In my city they tried to install something similar, yet less invasive, ie. you could jump over them. But it was removed pretty much just weeks after being installed. It didn't satisfy the fire department if there had to be an evacuation. Now - you might think that they had investigated that before it was installed, but ... yeah.
If you demand walkable, then yes, you are up a creek. The only way to get purely walkable, with your grocer, theater, and night club all within a fifteen minute stroll, is high-density which generally happens in the heart of large cities, and is indeed expensive.
But how about bicycle-able? My town is about 5 miles square, very bike-able, and I was able to buy a townhouse at twenty-five.
Lots of newer suburbs are being designed with high walkability in mind.
My newish suburb is walkable to a movie theater, bike store, huge gym, swimming pools, Tae Kwon Do school, a couple hair salons and a barber, a full grocery, a couple clothing stores, about a dozen restaurants from fast food to high-end dining, a UPS store, an optometrist, a toy store, a ballet school, two coffee shops, a dry cleaners, a bank, a liquor store, weekly farmer's market about 3 or 4 miles of landscaped parks, about 20 miles of trail and just on the edge of walkability is a full 18 hole pro-level golf course.
They're planning on adding more stuff to it as well including a full county library and some other odds and ends.
There's a nicer development similar to mine about a 15 minute drive that offers a similar environment.
My friends live in an older neighborhood that's also just a 5 minute walk from a lively older "main street" style commercial area and likewise get all their shopping and such done that way. They live in a brand new house, but the town is a couple hundred years old and historic.
You have to hunt around for them a little, but they're definitely out there.
Off the top of my head: Chicago, Portland and Philadelphia are all fairly inexpensive with good transit.
If you're willing to pay a bit more: Seattle, DC, Boston, NY outside of Brooklyn and Manhattan, the unfashionable parts of LA.
If you're willing to live in the city center or put up with infrequent buses, Minneapolis, Louisville, St. Louis, Austin and Atlanta are all possibilities.
> Auto-updating rather than re-cloning and dragging files back into your project
That's the least usable way to do it, though. Use static library projects in submodules and a workspace/nested projects, and updated submodules will Just Work (unless there are breaking API changes, but Cocoapods can't help you there).
The main advantage of Cocoapods is shared dependencies. If you don't have those, it doesn't offer you much besides a non-git-native way to manage dependencies. Also, not having to manually edit your Xcode project to get the correct, single component path (instead of an absurd relative one) for a static library after changing to BUILT_PRODUCTS_DIR (why this has never been fixed, I have no idea).
Yes, CocoaPods can’t fix API breaking changes, but as we use semantic-versions and encourage authors to follow those, it can at least be mitigated more easily. E.g. A version requirement of: ‘~> 1’ should then install the latest v1.x.x, but not v2 which has API breakage.
Obviously this is not fool-proof and many are still getting used to it.
I don't know if agents would work - they work in movies because you shoot one, then wrap and move on to the next one. An agent can be constantly looking out for new films to work in. Unless you're exclusively seeking short-term contract positions, will you actually communicate with the agent frequently enough to build a relationship? If an agent keeps placing you in companies that either implode or make you want to leave, it doesn't seem appealing to work with them again. If they do place you in a job that you stay at for multiple years, will they be available when you want to move on?
I could see it working with the best recruiters, like the few I mentioned. They call every six months or so, ask how things are going and chat about technology, that's fine with me. Sometimes they have something really good to discuss, and if I'm happy where I am then I am always willing to recommend someone I know. Those recruiters are acting like an agent already. They rarely collect a fee but when they do I feel they deserve it, unlike the chancers who harvest phone numbers from web sites and work the percentages.
There doesn't have to be an agent relationship. I guess what I am really saying is that the only recruiters worth talking to are the ones that do the work to find the best fit for both parties. The rest add nothing.
I think the MBTA is better than Muni + BART, the percentage of proper heavy rail rapid transit is much higher in Boston (just the meh Green Line, compared to every meh Muni line).
The Green Line in Boston runs down a protected center path in the road for a significant portion. Is there a reason that SF can't carve out those lanes for exclusive Muni use?
Meanwhile, Schmidt walks alive and free. Ah, life for the rich.