The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/12/year-housing-middle-class-cant-afford-live-cities-anymore/ <comment><USER2> This article reflects my wife and my experience: just a month ago we left San Diego for a small town north of Salt Lake City. We make over six-figures and San Diego held only poor economic prospects for us. We'd have a very difficult time buying a decent home (2000 sq ft, good neighborhood, reasonable commute) for a price which wouldn't jeopardize other essentials like retirement savings, kids college savings, savings in general, and debt payoff and avoidance. When a small box in Clairemont (neighborhood of San Diego) cost $500-600K you know things are out-of-wack.

Things are more reasonably priced here, but probably still higher than their intrinsic value. However, at least we can afford them without mortgaging our (and our kids') future.

The truth is that this isn't a situation the government has shown any ability to solve for. There are a myriad of reasons, but ultimately my feeling is that federal housing policy is deeply flawed.

Inevitably, by necessity, the solution to this mess will come from all those in the middle class who've been forced to find another way. Our voting with our feet will shape the next ten to twenty years in ways which are hard to predict. One likely outcome is that big cities will not be able to maintain their current housing price structures. A tipping point will come. You can't build a viable local economy only on the top and bottom of the income spectrum. You need a robust middle class. Otherwise the absence of the middle class creates a vacuum, and conditions for an implosion into that vacuum.

<comment><USER3> It's not just housing policy that's gone wrong, it's transit policy. We haven't built good public transit in our cities, and now that cars are filling all available roads, even houses far away from cities are too expensive for how long commutes are.

We wish we had a train system in many cities that allowed the middle class to live 40-60 minutes away from their jobs.

Ultimately however the main problem is wealth inequality. If median income had increased with GDP since 1980, instead of all gains going to the 0.01%, you would be able to afford to live in the suburbs of San Diego.

<comment><USER4> Inequality is not the problem. The problem is there are more people who want to live somewhere than there are houses. With perfect equality there would _still_ be more people than houses.

The one and only fix is more houses. That's it. Any other solution is just picking winners and losers different ways. But no matter which way you pick the same number of people win and the same number lose.

<comment><USER5> > _The one and only fix is more houses_

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. The heart of the problem in many parts of the country is that we fund our schools with property taxes.

Hence, a cycle of better schools and increased demand in concentrated areas, which causes the supply-demand imbalance and price increases. Compounding this is the fact that people in such areas actively block "higher density" housing, which naturally means fewer houses per acre.

Building more houses would help to a limited extent, but the shortage would still exist and resistance is stout.

Hence, the shortage of housing is just a symptom of how we fund education, which is the real problem.

> _Inequality is not the problem_

Inequality absolutely enters here because if wealth/income were more evenly distributed, then funding for schools would be more evenly distributed, thus alleviating concentrated housing demand in small areas with better schools and driving up prices.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure I understand your comment. Public schools in dense cities tend to be almost universally bad--in spite of often being funded at significantly higher per-student levels than even relatively tony suburbs that have high- performing schools. If you look at Massachusetts public high schools for example, the one public high school in Cambridge (where housing has gotten _very_ expensive) has some of the highest per-pupil spending and is in the bottom tier of test results.

<comment><USER5> Hmm. It's a little hard to imagine that per-student funding in high-density city schools outstrips that for truly wealthier and presumably sparser suburbs with any significant consistency. I'd want to see the actual numbers. For instance, where is this funding coming from for the cities? And, where is the suburban tax money going?

And, what's the history? Were these schools neglected for years, then the state recently started pouring in money?

I mean, maybe there are some exceptions (perhaps partially gentrified cities where some tax base is moving back into cities at inflated prices?), but these would generally be outliers. Since wealthier people have fled most major cities for the burbs, the tax base and educational investments have generally followed them. You see this over and over again in communities throughout the country.

For example:

[http://www.npr.org/2016/04/18/474256366/why-americas- schools...](http://www.npr.org/2016/04/18/474256366/why-americas-schools-have- a-money-problem)

<comment><USER6> OK. For Massachusetts 2015, to pick a town and a city that each have one high school and are both expensive property values.

Cambridge (expensive city) $27,569 per pupil

Concord (expensive suburb) $17,517 per pupil

[http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/state_report/ppx.aspx](http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/state_report/ppx.aspx)

Rankings

Cambridge Ringe and Latin was 214 out of 340

Concord Carlisle High was 27 out of 340

[https://www.schooldigger.com/go/MA/schoolrank.aspx?level=3](https://www.schooldigger.com/go/MA/schoolrank.aspx?level=3)

Not cherry-picked data.

A lot of the difference is that cities, even expensive ones, are cities. A lot more diverse student body. A lot more students with problems at home. More disruption, etc. You can spend more money but the average student in the city school almost certainly has less parental involvement and less of a home environment that's conducive to learning than in the tony suburb.

The linked article (and decades of debate) notwithstanding, it's also hard to really correlate spending per pupil with educational outcomes past a certain point--especially as measured on standardized tests. Poorer cities do spend less. Two Lawrence high schools have the worst test results in Massachusetts. But its spending, $14,475 per pupil, is still only a bit less than Concord.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I live in SF, and am flabbergasted at the number of 1- or 2- floor single- family homes. A city the size of SF (46 sq mi) and population (850K+ and growing) simply can't afford so many SFHs.

I was in Barcelona recently (yay NIPS!) and Barcelona is smaller than SF (36 sq mi) and has nearly twice the population! Everywhere you see are 6-floor buildings, with the bottom reserved for shops and people living above them. It is so walkable, with great (and reliable) public transportation. We kept thinking: why can't SF be more like BCN?

<comment><USER8> I have too many hobbies that take space to live in a place like Barcelona. Where do people work on their hobby car or motorcycle? Where do you do woodworking? Where do you keep your boat or paddle board? Do they have gardens? What about an outdoor kitchen for grilling and smoking? Do their kids have bicycles and scooters and skateboards and baseball gear?

<comment><USER9> Join a club for the sports stuff. There's a few nice sailing clubs in the Bay Area where they keep the boats and the gear there (some have lockers). There are motorcycle garages and storage units for race vehicles, parks, vacation homes, and get-togethers with opportunities to cook outside. Skateboards fit in closets. For wood/metalworking, there's stuff like TechShop.

It's not practical to live in a city and have a pole barn with a station for each different hobby, but you can still do a lot and make it work. Sometimes it ends up being pretty expensive, e.g. Keeping an extra car in the city could be ~$300/mo in the case of SF, but car storage around say Laguna Seca can be quite a bit cheaper.

<comment><USER8> And I live out in the burbs because I want to do all that stuff. My point was that for some of us, suburban life is a great fit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article mentions "hot cities" including Austin, which not too long ago was just another small eclectic city with steady growth. Once it grew large enough and provided the ingredients to hold it's own, industry wise, against other "hot cities" it became what it is today. Austin was just a little weird city in Texas when I grew up in Dallas, but now it's up there with the big boys. What this tells me is there are many Austin like cities out there waiting to be discovered and grow in a similar way. I believe, in large part, Austin's recent growth and success is attributed to the very problems presented in this article. As long as the economy keeps pushing in this direction, the more of these smaller cities will grow to compete.

<comment><USER11> Until those cities inevitably become too expensive, too, just like Austin did. (I desperately hope I'm eventually proved wrong)

"I asked a passing teamster, for want of something better to say, what land was worth there. He pointed to some cows grazing so far off that they looked like mice, and said, 'I don't know exactly, but there is a man over there who will sell some land for a thousand dollars an acre.' Like a flash it came over me that there was the reason of advancing poverty with advancing wealth. With the growth of population, land grows in value, and the men who work it must pay more for the privilege." \-- Henry George

<comment><USER12> For anyone unfamiliar with Henry George: [http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm](http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This article fails to mention that the middle class can't afford to live in the "nicest parts" of cities, but many cities have other areas as well. Take NYC for example. Sure, if you want to live in the Chelsea or West Village neighborhoods in Manhattan, it's going to cost you. But there are tons of available houses in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx that are plenty affordable. The other day I saw a house for sale in a decent part of Queens for $240k - definitely affordable for middle class. Unfortunately, though, the most desirable areas of the densest part of the city is being reserved for poor and upper class, which I think is the point of the article.

<comment><USER14> > But there are tons of available houses in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx > that are plenty affordable. The other day I saw a house for sale in a decent > part of Queens for $240k - definitely affordable for middle class.

Do you have kids? Because this glib reaction signals that you don't, or you'd be aware that the areas you are touting as affordable have terrible public schools. That's why they're relatively cheap. That, and the hour-plus commutes (each way) to where most middle-class jobs are.

<comment><USER15> > _terrible public schools_

There are affordable parts of Long Island and Connecticut with great public public schools less than an hour from Manhattan by train.

We've grown accustomed to overporting our post-war suburban archetype of what a "middle class" family "deserves," _i.e._ lots of bedrooms, garages and lawn space, while diminishing previously (and still!) common practices like having roommates when young, not owning a car, _et cetera_.

<comment><USER16> Right. People expect to skip straight from 22 or even 18 to a late-20s or early-30s level of "stuff" and general lifestyle, without paying their dues in the middle. It's called a "property ladder" for a reason.

<comment><USER17> It's less of a ladder than a Ponzi scheme. In SF housing prices have grown at a compound growth rate of 6% for over 50 years. Older generation squats on property paid for by debt, low taxes, and then retires at 60 -- all paid for by a younger generation that doesn't have jobs and can't afford housing.

<comment><USER18> Don't forget that Prop 13 disproportionately favors buyers who bought closer to when it was rolled out. Their rates were locked in a long time ago. I'm not sure how repeatable this will be for new buyers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The people who write these articles almost always live in California or New York City. I just have to laugh.

Move to any major Texan city, any major Floridian city -- really any city in "The South" \-- and the situation is much different. There are tons of great properties for unsubsidized, lower class purchasers. Seriously, zillow downtown Nashville TN. You can find great deals for the poorest amongst us.

People in (sorry to say) liberal cities have such warped, contradictory views of housing that it blows my mind. "We need more transport, we need more subsidies, we need X!" No, what you need to do is to let go. Let housing take care of itself. All of these schemes have contributed and will continue to contribute to the eviction of the middle and working class tenants.

<comment><USER20> That may be, but first-class cities concentrate a lot more of the most desirable economic opportunities. Living in the Silicon Valley and SF area would be completely irrational on all grounds, except for the fact that you're within driving distance of 900 of the world's top 1000 technology employers (figurative example, I wouldn't have an exact count). Similar arguments can be made for entertainment, music and film in LA, and for finance, fashion and media in NYC.

Yeah, Charlotte, Tampa, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix are a lot cheaper. But that's in large part because they're not SF or NYC. :) First-class cities can literally provide 10x-20x the value for a lot of folks.

I have no dog in this fight; I lived in Atlanta for ten years and now live in a small-medium college town. Being self-employed for a long time now, I have no intention of moving to SF or NYC. But I can certainly see why someone would.

That said, the US has a unique advantage here compared to most of the world, "developed" and otherwise; it is very decentralised economically. In the grand scheme of things here, life in Charlotte just isn't _that_ different from NYC. In many other economies, a sizable chunk of the GDP is parked in the capital and maybe one or two other top-tier cities, and the difference between life there and life anywhere else—anywhere else at all, even another fairly large city—is considerable. In my native USSR—and as I understand it, its descendant Russia—there a huge chasm between "Moscow" and "not Moscow", even though there are dozens of other sizable cities in Russia. The Soviet economy was exceptionally geographically centralised, so makes for a very extreme example, but I think you get my point.

<comment><USER21> I always say that Canada is just the U.S. put through a low-pass filter. In this case, it feels very true too. Toronto and Vancouver are like our NYC and SF, to a somewhat more toned down extent. But then there are countless other cities where living in them yields the same overall quality of life at a considerably lower price tag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The reasons behind the housing supply crisis are many, and the situation can seem intractable.

I have been assisting architect Eugene Lew with a comprehensive and audacious solution to this problem. If you are interested in reading a draft version of his white paper, DM me on [https://twitter.com/jamiepitts](https://twitter.com/jamiepitts).

The concept is tailor-made for the west districts of SF but can be applied to any city.

It combines finance, architecture, land-creation, community involvement, and propagation, and the output is a nonsubsidized 3BDR, 2BA home for households with incomes between $100,000 and $150,000. There are 15 homes in a six story elevator building, and the goal is to build hundreds of them across SF.

<comment><USER23> If 300 units are built it will help 4500 middle-income households. That's great, but how many middle-income households will still be unable to find affordable housing, therefore keeping market-rate rents sky-high?

I think the solution is not trying to cram more units into a small area. Manhattan has done that for decades, and it's still not enough to balance supply and demand. Rather, it's to encourage business development and residential living elsewhere, either nearby or far away. We're seeing that with Oakland and northern NJ but there are many more opportunities to expand this to other areas of the country. A lot of credit goes to southern states which encouraged (through tax breaks and other incentives) heavy industry to set up shop in smaller cities and rural areas. What will it take Google, GE, or Microsoft to move a big chunk of their respective operations away from San Francisco, Boston, and Seattle?

<comment><USER24> > What will it take Google, GE, or Microsoft to move a big chunk of their > respective operations away from San Francisco, Boston, and Seattle?

It's a chicken and egg problem: companies don't want to invest in cities where there aren't a lot of qualified workers, and workers don't want to move to cities where there aren't a lot of jobs. Furthermore, the most competitive workers tend to move to the cities you mentioned, so companies located in those cities can stay where they are and enjoy having the best workers come to them.

Consider the Sacramento area: it's about 2 hours from Silicon Valley by car, with significantly cheaper housing, and plenty of well-connected people because Sacramento is the state capital. Why doesn't that area have a booming tech economy? Because the most competitive tech workers from Sacramento have already moved to the Bay Area. Bay Area companies don't need to open offices in Sacramento to attract those workers.

<comment><USER25> I don't think it's illegal to collude to improve a second tier city's economic prospects. Large tech cos have proven their inclination and ability to cooperate to influence markets before, why not put that collaborative spirit to work for good and profit?

<comment><USER24> If tech companies would benefit from doing that, why haven't they done it already?

The simple answer is that they would not benefit by doing that. They can just sit tight in Silicon Valley, Seattle, and New York while the best talent comes to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The problem could be lessened if NIMBY's would stop trying to dictate how property they don't own should be used (that is, we allow construction) and if we'd stop subsidizing people who can't even marginally afford to live there.

I figure if we'd eliminate the latter, we'd take care of a lot of the former.

In NYC, we have recently seen rents reduce due to new housing supply coming on the market.

<comment><USER27> In Beijing they dealt with this problem by disallowing foreign investment in real estate except for personal use. Seems like a huge chunk of properties in L.A. are being purchased as investments by Chinese and other foreign entities, without ever physically visiting the house, which is at least as much of a problem as those you list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Huge cities...good riddance.

I live nearish to Salt Lake City (whose metro pop. is less than a quarter of Boston's), have tons of software job opportunities, have a 17-20 min commute, and bought a 2k sqft house on 0.19 acres for less than 200k.

Big cities are crowded. They have their advantages, but even if they weren't overpriced, I'd probably still prefer my elbow room.

<comment><USER29> Well good for you, but you don't speak for everyone.

<comment><USER30> Isn't that implicit in every comment in an online forum?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think this article is coastal centric. If you don't want to live on either coast the cities are affordable by the middle class. Certain neighborhoods might not be.

I see millennials just a few years out of college buying houses in Detroit for example. Just not downtown or in Corktown. Similarly I've got friends with houses in Chicago, Cleveland and Minneapolis. I've got upper middle class friends who can't afford to buy a house anywhere in Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER32> Yes yes yes. I seemed to me that the article defined "hot" cities as ones with expensive housing, which prevented it from looking at hot cities with less housing problems. Pittsburgh and Columbus come to mind as two cities with growing creative/professional industries where the middle class can afford to live.

(Although housing in the epicenter of these cities' tech boomlets can be absurd compared to the rest of the city. This new construction in Pittsburgh's East End - [http://www.zillow.com/b/bakery-living-pittsburgh- pa-63CwP3/](http://www.zillow.com/b/bakery-living-pittsburgh-pa-63CwP3/) \- charges the same for 1 bed that I paid for a 3-bedroom townhouse in a solid neighborhood ~1 mile away 2 years ago.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Strange, I'm middle class and I live in a city. There are other cities than NYC, SF, LA and Boston.

<comment><USER34> What about places like Canada? Where your only real options are Toronto and Vancouver. Other places are lonely and small.

Personally I'm into music. Composing, playing shows, going to the symphony, the opera, the ballet. Sure, I could leave Toronto, except now I'm in the middle of nowhere where there are no jobs and no culture. Now what?

I'm sure it's similar for others in the US.

<comment><USER35> Montreal? Very cheap to live, probably the most cultured city in Canada. I'll admit the job situation isn't great there but that's why it's cheap. Calgary and Edmonton both have top notch symphonies, the world class Alberta Ballet, and burgeoning music scenes. Much cheaper than Vancouver or Toronto.

There are huge, huge affordability problems with Vancouver and Toronto, but they're hardly your only choices.

<comment><USER36> Exactly. Canada is very diverse and there are plenty of music scenes, symphonies, and other culture centers outside of Vancouver and Toronto. It's like saying the only good places to enjoy culture in the US are New York and LA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Good. I don't want to live in a city.

I dislike density and can't stand not having lots and lots of space. I love the look and feel of sprawl, and I want more of it... you couldn't pay me to live in an urban environment.

Crowded cities feel like something out of the past to me. Like, my great- grandparents lived in a crowded city when they first came to this country, and every subsequent generation has moved farther and farther out into the burbs. Moving to a city would feel like moving to 1901 to me.

</comment><comment><USER38> I really think a big part of this is the QE/low interest rates the Fed used to dig us out of the hole. Everything seems inflated, from stocks to housing prices, because borrowing is so cheap and you can over-leverage yourself quite easily.

Anecdotal story: I live in a decent but not super nice part of Seattle and we had a house a few blocks away sell for 750k, which seems insane as everything else in the area goes for 400-500k and historically has basically been the ghetto. I could not imagine trying to get into this market, I would be living 6 miles down the road.

Will be interesting to see how prices are impacted once the fed raises rates. Borrowing will be more expensive and _should_ have a depressing effect on home prices.

<comment><USER39> Agree. It's the trivial consequences of interest rates.

People will always pay most of their money in rents, everyone needs a place to live [and wants it to be nice].

Low interest rates are allowing people to take 20-40 years mortgages, for huge total sums of money.

If rates were higher, the duration and sum would be forced to be lower. It's basic maths.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> In order to afford a decent newer house in the suburban beltway (DC) you need to spend 500k+. That's $2200 a month. Personal property tax on a 3 year old SUV and a new sports car is $2700 yearly. Car insurance is > $300 monthly. Car payments >= $1900 month. (college + personal) Loan repayment = $400 monthly. Food and gas + energy >= $600 monthly. State and federal tax + ss take about 45% of gross.

Upper middle class == ~ 170k a year. Welcome to northern virginia.

<comment><USER41> The car numbers jump out at me. The rest sounds familiar but you must have some nice cars to run up those car tax, loan, and insurance bills.

For comparison, a couple of 5 year old Japanese cars run me less than $100/month insurance and around $600/year in property tax in NoVA. No payments because we saved up and paid cash, but if there were, they'd be well under $1,900/month.

> State and federal tax + ss take about 45% of gross.

Even after the mortgage deduction? Have you calculated your effective tax rate? Mine is around 30%, including sales taxes.

<comment><USER40> My situation is extraordinary regarding the mortgage since I can't deduct it: so tax rate is pretty accurate. The sports car is nicer than the average (approaching supercar) and the SUV is categorized as luxury. Not out of the ordinary in this area.

<comment><USER41> I'm curious why you can't deduct the mortgage payments. Just so far down the amortization curve that it's mostly principle now? Or you're talking about an investment property?

<comment><USER40> Relationship penalty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> While pricing people out of "hot cities" sucks, there is an upside to up and coming cities being built up. Even Austin and Denver mentioned in the story were not on par with 'out of reach' cities a decade ago.

There will continue to be waves of this as we see places like Nashville, NC cities, SLC, Charleston etc building up now.

This relocation is a form of spreading the wealth and based on geography the optimistic view is some of the benefit will go to areas we saw most left behind and divided this election (south, midwest).

In the long term that could be a boon to middle class outside megacities and more opportunity to escape the mega city bubbles/echo chambers

</comment><comment><USER43> The first sentence is obviously false -- the well-known landscape architect Frederick Olmsted was born in 1822, so he could not have designed Highland Park in the 1700s. Not a good way to start the article.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm a founder bootstrapping a startup, so at the moment both my income and my assets are very well short of middle class. Nonetheless, I can afford to live in London Zone 2 -- a ten-minute walk away from Tower Bridge -- because I'm happy to live communally with a handful of excellent flatmates. There's nothing wrong with this arrangement, and I think it's an arrangement that will only grow in the future. I'm seeing the property development and and rental industries evolve to accommodate it. This is good.

That's not to defend the way that most of the property industry has become simply a vehicle for financial speculation, which is to the benefit of nobody who isn't at the apex of the financial services industry.

<comment><USER45> > because I'm happy to live communally with a handful of excellent flatmates.

Television. In a small apartment, if one person is watching TV, the rest of us are locked into it too. Any hope of reading, programming, or any other focused activity goes out the window. After long days in a noisy open-plan office, coming home to other people's blaring TV show wore down my sanity very quickly. No job could possibly be good enough to justify that life.

In college, you could at least escape it in any of the multitude of secure 24x7 spaces with tables, power, WiFi, etc. But the libraries around here close at the end of the workday, and that's about the only quiet public space we have in this country.

I'd kill for a "media only with headphones" communal apartment.

<comment><USER46> So post some ads locally and make it happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I have 2 questions:

(1) Do not such articles sound like "not everyone can afford a holiday in Hawai"? Or "all my friends have a Mercedes AMG but I don't"? What is the difference? *

(2) In Bay Area, the daily commute itself is an obvious sign of overpopulation. How does more housing not make it even worse?

* I exclude the gentrification problem which is really affecting the lives of poor and old people as their mobility is far worse than middle class, and most of the time they won't be able to buy the new houses and apartments anyway.

<comment><USER45> >(1) Do not such articles sound like "not everyone can afford a holiday in Hawai"? Or "all my friends have a Mercedes AMG but I don't"? What is the difference? *

It would be useful, for many reasons, to have a greater proportion of people living in cities. So, it's useful to challenge your implicit assumption that doing so ought to be a luxury.

(2) In Bay Area, the daily commute itself is an obvious sign of overpopulation. How does more housing not make it even worse?

a) The commute is awful because the Bay Area is overpopulated relative to its transit infrastructure, not some natural limit. Or, conversely, the Bay Area's transit infrastructure is under-provisioned relative to its population. Faster, more extensive transit infrastructure can drastically improve the commute at both current and higher population levels.

b) We also underutilize the land close to commute destinations, so everyone (but the residents of single-family homes near downtown) has to travel further than they should. Pedestrians don't need much in the way of infrastructure (just sidewalks, which most of SF already has). Building more residential skyscrapers in the midst of business districts lets more people walk to work in a short time. Building more mid-rises (~6 stories) where there are currently single-family homes gets more people into commute distances that are reasonably quick on a bicycle, motor scooter, or public transit. Density of residents also promotes density of stores, so that i.e. everyone can be a short walk from their grocery store, rather than needing a car to shop, and the reclaimed land previously dedicated to parking can house more people.

<comment><USER47> (1) For the sake of extending the same analogy, the question is not whether people should have vacations and cars or not, it is about everybody asking for luxury vacations or cars.

(2) IMHO, housing may for sure move some people closer to their work but it also means more service workers and other jobs to move to the same spot; this sounds to me like a vicious circle. At the end isn't it this vicious circle that drives city growth? Even if the commute problem is solved, which I doubt looking all the cities I lived or know a little bit, how are we going to prevent the classic environmental challenges: clean water, or effects on natural habitat?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Just read this article, _" The retirement wave changing Sydney"_ about the effects of boomers retiring in Sydney and ^holding the crease^ in the housing market. [0] Interesting effects (economy slows as displaced younger workers have to travel further).

[0] [http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/the-retirement-wave-changing- sydne...](http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/the-retirement-wave-changing- sydney-20161229-gtjj01.html)

</comment><comment><USER49> > Landlords are able to charge more, and long-time rental residents get > displaced when they can't afford the new prices.

So just because you rent a place somewhere for a couple of years you are entitled to be able to stay there forever? even if everything around you changes?

What if I have more money, and I want to move in as well, but can't because you are still renting the place you are entitled to for cheap?

> That's what's happening in Fort Hill, a traditionally African American > neighborhood that is whitening every year as black residents who've rented > there for decades are replaced by high-turnover college students willing to > pay the ever-higher market rates for apartments.

I find it disturbing that this article throws in race despite this being a purely economic situation.

</comment><comment><USER50> >In Fort Hill in 2016, meanwhile, initiatives to build new affordable housing to keep those long-time residents in the neighborhood were met with resistance by some homeowners fearing an influx of low-cost housing would negatively affect their home values.

Someone enlighten me, why does the government have to listen to the wealthy NIMBY's over the longtime residents? Are certain voices more important than others? We live in a egalitarian democracy, no?

</comment><comment><USER51> The article talks about "the middle class", but the people it talks about (teachers, etc.) are wage laborers with respectable pay, not independent business owners deriving income by applying labor to their own capital -- that is, they are middle income working class, not middle class.

</comment><comment><USER52> Worth pointing out that the article defines middle class as an annual household income of $50-125K. That's higher than I would've expected on the high end. Also, they rightfully call out too-restrictive zoning as being responsible for a lot of the shortage.

</comment><comment><USER53> If you ever want to see evidence of just how thick of a bubble the tech world lives in, and how disconnected it is from the rest of the population and economy, read comments on any article with "middle class" in the title.

Good grief.

</comment><comment><USER54> The cities skew Democratic, but I wonder if increasing urban migration will create more Democrats. Then the Democratic Party has more of an incentive to build more nice-city.

...Might have worked 8 years ago.

<comment><USER55> This is absolutely the case, there are loads of books about the phenomenon. And every mid-sized city has some chamber of commerce that is trying to crack the code on how to be "the next Austin/Portland/whichever-hip-city". Hell, I've got friends in Virginia and Maine who are working on this.

They're doing it for fiscal/influential reasons, not political, but yes, this trend would benefit the Democrats, except that you can't attract hipsters with policy.

<comment><USER56> I live in such a city. We are trying to make the city more desirable to economic growth. One factor is that people will tend to locate their businesses where they want to live, so it makes sense to add amenities associated with upper middle class lifestyle, such as good public schools and bike infrastructure.

But there are some things that we don't control. Probably the most important engine of growth in the entire state is located in our city -- the university -- but the city doesn't operate it, and we have no voice in state government thanks to partisan gerrymandering.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Speaking of housing in the city, an amazing display of the situation, in SF at least, is the number of people who share housing. I'd actually love to have stats!

</comment><comment><USER58> I live just north of Houston in a 1600 sq ft, corner lot, large porch, 2 car detached garage, 3 bedroom house. Currently valued at $130,000.

<comment><USER59> Houston's is a great place to work too, especially if you're into oil and gas!

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> That's one nice thing about Chicago, you can live in a high-rise downtown for a fraction of what it would cost in in SF, NYC, or Boston.

</comment><comment><USER61> Once and if we ever get away from zero interest rates this problem will solve itself.

</comment><comment><USER62> The middle class can afford to live in cities, just not in a 3500 sqft house with a 2 car garage and a boat, and with the best school district and certainly not in NYC, SF, Boston, DC, etc.

There are plenty of places to live in America. You have to adjust your standard of living and your expectations according to your income and desires.

<comment><USER22> This is a view that will lead to a highly dysfunctional society.

First off, you are dismissive of the issue with that bit of exaggeration. It is not as if this group wants all the good things in life that only a tech salary afford. Perhaps a dignified life would be sufficient.

You also place NYC, SF, Boston, DC, etc. into a category of city that is naturally not available to the middle class. Is NYC a luxury like a 3500 sq ft house and boat? Housing scarcity and the resulting price inflation is actually a situation that residents of cities accidentally created, something highly unnatural.

Working class and middle class people are critical to the economy and wider culture of cities. Teachers. Police officers. Artists. The guy who makes your coffee. The gal not from a wealthy family who wants to start a business.

It is not enough that a certain group can just live somewhere in America. Critical workers must live within a reasonable commute to their jobs.

There should be plenty of places in each city for them to live in, and there should plenty of infrastructure in place to move them about.

<comment><USER62> Is NYC a luxury? Absolutely. The access to institutions, the culture, the people, the shops, the history... all of that is a luxury. That's why people want to live there versus somewhere like Cleveland I guess.

Once those cities are unaffordable for the very people you mention, they will just move to more affordable places where they have a better cost of living, and then they will bring ideas, creativity, and resurgence to these areas and make them better.

If you're a critical worker, then surely you can demand a pay raise. If not, move. If somebody can replace you, you're not critical. If somebody can't replace you, they'll have to pay more.

I'm not dismissive of the cost of these cities at all, nor the plight of those living there, but you get what you pay for. If you're a teacher in New York and you can't afford rent, move somewhere else instead. What else are you going to do? Rent control? Then you just have people who can never afford to build lasting wealth because they will just rent for life.

There isn't a 'solution' to this 'problem' because it's just a basic fact of human organization. I'd love to live in Colorado, maybe Breckinridge, but I can't afford that. So I live somewhere else and visit. Does that suck? Yeah sure, it also sucks I can't buy a Ferrari.

Ideally we want mixed-use development neighborhoods with differently priced homes for people with different income levels to live in. But it looks like without the government enforcing it, that isn't going to happen.

<comment><USER22> I do not think that big city life should be a luxury, any more than the internet or computing should be a luxuries.

While it is beneficial to improve districts, the migratory upgrading of urban areas is an economic model that may be problematic for the population. People need to get work done and take care of their families, not constantly deal with a series of dismal choices and life-uprooting changes.

Instead of waiting for price bubbles, wage bubbles, hostile populations causing problems due to inadequate conditions, perhaps cities should work on the infrastructure of growth.

There are many necessary conditions for civilization that governments enforce or produce. I argue that generating NYC conditions for the general population is one of them.

<comment><USER6> >I argue that generating NYC conditions for the general population is one of them.

OMG, I certainly hope not. They'd certainly better not try to generate NYC conditions for me.

<comment><USER22> Yeah that isn't for everyone!

Whatever the category of neighborhood -- big city or small town or even country -- there are minimum requirements for a decent life that IMO the community is morally obligated to create.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> ad blocker blocker blocks reading the article.

</comment><comment><USER64> then don't live in cities?

<comment><USER65> What about those who provide social services to city-dwellers? Teachers, firefighters? It can be problematic to have the police tasked with protecting a city they don't even live in. Next time you see an SFPD officer with a free moment ask him/her what they think of the explosive growth in SoMa.

<comment><USER66> If they can't afford to live where they work maybe they're under payed?

<comment><USER67> I don't think that's a "maybe".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> THe problem is we still believe america has a middle class. It really doesn't. Even the people I know with household incomes in the bay exceeding 250k a year aren't really saving any money. Easy access to debt has confused access to capital with savings in america. I'm just glad I'm rich

<comment><USER69> Bullshit. There is no place in the United States where $250K means you're living paycheck to paycheck. You know people who don't know how to manage their money.

<comment><USER70> On this forum, there are plenty of people who are totally out of touch with reality when it comes to salaries, doubled by the fact they they believe they are so above everyone else that they should earn 10 times average Joe's salary and live like kings, hence everything else is a failure.

Very recently, there were the 'unworthy' Japanese salaries. They were 50%-80% higher that what I am used to see around me for equivalent qualifications, but no, the general opinion here was that they were outrageously low (without consideration for any other factor).

I also remember one guy saying he was earning 150k$/year and that leaving in France was with that salary _OK but barely so_. Truth is that's 3 to 4 times what most mid-career engineer earn, and their salary allows them to have an easy life. That's 6 times the median salary, which means that half of the population can live 6 years or more with a single year of his salary. That's 8 times the minimum wage, and lots of people live with it, some without any problem, some with difficulties, depending on the family situation, the location and the spending habits, but they all make do. Finally that's 20 times the amount of welfare, which is enough to live a poor and simple life. So the guy could have lived, say 10 years with a single year of his income, and yet he was whining.

My jaw regularly falls when I read money/salary related posts on this forum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> I agree with the article. However, people should be able and willing to make the appropriate sacrifices commensurate with their future expectations.

If someone is 22 and is making 35k a year, and can keep all of their expenses at 15k per year (it's easy to find places in Dorchester 850 rent all inclusive for a room plus 150 food and 3k year entertainment), save 5k per year for retirement and emergencies and finally save 10k for a house they'll be have 100k when they're 32. With 100k in boston that's 25 percent on a 400k house in a suburb or parts of Dorchester. Worst case, move somewhere cheaper and that can be as much as 50% down.

Keep in mind this assumes no salary increases and no spouse. It's very doable, but people want to live a lavish life. Can you live a lavish life in Boston for 35k? Nope.

<comment><USER72> Your numbers are entirely unreasonable unless they're after tax. Maybe in Arizona and not saving 5k for retirement. But even there $150/week for food is like Ramen, Beans, and Rice, you're not accounting for transportation or medical costs, etc. You can live on 35k for sure, but saving 10k of it every year is pretty optimistic.

<comment><USER71> 35k after tax is about 28k [1]. What's wrong with rice and beans and occasional meat? An average 22 year old doesn't need medical insurance. Given that many people don't save at all this would be pretty good.

Also the plan I described already had leeway for unexpected expenses.

12k housing and food 3k entertainment 10k house 5k saving

I agree that it would be a boring life. That being said, this is using 35k and not the 50k minimum being defined as middle class, per the article.

1\. [http://taxformcalculator.com/state_tax/massachusetts/35000.h...](http://taxformcalculator.com/state_tax/massachusetts/35000.html)

<comment><USER73> I know plenty of people in their 20s that thought they were too healthy to need medical insurance, until something happened and they had to have their appendix taken out and now have $50k plus in medical debt.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Useful Things You Can Do with CURL - <AUTHOR> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/get-curly-10-useful-things-can-curl/ <comment><USER2> As someone who is new(ish) to Linux systems I found this pretty useful - was a bit surprised to see cURL used for some of the network stuff like checking external IP and pinging sites.

Not sure there is any clear indication as to the advantages or disadvantages of something like using cURL for ping rather than just using ping? Unless the other was just trying to show flexibility and I missed the point.</comment>


Ornate netsuke were practical status symbols - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-are-netsuke <comment><USER2> Those interested in netsuke may enjoy the book "The Hare With Amber Eyes" which weaves the story of a netsuke collection though generations and different continents.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article would've really benefited from a photo or sketch of what one would look like when being worn.

</comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of phone charms and key chains (some Japanese key chains are fashionable and bulky extending from the pocket). Obviously, given there are pockets now they serve a slightly different purpose, but it's a similar niche. I wonder if there's a lineage there.

</comment><comment><USER5> How come they weren't losing the boxes all the time? A string under the belt with only a small stone preventing it from sliding down seems unreliable.

<comment><USER6> I think the belt is tight around your waist, and then the netsuke is stuck above the belt. If you pull on the string it can't slide because there is no space for the netsuke to pass under the belt.

There's a picture here: [https://www.netsuke.com/netsuke.html](https://www.netsuke.com/netsuke.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So these were basically Edo Japan fanny packs?</comment>


Lisp machine implemented on a Xilinx Spartan 3 FPGA - <AUTHOR> http://www.aviduratas.de/lisp/lispmfpga/

<comment><USER3> That's sweet.

One of the reasons I want to set aside the time to learn some HDLs is to bring back machines like the Alto, the Lilith and the LMI and Symbolics Lisp machines.

<comment><USER4> Are there enough details about the machines available to reimplement them?

<comment><USER3> There are a couple software emulators that can run the original software, so, I assume, there is enough data to implement them.

I never succeeded running the Alto emulator I have (Altogether)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> haha, the image says: probably nobody (no pig) is watching, again. - <USER2> little pig says: great

<comment><USER6> I don't get the joke. Can you please explain it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How much traffic do you get from hitting the HN front page? - <AUTHOR>

Just curious. <comment><USER2> Last time it happened for one of our sites it was ~1500 visits or so. I'm sure it various depending on content/interest/day/etc.

Though I'm not sure why you'd be so keen on the actual numbers. This isn't the sort of site where you're really looking to get pageviews-- it's more about the great feedback and comments really.

</comment><comment><USER3> Show your site then answer your own question.

</comment><comment><USER4> Going through my server logs counting lines which were (a) within 2 days of my submitting a link here, and (b) matched /ycombinator/i, I get the following:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29791> (16 points, June 21, 2007): 260 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=70823> (2 points, October 21, 2007): 39 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=106071> (4 points, January 29, 2007): 99 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=142366> (12 points, March 21, 2008): 191 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=182974> (19 points, May 7, 2008): 257 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=209799> (16 points, Jun 5, 2008): 259 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=227327> (6 points, Jun 25, 2008): 121 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=231036> (5 points, Jun 29, 2008): 160 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=340820> (31 points, October 23, 2008): 768 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=356704> (4 points, November 7, 2008): 57 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=359788> (45 points, November 10, 2008): 884 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=397279> (27 points, December 14, 2008): 982 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=401876> (46 points, December 18, 2008): 781 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=438070> (37 points, January 17, 2009): 685 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=440370> (5 points, January 19, 2009): 60 hits

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=508818> (87 points, March 9, 2009): 2638 hits

Of course, this doesn't count traffic from sites like icombinator.net which "re-skin" HN, nor does it count traffic resulting from people seeing links here and posting them elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER5> About 3,000 to 4,000 in 48 hours the last three times.</comment>


Show HN: My first native iOS app – CoffeeAM, an easy tool to boost creativity - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1132834670?pt=118301631&ct=HN&mt=8 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, HN! Really excited to share my little project here. Being an product manager and a software developer, it was often hard for me to stay creative and productive during the 'ideation' stage. Hence, I decided to make this app. CoffeeAM provides various coffee shops ambient sounds to boost your creativity and productivity. According to a research from University of Chicago("A moderate level of ambient noise is conducive to creative cognition"), the chatter and clatter noise will get your creative juices to start flowing. So, you can use this little app to boost up your creativity anytime and anywhere! Really excited to hear feedback from you all :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> =)</comment>


Show HN: CarIncentives.com – get paid to test-drive new cars - <AUTHOR> http://www.carincentives.com

<comment><USER2> Is the underlying concept, to generate leads for the car dealerships where you going to test drive at ?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's kind of the idea. These leads would be very high quality, since consumers would actually have to visit the dealership. My target for the leads is primarily the manufacturers, not the dealers - but both are interested.

<comment><USER2> Very interesting, all the best !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It asks for my email address before it offers me anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an MVP. Just getting started, dealers want to see interest before they will offer a paid test-drive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> At first I thought - "Who's Carl?"...

<comment><AUTHOR> lol, yeah it's a bit hard to read. I thought about writing it out as: Car Incentives.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks cool</comment>


Negative Ionization kills Viruses and Bacteria in the air (March 2020) - <AUTHOR> https://www.solsociety.swiss/en/la-ionizzazione_uccide_virus_batteri/ <comment><USER2> This isn't news this is an advertisement. Ionization of air has long been a thing that's known to kill viruses and bacteria. The problem that they totally gloss over is the production of ozone which is quite harmful to people.

It's like they are trying the "on a iPhone" gimmick to make you think this is new technology. Look around you'll find ionizers everywhere especially at shops because they reduce offensive smells in the air.

If you're looking for something in your house UV light filtration works just as well for killing viruses and bacteria, there's inexpensive home units already, and it doesn't produce ozone. The health problems from ozone aren't something you want to deal with.

<comment><USER3> It's also super expensive compared to opening the windows once in a while, and ensuring good air circulation in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This, combined with other measurements (like washing hands frequently, no coughing in hands, or staying home when you have a cold, and proper ventilation), could be a reason to stop the lockdowns. We can go back to the office. It might also help local businesses like restaurants, cafes, small shops to be visited indoors for a longer amount of time than currently possible.

I'd like to mention this video that goes into detail about aerosols and their behaviour in unventilated areas: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhM9Zt5tZjY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhM9Zt5tZjY)</comment>


Atlas of Surveillance - <AUTHOR> https://atlasofsurveillance.org/ <comment><USER2> > Police Department signed an agreement with Amazon's home surveillance > equipment company, Ring, in 2019 to gain special access to the company's > Neighbors app

this is the most scary part.

<comment><USER3> We really need these things to be Closed Circuit by law. Want the data? Get a warrant and seize the device physically. Centralized databases of surveillance information needs to be outlawed criminally.

<comment><USER4> You can buy closed circuit cameras for the past 40 years. People buy Ring to avoid the in-home infrastructure.

<comment><USER5> Hence, _by law_.

A legal mandate avoids the race-to-the-bottom trend.

<comment><USER4> What race to the bottom? It's a choice. People like having choices.

<comment><USER5> When "choice" effectively limits societal options or generates massive externalities and/or long-term unpredictable impacts, all parties upon whom the "choice" impacts are not given voice, or choice.

Often commonweal is a better guiding light than "choice".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_bottom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_bottom)

Sophie Zawistowska was offered a choice. Did her utility benefit by it?

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=DZ9bht5H2p4](https://youtube.com/watch?v=DZ9bht5H2p4)

<comment><USER4> It's the user's choice to use a cloud-hosted security system. They can weigh the trade-offs and risks for themselves, same as with any other system.

Whether that data is accessible by law enforcement is a completely separate issue. A proper solution would be limiting this access and requiring consent and transparency, not removing infrastructure options because you think you know better than everyone else about what's best for them.

<comment><USER5> The issue, by virtue of legally allowed warrantless access, is inextricably conjoined, and the impacts of that choice accrue to not only the decisionmaker, but to countless others. Your premises are false.

Your proposed (and grossly insufficient) remedy is one form of legal mandate.

I'd strongly commend Shoshana Zuboff, Hanna Arendt, and Paul Baran, amongst numerous others:

"On the Engineer's Responsibility in Protecting Privacy", Paul Baran, 1968:

[https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P3829.html](https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P3829.html)

Another view was expressed by AI pioneer and Nobel Laureate (economics) Herbert Simon:

 _" The privacy issue has been raised most insistently with respect to the creation and maintenance of longitudinal data files that assemble information about persons from a multitude of sources. Files of this kind would be highly valueable for many kinds of economic and social research, but they are bought at too high a price if they endanger human freedom or seriously enhance the opportunities of blackmailers. While such dangers should not be ignored, it should be noted that the lack of comprehensive data files has never been the limiting barrier to the suppression of human freedom. The Watergate criminals made extensive, if unskillful, use of electronics, but no computer played a role in their conspiracy. The Nazis operated with horrifying effectiveness and thoroughness without the benefits of any kind of mechanized data processing."_

[https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a9e7/33e25ee8f67d5e670b3b7d...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a9e7/33e25ee8f67d5e670b3b7dc4b8c3e00849ae.pdf)

There is, of course, one slight problem with Simon's argument: The Nazis did make heavy use of mechanised data processing, provided and supported by IBM. Edwin Black documents this meticulously in his book _IBM and the Holocaust_ :

[https://ibmandtheholocaust.com](https://ibmandtheholocaust.com)

<comment><USER4> That's a wildly unreasonable stretch and limiting freedom for the claim of security leads to far worse results.

Infrastructure and third-party vendors need to be managed against risk. This is no different than using Gmail vs your own hosted email box. Same with a million other services. Are you claiming that they should all be shutdown now?

Legal issues need to be fixed by legal solutions, not by disallowing the service from existing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's really interesting to me that in Los Angeles, we have every technology except for "Gunshot Detection". Anyone know why? It seems like one of the less intrusive forms of surveillance. Isn't this the thing that turns a series of cameras in the direction of a very loud sound? Seems less harmful than specifically copying down every license plate that drives by an intersection, or every face that enters a building. (Which isn't to say they should have it, just that it's an odd omission.)

<comment><USER7> From what I've read, by itself, it's not a great system. For example, you can shoot a gun somewhere else to distract officers, and some noises are misclassified as guns (teaching officers to ignore those alarms, making the system ineffective).

<comment><USER8> [https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/shotspotter- de...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/shotspotter-detection- system-documents-39000-shooting-incidents-in-the- district/2013/11/02/055f8e9c-2ab1-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_story.html)

....

Wrapped in a weatherproof container roughly the size of a watermelon, each ShotSpotter sensor combines microphones, hardware, software and a clock linked to the Global Positioning System, which uses satellites and radio navigation to pinpoint precise times and locations.

In the cacophonous urban environment, sensors are calibrated to ignore all sounds except for those that most closely match the "impulsive" sound of an explosion, said James Beldock, a senior vice president for ShotSpotter.

"It's a very, very sharp wave," Beldock said. "No other sound works that way."

The blast of a gun is different from other explosive sounds because it is directional, meaning that the noise changes its frequency as the bullet moves through space. A person may hear a gunshot a half-mile away if the gun is fired toward him. But a person 200 yards away may hear nothing if the gun is fired away from him.

Once sensors register a potential gunshot, they transmit the data to the ShotSpotter computer network for analysis. The computer server compares the time that each sensor logged the sound to calculate the likely location of its source, a process of triangulation and multilateration.

"That sound will reach a sensor 100 yards away at a different time than it reaches a sensor 200 yards away," Beldock explained.

The more sensors that capture the noise, the more accurate the location. A sound detected by 10 sensors can be located to within two feet, he said.

The computer system also classifies the likely source of the sound based on its sharpness, frequency and consistency across sensors. This is critical, because other impulsive sounds — including fireworks, backfires and helicopters — can also trigger the remote sensors.

....

<comment><USER9> > sensors are calibrated to ignore all sounds except for those that most > closely match the "impulsive" sound of an explosion

> The blast of a gun is different from other explosive sounds

> "It's a very, very sharp wave," Beldock said. "No other sound works that > way."

> Other impulsive sounds — including fireworks, backfires and helicopters — > can also trigger the remote sensors

They're calibrated just to hear explosions, and in fact _no other explosive sound works that way_, but then they're triggered by...helicopters? Which are not propelled by explosions?

<comment><USER10> For what it's worth, neither bullets nor helicopters are propelled by explosions. While the distinction is somewhat technical, gunpowder doesn't explode--it just burns really fast. This is less important for small arms than for, say, artillery, but being able to control burn rates is critical for the design of most firearms/cannons and things like solid-fuel rocket motors (which function as one big propellant grain)--in many of these cases, detonation would likely prove catastrophic.

All that to say that helicopter blades can create similar pressure waves as gunshots. Supersonic bullets passing overhead make very distinctive sounds, but the noise of the gunshot itself is much less unique. I never really got comfortable living in places with a large number of cars that backfired a lot, because I couldn't easily tell it apart from gunfire.

<comment><USER11> >gunpowder doesn't explode

Define "explode".

Any chemical reaction that produces more outputs than inputs by volume can explode if you trap that pressure.

The flame front on gunpowder isn't fast enough to make a pressure wave that sounds like a bang if there's nothing to trap the combustion byproducts (like the space behind a bullet as it travels down the barrel).

You can harmlessly set off gunpowder (old school black powder and equivalents) as a party trick. Don't try that with Semtex.

I'm not an acoustics expert but I think it's going to be fundamentally very hard if not impossible to build a shotspotter type system that both works in an urban environment (where sound bounces off all sorts of things) and doesn't get a false positive from things like motorcycles backfiring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Let us not forget the Netsential leak from #BlueLeaks a few weeks ago.

Netsential.com [1] was a Houston-based software dev, hosting, and cloud provider. I lived most of my life in Houston, and they are loosely connected to an old ISP called Texas.net and a more recent data center company called Data Foundry.

Something like 630+ websites were hosted by Netsential. All of them DHS fusion centers, multi state intel sharing groups, police training outfits, etc. The source code leaked as well for all of these websites. Extremely poorly done ASP.net rigged together "web apps" with CSV files being used for the backend data tier.

Here is the most fascinating thing. 7 years ago, as part of the Edward Snowden document dump, a single page screenshot of an list of the Top 16 addresses the NSA was targeting in North America appeared.

#16 on that list [2], codenamed WAXTITAN, was the IP address 184.108.40.206, which belonged and belongs to Netsential/YHC Corporation [3].

The question now I think is who in the world are these other 15 IP addresses, all of which are scattered around typically rural North America?

[1] - netsential.com

[2] - [https://snowdenarchive.cjfe.org/greenstone/collect/snowden1/...](https://snowdenarchive.cjfe.org/greenstone/collect/snowden1/index/assoc/HASH0133/eab0259d.dir/doc.pdf)

[3] - [https://blog.12security.com/darkness-at- noon-01-waxtitan/](https://blog.12security.com/darkness-at-noon-01-waxtitan/)

<comment><USER13> that is an incredible connection. thank you for sharing. im glad im not the only one who has read most of the Snowden leaks, and whenever anything new happens like a big hack or leak, i go back and search the Snowden files to see if there are any connections.

in that list of program names, i remember seeing WILDCHOCOBO and DARKTHUNDER in other Snowden files.

here is WILDCHOCOBO

[https://search.edwardsnowden.com/docs/SPINALTAPMakingPassive...](https://search.edwardsnowden.com/docs/SPINALTAPMakingPassiveSexyforGenerationCyber2015-01-17_nsadocs_snowden_doc)

page 19 of that is very very interesting. it lists around 100 NSA programs that are all part of some kind of global passive CNE implanted on hundreds of servers that provides ingest/exfil to feed back home into XKEYSCORE.

DARKTHUNDER is also on there.

the odd thing is that slidedeck is about NSA program JOLLYROGER tracking SD cards via their unique hardware volume IDs.

why would NSA TAO be hacking MSPs like Netsential at all? why is NSA spying on Fusion Centers, who get their reports from FBI, who themselves got the data to write the reports from NSA SIGINT? why is NSA spying on regional and local Law Enforcement further down the food chain? NSA already has that data. NSA wouldnt even need to use TAO and CNE to collect data from Netsentia. They could just ask for the data.

my best guess is it's some kind of Inside Threat monitoring system. TAO hacks into those systems to install CNE implants that watch for SD cards being inserted, to detect rogue Fusion Center and LE personnel who are bulk stealing files by copying them onto SD cards.

but that seems like a really dumb thing to do. why not just disable the SD card readers and/or remove the hardware? a PC in a Fusion Center shouldnt even have an SD card reader.

ironic, since Snowden roughly implied in his recent autobiography that the way he stole millions of NSA's top secret files was by sneaker net'ing them home using SD cards.

LOL NSA has been screwing up its defense against SD cards for at least a decade and that screw up is what made Snowden possible.

i bet dozens of Russian and Chinese and Israeli moles have stolen far more than Snowden ever took from NSA using

<comment><USER12> My concern is similar to yours. By hacking and subverting everything, the NSA paved the way / "presented a picture of what was possible" to rogue foreign governments. The US was unprepared for this, and once it was realized, we couldn't even morally accuse them of wrong due to NSA past...

I think US agencies have sort of realized this mistake now, and actually for the last couple of years. The former NSA directors have said some revealing comments that reflect pretty authentic looking doubt, shame, and guilt over the various pathways programs took (with the exception of perhaps Admiral John Poindexter).

Perhaps agencies like the DHS, which when it was created was the largest reorganization of government since the Department of Defense was created in 1947, have not yet learned...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> And this is just state surveillance. There's a guy who's building a private surveillance network in San Francisco, with the buy in of the District Attorney and local police departments, and a goal of complete surveillance of city streets.

[https://www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.nytimes.c...](https://www- nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/business/camera- surveillance-san-francisco.amp.html)

<comment><USER5> De-AMPlified: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/15/technology/britain- survei...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/15/technology/britain-surveillance- privacy.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Ironic that the application won't load in Firefox without disabling Enhanced Tracking Protection because it relies on third party access to storage.

<comment><USER16> I just loaded the map by itself in its own tab [0].

I think it just wasn't tested very well in Firefox. The third party map is blanking out for me at widths over 2048 pixels in a Firefox window. That's what I get for using an ultrawide monitor, I guess.

[0] [https://mediaprogram.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/interactiv...](https://mediaprogram.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/interactivelegend/index.html?appid=adab41ac3fb049c18898bd1e04ea9368)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There is no surveillance tech anyone can invent that won't be used at home against the domestic populace. And I do mean against. Parallel construction has become just another tool in the arsenal of control.

<comment><USER18> We really need to start calling "parallel construction" what it is: willful, premeditated perjury.

<comment><USER19> Genuinely curious, in what context is it perjury? My understanding of parallel construction is:

1\. Officer receives information $A through inadmissible means (which may be illegal, but not necessarily)

2\. With information $A, officer is able to "prove" that a suspect perpetrated a given crime

3\. Officer pieces together proof from possible unrelated, but admissible evidence - $B and $C, let's say.

4\. And this is the part where I don't know that perjury is what we're talking about: Officer simply testifies to the truth of $B and $C, and that the suspect committed the crime in question.

<comment><USER20> The problem is, that they lied about how they got te evidence.

Eg, they plant a hidden camera in your house, see you packing drugs and puting them in your car in your own garage, and driving away. Since they got the info that you had the drugs from illegally set cameras, they can't just stop and search your car, but they can "randomly" stop you for a traffic check, and just "randomly" have a drug sniffing dog present, which finds the drugs in your car.

If the judges let this go through, the police would use more illegal methods (illegal searches, etc.) to gather data, then just "randomly" detect crime, and then the state would win cases.... and we (the people) don't want that. That's why, if you prove, that they knew the drugs were there from an illegal source of information, everything derived from that illegal source should be dropped as a illegally obtained evidence, to disincentivise the use of illegal methods.

Basically, the officer saying they randomly stopped you, would be a lie (=perjury), because they stopped you due their illegal cameras.

<comment><USER21> This already happens. I once had a conversation with a Homeland Security officer at a backyard BBQ, and he said:

 _" When you see on the news that Police randomly stopped a car and discovered a huge cache of drugs... you don't actually think that's random, do you?"_

TBH I had never thought about it before but now I recognize this pattern everywhere.

<comment><USER22> Yes, it already happens and that's why it's a problem. If they discovered that they should "randomly" pull over that vehicle through evidence that was gathered illegally, then it should also be considered a violation of the 4th amendment... which is likely why the EFF has launched this project.

<comment><USER18> It would be interesting - and likely amusing - to extrapolate how many people _must_ be driving around with huge caches of drugs, based on an assumption that purportedly unrelated traffic stops (or equivalent) were in fact random samples.

<comment><USER23> I really do think a "google maps" for police activity needs to be created -- including every single arrest, prosecution , subsequent legal claim... you should be able to rate police officers like restaurants on Yelp

<comment><USER19> My local courthouse _is_ rated on Yelp. In a shocking turn of events nobody could have ever predicted, it has 1 star.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Stuff like this gives me some hope. Where states like China have complete surveillance and control over their citizens, and that's where other fascist states seem to be headed, at least in western countries we are having these debates. And even though it seems like an ever-losing battle, my hope is that we can all be educated enough and band together on things that unite us to fight back against surveillance society controlled and abused by the powerful few.

<comment><USER25> Yeah but doesn't it feel like a race to the bottom? I mean, it feels like our politicians think country X is doing it so we (western democracy) better too, or risk losing global position in military/economy/etc

<comment><USER26> What's the alternative? As an informed civilian you cannot just let it happen imo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The traditional reminder that the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which built this atlas, is only able to do do thanks to the donations of individuals like you:

[https://eff.org/30](https://eff.org/30)

</comment><comment><USER28> While there is a listing for Drones, I think they may need to add a category for when they are deployed in a Pervasive Wide Area mode like as in "Eyes in the Sky: The Secret Rise of Gorgon Stare and How It Will Watch Us All" [1] as trialed in Baltimore [2] sometime back. Who knows what the current state of play is for this?

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40796190-eyes-in-the- sky](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40796190-eyes-in-the-sky)

[2] [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/08/milit...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/08/military- style-surveillance-air-often-legal/595063/)

</comment><comment><USER29> In Beverly Hills, there's some push for futuristic tech with autonomous cars and facial recognition. My point is, the people that participate in the local government and police measures are very average. Any smart, capable person could get involved and help develop better programs.

However, because law enforcement and wealth inequality is what it is, I'm somewhat open to surveillance system in certain areas of BH that are high risk targets. I hope these systems aren't used against regular residents and only actual threats. But, of course, that's a fallacy.

</comment><comment><USER30> Surveillance just going to get worse in the US Why?

There has been a police shortage since the early 2010's where most departments only had a 1/3 of the manpower that was needed. Now with public sentiment against the police, I'm sure the police shortages will increase, eventually forcing the government to rely on more surveillance, AI, and robotics to fill the gap.

<comment><USER31> Not if they have no funding for those things...

<comment><USER30> They are less expensive than people, and they will get funding for those things once crime hits a threshold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Anyone notice that the facial recognition points north of SF are errors? They contain information about programs in Nebraska and Florida. I wonder what led to the error and if there are more.

</comment><comment><USER33> Does anyone know what's going on in florida with face recognition?

<comment><USER34> Reading through a couple of the descriptions it looks like they have a state- wide database for searching face images against FL driver's licence photos. Since all the departments are signed onto the system, they all get the symbol but there may be other reasons/more invasive systems mixed in with the clutter so take that for what it's worth.

<comment><USER35> I live over in West Palm Beach / Palm Beach. The security is nuts. Cameras and high gain antennas all over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Why is there nothing in the UK or EU ?

<comment><USER37> if you read it right, it's all in the construction. so you or better everyone should share this page, as well as if you want to contribute something, register there [https://atlasofsurveillance.org/collaborate](https://atlasofsurveillance.org/collaborate)

[https://supporters.eff.org/collaborate-atlas- surveillance](https://supporters.eff.org/collaborate-atlas-surveillance)

so that the whole thing can also be further developed worldwide

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> It maps the license plate readers of the Poplar Bluff, MO police department onto Buffalo, MO.

</comment><comment><USER39> This only has USA data.

</comment><comment><USER40> Phew, glad to see Australia has no surveillance apparatus!

<comment><USER41> Except of course the Ipswich Mall, Brunswick St in Fortitude Valley, and the Queen Street Mall in Brisbane CBD. That's that I know of.

<comment><USER42> The visible is usually the tip of the iceberg.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> the UX of this isn't great.

<comment><USER44> How so?</comment></comment>


Data Barns in a Farm Town, Gobbling Power and Flexing Muscle - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/technology/data-centers-in-rural-washington-state-gobble-power.html?src=twrhp

<comment><USER2> That's some loophole! Pay a $210,000 contractual fine for buying less power than estimated, or spend $70,000 achieving that estimate... in three days... with a space heater.

</comment><comment><USER3> >> _In an attempt to erase a $210,000 penalty the utility said the company owed for underestimating its power use, Microsoft proceeded to simply waste millions of watts of electricity, records show. Then it threatened to continue burning power in what it acknowledged was an "unnecessarily wasteful" way until the fine was substantially cut, according to documents obtained by The New York Times._

It is ironic that Microsoft is trying to promote a green and caring image of itself, while arrogantly employing these wasteful tactics.</comment>


Show HN: An API to encode and decode coordinates using Geohash - <AUTHOR> http://geohash.world/ <comment><USER2> I've implemented geohashes before. The algorithm is not difficult, and pretty straight-forward to understand… and not the sort of thing I'd call out to a separate service over the network for. It's a pure computation that will take _nanoseconds_ ; is that worth involving the Internet and a third-party API?

Edit: well, some of [http://geohash.world/about.html](http://geohash.world/about.html) makes it sound like a pet project for learning purposes. In which case, anything goes, I guess? But I'm still not sure if it's only a pet project?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for your comment! I coded the geohash implementation from scratch, and it was really easy!

The main reason I did it (other than a fun weekend project) was to make other people interested in it, and enable them to build something fun, very quickly. There wasn't a free+modern+easy-to-use-in-bulk API available, and this way me and others can spend their weekend/hackathons building something _on top of geohashes_ instead of wrestling with the algorithm itself.

Edit : as a greek, I really dig your username :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I honestly don't understand why anyone would use Geohash? Because it's one number instead of 2?

The short definition is "A geohash is a convenient way of expressing a location (anywhere in the world) using a short alphanumeric string, with greater precision obtained with longer strings."

Here's another way to "use a short alphanumeric string" and "get greater precision with longer strings": "37,122", "37.7,122.4", "37.77,122.41", "37.774,122.419"

That seems so simple and universal and has been a standard since before our great grandparents were born, time to disrupt it to save a couple of bytes?

<comment><USER4> There are some algorithms that are trivial to implement with Geohashes that are non-trivial with lat-long coordinates. For example, given a set of n points find the k nearest neighbors. To do this with geohash you maintain an ordered list of geohashes, and find k points adjacent in the list. Doing this efficiently with lat-long requires some relatively exotic data structures like an R-tree or k-d-tree.

<comment><USER3> That is a lossy, incorrect algorithm. Sorry, there is not a continuous mapping from one dimension that covers two dimensions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Did you reimplement the algorithm, or are you just redirecting the result from the geohash.org api?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the late response! I did reimplement it in Go, and I'm going to upload on Github once I'm done toying with deployment.

It was pretty straightforward and there are already a couple of dozen libraries out there, in any language you wish, to get some ideas!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> FYI, [https://geohash.world/](https://geohash.world/) doesn't go anywhere (for example, clicking in the logo on the top left of the linked page)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yes, HTTPS is not supported right now, as I'm experimenting with various caching/routing. Once I'm done toying around, it will be the default option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I see services like this or W3W, I cannot understand what is the goal? What's wrong with coordinates themselves?

<comment><USER8> Geohashes are incredibly useful when building geospatial software (at least at the UI layer or close to it). With them, bucketing multiple data points that are in close proximity to each other is a breeze, and you then do zooming, panning, etc. with those buckets.

W3W (or the better alternative of Plus Codes) is then essentially just a layer of human readable names to have a digestible encoding of geohashes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, if you are set on using a geocode system, geohashes and plus codes are open-source, public-domain algorithms, unlike w3w, to avoid issues like [1] which was being discussed on HN yesterday.

[1] [https://justpaste.it/39hat](https://justpaste.it/39hat)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why hop the network for this?

<comment><USER10> Indeed, I would rather use a library for this

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that it's something easy, with already-available libraries. Nevertheless, I hope some people would find it useful, and enable me and others to use it quickly and build something _on top of geohash_ , instead of messing around to get the algorithm right.

<comment><USER10> How much messing around would there be though?

The first hit for a geohash gem (I'm a ruby guy) returns a github page where the instructions to use are pretty much an include statement and then encode/decode statements.

I don't mean to be harsh, but I have a big problem with APIs where libraries would do, and I think many consider network hops to be too cheap and available. The Sr Engineer in me would never allow a project to make calls over a network unless absolutely necessary.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Covid-19 hospital charges may exceed $1.4T in the U.S. - <AUTHOR> https://www.modernhealthcare.com/finance/covid-19-hospital-charges-may-exceed-14-trillion <comment><USER2> Based on hospitalization rates of 7.5%-10%. Latest from the New Rochelle, NY, hotspot puts it at 1%. Factor of 10 lower if I am reading this right.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/nyregion/new-rochelle- cor...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/nyregion/new-rochelle- coronavirus.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Expect insurance rates to go up 25-100% next year.</comment>


Ask HN: Research into stateless RDBMS - <AUTHOR> I've been wondering if there has been any research into stateless RDBMS. To clarify: the schema of a relational database is very state oriented. You create your tables, and then alter them over time with your data. Every attempt to turn this into a stateless system that I've come across has suffered from the problem of data loss. A static file describing the "current state" of the database schema (this table has these columns, etc.) does not allow the system to know whether a particular column was renamed, or one column deleted and another added. Anyone know of any research into this question? <comment><USER2> The research areas of "temporal databases" [1] and "temporal data warehouses" [2] deal with temporal validity of data as well as with evolution of schemata over time. The goal is usually to reconstruct historical states, so I'm not quite sure if this exactly fits what you mean by statelessness.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_database](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_database) [2] [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=temporal+data+war...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=temporal+data+warehouses)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know much about it however do look into Apache Samza.</comment>


Parenscript compiles a Common Lisp subset to JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://common-lisp.net/project/parenscript/ <comment><USER2> This is a good time to mention that Clojure has ClojureScript, which is the full language hosted on JavaScript, and compiled using Google Closure ( _sigh_ about the naming confusion) advanced compilation mode, with dead code elimination and full-program optimization.

[context: I used to write in CL and used Parenscript before I switched to Clojure]

<comment><USER3> There is also babashka([https://github.com/borkdude/babashka](https://github.com/borkdude/babashka)) which is basically a subset of Clojure suitable for scripting (including Clojure concurrency features) running on GraalVM

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> shenlanguage ([http://shenlanguage.org/](http://shenlanguage.org/)) also has a javascript port listed on [https://github.com/Shen- Language/wiki/wiki](https://github.com/Shen-Language/wiki/wiki)

</comment><comment><USER5> If you want to use Scheme instead of Common Lisp, I found Biwascheme to be quite easy to use.

[https://www.biwascheme.org/index.html](https://www.biwascheme.org/index.html)

<comment><USER6> Chicken Scheme has Spock: [https://wiki.call- cc.org/eggref/4/spock](https://wiki.call-cc.org/eggref/4/spock)

SPOCK is a compiler and runtime system for translating most of R5RS Scheme into JavaScript. You can use it either by statically generating JavaScript files from Scheme source files or by translating s-expressions containing Scheme code on the fly. The compiler uses Henry Baker's Cheney-on-the-MTA compilation strategy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is cool.

Last year I spent a week transliterating someone's Python to JavaScript. It never occurred to me to Ask HN if that already existed. Is there a good one?

<comment><USER8> There is Brython[1], and it's pretty good—we use it to check Python code submissions on a educational site and so far it worked flawlessly for that kind of stuff.

[1] [https://brython.info/](https://brython.info/)

<comment><USER7> That is cool! It would not have worked for us though because we developed an electronJS packaged app and there is no python installed on the host system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> worry about this "The latest Parenscript release, version 2.7.1, came out on December 5, 2018 "

<comment><USER6> The lisp community is a lot more like the Unix community than the JavaScript community. We have a lot of good tools, that work well, and don't need constant poking. Do you worry about the viability or usefulnes of "cd" or "cat" or most of the other core unix tools even though they probably haven't been touched for many many years?

Don't worry if a lisp project hasn't been touched for years. Worry if a project has a boatload of open/known bugs AND hasn't been touched for years.

<comment><USER10> When I was looking into this months ago I had the same concern. I've read about how common lisp packages tend to become "finished" and not updated after a while, but that doesn't intuitively make sense to me for a package like this that has an external moving target.

How much has JavaScript changed since the last update of ParenScript? How many new language features, that might add real benefit, are not accounted for?

Maybe the answer is that the new features are unnecessary to parenscript, I genuinely don't know, but it would be nice to at least see discussion/acknowledgment of this featured somewhere prominently.

<comment><USER11> A code generator to JS should produce code that will work flawlessly in a decade-old browser. One of the benefits of working in such a thing in the first place is to be isolated from the churning toilet bowl, and some of the value of that is negated if the project lets itself be churned.</comment></comment></comment></comment>