pkelly

Not a virtue in itself. But if you live in the bay area you are priced out of living less densely. You can of course move away to a more affordable area. And now with remote work being more accepted that is a viable option for white collar workers, definitely not for blue collar though.

But if you have kids, family, friends, in the bay area then that is a difficult decision to say the least.

I've heard this before too and it is a concern. I'd like to see some study or some kind of evidence for or against it though.

You're welcome!

Dang, this post has already fallen to 100th on HN, way off front page. The algo is pretty rough...

I agree it is def not the only thing to do to tackle the housing problem, but I think it can be a good tool to help get these projects passed. NIMBYism in the bay is so rampant that neighbors pretty much oppose all high density housing developments.

I agree with you that the main problem is supply and demand. We need more homes to keep prices affordable and the only way to do that in the bay is more density.

I don't think it has to be an either or situation. We should subsidize low-income housing so ppl with lower incomes have somewhere to live right now, and also build more market rate units so everyone has a place to live at an affordable rate long term.

Well, that was to build another mega-campus. This development is for housing, mixed-use and some office space. I'm not surprised they are re-evaluating it given the success of remote and hybrid work.

I just did some similar squinting by comparing satellite view with the map on the SFgate article. Development is mainly between 101 and Charleston Rd. I see lots of Google office buildings in that area.

Also I chuckled a bit when I realized I was using Google maps to make this connection

Pretty sure this is a move to support remote work. They are trimming down their existing campus to build more homes in the bay area, which is in dire need of that.

Big tech has lots of real estate for their mega campuses. It is gonna take a while to unwind that.

I'm not sure this is so much a company town as Google is trimming its mega in-person office footprint.

The bay area is in dire need of housing so I'm all for more homes getting built. 15% set aside for low-income housing too which is a good thing.

Thank you for writing this article! I've had similar thoughts for the past 5 years or so.

A lot of the comments here seem to have the approach that there is a single best stack for building web applications. I believe this comes from the fact that as web engineers we have to choose which tech to invest our careers in which is inherently risky. Spend a couples years on something that becomes defunct and it feels like a waste. Also, startup recruiters are always looking for the tech experience that matches the choice of their companies. VCs want to strike while the iron is hot.

Something that doesn't get talked about enough (which the author does mention near the end of article) is that different web apps have different needs. There is 100% a need for SPAs for certain use cases. Messaging, video players, etc. But there are many cases where it is overkill, like the many many CRUD resource apps I've built over the years. Say you have a couple hundred users that need to manage the state of a dozen interconnected resources. The benefits of an MPA are great here. Routing is free, no duplication of FE / BE code. Small teams of devs can ship code and fix bugs very fast which keeps the user feedback loop tight.

The way I interpreted the quote was that if you don't know your goals you are going to take every opportunity that comes your way and not turn down any projects.

It's very easy to fall into this and end up with lots of crappy projects that continue on for months. Especially when you first start out as a freelancer and worry about getting consistent work.