People don't want to live in this pods for the most part. The problem is NIMBYs in San Francisco constantly block new housing from being built. This results in insane housing rental prices for workers. Because housing prices are so insane, it makes $700 sleeping pods look like a steal.

The issue is the lack of housing, NIMBYs, and the local government.

$700/mo is $23/night. Capsule hotels in Tokyo are about $30/night.

You get more space and amenities in prison. And much cheaper.

Skipping permits is a way of life in SF. (I had work conversations about buying older gromex so the dates were before you purchased in case am inspector noticed. Inspectors were prohibited from noticing anything they were not specifically there for.)

I wondered at the specific permit they missed.

without a permit changing the building from a bank to a living space and illegally converting a toilet into a shower.

That seems important to do properly.

I have a friend that moved to Japan when he was in his twenties to work in a blue collar job. The pay was good, but he had to work a lot of overtime, sometimes 12, 14 hours. These jobs also often offered a place to live nearby the factory. Somehow it seems very similar to this, the difference is that he got an actual apartment and not this sad excuse for one.

One day he got sick of it all, so he started to just apply for these jobs, get free housing, and never show up to work. He could live rent free for a month, sometimes two in the time between getting fired and finally evicted. When that happened, he would move to a different city and then do it all over again.

In the meantime he was studying Japanese and doing side gigs. After doing that for awhile he landed a job as an English teacher in a school and he doesn’t have to do that anymore.

A boring dystopia

Lol this reminds me of the scene in The Complete Al from the 80s where Weird Al travels to Japan and stays in one of their hotels:

https://youtu.be/_Seufp4nvXQ?si=I3QrLETjVvbFA9lL

Edit: skip towards the end if you want to see the specific scene.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Tiny sleeping "pods," which have proved a hit with San Francisco's tech community, are not up to code, city officials said.

Representatives for the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside normal working hours.

The pods, which are 4-foot-high boxes constructed from wood and steel, made headlines after tech workers praised the spaces in interviews with ABC 7 News.

Brownstone CEO James Stallworth told SFGate the company had a lot of inquiries from people interested in artificial intelligence.

Earlier this month, Christian Lewis, a tech-startup founder, posted photos of his experience in one of the pods on X, formerly known as Twitter.

i'm just trying to stay within the city of San Francisco without paying $4,000 a month or getting stabbed, and i think this is a great solution so far," he wrote.

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