[nikomen]

As a white-collar professional and a software developer, what's something that we can do to lessen our effect on this phenomenon? I don't current live in a large city, but I've considered moving to one if I need to find work in the future. I've been lucky to work remote for most of my career, so living in a metro area with fewer tech jobs hasn't been an issue. However, if I were to move to one of the big tech cities, obviously I would be contributing to the pricing problems that already exist.

[dsfyu404ed]

Stop paying too much for housing because the commute is 15min or the schools are good. Stop buying hipster beer and eating at those stereotypical gentrified restaurants that charge too much for everything. Buy your groceries somewhere other than Whole Paycheck.

Basically just live below your means.

But that is going to be hard for most people in tech to do because most people in tech were raised upper middle class and they simply don't know how to live below that and a lot of the rest are not from the US and they're mostly just going to do whatever makes them fit in.

And unless you can get everyone with money to live like they don't (which you can't) that's not actually going to solve anything. Telling everybody to just change their lifestyle is not a real solution to anything anyway.

[tathougies]

The last thing one should do to solve housing inequality is to intentionally buy a lower priced home that could have formerly been afforded by a family with lesser means (thus forcing them to attempt to afford a higher priced property) in a sanctimonious attempt to avoid doing just that.

Ultimately, there is nothing an individual can do to help housing affordability. That is a societal problem.

If you really want to help housing equality, buy ana apartment building, not a house, and add more units

[adrice727]

Why does this seem to be different with software as opposed to other areas of engineering? Is it a generational thing?

Before jumping into the tech industry, I worked in the automotive industry and spent a lot of time around engineers. They were mostly all over 40 and they mostly all fit the stereotype of the frugal engineer. I don't see too many of those engineers in the Bay Area.

[PavlovsCat]

> But unless you can get everyone to do that (which you can't) that's not actually going to solve anything.

It solves the problem of contributing to it.

[scarface74]

So he should make his kids go to a bad school as a social experiment?

[KeenFox]

Systemic issues require systemic solutions. The only thing an individual can do is advocate and vote. Even that might not be enough.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem

[thrower123]

Self-flagellation doesn't help anybody else, either

[TomMarius]

How exactly should we vote supply and demand out of existence? You propose a left-ish solution but the same left-ish people that would enact it also support housing regulation, and due to supply and demand, your goal simply can't be met. This is not a systemic issue in most places where the program exists, it's an issue of current regulation (and the people that created it).

[rmbryan]

What a great question!