not about picking friends. It’s about building trust and connection with the people you are already spending all this time with. It’s hard to tackle big challenges with people you barely know and don’t trust.
Co working space? No thanks. That’s like a motel versus a home. They’re dirty and noisy. Our employer keeps a great office space with everything we need and no coworking space can compare. It’s also a permanent space we know after years of working there. And I’ll bump into more distant coworkers there just by chance. With co working spaces you basically have to plan specific days to meet specific people somewhere, and it cuts down on serendipitous connection.
Working in a coworking space has all the problems of office working without any of the benefits.
I don’t need to be friends with my coworkers, but having non-scheduled interaction with them makes working with them much much easier. I worked on 3 different remote teams and I honestly don’t even think I could name most of my former coworkers, let alone recognize them.
My old company is a great example. They love to say collaboration and shit as a reason to be in office, but you need to ask your CO for permission to speak in office
While a co-working space would indeed help with having a separate work environment, I disagree that it would help with the social part of my problem with remote work. Not only do I feel far less like I am “part of a team” when I’m with a remote team, but often it leads to a lot of friction on collaboration in my own work. I’m quite headstrong and have trouble reaching out for help when I’m stuck with things, and part of addressing that is lowering the friction involved in getting help as much as possible. Idk, this is all anecdote and maybe isn’t as applicable if you’re not doing software development, but it’s what I’ve experienced.
I would love to see incentives to have people work from home in towns that need the population. I think a lot of people would like to live somewhere more rural if they didn’t have to commute… but we would need to fix public transportation if we did that. Otherwise we’re just adding more cars and miles.
I live rural, and wfh and have been for nearly a decade now. My cars get way less use than when I had to go into the office. Rural doesn’t mean more traveling and cars if you’re working from home.
I can’t see the locals in such places taking kindly to any formal program to move people there. We can say “these areas need population” but they will say “it’s driving up rents and they’re a bunch of city slicking tech bros and we hate them.”
The areas that truly, undeniably need population are so bombed-out that no one with any other options will live there.
Agreed.
Wouldn’t it be incredible if smaller tech companies spread out a bit? There are plenty of small towns in America that could use any form of industry to keep them alive.
There aren’t many skilled workers in those areas though, and you’d need a lot of money to convince people to move to a less desirable area just for you.
Not everyone works well remote. I much prefer a hybrid model and honestly wouldn’t even consider working somewhere that’s 100% WFH. All that WFH does for me is decrease how much work I get done and make every waking moment in my home feel like work because I live in a 1 bedroom apartment.
Okay, then be somebody that goes in office?
That’s nice, rent a co-working space.
Hybrid working is completely useless if you’re not in the same space as your coworkers.
I get that some people don’t like working in person, but it’s much easier to get things done and to get short, off the cuff answers without sitting around blocked for 2 hours because nobody will take 2 minutes to answer a question.
History suggests that the USA really isn’t better than this. If you ignore the post WWII boom period, workers being treated terribly is the norm.
Well, no. Im not going to ignore the last 80 years. Of course progress takes time and future-looking we can still do much better. We have the means, we have the land, we have the know how.
Workers have been treated progressively worse since the Reagan era. You’re really only talking about a few decades of labor progress in the last century followed by decline.
And that was only because they had to beat the nazis and afterwards prove that capitalism wasn’t worse for common folk than communism. Once that credible bogeyman was gone, we were left with TINA, so they went back to screwing everyone over.
Part of the housing problem: https://youtu.be/CCOdQsZa15o?si=zupttseljqhz07RO
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This is just a shittier capsule hotel like they have in Japan. At least there they don’t charge you an arm and a leg for it.
Wikipedia article puts the pricing in Japan between 18 to 36 USD per night. That’s a range between 540 to 1080 USD per month. That makes San Francisco pricing average.
You can’t really compare a per night pricing to a per month pricing. Per month is always cheaper that per night but you loose the flexibility.
Anyway the price difference makes sense because SF housing is more expensive than Tokyo.
Ooh good call! I was misremembering the price!
They have much better standard, they have a door you can close, not just some curtains, the SF one is like a hostel.
Some have curtains in Japan as well.
I don’t dislike the idea of people living in dormitories, but with a price of $700 it seems that should have a full height room.
Can’t even stand up to get dressed in one of these
Can’t they work remotely? Why live in downtown SF? Seems like a waste of money.
These look little more luxurious than the low-income housing in Beijing.
Return to work is all about keeping money in the financial district.
Coffin Motels.
The term was coined in Neuromancer I believe.
Rather a converted van, cheaper and serves two purposes as can guarantee that $700 does not include parking.
Presumably part of the draw for living in downtown San Francisco is you don’t need to pay for the upkeep and feeding of a car
Yeah but it avoids the hassle of having your home impounded for being illegally parked.
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I swear I remember a location like this in one of the newer Deus Ex games, which take place in a cyberpunk ish dystopia
In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Adam Jensen, the game’s protagonist, searches for a computer hacker named Van Brugen and finds him hiding out in a place called Alice Pods in Hengsha, which is essentially a “hotel” composed of coffin-like closable pods with beds in them. Each guest rents a pod and can make use of the on-site facilities. It was communal living on a shoestring budget (or in Van Brugen’s case, hiding from the Pharmaceutical Megacorp trying to assassinate you).
The funny part is that the fictional Alice Pods actually had more amenities than this real-life pod hotel does. They had washers and dryer units, private shower stalls and toilets, and even late-night food trucks in the common area serving up food.
A cyberpunk dystopia actually wasn’t dystopian enough to match reality.
Oh hellll to the no… somebody is making a fucking killing on these idiots though!!
Are they idiots or are they unable to find housing within budget? Not sure about their rental situation. In Toronto you find ads for half a bed that you have to share for $500cad
They are idiots for staying in an area with prices that high if they aren’t making enough money to make it financially feasible
What a lot of people do is work and live in SF as frugally as they can, save a few hundred thousand bucks, then move away
Wouldn’t be something I would go for but if people are going for this it sounds like hell of a way to get filthy rich and screw tenants. Investment opportunity?!? Do they pay a deposit I can steal as well??
$550 is the most I ever paid for a room there, but that was in 2000. My dad loves to talk about his $12 apartment on Sanchez back in 1965.
Techies?
