What is stopping NoVA from reaching SV level prices?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anybody who asks this question hasn't lived in SV and fundamentally doesn't understand the unique mix of economic conditions that have resulted in what it is today. No city is even a close 2nd.

OP here, I grew up in Palo Alto and Went to JLS, Gunn High. I saw my parent's shitbox go from 600k to 2.5 million in real time.

Small world! I grew up in MP, moved away for school then returned for a 15 year career in venture capital. I’m looking at relocating my family to DC now, hence my presence here.

Silicon Valley operates on a “gold rush” mentality. Every year 10s of thousands of mostly young people move here because they have a chance to “strike it rich” that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world at this scale. I have a dozen acquaintances who moved here within the last 5 years essentially penniless and are today worth several hundred million dollars, some no doubt on their way to the billions. Stories like theirs keep hope alive in the minds of the masses. Where else does that exist? Nowhere. Seattle gained traction as a tax haven for early Facebook execs around 2009 and then other companies followed. Amazon provides a broad base of employment in Seattle but their stock isn’t a gold rush of the same magnitude.

People here work 24/7 with faux social lives that are really just professional networking events on steroids. Surreal and inhuman lives that wouldn’t be tolerated anywhere else. Why do you think the homeless crisis will never be solved? Partly because nobody really treats this as a place to live any more. It’s just the largest mining camp in the history of the world.

There are other structural reasons why prices became elevated - proposition 13 is probably the most impactful, without which 80% of my neighbors would have sold and moved by now. There are also extreme limits on density. You could easily build 100k new condo units south of SF to SJ but municipalities prevent it (for now). By contrast, from what I’ve seen the DC area lives to build up.

I’m bullish on tech (and personally heavily invested in tech) so unlike others I won’t predict a tech crash or down turn. Unfortunately I think SV will become a victim of its own success and devour itself from the inside. Just in the past year I’ve noticed attitudes about raising a family here start to shift. It’s too ambitious, too cutthroat, too lacking in humanity. If you’ve been here awhile you likely know the family of a teen suicide. Families in my network have started to move elsewhere - north to Santa Rosa, east to Tahoe, Dallas, Wyoming, or in my case DC.

So I’m confident that the underlying conditions that have created SV are unlikely to occur in any other major tech hub, least of all in DC. But apart from the self interest of some real estate appreciation, trust me you wouldn’t really want them to.

I grew up in the Bay Area and have lived here for most of my adult life and consider this post to largely be a bunch of exaggerated nonsense.

Are you in tech? Chaos monkey and lab rats corroborate thisvision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anybody who asks this question hasn't lived in SV and fundamentally doesn't understand the unique mix of economic conditions that have resulted in what it is today. No city is even a close 2nd.

OP here, I grew up in Palo Alto and Went to JLS, Gunn High. I saw my parent's shitbox go from 600k to 2.5 million in real time.

Small world! I grew up in MP, moved away for school then returned for a 15 year career in venture capital. I’m looking at relocating my family to DC now, hence my presence here.

Silicon Valley operates on a “gold rush” mentality. Every year 10s of thousands of mostly young people move here because they have a chance to “strike it rich” that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world at this scale. I have a dozen acquaintances who moved here within the last 5 years essentially penniless and are today worth several hundred million dollars, some no doubt on their way to the billions. Stories like theirs keep hope alive in the minds of the masses. Where else does that exist? Nowhere. Seattle gained traction as a tax haven for early Facebook execs around 2009 and then other companies followed. Amazon provides a broad base of employment in Seattle but their stock isn’t a gold rush of the same magnitude.

People here work 24/7 with faux social lives that are really just professional networking events on steroids. Surreal and inhuman lives that wouldn’t be tolerated anywhere else. Why do you think the homeless crisis will never be solved? Partly because nobody really treats this as a place to live any more. It’s just the largest mining camp in the history of the world.

There are other structural reasons why prices became elevated - proposition 13 is probably the most impactful, without which 80% of my neighbors would have sold and moved by now. There are also extreme limits on density. You could easily build 100k new condo units south of SF to SJ but municipalities prevent it (for now). By contrast, from what I’ve seen the DC area lives to build up.

I’m bullish on tech (and personally heavily invested in tech) so unlike others I won’t predict a tech crash or down turn. Unfortunately I think SV will become a victim of its own success and devour itself from the inside. Just in the past year I’ve noticed attitudes about raising a family here start to shift. It’s too ambitious, too cutthroat, too lacking in humanity. If you’ve been here awhile you likely know the family of a teen suicide. Families in my network have started to move elsewhere - north to Santa Rosa, east to Tahoe, Dallas, Wyoming, or in my case DC.

So I’m confident that the underlying conditions that have created SV are unlikely to occur in any other major tech hub, least of all in DC. But apart from the self interest of some real estate appreciation, trust me you wouldn’t really want them to.

I grew up in the Bay Area and have lived here for most of my adult life and consider this post to largely be a bunch of exaggerated nonsense.

Are you in tech? Chaos monkey and lab rats corroborate thisvision.

Yes. I am in tech and have been in tech since the 90s. And I think that post was a bunch of exaggerated nonsense.

[Anonymous]

PP here. Also I don't think VA is anywhere close to being like SV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anybody who asks this question hasn't lived in SV and fundamentally doesn't understand the unique mix of economic conditions that have resulted in what it is today. No city is even a close 2nd.

OP here, I grew up in Palo Alto and Went to JLS, Gunn High. I saw my parent's shitbox go from 600k to 2.5 million in real time.

Small world! I grew up in MP, moved away for school then returned for a 15 year career in venture capital. I’m looking at relocating my family to DC now, hence my presence here.

Silicon Valley operates on a “gold rush” mentality. Every year 10s of thousands of mostly young people move here because they have a chance to “strike it rich” that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world at this scale. I have a dozen acquaintances who moved here within the last 5 years essentially penniless and are today worth several hundred million dollars, some no doubt on their way to the billions. Stories like theirs keep hope alive in the minds of the masses. Where else does that exist? Nowhere. Seattle gained traction as a tax haven for early Facebook execs around 2009 and then other companies followed. Amazon provides a broad base of employment in Seattle but their stock isn’t a gold rush of the same magnitude.

People here work 24/7 with faux social lives that are really just professional networking events on steroids. Surreal and inhuman lives that wouldn’t be tolerated anywhere else. Why do you think the homeless crisis will never be solved? Partly because nobody really treats this as a place to live any more. It’s just the largest mining camp in the history of the world.

There are other structural reasons why prices became elevated - proposition 13 is probably the most impactful, without which 80% of my neighbors would have sold and moved by now. There are also extreme limits on density. You could easily build 100k new condo units south of SF to SJ but municipalities prevent it (for now). By contrast, from what I’ve seen the DC area lives to build up.

I’m bullish on tech (and personally heavily invested in tech) so unlike others I won’t predict a tech crash or down turn. Unfortunately I think SV will become a victim of its own success and devour itself from the inside. Just in the past year I’ve noticed attitudes about raising a family here start to shift. It’s too ambitious, too cutthroat, too lacking in humanity. If you’ve been here awhile you likely know the family of a teen suicide. Families in my network have started to move elsewhere - north to Santa Rosa, east to Tahoe, Dallas, Wyoming, or in my case DC.

So I’m confident that the underlying conditions that have created SV are unlikely to occur in any other major tech hub, least of all in DC. But apart from the self interest of some real estate appreciation, trust me you wouldn’t really want them to.

I grew up in the Bay Area and have lived here for most of my adult life and consider this post to largely be a bunch of exaggerated nonsense.

Are you in tech? Chaos monkey and lab rats corroborate thisvision.

Yes. I am in tech and have been in tech since the 90s. And I think that post was a bunch of exaggerated nonsense.

Care to share your views in more detail? That seems to be a fairly accurate description of the state of play there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NoVA isn’t even the most desirable spot locally, not sure why they think they are relevant nationally. When your claim to fame is being close to somewhere such as DC in this case, you should be a bit more humble about your alleged greatness.

So, do you not think the fact that it’s the capital city is significant? Or, you think there shouldn’t be a capital city? Or, that it should be NYC or Palm Beach instead? I mean, DC is so inconvenient for Trump’s golf game.

NoVa isn’t the captial city, DC is. NoVa isn’t even the capital of Virginia is is often pushed around by Richmond which is one of the things that will always hold it back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NoVA isn’t even the most desirable spot locally, not sure why they think they are relevant nationally. When your claim to fame is being close to somewhere such as DC in this case, you should be a bit more humble about your alleged greatness.

So, do you not think the fact that it’s the capital city is significant? Or, you think there shouldn’t be a capital city? Or, that it should be NYC or Palm Beach instead? I mean, DC is so inconvenient for Trump’s golf game.

NoVa isn’t the captial city, DC is. NoVa isn’t even the capital of Virginia is is often pushed around by Richmond which is one of the things that will always hold it back.

Stop hitting the OP Yorktown freshmen with facts, they are very impressed their parents own a house in Arlington

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NoVA isn’t even the most desirable spot locally, not sure why they think they are relevant nationally. When your claim to fame is being close to somewhere such as DC in this case, you should be a bit more humble about your alleged greatness.

So, do you not think the fact that it’s the capital city is significant? Or, you think there shouldn’t be a capital city? Or, that it should be NYC or Palm Beach instead? I mean, DC is so inconvenient for Trump’s golf game.

NoVa isn’t the captial city, DC is. NoVa isn’t even the capital of Virginia is is often pushed around by Richmond which is one of the things that will always hold it back.

You implied that being close to the capital city is no big thing. It is. Short of being part of the city, Arlington is one of the closest. I’m not arguing that it should or will reach SV levels. I think PPs unthread make good points about factors (like Prop 13) that aren’t in play on a large scale here (Arlington County’s tax forgiveness is much more limited in scope, and hasn’t been enough of a factor, historically, to limit housing supply to the extent that prices are affected). But being so close to DC, and Tysons, and now National Landing, is a big draw for people who prioritize short commutes. Current prices reflect that reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NoVA isn’t even the most desirable spot locally, not sure why they think they are relevant nationally. When your claim to fame is being close to somewhere such as DC in this case, you should be a bit more humble about your alleged greatness.

So, do you not think the fact that it’s the capital city is significant? Or, you think there shouldn’t be a capital city? Or, that it should be NYC or Palm Beach instead? I mean, DC is so inconvenient for Trump’s golf game.

NoVa isn’t the captial city, DC is. NoVa isn’t even the capital of Virginia is is often pushed around by Richmond which is one of the things that will always hold it back.

Much of Arlington is closer to the White House than many parts of the District. Not sure why the ability to vote for or against Mayor Bowser is a big deal to the desirability of living in Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Is being a capital really that desirable in itself? I mean, look at Ottawa vs. Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver.

Desirable capitals seem like they were already desirable when they were made the capital.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NoVA isn’t even the most desirable spot locally, not sure why they think they are relevant nationally. When your claim to fame is being close to somewhere such as DC in this case, you should be a bit more humble about your alleged greatness.

So, do you not think the fact that it’s the capital city is significant? Or, you think there shouldn’t be a capital city? Or, that it should be NYC or Palm Beach instead? I mean, DC is so inconvenient for Trump’s golf game.

NoVa isn’t the captial city, DC is. NoVa isn’t even the capital of Virginia is is often pushed around by Richmond which is one of the things that will always hold it back.

Much of Arlington is closer to the White House than many parts of the District. Not sure why the ability to vote for or against Mayor Bowser is a big deal to the desirability of living in Arlington.

exactly, and you add to the fact that you have lower taxes and better schools, !significantly! lower crimes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
exactly, and you add to the fact that you have lower taxes and better schools, !significantly! lower crimes

My point was to start a debate about whether its better to live in Arlington or DC. Just to point out that the presence of the capital is important to Arlington, and the focus on where the District boundary is is silly.

[Anonymous]

the future center of power of the US will be NYC and Silicon valley, all other areas will be irrelevant and NYC will be permanently on the decline

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the future center of power of the US will be NYC and Silicon valley, all other areas will be irrelevant and NYC will be permanently on the decline

Interesting that DC is irrelevant on a day after a Fed decision and a tariff announcement roiled global stock markets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the future center of power of the US will be NYC and Silicon valley, all other areas will be irrelevant and NYC will be permanently on the decline

Honestly, I think that SV isn't sustainable as it is now. The housing market is just too restrictive for firms to grow flexibly, and the infrastructure isn't good enough. Some of that has been alleviated by expansion into SF, but the housing problem continues to get worse with no end in sight.

There are good reasons for industries to agglomerate, and that's not going anywhere. But I think that tech is big enough now to maintain a handful of highly innovative clusters across the country, along with operational clusters in major cities. Being an "innovation cluster" requires access to money (VC), top-level talent, and sources of new ideas to commercialize (e.g. premier STEM research universities as well as existing highly innovative firms). Being an operational center requires an educated workforce as well, but money and ideas can live elsewhere, and firms can be more attuned to things like cost of living with regard to operational center because the cost savings aren't overwhelmed by the need for money and ideas. As the bigger tech firms mature, more and more of the things they do can be operationalized, and that allows them to be peeled away from the expensive innovators geographically.

Seattle, Boston, and NYC are basically already on the innovation cluster path because they're sufficiently strong in all these areas. DC is a pretty obvious candidate to be on it too because of its highly educated workforce, but it has kind of an unusual set of circumstances owing to the role of the government in the economy and the lack of a premier STEM research university. Lots of the ideas generated here aren't commercializable beyond the scale of one large customer, and the research that is demanded by the government that might be commercializable often isn't intrinsically tied to this locale by things like local researchers in academia or existing related industries (NIH being one exception here). We have a sizable VC industry, but in per capita terms it still lags behind places like Austin and the Research Triangle, not to mention the top tier cities listed above.

SV/SF will always be a major tech center, probably even the biggest one, but the cost of living differential between it and the other tech centers will stabilize. The question with Amazon HQ2, I think, is how closely the "operational" tasks that will definitely be performed here (sales and customer management, lobbying) end up being tied to the high-risk, high-reward innovation work. Otherwise, we're just the Nashville campus with more lawyers. From what I know of Amazon, they're very interested in being innovative and data-driven throughout their business model, which is probably a good sign for DC. I'd also pay close attention to things like the scope and success of the new VA Tech campus and changes in the scope of Hopkins' DC operations. Those are the kinds of things that can bring DC a more durable advantage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NoVA isn’t even the most desirable spot locally, not sure why they think they are relevant nationally. When your claim to fame is being close to somewhere such as DC in this case, you should be a bit more humble about your alleged greatness.

So, do you not think the fact that it’s the capital city is significant? Or, you think there shouldn’t be a capital city? Or, that it should be NYC or Palm Beach instead? I mean, DC is so inconvenient for Trump’s golf game.

NoVa isn’t the captial city, DC is. NoVa isn’t even the capital of Virginia is is often pushed around by Richmond which is one of the things that will always hold it back.

You implied that being close to the capital city is no big thing. It is. Short of being part of the city, Arlington is one of the closest. I’m not arguing that it should or will reach SV levels. I think PPs unthread make good points about factors (like Prop 13) that aren’t in play on a large scale here (Arlington County’s tax forgiveness is much more limited in scope, and hasn’t been enough of a factor, historically, to limit housing supply to the extent that prices are affected). But being so close to DC, and Tysons, and now National Landing, is a big draw for people who prioritize short commutes. Current prices reflect that reality.

Once again being close to cool areas isn’t the same as being a cool area. No one in DC says if only I lived closer to Columbia Pike! You are confusing convenient proximity to being somewhere. DC is an important place, Arlington is near to an important place.

That is what is keeping Arlington from being special, the fact that it isn’t.