Chicago featured in this article (Evanston, Elmhurst: rent, how much, home)

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by MassVt

One might also question the NEED to have 25 restaurants at your disposal at any given time, though..

I don't think the question is about "at one time." I don't restaurant or bar hop (usually, and if i do, it's not many places). I like the ability to literally walk outside and have one of a lot of options available to me within 2 minutes and not having to worry about anything other than my own body. I enjoy the spontaneity of it, and the fact that it's more social than spending time in a car. You never know who you're going to meet when you're walking about or taking public transit. In a car on the road though, the chances of meeting anybody or having any sort of real human interaction is not that much.

[MassVt]

Originally Posted by marothisu

I don't think the question is about "at one time." I don't restaurant or bar hop (usually, and if i do, it's not many places). I like the ability to literally walk outside and have one of a lot of options available to me within 2 minutes and not having to worry about anything other than my own body. I enjoy the spontaneity of it, and the fact that it's more social than spending time in a car. You never know who you're going to meet when you're walking about or taking public transit. In a car on the road though, the chances of meeting anybody or having any sort of real human interaction is not that much.

It's just about the degree, I guess. I live in a very walkable city ( Cambridge, MA) and cars can get bottled up very quickly here ( not as bad as Manhattan, but congested anyway). Walkability has definite advantages, but I live outside Harvard Square, not IN it, and that's the way I prefer it. For a little peace and quiet, it's better to live about 15 minutes' walk away from the heart of activity..

[marothisu]

Yep, I understand what you're saying and I think this is something Chicago does well. Many of the areas are quiet in the non commercial streets. Even in the residential sections of an area like Boystown, you aren't going to hear much, but walk 5 minutes to a major street and there's a lot of activity. My ex gf lived on the border of North Center and Lincoln Square/Ravenswood for a little while. Waking up there reminded me of where I grew up, which was a suburban environment. Birds chirping, the sound of kids playing outside, a few lawnmowers in the distance, etc. Then voila, 3 minutes later you walk to some activity, 5 minutes after that even more. Still quiet with a nice balance.

Of course, if you live in a high rise, you can hear more, but even then it can be pretty quiet depending on where you are and what time of day it is. I know what you're saying, but you can easily find that balance even in Chicago.

[chet everett]

I would argue that individual workers largely do not choose walkability or driveability directly -- what they do is apply for and accept employment that together with the rest of the trade offs like salary, responsibility, opportunity for advancement and compabatibilty for lifestyle they are more or less content.

The degree to which the costs of living near employment vs commuting are also a factor as rising fuel prices are only partially offset by wider availability of high mileage vehicles.

I would further argue that the largest single factor is the increased equality of the sexes in the workplace as both singles that either marry latter as well families that rely of dual incomes are both massively impacted by this shift albeit in different way -- the vast majority of posters to these forums that worry about accepting a job in far away suburban campuses do not fret about being unable to walk to a pizza slice shop but instead worry that should they choose to work way out somewhere they will never have an opportunity to socialize outside work while parent that contemplate working farther away from where they live express concerns over access to childcare and the increased difficulty of equally sharing child related responsabilities...

The abilty for an employer to "attract talent" is largely a myth with most of the world's most desirable workplaces not being in non-descript high rises but largely in the kinds of settings that reflect industry norms. For firms that need space for building large products or prototyping high tech assembly on a large scale the necessity of having other than a standard high rise will likely never fade. Even in industries where the "work product" is largely the code that runs on computers it is unlikely to think that a highly stratified and ineffiecient layout in an overly vertical high rise is the optimum setting -- if it were Silcon Valley would like be far less relevent than it is...

While I do not doubt that there are some people that earnestly believe this is not about extra tax revenue I suppose there are still some people that earnestly beleive our national poltical leaders have tried very hard to make this a more unifromly purple nation...

[marothisu]

Nobody said that every worker wants this type of environment, BUT it is true that an increasing amount of younger people who have room to pick between jobs do favor the one that is more "romantic" environmentally to them. I was talking with a friend of mine (probably your age Chet, mid to late 60s ) who lives in San Francisco who was telling me about all the tech companies who now offer bus service between the city and their big more suburban complexes because more and more of their younger employees are opting to live in San Francisco (or Oakland) instead of cities like Palo Alto.

Another Silicon Valley perk -- free shuttle service | Marketplace.org

San Francisco May Crack Down on Corporate Shuttle Buses - Liz Gannes - News - AllThingsD

The quickly proliferating corporate shuttles carry as many as 35,000 workers per day (Update: The MTA clarified that shuttles conduct 35,000 rides per day, and individual people can complete more than one trip per day, so the number of total riders is lower), mainly from 200 established public Muni stops near their homes in the city to their offices located in more boring towns 40 or so miles south. Participating companies include Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Apple, Genentech, Intuit and eBay.

Apartment postings for sale and rent in San Francisco regularly tout proximity to corporate shuttle stops.

Nobody ever claimed though, that every single person fits into this category. It is true that a number of young people are favoring this though. To think that a successful company which makes a massive move isn't doing it in a calculated manner would be very frivolous and naive.

[chet everett]

And no doubt the a big part of the reason is not really the "walkibility" but the cheaper prices of Oakland as compared tto pricey Palo Alto ...

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by chet everett

And no doubt the a big part of the reason is not really the "walkibility" but the cheaper prices of Oakland as compared tto pricey Palo Alto ...

I know a good number of younger people in the Bay area. None of them want to live in Palo Alto and it's not because of pricing.

[chet everett]

I know a fair number of people that attend school in Palo Alto and they have no desire to live in Oakland after their graduation they would consider that a less than awesome desitination regardless of walkability or free shuttles...

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by chet everett

I know a fair number of people that attend school in Palo Alto and they have no desire to live in Oakland...

Maybe, but I'm sure they would live in SF.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by chet everett

And no doubt the a big part of the reason is not really the "walkibility" but the cheaper prices of Oakland as compared tto pricey Palo Alto ...

Actually Oakland is not that cheap. It's cheaper than San Francisco but it's still one of the priciest cities to rent in. Number 7 most expensive, to be exact. More expensive than Miami, San Diego, and Seattle (and Chicago):

Top 10 priciest U.S. cities to rent an apartment - Page 5 - CBS News

And please, read the article. These buses are very popular. They bus people, thousands, from San Francisco over 40 miles down to the burbs closer to San Jose. You basically keep nitpicking unimportant things to create a diversion from your inability to discuss the real point. The real point, as shown by the articles, is that thousands of people who works in these cities choose to live in SF and be bused for an hour to the burbs. They choose that over living nearby to their offices, which are in the suburbs. These younger people are choosing a long commute just so they can live in the city. Even with Motorola Mobility in town here, I have a coworker who used to work there and another friend who currently works there. Both have condos in the West Loop and have never even lived close to Libertyville. According to my coworker, there are many people, younger, who work for MM who live in Chicago and do the reverse commute because they don't want to live in the suburbs. There's a reason why these companies are coming back to the city and if you really think that they're just doing this for the hell of it, and it's not very calculated, then you're an extremely ignorant person.

Out of all my friends who work for tech companies in the bay area, exactly zero live anywhere but San Francisco or Oakland (though the number who live in SF far outweigh Oakland).