I used to love it, but have had very annoying connection issues of late. Also shuts off and restarts during some use. I had to switch it over to 2.4Ghz recently which I think did it in, which I had to do for connection of home devices with "dumb smart" plugs.
I know this is very different target markets and product desires, but I have 3 Google Home mini speakers I have spent under $150 on + my privacy from our overlords. Works very well with Spotify and solid sound for someone who isn't an audiofile, and while not amazing design, very solid. My condolences to the OP on their failures of late :/
There's an implicit assumption there that this problem will continue until it consumes most every small city, which I don't think is true. At a certain point, it will either stop at a larger/more popular city level or will spread itself so thin that the original set of cities becomes affordable again full circle. I suspect the first case as the cumulative growth rate of tech slows, but of course that guess is just as good as yours likely.
No argument here, but what does this have to do with the countless other neighborhoods in NYC and the consistent expansion of housing that has happened in them over the past few decades while other cities experienced far worse gentrification pressures by not building housing?
Hudson Yards is not what I'm referring to in any way in my posts on this article. I'm mainly talking large towers in Williamsburg, along Atlantic Ave in Brooklyn, in the East Village edge near Alphabet City, some in Gowanus, Long Island City, and many others I'm probably forgetting.
Odd answer, but go to the megacities that show resilience and are building housing. In the US, so far that may only be NYC. I know that's not amazing to hear if you have other reservations about NYC, but I think it's the reality until mid-sized cities catch on and get their shit together.
The other answer IMO is to pick a city no one in tech is even thinking about, and the growth rate is expected to be slow. Not to jynx them but places like Cleveland, Richmond VA, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Detroit, Columbus, San Antonio, Milwaulkee, etc.
Personally, I far prefer the megacity, but that second list is a potential option.
From an urban development perspective, to me it seems that the best course of action would be a massive federal investment in existing mid-sized cities. Build large public transit networks in some of these becoming desirable cities and distribute the strain tech is putting on our urban centers. Massively increase housing density, but with this foresight, avoid doing the short term luxury development that won't hold up longterm and build some old fashioned 3-5 story brownstones.
The risk is that the people never come, but the alternative is the consistent hollowing out of all major US cities. Something has to give.
I don't see where I say anything about those, you might be assuming things here. The whole point is to maintain many of those houses affordability and current residents. If done right, property taxes should not increase significantly, and the local government has the levers to ensure that if they make it a priority.
> Those luxury buildings are going exclusively into poor neighborhoods because they have the cheapest land and least restrictions.
That sounds like what the cities should precisely fix. Use zoning and legislation to herd these buildings into more desirable places. Real estate will still come and build. Many cities have done this before, this is very much possible.
If not private, then we get back to the idea of public housing being built. This is much more of a political longshot, but I think it would actually be quite interesting to see public housing at the top of the market. "Affordable housing" approaches are a bandaid on the issue. By the city building the luxury buildings themselves, they can select the exact places they want them instead of just generally herding.
100% in agreement on the nuance here. I used metro area above rather than city limits, and that will 100% not capture some of that neighborhood level migration away from the cultural center of the city. I think that's important to capture and wish the article did with more detail, but I think this point was meant to be an aside to a more qualitative story. I have no doubt the gentrification story of Austin has been covered in nuanced detail before this, so I hope people don't write off the article due to this.
> I don't think increasing housing density is the answer. We really don't need more luxury apartments or million dollar condos.
This was my first natural instinct maybe 5 years ago, but seeing the differences in gentrification stories has made it clear it's far worse to keep density the same. If nothing in the city changes and rich people decide they want to flock to your city (in this case, tech workers), it's a given that the existing poorer people will be forced out and prices will increase. Measures like rent control only slow the process, holding back a rising tide.
I've seen this personally in my backyard in Brooklyn. What has happened there is that massive luxury towers have been built along a busy street (central to transit but still not "neighborhoody"). While rents have still gone up, it seems this real estate and luxury market has helped stave off the insane hikes SF has seen, for example. Million dollar condos, probably not a good idea. But luxury buildings with high density turn into normal real estate in 20 years, and that top of the market ease keeps a lot of that tech money out of existing minority and poor neighborhoods.
The question for Austin if they accept that is where to put them. Finding a balanced place would be key here IMO.
At the general level, I doubt anyone is surprised to see this story, and there will likely be more to come as tech flocks to Austin (though it was already a notable tech hub with some of these pressures already before the billionaires decided to give it the seal of approval).
To me, the more interesting question here is how does Austin avoid what happened to SF, where tech hollowed out nearly all of its existing culture and then tech workers began to complain it was bland.
Real estate and zoning policy is going to be key here. I've seen a decent deal of discussion about "Yuppie Fishtanks" [0] recently and generally it seems to be supported that massively increasing the housing supply is one of the best ways to keep rents intact and avoid hollowing gentrification. For the existing Austin residents here, how is the city approaching it thusfar? Do people think this is another SF gentrification story in the making, or is something different?
Good callout, but it's important not to fudge the numbers here. Using this source[0], it seems like the population doubled, not tripled, from 911K to 1.84M. If we use that 10% to 7.5% drop, the city's black residents went from 91K to 138k. Hardly tripled, in fact only a 50% increase compared to over 100% population size increase. So the comparative growth was half as fast. I'd still say thats notable to the article's cultural context, though it doesn't support the claim of people being forced out inherently.
None of these numbers will give information on who was forced out. You'll need migratory data for that.
I just added a caveat about that, but many of the top of market neighborhoods people tend to go for here haven't dropped nearly that much (e.g West Village area, Chelsea, UES/UWS). NYC is huge and that drop is not spread equally. Guessing it isn't in SF either, but it seems 31% is going to hit every neighborhood at least a good deal.
What is curious to me is that NYC rents haven't seen the same crater at all (link says 15% but anecdotally most of the desirable top of market neighborhoods aren't budging). I don't buy the "SF is not very fun during the pandemic" rationale as more special than any other notable city, and NYC tends to have less space than SF. To me, that says the SF case has more complexity. IMO, the key factor here is that there appears to be a much higher ratio of people that were primarily there because work was best there, where many other cities have populations that tend to choose the city in question specifically more than happen upon it.
IMO this could simply be some sort of FTC/government formed firewall where a purchased company cannot share historical use data related to competitors unless the users of the service (the competitors, companies listed above) sign off on it. I'm fully aware that the implementation of that is legally complex to say the least, this is a bit more of a wish list than a practicality.
No, I am saying that them retroactively buying it without warning and getting access to the historical data, which users and developers did not intend to give to Facebook, is the off part.
If Facebook bought this or developed it themselves and then these companies integrated Giphy, it's obviously very different. Basically this implies that any data you give to any third party can then basically be bought by your competition. I think legal language that prevents this would likely be a net good thing. I of course realize it's fair game, but that seems like a great way to discourage the use of any third parties generally.
The acquisition itself is very valid from a product standpoint, but I suspect a big reason for the buy was that data on competitors as Facebook claws back against pressure from rising platforms. I would bet a good deal of money this will be used to inform future acquisitions and fuel the black hole of Facebook acquisitions and squashing of any competitors.
So Facebook basically just bought inside usage info on a ton of direct competition, even if they stop their integration in the future.
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Does anyone else kind of feel weirded out that this isn't illegal? Not surprising legally or for a move for Facebook, but this just feels incredibly wrong.