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How can Bay Area (CA) Tech Companies/Technology Help Architecture + Infrastructure? Subsequently, How can it create/help affordable housing?
I am in need of brainstorming some ideas and would like to get some of your input!
For those who don't know, Bay Area is big on tech industries. With tech companies like Apple/twitter/AirBnB/Yelp, and now the up and coming Tesla, it has definitely made affordable housing non existent in the Bay Area. At the same time, the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is extending their line to the Fremont Area; their newest and furthest station being near the TESLA factory.
so with that said,
what do you think is Architecture + Infrastructure? What would be a product of this hybrid? How can architecture help infrastructure and vice versa?
Can Bay Area technology companies, whether it's Tesla or other tech companies, influence architecture, or more specifically affordable housing? Can Tesla change affordable housing? Can technology change the normal equation of the state funding infrastructure and affordable housing?
One such precedent is - what do you think the new Apple campus (the one by Norman Foster) has in affect of the surrounding urban context? is there a compensatory vision for architectural work in housing/retail/government/public spaces?
I am very interested in having a discourse with some of you on this topic. let me know what you guys think and lets discourse!
It's gentrification and a form of systemic price fixing to keep the low income folks out of the area because they can't afford to pay $5.75 for a starbucks caffe latte Tall and the $2500/mo. or more rent. It is intentional inflation.
It is priced that way on purpose so those who can't afford to be there don't live or stay there. Also the pay of employees are double that of national average. Prices of items in the area is also inflated on purpose as well.
Is there a fix?
Yes, move out of that area to where the inflated prices drop off and commute if you need to.
I work for a firm that is involved with these issues - I live smack dab in the middle of all this too - I am thinking of calling together a meeting to discuss this - The area around TESLA/Warm Springs Bart station is slated for a lot of market rate housing with some BMR - how much? I don't know - I'm in this weird situation of being a designer on market rate housing and yet living in a rent controlled house w/apts in North Oakland - one of my co-workers lives in Sacramento and has to commute by Amtrak - I don't want to be pushed out - so I am being forced to find a soln. perhaps by forming some kind of team to address these issues.
Architecture = infrastructure - sure - one of my classmates did a thesis on that for L.A. and we need to look at alternative or typological mutations(formed out of the constraints and possibilities of Bay Area housing.
BARF - http://www.peoplepowermedia.net/op-ed-renters-group-wants-sf-to-barf-up-more-housing
BARF all over won't work - we need a rational long term sustainable soln.
s there a fix?
Yes, move out of that area to where the inflated prices drop off and commute if you need to.
Balkins is right - sad to say - currently that's the only soln. - in fact I my self moved out of the Bay Area on two previous occasions. Denver and later to Hackensack NJ - then San Diego where I got my M.Arch and came back to SF working on the design of luxo condo towers at SOM
After the 70’s riot in Detroit the money moved north past 8 Mile Road (City Limit), created new towns and took the jobs with them. Now Detroit’s Mayor wants to build a train to the suburbs to help the poor find jobs…he can’t get it past 8 Mile. As Richard explains quite well, money is the new silent tool for segregation.
Xenakis - sent you a PM, interested in your friend's thesis project!
^ i remember seeing this picture a couple years ago, but did it originally come from this article, http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ ?
cause that was published in 2014, but i am pretty sure this issue was brought up years ago but forgot which media source
Xenakis,
Yeah, sad but true. I don't think we individually can do much. It's a societal / culture thing. Not sure if I have chosen the best words but it is. Okay, my numbers might not be absolutely dead on but I know people who live in the area. It's inflated compared to other places.
Carrera further added to point is quite on. Money is a systemic tool used in socio-economic segregation. A sad reality but there are pockets like it (to various extremity) across the U.S.
I live in a locale where the cost of living and money buying power isn't terrible but if I lived in downtown Portland, for example, the cost of living for example is an inflated compared to Astoria for example. I'm not saying downtown Portland is the most inflated area, either.
Maybe the smart thing the tech firms can do is bring back the company town as a new 21st century remake. Keep the tech workers out in the suburbs. If attractive free or subsidized housing were available on campus, not only would it feel like a continuation of collage, but think of the reductions in road congestion and environmental impacts on site housing can bring. The trick is to make the whole package attractive to well off millennials who now have disposable income.
Also if Mass transit is to be a part of it it needs to appeal to the plugged in connected well off tech workers, No one will want to ride a train if they can't check email and do some work on their commute. also for this to work we may have to look at an European model where there are classes of passengers and amenities for those passengers 1-5 I think in Germany.
Over and OUT
Peter N
Peter - can you explain this European model mode of transportation?
This startup looks interesting and is proposing a data-driven design approach. They seem to have 'pivoted'- originally they were more focused on how to optimally design for increasingly over-populated mega- cities and limited spaces via modular design and data analysis.
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