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etalian posted:This is pretty much the best article I read on the Bay Area housing problem: There must not be any good articles on the Bay Area housing problem then, because it's really dumb to blame a single breeding colony of burrowing owls for lack of density in an area covered by single family homes and sprawling business parks.
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# ? May 21, 2014 06:26 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 08:23 |
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Moon Potato posted:There must not be any good articles on the Bay Area housing problem then, because it's really dumb to blame a single breeding colony of burrowing owls for lack of density in an area covered by single family homes and sprawling business parks. that's what you got out of the article?
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# ? May 21, 2014 06:38 |
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Hog Obituary posted:that's what you got out of the article? Hey now, sometimes you just have time to read the headlines.
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# ? May 21, 2014 06:40 |
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Yeah the burrowing owls thing is a red herring, it's not what the article is about really. That article's been making its rounds and showing up in a lot of threads for the last few weeks. I'm not sure I agree on every point, but it's so comprehensive and thorough that it's more or less required reading for anyone who wants to speak intelligently about the Bay Area housing.
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# ? May 21, 2014 06:46 |
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Owls are worth more than overpaid google manchildren. Give the owls nice homes and have the google manchildren live in tents. HBOs Silicon Valley. The documentary of the era (and area).
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# ? May 21, 2014 07:03 |
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Yeah, i'm sure Google hires a bunch of stunted manchildren when it recruits at top colleges. They are no match for the cultured Something Awful poster checking out the lastest anime Let's Play.
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# ? May 21, 2014 07:44 |
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Mayor Dave posted:There was a short article in today's Washington Post (online blog edition) about the California Republican Party's desperate attempt at relevance, specifically the governor's race. They're freaking out about the possibility of Tim Donnelly winning the primary. In fact, they're so worried that they're actually kicking money to what is doubtlessly a lost cause in an attempt to keep the party from sinking even further into irrelevance. Read on ahead! There are two "third rail" issues in california 1) prop 13 and 2) discuss regressive/negative immigration reform.
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# ? May 21, 2014 08:05 |
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ComradeCosmobot posted:Hey now, sometimes you just have time to read the headlines. Go to Mountain View, look at how land is used there, then tell me why anything in this paragraph belongs in the discussion at all. quote:The Google Bus protesters have said that the company should build housing on its campus, but the Mountain View city council has explicitly forbidden Google from doing just that. They’ve argued that it’s to protect the city’s burrowing owl population. (The city council even created a feral cat taskforce last week to protect the owls.)
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# ? May 21, 2014 08:15 |
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Moon Potato posted:Go to Mountain View, look at how land is used there, then tell me why anything in this paragraph belongs in the discussion at all. The people that live in SF and commute to the South Bay are not doing so for lack of housing in the South Bay. They want the 'culture' of SF and are willing to prioritize their entertainment over such considerations as the environmental impact of living 50 miles from work. If Mt. View built more apartments the people that commute from SF would not move into them, Google employees that already live in the South Bay would. Cupertino is adding more high density housing. There are at least two large developments underway, but I bet it will have a negligible effect on the SF commuters.
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# ? May 21, 2014 16:06 |
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Family Values posted:Cupertino is adding more high density housing. There are at least two large developments underway, but I bet it will have a negligible effect on the SF commuters. Very probably. The only person I know who lives in the City Center complex moved there because his girlfriend got a job in Campbell after working in SF and, unlike him, doesn't have the opportunity to use an Apple bus to get there. He'd probably have stayed in SF if not for that.
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# ? May 21, 2014 16:22 |
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Family Values posted:The people that live in SF and commute to the South Bay are not doing so for lack of housing in the South Bay. They want the 'culture' of SF and are willing to prioritize their entertainment over such considerations as the environmental impact of living 50 miles from work. Yes, but not just the culture. In many ways it's also a status symbol for them in a modern bizzaro world "keeping-up-with-the-jones" because it's also so desirable. I've also met some that sadly think living near "culture" will make them interesting people--it usually doesn't.
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# ? May 21, 2014 16:48 |
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Family Values posted:The people that live in SF and commute to the South Bay are not doing so for lack of housing in the South Bay. They want the 'culture' of SF and are willing to prioritize their entertainment over such considerations as the environmental impact of living 50 miles from work. Yes. The gripe about the owls is an uninformed, petty non-sequitur for multiple reasons and not a great way to start an article if you want to be taken seriously.
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# ? May 21, 2014 17:55 |
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It is an amusing-sounding detail that fits into the much bigger picture the journalist was trying to paint: thousands of development-stymieing decisions, each of which may seem reasonable on their own, which accumulate into a clusterfuck that has brought us this frustrating state of affairs where liberals are literally angry about people taking busses. The owls are a loving metaphor.
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# ? May 21, 2014 17:58 |
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sincx fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Mar 23, 2021 |
# ? May 21, 2014 18:09 |
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sincx posted:It's not even culture, it's girls. I mean it's all of the above. In short the Peninsula and South Bay are horrible and people with money are willing to spend it to not live there.
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# ? May 21, 2014 18:12 |
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Most of the people buying homes are married.
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# ? May 21, 2014 18:19 |
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Leperflesh posted:It is an amusing-sounding detail that fits into the much bigger picture the journalist was trying to paint: thousands of development-stymieing decisions, each of which may seem reasonable on their own, which accumulate into a clusterfuck that has brought us this frustrating state of affairs where liberals are literally angry about people taking busses. The busses are a metaphor too. Instead of public services there are private services for the few. Bart, for instance, was supposed to go to Marin and make a loop around the bay. But nope, we got tax cuts instead and when traffic got really bad, private busses for the few and even more aggravating, tolls for single drivers in the carpool lane. I think of the gated community as a parallel. There is a public pool in my town slated for closing, but the swanky folks (many of whom commute by bus into silicon valley) are expanding services funded by HoA including a community pool. The issue in my view was never a rejection of collectivism or nimby, but a too small view of who should benefit from collective investment. Collective investment is fine until the wrong people start to benefit.
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# ? May 21, 2014 18:47 |
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Sure, yes. I was responding to this: Moon Potato posted:Go to Mountain View, look at how land is used there, then tell me why anything in this paragraph belongs in the discussion at all.
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# ? May 21, 2014 19:00 |
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on the left posted:Yeah, i'm sure Google hires a bunch of stunted manchildren when it recruits at top colleges. They are no match for the cultured Something Awful poster checking out the lastest anime Let's Play. Obviously you haven't spent much time in the Mountain View bar scene....just kidding, they all live in the Mission and never go out. Edit: My gripe with that article is that is is kinda light on potential solutions for all its exposition. Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 23:28 on May 21, 2014 |
# ? May 21, 2014 23:25 |
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Leperflesh posted:It is an amusing-sounding detail that fits into the much bigger picture the journalist was trying to paint: thousands of development-stymieing decisions, each of which may seem reasonable on their own, which accumulate into a clusterfuck that has brought us this frustrating state of affairs where liberals are literally angry about people taking busses. It's a bad metaphor and a lovely attempt at click bait. An author who enjoys digging up historic details as much as him should have been able to figure out why there are municipal and regional ordinances about protecting burrowing owls and how, even if you developed over every last piece of their habitat, it wouldn't drop rents in San Francisco at all.
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# ? May 22, 2014 20:31 |
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Dusseldorf posted:I mean it's all of the above. In short the Peninsula and South Bay are horrible and people with money are willing to spend it to not live there. The Peninsula has some pretty cute downtown areas for cities like San Mateo, South Bay is pretty horrible in general in terms of being a forgettable maze of big box stores and bland suburbia. To get back on topic away from the standard housing whining, this is probably the best worst candidate for governor: http://articles.latimes.com/2014/mar/21/local/la-me-glenn-champ-20140322 etalian fucked around with this message at 05:48 on May 23, 2014 |
# ? May 23, 2014 05:44 |
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sincx posted:It's not even culture, it's girls. Do you have a source for this?
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# ? May 23, 2014 08:18 |
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Horking Delight posted:Do you have a source for this? Or did you mean the non-obvious thing? For Many Chinese Men, No Deed Means No Dates http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/asia/15bachelors.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 No deeds, no dates: Real-estate desire in China leaves men without mates http://seattletimes.com/html/living/2014778600_chinabachelors15.html
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# ? May 23, 2014 08:27 |
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FRINGE posted:A source that computer industry engineers dont get art Everyone knows you can't appreciate art without an expensive art degree, which is why so many renowned artists went to expensive MFA programs at small private colleges.
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# ? May 23, 2014 08:30 |
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Moon Potato posted:It's a bad metaphor and a lovely attempt at click bait. An author who enjoys digging up historic details as much as him should have been able to figure out why there are municipal and regional ordinances about protecting burrowing owls and how, even if you developed over every last piece of their habitat, it wouldn't drop rents in San Francisco at all. Jesus christ you are just really determined to not understand the premise of using a small example as a stand-in for a systemic problem. It's not an anti-environmentalist hit piece! The author is showing how hundreds of different decisions, each of which seemed rational and supportable in isolation, have combined to create a bad situation. The owls thing is just a more memorable and attention-getting minor detail that makes for a headline. "Click bait" is one way to describe every headline-writer's job for every magazine, newspaper, and online news story going back a hundred years, but it's kind of a stupid one. Yeah. It has a title that is designed to grab your attention so maybe you'll be more likely to read the article (and view the ads that paid for it). Why complain about that? Do you actually disagree with the article's broad conclusions, or are you just determined to complain about petty poo poo? Just as a reminder: Moon Potato posted:There must not be any good articles on the Bay Area housing problem then, because it's really dumb to blame a single breeding colony of burrowing owls for lack of density in an area covered by single family homes and sprawling business parks. That's not what the article says. Trabisnikof posted:Edit: My gripe with that article is that is is kinda light on potential solutions for all its exposition. The job of a journalist is to inform the public about the problems. It is the job of policymakers, taxpayers, and voters to decide on and enact solutions.
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# ? May 23, 2014 08:30 |
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on the left posted:Everyone knows you can't appreciate art without an expensive art degree, which is why so many renowned artists went to expensive MFA programs at small private colleges.
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# ? May 23, 2014 08:45 |
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FRINGE posted:If it was real art it would be created on a fine medium, like a playstation or an xbox. Not like those cave trolls mushing colored goo around on cloth. How many of those goo on cloth artists went to an expensive art school? Or how many great authors in the 20th century did a Literature MFA? All the names I could think of apparently did not do either of those things. on the left fucked around with this message at 09:13 on May 23, 2014 |
# ? May 23, 2014 09:09 |
Driving through / touring the Bay Area and Marin county is always an eye-opener. People are wealthy to a point where it's obscene. (I'm saying this is as a detached, withdrawn observer, not as an angry, jealous Occupy protester). Telesphorus fucked around with this message at 09:46 on May 23, 2014 |
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# ? May 23, 2014 09:43 |
Telesphorus posted:(I'm saying this is as a detached, withdrawn observer, not as an angry, jealous Occupy protester). you're saying this as a mean, dumb oval office
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# ? May 23, 2014 10:16 |
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Its true though. Silicon Valley money gives you pus-oozing sores and makes you a Randian monster. Its literally obscene. When America adopts the Burqa it wont be to cover the women, it will be to hide the traumatizing faces of the computer people. They also dont like art schools or something.
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# ? May 23, 2014 10:22 |
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Telesphorus posted:Driving through / touring the Bay Area and Marin county is always an eye-opener. People are wealthy to a point where it's obscene. Just think of all the awesome stuff people from SF could steal if Marin had raised the bonds for BART stations on their side of the bay.
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# ? May 23, 2014 18:00 |
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Leperflesh posted:
Did your friend write that piece or something? Because you are super defensive about it. I'm pretty sure real journalists actually cover proposed solutions not just the problem, I guess blogs can't be held to that same standard in your world? That piece did a good job of informing about a million and a half potential problems and had proposed solutions at the very end of it actually (if you read that far). The proposed solutions however, were pretty worthless and wouldn't have any impact on the problems and mostly came in the "lets all get along guys!" vein.
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# ? May 23, 2014 20:21 |
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Yeah I don't give a gently caress about that guy but I think his article is worthwile reading and it annoyed me that someone dismissed it on the basis of its title or the owls or whatever, and once I got into it, it annoyed me that dudes are arguing with me about the use of an example to try and make a point. Journalists cover solutions when the solutions are part of the news, e.g., a politician or group or someone is proposing to do X. I guess it's fine if someone writing a blog post or an article wants to propose solutions, but I don't think it's valid to criticize someone who doesn't do that. A primer on what's wrong is valuable even if it doesn't include solutions. And in this case in particular I don't think there are any obvious, straightforward solutions.
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# ? May 23, 2014 20:33 |
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FRINGE posted:Its true though. Silicon Valley money gives you pus-oozing sores and makes you a Randian monster. Its literally obscene. When America adopts the Burqa it wont be to cover the women, it will be to hide the traumatizing faces of the computer people. SV is more along the lines of feeding the center right "pro-business" faction of the democratic party, even though there are a few libertarian weirdos such as Thiel from Palantir. It's basically a great money tree for the DNC given how all the big name tech companies from Google to Oracle give to the DNC in big amounts such as 90 percent contributions vs the GOP. Tech was also one of the best fundraising pillars for both Obama presidential campaigns.
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# ? May 24, 2014 00:20 |
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etalian posted:It's basically a great money tree for the DNC given how all the big name tech companies from Google to Oracle give to the DNC in big amounts such as 90 percent contributions vs the GOP. Larry Ellison actually splits his donations between democrats and republicans. Oracle execs are fairly conservative. Oracle puts money into Oracle PAC; a search on the FEC tells you who that PAC gives money to. Here's the first page, showing the most recent contributions: Anna Eshoo is a D Xavier Becerra is a D Bill Johnson of Ohio is an R Blumenthal is a D Bob Goodlatte is an R Boehner... well, you better know who Boehner is, and seriously gently caress that guy etc. My point being, Oracle isn't even really a blue-dog demo kind of place, it's a fulltime fence-straddler that donates specifically for corporate advantage and nothing else. Google execs are more solidly D, with a few exceptions, but not to a 90/10 split. Google's PAC "Google netPAC" has a disclosure (PDF) listing federal contributions and another (PDF) for state candidates. Click the link for NetPAC to see their quarterly lobbying statements which are basically useless since they don't tell you dollar amounts. But looking at just the federal contributions, it's a sea of Rs and Ds. I think it's fair to say tech firms contributed a lot to Obama's election (and reelection) campaign funds, but beyond that, I'm not sure how actually liberal or even blue-dog liberal most of these firms really are. They give money to whoever will promise to cut regulations, make their businesses cheaper to run, enforce net neutrality (or destroy it, depending on who they are), get more pork-barrel spending for California, and so on. Pretty much like all businesses everywhere in the country do.
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# ? May 24, 2014 00:46 |
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Leperflesh posted:Larry Ellison actually splits his donations between democrats and republicans. Never before have I seen such a perfect example of "investing in the status quo."
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# ? May 24, 2014 03:02 |
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There's a good Nate Silver piece that argues that Republicans win nationally when they are able to win SV. I think its this one: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/in-silicon-valley-technology-talent-gap-threatens-g-o-p-campaigns/
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# ? May 24, 2014 05:16 |
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Trabisnikof posted:I'm pretty sure real journalists actually cover proposed solutions not just the problem When you follow it along it is a really lovely outlook and non-analysis. "Oh prisons in the US are criminal enterprises? Well if you cant solve it dont interrupt my Halo streak bro." "Water in the US is more and more contaminated? Why are you telling me about problems you lovely investigative reporter. My highschool economics class told me to ignore problems unless there was "Politics in the US has become the front for an oligarchy? gently caress you you non-solution bringing news monger!" Your lovely attitude was the same thing leveled at Occupy, which did more by saying HEY GUYS THERES A loving PROBLEM HERE to shift the national dialogue than your bad attitude about "noticing things" ever will.
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# ? May 24, 2014 08:16 |
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FRINGE posted:This is untrue, and a 'thing' that started getting repeated not that long ago (in years) as a reason to hide from noticing big picture problems. Fine, you can criticize the concept of journalist presenting "solutions", but this article does present them and the solutions argued for are quite weak. If it hadn't dedicated space to presenting solutions, I wouldn't have an issue with the fact there are none being discussed that are viable. But when an article attempts to cover that space it opens itself up to criticism on its solutions that it proposes. I can forgive you if you didn't read that far.
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# ? May 24, 2014 08:52 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 08:23 |
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Trabisnikof posted:Fine, you can criticize the concept of journalist presenting "solutions" Trabisnikof posted:I'm pretty sure real journalists actually cover proposed solutions not just the problem Trabisnikof posted:My gripe with that article is that is is kinda light on potential solutions I dont care if you think the article sucks. I do care that the attitude: "you have to design solutions or ignore problems to satisfy me" has become more normal over recent years. I think that is a far more important point than this dumb article. You arent the only one, you just happen to be the person that said it right now. A journalist (ideally) is a keen observer and competent investigator. They are not an engineer/psychologist/economist/wizard. Trabisnikof posted:I can forgive you if you didn't read that far.
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# ? May 24, 2014 09:16 |