I agree with regard to Moraga. Habryka and a few housemates of mine drove down to have a look around, and I think their main updates were that each house had only like 2 bedrooms, were all ~5x the distance from each other relative to Berkeley, there were no sidewalks, and no natural meeting place (the place with the shops had no natural seating), which means people just wouldn’t see each other very much unless everyone had a car and made it a conscious and constant effort. Even though it was nice and clean and so on.
I also agree wrt CFAR/MIRI. I would be interested in talking with them more, to see if they‘re open to moving generally, and what their preferences are, I’d massively prefer (both personally and as the LW team) to move with them than away from.
On the side of small-scale moving, I’m curious how you feel about the South Bay? It’s been an idea that a few friends of mine have raised, that after the pandemic we could recongregate there. It’s cleaner, a bit cheaper, larger houses, doesn’t have as much protests and conflict as Berkeley, has far fewer homeless people, and the same distance from SF, and would still work for group houses. It does have less good public transport, which matters if a sizeable number of us don’t primarily Uber for such things, although I think perhaps most of us do.
I agree with regard to Moraga. Habryka and a few housemates of mine drove down to have a look around, and I think their main updates were that each house had only like 2 bedrooms, were all ~5x the distance from each other relative to Berkeley, there were no sidewalks, and no natural meeting place (the place with the shops had no natural seating), which means people just wouldn’t see each other very much unless everyone had a car and made it a conscious and constant effort. Even though it was nice and clean and so on.
I also agree wrt CFAR/MIRI. I would be interested in talking with them more, to see if they‘re open to moving generally, and what their preferences are, I’d massively prefer (both personally and as the LW team) to move with them than away from.
On the side of small-scale moving, I’m curious how you feel about the South Bay? It’s been an idea that a few friends of mine have raised, that after the pandemic we could recongregate there. It’s cleaner, a bit cheaper, larger houses, doesn’t have as much protests and conflict as Berkeley, has far fewer homeless people, and the same distance from SF, and would still work for group houses. It does have less good public transport, which matters if a sizeable number of us don’t primarily Uber for such things, although I think perhaps most of us do.