I'm a fourth-generation San Franciscan and I hope you and all of your friends are registered to vote in SF. As long as City Hall and the electorate are dominated by, let's be frank, social workers and clients of social workers who seek to eliminate virtually all private sector activity, the Progressive Wall will continue to encircle and oppress San Francisco.
(Mr. Peskin, tear down this wall!)
(Mr. Peskin, tear down this wall!)
I grew up in the Bay Area. Went home for Christmas and thought 'where did all this wealth come from'? It was kind of chilling.
The Bro Culture of Silicon Valley is the equivalent of a destructive root-kit virus reformatting the hard-drive of the Bay Area. Much like how a virus wipes all the valuable pictures and beloved memories, the Bro Culture is wiping San Francisco, file-shredding each item one piece at a time at quad-core speed.
However, the issue isn't their "rate" of destruction, but their "replacement" files. Greedy realtors are now reformatting the Bay Area to match the brain-dead "tastes" of these Bro hominids:
Green spaces are displaced by concrete condos.
Art galleries are displaced by video game arcades.
Gourmet restaurants are displaced by pizza chains.
Art-house cinemas are displaced by IMAX showings of Hunger Games.
The gay Castro District is now one giant LAN Party for straight white jocks.
Literary clubs are displaced by mock public recitals of Fifty Shades of Grey.
This cultural slash-and-burn by the Tech Jocks is devastating. These white, upper-middle-class, Bros shun museums. They don't like sculptures by Rodin. They prefer to view porn in their luxury condos while munching Doritos and gulping Mountain Dew. They publicly debate whether Germany plagiarized the term "stormtrooper" from George Lucas. Many are former high school geeks who spent their days stalking women on Facebook.
Undoubtedly, some think I am being facetious. Sadly, I am not. The old Bay Area is gone. The new tenants are l33t-speakin', Trump-lovin' humanoids from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. R.I.P. S.F.
However, the issue isn't their "rate" of destruction, but their "replacement" files. Greedy realtors are now reformatting the Bay Area to match the brain-dead "tastes" of these Bro hominids:
Green spaces are displaced by concrete condos.
Art galleries are displaced by video game arcades.
Gourmet restaurants are displaced by pizza chains.
Art-house cinemas are displaced by IMAX showings of Hunger Games.
The gay Castro District is now one giant LAN Party for straight white jocks.
Literary clubs are displaced by mock public recitals of Fifty Shades of Grey.
This cultural slash-and-burn by the Tech Jocks is devastating. These white, upper-middle-class, Bros shun museums. They don't like sculptures by Rodin. They prefer to view porn in their luxury condos while munching Doritos and gulping Mountain Dew. They publicly debate whether Germany plagiarized the term "stormtrooper" from George Lucas. Many are former high school geeks who spent their days stalking women on Facebook.
Undoubtedly, some think I am being facetious. Sadly, I am not. The old Bay Area is gone. The new tenants are l33t-speakin', Trump-lovin' humanoids from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. R.I.P. S.F.
2
"Concrete condos" cannot displace anything when it's impossible to build in SF due to ballot box planning and zoning.
There haven't been any "video game arcades" open in the City since the 1980s, with the exception of the beloved Musée Mécanique, which means no art gallery has been displaced by Pac Man recently.
Since chain businesses have been banned by the Supervisors in most parts of the city, no "gourmet restaurant" has been displaced.
No neighborhood group would ever allow a gigantic IMAX box, owned by a theater chain, to be built. "Art-house" cinemas actually were killed 30 years ago when those complaining about SF today STOPPED going to the movies!
Etc...
But the saddest thing is that SF voters and politicians actually do nothing to support the arts, especially disciplines they view as "elitist".
Look at how City Hall has left the Opera House to decay, to the detriment of the Ballet and Opera. Or how the Supervisors, who normally are staunch unionists, did nothing to support musicians in the Symphony when they were involved in a dispute. Even groups that are privately funded, such as SFJazz, are regularly condemned and obstructed.
The poisonous mixture of "progressive" ideology, where people who are highly talented, insanely dedicated, and work in disciplines that require years of training or education are viewed as a pox, and, to be frank, the philistine outlook of many in SF means that there currently is little to no place for people who value culture.
There haven't been any "video game arcades" open in the City since the 1980s, with the exception of the beloved Musée Mécanique, which means no art gallery has been displaced by Pac Man recently.
Since chain businesses have been banned by the Supervisors in most parts of the city, no "gourmet restaurant" has been displaced.
No neighborhood group would ever allow a gigantic IMAX box, owned by a theater chain, to be built. "Art-house" cinemas actually were killed 30 years ago when those complaining about SF today STOPPED going to the movies!
Etc...
But the saddest thing is that SF voters and politicians actually do nothing to support the arts, especially disciplines they view as "elitist".
Look at how City Hall has left the Opera House to decay, to the detriment of the Ballet and Opera. Or how the Supervisors, who normally are staunch unionists, did nothing to support musicians in the Symphony when they were involved in a dispute. Even groups that are privately funded, such as SFJazz, are regularly condemned and obstructed.
The poisonous mixture of "progressive" ideology, where people who are highly talented, insanely dedicated, and work in disciplines that require years of training or education are viewed as a pox, and, to be frank, the philistine outlook of many in SF means that there currently is little to no place for people who value culture.
I live just across the gate from San Francisco, a city I now avoid whenever possible. The interesting and quirky things are no longer there.
The paragraph regarding lack of diversity is quite true although in this city the minorities are white and black and Hispanic. It has been inundated with Asians, Iranians, and Indians, many of the tech and monied variety. The universities are centers of reverse racism. Don't bother trying to get into the UOP dental school these days unless you're Iranian. The liberal providers of opportunity are themselves shut out.
While a pretty place from a distance, SF is dirty and gritty up close. It lacks culture. This is a city that can't maintain one jazz club.
Very disheartening!
The paragraph regarding lack of diversity is quite true although in this city the minorities are white and black and Hispanic. It has been inundated with Asians, Iranians, and Indians, many of the tech and monied variety. The universities are centers of reverse racism. Don't bother trying to get into the UOP dental school these days unless you're Iranian. The liberal providers of opportunity are themselves shut out.
While a pretty place from a distance, SF is dirty and gritty up close. It lacks culture. This is a city that can't maintain one jazz club.
Very disheartening!
3
I've lived here for almost 16 years now. In the beginning I was pretty excited to be in such a progressive city and thought all of the dot.com and silicon valley stuff was a result of free minded thinking. It was cool. Here I am 16 years later feeling frustrated and trying to figure out how to escape. We live in a tiny 1 bedroom rent controlled apartment that costs us $1900 a month. We would like to move to a bigger place, but the rents for two bedrooms are $3500-$4000 a month...ugh! When I worked in the city, I TRIED to use public transportation to get to work, but sadly, to commute 7 miles across the city using the Muni it took me 1.5 hours each way! When I drove across the city, my options were to either risk parking on the street, where there are only 2 hour parking spots and meters OR $2-300 month parking garages. Additionally, it's foggy and cold. There are so many homeless people here it's depressing. And dirty. VERY dirty. Street cleaning trucks go throughout the city in droves, but the dirt, feces and debris is on the sidewalks. The ocean is cool, if you aren't accosted by someone on the beach. I can honestly say that I feel like I'm at my lowest low living here even though I make ok money. The city is a sad place if you don't have $250K for a downpayment on a house. We are now researching other places to live, and that sadly will take us to SoCal, which has a whole other dynamic.
2
I have lived in the City of San Francisco for 12 years and I disagree with this author 100%. San Francisco's culture of creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship has been part of our culture at least since the 1849 Gold Rush and has of course brought many boons to the rest of the nation and world - gay civil rights, the organic food movement, the internet and other technological and scientific improvements, the environmental movement, the true love of nature, etc. We continue to do so and, in fact, the quality of life here, already assessed as the highest in the nation, continues to increase daily. San Francisco is getting better and better. 99% of San Franciscans are happy about our boom which is reducing crime, vacancy, and blight and bringing improved schools, parks, amenities, housing, property values, and cultural institutions. All of my friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors are doing well, even those who do not work in technology and other creative industries.
3
Those present residents who enjoy the benefits of their houses rising in price
will not enjoy their happiness very long if they sale and try to buy another house
in the Bay Area...
Meanwhile the 'Boom' cannot last and the day will come when the techies -
now out of work - will have to move out of their pricey apartments or their
overpriced houses with huge losses...
Meanwhile the Middle Class and Poor will be driven to the hinterlands.
will not enjoy their happiness very long if they sale and try to buy another house
in the Bay Area...
Meanwhile the 'Boom' cannot last and the day will come when the techies -
now out of work - will have to move out of their pricey apartments or their
overpriced houses with huge losses...
Meanwhile the Middle Class and Poor will be driven to the hinterlands.
2
My family moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 1943 when I was four years old. After living in a flat for one year, my parents bought a house in the outer Sunset district, six blocks from the beach and a few houses from Golden Gate Park. The price of the house was $6,000 with a monthly PITI of about $25, affordable on my mother's minimum wage jog doing men's alterations. My father was unable to work because of health problems.
The City ("Baghdad by the Bay" so named by Herb Caen) was also segregated then, partly by wealth and partly by ethnicity. It was a place with many immigrant groups--Italian, Irish, Chinese, Jewish, Russian, and Greek to name a few. There was sleaze--the Tenderloin and South of Market; the arts--DeYoung Museum, the Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco Symphony, the Curran and Geary theaters, and the Opera; and always great restaurants both exclusive and affordable. Bohemia was alive in North Beach, the San Francisco 49ers in Kezar Stadium and the Seals in Seal Stadium provided professional sports. Much was available to working class people. Golden Gate Park, the Fleischacker Zoo, Playland at the Beach, and many neighborhood parks and playgrounds provided more opportunities for recreation. Public transportation was quite good with many street car lines, buses, and the famous cable cars providing cheap access to all parts of the city.
It was a great place to grow up.
The City ("Baghdad by the Bay" so named by Herb Caen) was also segregated then, partly by wealth and partly by ethnicity. It was a place with many immigrant groups--Italian, Irish, Chinese, Jewish, Russian, and Greek to name a few. There was sleaze--the Tenderloin and South of Market; the arts--DeYoung Museum, the Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco Symphony, the Curran and Geary theaters, and the Opera; and always great restaurants both exclusive and affordable. Bohemia was alive in North Beach, the San Francisco 49ers in Kezar Stadium and the Seals in Seal Stadium provided professional sports. Much was available to working class people. Golden Gate Park, the Fleischacker Zoo, Playland at the Beach, and many neighborhood parks and playgrounds provided more opportunities for recreation. Public transportation was quite good with many street car lines, buses, and the famous cable cars providing cheap access to all parts of the city.
It was a great place to grow up.
1
I guess a familiar story, I lived there from 1968-72. Haight Ashbury, North Beach, downtown, near Playland. I got a job, they taught me how to run a printing press. I made enough to live pretty well.
None of that would be possible today. I've visited a friend there a couple of times recently. Her rent just went up, and at some point she will be priced out. An article in the paper there was about a man trying to raise scholarship money for black kids in high school. His fear- unless those kids could go to college, they could never earn enough to come back to the city to live.
The city still has its charms- but I don't live there and pay rent. I hear that lots of people who work there live in Oakland, and that's driving up prices there. When the locals are forced out, places get a lot less charming.
None of that would be possible today. I've visited a friend there a couple of times recently. Her rent just went up, and at some point she will be priced out. An article in the paper there was about a man trying to raise scholarship money for black kids in high school. His fear- unless those kids could go to college, they could never earn enough to come back to the city to live.
The city still has its charms- but I don't live there and pay rent. I hear that lots of people who work there live in Oakland, and that's driving up prices there. When the locals are forced out, places get a lot less charming.
2
When I got married in 1955, the rent on our one bedroom apartment was $35
in an alley south of the Slot {Market Street]. It gradually increased over a five-year period to $65. We moved to a 2 bedroom flat on Lombard Street in
1960 for $135, which increased to #150 over a five year period. After a ten-month trip, I returned to a two-bedroom apartment on California near
Seventh Avenue for $85. When a friend and I were able to purchase a 2-flat rehab property in A-2 in 1971, the price was $21,500; she was able to negotiate $2 K off the price. Now another 2 flat building across from us,
transforming the flats into a home with an apartment fashioned from the basement was for sasle at $3 million. Three or four years before, a 1906 set of flats, fully rehabbed from the walls inward, sold as condominiums for $790,000 or $900,999.
One used to be able to throw cannon-balls down either side of the street
after 5 p.m. HA!
Clearly, I have been living for the past 45 years in a fool's paradise.
in an alley south of the Slot {Market Street]. It gradually increased over a five-year period to $65. We moved to a 2 bedroom flat on Lombard Street in
1960 for $135, which increased to #150 over a five year period. After a ten-month trip, I returned to a two-bedroom apartment on California near
Seventh Avenue for $85. When a friend and I were able to purchase a 2-flat rehab property in A-2 in 1971, the price was $21,500; she was able to negotiate $2 K off the price. Now another 2 flat building across from us,
transforming the flats into a home with an apartment fashioned from the basement was for sasle at $3 million. Three or four years before, a 1906 set of flats, fully rehabbed from the walls inward, sold as condominiums for $790,000 or $900,999.
One used to be able to throw cannon-balls down either side of the street
after 5 p.m. HA!
Clearly, I have been living for the past 45 years in a fool's paradise.
You and Hunter are dead wrong, my hometown of San Francisco had plenty of jobs in the sixties, fifties and forties, just not jobs techies looking to make a fortune overnite or get more funding to extend their "burn rate" might enjoy, but there was lots of work(and cheap rents)available for anyone wanting to put in an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. Many African Americans for example moved to San Francisco in the forties to work in the ship yards for the War Effort ( sounds quaint I know ) and stayed on living in what the realtors dreamed up later as lower pacific heights or in the Bayview now another techie enclave that replaced the "stick"(Candlestick Park) that replaced the old Seal Stadium, where you could watch a game, if it wasn't too foggy, and have a hotdog for next to nothing, wearing your made in San Francisco Levis (a special thanks to the wonderful Hass Family who at great personal expense tried to keep manufacturing in America even after Don Fisher and "The Gap" hit town and arguably started the whole offshoring mess, I digress). My point being until the seventies when the vagaries of the new Milton Friedman Economics began to take hold and the rents along with everything else began too rise and erode the paycheck of us working stiffs San Francisco was a special place. I'm with the commenters who wish the techies would disappear and I miss buying my Times or Chron from the blind news stand owner on Powell then scribbling off a letter to the editor.
2
I recently spent a few weeks in SF. Saw a lot of Caucasians and Asians. I can count the number of African-Americans I saw on 2 hands.
There weren't many older people. Maybe it's because of all the hills. SF seems to be a city for young people. Attractive young people. Attractive young white and Asian people.
Beautiful city. Love the architecture. I saw a mother and her young daughter in front of their lovely house and I wanted to ask how much it cost, what she and her husband do for a living. But I didn't think that was appropriate, plus it would have depressed me.
I'll stick with multi-colored New York city and its not so hilly suburbs.
There weren't many older people. Maybe it's because of all the hills. SF seems to be a city for young people. Attractive young people. Attractive young white and Asian people.
Beautiful city. Love the architecture. I saw a mother and her young daughter in front of their lovely house and I wanted to ask how much it cost, what she and her husband do for a living. But I didn't think that was appropriate, plus it would have depressed me.
I'll stick with multi-colored New York city and its not so hilly suburbs.
The summary image of all of this is this:
the driver-less car.
the driver-less car.
I was a fortunate child of a by-gone era and grew up in and around San Francisco during the late 1960's, 70's and 80's. EVERYTHING YOU'VE HEARD WAS TRUE! That spirit lives on, but as with all other urban places population has had a negative impact on the quality of life in The City. When I moved from San Francisco to Southern California back in 1990 I remember thinking to myself "I will never have to live here again...I love the city, but it's too cold, too dirty and not nearly worth the expense." I carry those feelings with me today and as I watch The City morph into its 21st Century-self before my eyes I simply thank god that I was lucky enough to have had a history in this beautiful place during a time that will always be known for as being at its cultural zenith and purity, not its decline into a racist ManhattanWest.
"San Franciscans are beginning to realize what they are asked to give up in return: San Francisco."
This trope of "culturally sterile tech bros taking over our city" is getting a bit tiring. Would people like me who you derisively label "tech bros" never pass muster for real San Franciscans? Silicon Valley is not a monolith nor are we defined by our jobs.
As for the diversity of workforce, it is a problem tech industry is keenly aware of, however may I humbly posit that it may be more a reflection of this country's racial disparities in higher education than a reflection of a culture of ingrained systemic racism in the Silicon Valley. A large part of the tech workforce happens to be foreign born for instance, and my compatriots, the Indian expatriates make a large contingent of immigrants in the Bay Area despite the roadblocks hurled at us by a racialist immigration system based on "quotas on national origin". Some of us may have clambered to the top of companies like Google and Microsoft, yet we clearly aren't suitable minority enough to end up in Techcrunch's "People of colour in tech" series.
This trope of "culturally sterile tech bros taking over our city" is getting a bit tiring. Would people like me who you derisively label "tech bros" never pass muster for real San Franciscans? Silicon Valley is not a monolith nor are we defined by our jobs.
As for the diversity of workforce, it is a problem tech industry is keenly aware of, however may I humbly posit that it may be more a reflection of this country's racial disparities in higher education than a reflection of a culture of ingrained systemic racism in the Silicon Valley. A large part of the tech workforce happens to be foreign born for instance, and my compatriots, the Indian expatriates make a large contingent of immigrants in the Bay Area despite the roadblocks hurled at us by a racialist immigration system based on "quotas on national origin". Some of us may have clambered to the top of companies like Google and Microsoft, yet we clearly aren't suitable minority enough to end up in Techcrunch's "People of colour in tech" series.
1
Methinks our economy's future is based on technology, rather than coal, tobacco, merchandizing. Therefore. San Francisco is re-entering another Gold Rush era. So hope for everything but the earthquake.
SF today seems more alive and attractive than it seemed to me in the 90s and noughts. The weather is still cold. Construction sites are increasing on every visit, the latest of which was yesterday. The topography remains breathtaking. Tourist arrivals and conventions are up. The number of homeless mentally ill persons on the streets of San Francisco has risen. And I hear (and read) that housing costs are getting more prohibitive. Hotel room rates too, I've noted. The Mission Diatrict is being gentrified. The offices and houses in the Presidio are beautiful. The sharing-economy is very apparent (from the popularity of uber pool to the availability of smartphone charging docks for a minimal fee at my hotel, great for when one loses their charger while on a business trip btw). In other words with progress expect both good and bad, benefits and costs. There's no free lunch. Artists in New York were driven out of the Village to Chelsea to Hell's Kitchen....and so too will San Franciscan creative types be driven from pacific heights to noe valley to oakland....Life is about adapting in a dynamic world.
4
"...and so too will San Franciscan creative types be driven from pacific heights to noe valley to Oakland..."
That happened a long time ago.
That happened a long time ago.
I lived in SF in the 60's in apartments all over the city. It was still pretty bohemian back then everywhere I lived. I had a tech job and a flat on Telegraph Hill for $140/mo. I met rock stars, actors, writers, travelers, and even Hunter Thompson (one of the nicest guys in spite of gonzo). Can you imagine meeting HST on Telegraph Hill these days? I could not afford to live there now and I'm sure he wouldn't go near the place!!
2
On that last point, I think you're right as he committed suicide a few years ago; don't think, however, it had anything to do with the gentrification of The Misdion.
Ha ha ha! Telegraph Hill, "these days", is where the anti-growth SuperNIMBY, Supervisor Aaron Peskin, quoted in the source article lives and lords it over the rest of San Francisco. His iron grip is such that the views from Coit Tower have been obliterated because Mr. and Mrs. Peskin have blocked the city from trimming the surrounding foliage for a decade.
This is capitalism run amok. This is the result when an entire society worships money. And that society is basically controlled by a small percentage of rich people. The ultra wealthy and rich celebrities are glorified and worshipped like the golden calf.
I doubt they have such problems in places like Denmark where people are actually happy and aren't constantly obsessed with either a. amassing more money and wealth than they already have or b. making enough to get by or to keep up with the rising cost of living. In places like Denmark the greater good and well being of your fellow man/woman are more important than constantly raising profits, so your company can IPO and the few people at the top benefit, or so a public company's stock increases in price so the investor class/1% can get richer.
The same thing that is happening to SF is happening here in Austin, TX. The cost of living has increased tremendously in the five years I've been here and positively skyrocketed in the past 10 years according to those that have lived here since then. We are a little behind SF but don't fret we'll get there.
I doubt they have such problems in places like Denmark where people are actually happy and aren't constantly obsessed with either a. amassing more money and wealth than they already have or b. making enough to get by or to keep up with the rising cost of living. In places like Denmark the greater good and well being of your fellow man/woman are more important than constantly raising profits, so your company can IPO and the few people at the top benefit, or so a public company's stock increases in price so the investor class/1% can get richer.
The same thing that is happening to SF is happening here in Austin, TX. The cost of living has increased tremendously in the five years I've been here and positively skyrocketed in the past 10 years according to those that have lived here since then. We are a little behind SF but don't fret we'll get there.
2
I was in SF in the 80s, just long enough to recognize the city if I ever came back, which I wanted to do. I went back two years ago for about 4 days. How can you not recognize the city where the geography, diversity, neighborhoods and bridges are its greatest features? Everything changes over time, and SF did too. There was more of this, less of that in some areas. But, many articles are written by taking one feature of something and using it color the whole shebang.
I don't live in San Francisco. Never have. My brother has been there twenty years, though, so we visit him often. It's the same beautiful city it's always been. The surrounding nature is astonishing, the Pacific air is refreshing. And the city is just a precious sight to behold. We've always loved the town.
You know what's changed, though? IT IS BORING now. Seriously. The tech crowd has rubbed all the vibrancy out of that city. It's a city for 'social media managers' and 'brand ambassadors' and whatever the new job titles for corporate drones are these days. It's a shame. It still is one of the unique American cities, but really, that distinction is hanging by a thread.
(Incidentally, the city where my family grew up - Austin, TX - has gone through the same metamorphosis. A paradise for well-heeled fashionable yuppies. But the edge or funkiness that made it special has been polished off.)
You know what's changed, though? IT IS BORING now. Seriously. The tech crowd has rubbed all the vibrancy out of that city. It's a city for 'social media managers' and 'brand ambassadors' and whatever the new job titles for corporate drones are these days. It's a shame. It still is one of the unique American cities, but really, that distinction is hanging by a thread.
(Incidentally, the city where my family grew up - Austin, TX - has gone through the same metamorphosis. A paradise for well-heeled fashionable yuppies. But the edge or funkiness that made it special has been polished off.)
6
When will there be an article describing the immense positives that technology has brought to this world and to the City of San Francisco ? Stop with the nonstop whining. And acknowledge that Silicon Valley gave us the computer and the smartphone. So that we can read NYT from anywhere and comment on the article. Or read / listen to any book at any moment (audible, iBook). Plan our trips efficiently and accurately (Google, Waze). Track our buses and trains with precision (Nextbus, Bart.gov, Citymapper(. Learn about the hidden gems that a city has to offer (Yelp, Foursquare). Experience a foreign city / culture like a native (Airbnb, Uber). Deposit our checks and transfer our money from the comfort of our homes (paypal, any banking application).
1
I apologize if my response comes across as rude, but I think those articles are in the news every day. To me, there are so many of those kinds of articles and conversations in general, they are crowding out the Herb Caen kind of stuff that I used to love to read.
How about an article on Emperor Norton, or Maiden lane, or the guy who used to hide in the bushes between Ghiardelli Square and Fisherman's Wharf and pop out to shock the tourists?
Was the Opera House the first publicy owned opera house in the world?
Why does Symphony hall have that cool looking half moon balcony sticking out of it? Does one them have a secret gallery of phtographs on the top floor?
When the city planning commission decided in 1985 that "a required ratio of one square foot of open space for each 50 square feet of occupied office space would be established for all office buildings", did that produce results?
Does the USPS deserve the title of "Absolutely And Without Question The Best San Francisco Develop Ever" because of how they transformed a cramped post office into Rincon Center?
How did the municipal employees William Hammond Hall and John McLaren transform sand dunes into the gloriously gorgeous Golden Gate Park?
Those are articles I would read, but in the last 2months, I've probably read a hundred articles about technology firms' goals and accomplishments without any like that or any that remind me of Herb Caen.
How about an article on Emperor Norton, or Maiden lane, or the guy who used to hide in the bushes between Ghiardelli Square and Fisherman's Wharf and pop out to shock the tourists?
Was the Opera House the first publicy owned opera house in the world?
Why does Symphony hall have that cool looking half moon balcony sticking out of it? Does one them have a secret gallery of phtographs on the top floor?
When the city planning commission decided in 1985 that "a required ratio of one square foot of open space for each 50 square feet of occupied office space would be established for all office buildings", did that produce results?
Does the USPS deserve the title of "Absolutely And Without Question The Best San Francisco Develop Ever" because of how they transformed a cramped post office into Rincon Center?
How did the municipal employees William Hammond Hall and John McLaren transform sand dunes into the gloriously gorgeous Golden Gate Park?
Those are articles I would read, but in the last 2months, I've probably read a hundred articles about technology firms' goals and accomplishments without any like that or any that remind me of Herb Caen.
This has such a myopic euro-bourgeois tone to it. Did we just wake up in Switzerland? When progressive communities like the bay area flourish, it has an impact on local planning not just in other US cities, but in places far vaster than the United States, like China and India. Far better that it is the bay area that is booming, rather than someplace as stupid and conservative as the content of this post.
1
With the "boom," the Bay Area has lost some of it's progressiveness. It's more libertarian now.
What's wrong with Switzerland?
1
Once SF landlords realized how much they could jack up their rents because of the 6 figure earning tech bros, they went at it with great fervor. I lived there for 27 years until three years ago, when I realized as a retiree on a fixed income I could no longer afford it. I was paying $1100 for a studio, good deal at the time. When I moved to Austin,where I had family and rents were much cheaper,my SF studio rented out for $2100 the month after I left.. However, Texans complain about the Californians (as well they should) because the rents have doubled in just a few years with so many people from around the country moving here, thinking rents are cheap compared to where they were. The new techies seem to be particularly clueless about anyone except their own kind.There were many artists, musicians, creative people of all kinds who created a thriving cultural scene up through the early 2000's. Most of those people have now been displaced. Yeah, cities change, but not always for the best. Not only were many artists displaced, but so were teachers,firefighters,police,bus drivers etc. Technology can be a good thing, but it doesn't mean that just because someone is making an app and big bucks that they are a better or more valuable than a cop,teacher or artist. When any city favors only the wealthy, then it truly has no heart.
8
Good article. I've lived in San Francisco for almost 20 years now, and the city I came to even then was just a shadow of what it was in the 1970's, much less the 1960's. I recall that newbies to the city would go down into the Haight and expect to relive the Summer of Love, only to find a Gap store at the corner of Haight and Ashbury. Those were the Dot Com Boom days, followed by the bust, and now we're living through the hell that is DotCom 2.0.
Today's San Francisco is basically a hyper-accelerated and overrated version of what it began to evolve into during the 1990's - a city that's increasingly turning into a mini-Manhattan that specializes on tech and ever-escalating real estate.
What apparently used to be ground zero of the Free Speech movement and the Summer of Love is now overrun with millennials working at Twitter, Facebook and Google, all of whom can't seem to detach their lives or their eyes from their phones. As you look around anywhere, people standing next to each other on the street and in the bus don't really talk to each other anymore - they're reaching out through some little device for their constant morphine drip of the Internet. Never mind randomly meeting somebody on the street and having a conversation, and if you do, pray to God you don't run into some product guy or engineer from a tech company that's talking about their wonderful app as if it's going to change the world (it's not, guys).
I love San Francisco, really, but I hate San Francisco.
Today's San Francisco is basically a hyper-accelerated and overrated version of what it began to evolve into during the 1990's - a city that's increasingly turning into a mini-Manhattan that specializes on tech and ever-escalating real estate.
What apparently used to be ground zero of the Free Speech movement and the Summer of Love is now overrun with millennials working at Twitter, Facebook and Google, all of whom can't seem to detach their lives or their eyes from their phones. As you look around anywhere, people standing next to each other on the street and in the bus don't really talk to each other anymore - they're reaching out through some little device for their constant morphine drip of the Internet. Never mind randomly meeting somebody on the street and having a conversation, and if you do, pray to God you don't run into some product guy or engineer from a tech company that's talking about their wonderful app as if it's going to change the world (it's not, guys).
I love San Francisco, really, but I hate San Francisco.
8
The tech industry does many good things, but on the negative side, I feel it has created great diversions, a more than healthy appreciation for the self and services for the few that can afford it, and an exhausted/expendable workforce. For instance, TaskRabbit's ad, "We do your chores so you can live your life" really irks me because there are people working 7 days a week doing your chores so they can afford S.F rents. I hardly think the industry has been the savior of the City, especially with healthy tax breaks or no tax breaks given by a mayor who sold out long ago. As one of the richest cities, we still have car pollution, congestion, global warming, a lack of diversity and equality in the workplace, poverty, homelessness etc. I wouldn't expect tech to deliver us, but I'm hoping that some of the brightest and most innovative minds can use their forces for creating one less app that helps with your dogs pee and create more technology that helps the human race.
5
San Francisco is not worth the effort, California hasn't even legalized Cannabis. Plus while poorer cities AND wealthy cities have the potential to be ravaged, everyone has the potential everywhere to write code and make money off computers. It doesn't have to be done within the borders of Northern California. That's a cloud with a money sucking hole of expenses. I'd rather live where I am with the crime and lack of UberEats and all... I feel more like a person in economically reasonable climates. San Francisco is distorted with a bourgeoisie charade of counter-authenticity. I don't care what kind of mainstream culture advantages there are. I love my life at this point and I will never need San Francisco.
6
My very first apartment was in the Mission District in 1979. It was $280/month, easily affordable even at my entry-level salary. Back then, I regularly saw many other American Indians in the Mission. San Francisco had been one of six urban destinations of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' failed "Relocation Program" which promised Indian families housing and jobs in their new destinations, but delivered neither. And so the urban American Indian Center was born in cities like Denver, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. I left SF to work and attend graduate school in Boston, and when I returned four years later, rents had tripled. The early 1980s catapulted housing costs way beyond the reach of most Indian families. San Francisco went from having one of the largest urban Indian populations in the country to having one of the lowest -- and that was in just five years. I rarely see Indian people anymore, even in the Mission District, where the SF American Indian Center was the center of Indian families' social lives from 1955 to 1987.
3
My wife and I lived in SF from 1984 to 1994. It was wonderful; the city seemed a place of endless possibilities, each day another opportunity for (self-) discovery. Unique is the only way to describe SF during that decade - you had to live there to really get what Streitfeld is describing and what long-time residents are lamenting. Running in GG Park and through the Presidio was magical, as was embracing the different neighborhoods and their peculiarities. And, yes, the Haight still had a decided edge. We plan to visit this year and fear we'll come away more than a little heartbroken.
7
They probably said the same thing back in 1849 when all the Easterners and Chinese came to try their luck panning for gold in the Sierras.
These NAMBY posts are sort of shortsighted. San Francisco is a town of booms and busts. And people in between who stick it out until they can complain about the latest boom and all the strangers it has brought.
Last time I looked, not many native Ohlone indians complaining about the interlopers who have settled in a town which they are not welcome.
But then again, they got their casino.
These NAMBY posts are sort of shortsighted. San Francisco is a town of booms and busts. And people in between who stick it out until they can complain about the latest boom and all the strangers it has brought.
Last time I looked, not many native Ohlone indians complaining about the interlopers who have settled in a town which they are not welcome.
But then again, they got their casino.
7
Uhh, no. Back in 1849 I believe City leaders were trying to attract people to move to the city.
I lived and worked in San Francisco from 1982 until 1991. It was an amazing experience. The work was great but the weekends were far better--the music, the museums, the bars and great food,...weekend trips to Napa, Squaw, Mendocino, Yosemite, Santa Cruz.. and of course the Grateful Dead on New Years Eve each year. The 49ers at Candlestick, bands at Golden Gate park... The Haight was still, well, mildly nuts. My friends and I had the times of our lives. I unfortunately got transferred back to NYC never realizing how much I would miss Northern California. It was pure freedom after college far away from where I had grown up. I had only read about it ...
I've been back many times since but somehow my last trip 6 months ago just seemed different. People can't even afford rents in the Mission any longer- well the true SFites--the simple folks- The money has changed both the look and the vibe. It used to be Baghdad by the Bay. It was hip and unconventional.
Having said that, I walked into the Grant Street Saloon last summer around 11 pm on a Thursday night. An old time Blues band was seriously ripping it. People were dancing away. I ordered a draft and smiled. This is the way it was always was--alive and full of possibility. "Strangers stopping strangers just to shake their hands..." Long live the Luddites.
I've been back many times since but somehow my last trip 6 months ago just seemed different. People can't even afford rents in the Mission any longer- well the true SFites--the simple folks- The money has changed both the look and the vibe. It used to be Baghdad by the Bay. It was hip and unconventional.
Having said that, I walked into the Grant Street Saloon last summer around 11 pm on a Thursday night. An old time Blues band was seriously ripping it. People were dancing away. I ordered a draft and smiled. This is the way it was always was--alive and full of possibility. "Strangers stopping strangers just to shake their hands..." Long live the Luddites.
10
Sorry but I can't share in all the doom and gloom. I've loved the city since my first wide-eyed glimpse of the end of the flower-child 60's and my own stoned 70's celebration of life, and I still do.
All around me, I can see the same youthful energy and enthusiasm that makes this place such a joy to live in for so many people, the people who continue to make it a source of innovation and exploration.
There's still a lot to do here to make life better for others, of course, but there are lots of ways to do that, to engage and give back, and many people are still doing it. It's a matter of looking for the good part of change, the possibilities, instead of fearing it and resenting it.
What a shame that, while we like to bemoan the conservatism of America elsewhere, so many of us are engaged in a war with the future right here where it's happening.
All around me, I can see the same youthful energy and enthusiasm that makes this place such a joy to live in for so many people, the people who continue to make it a source of innovation and exploration.
There's still a lot to do here to make life better for others, of course, but there are lots of ways to do that, to engage and give back, and many people are still doing it. It's a matter of looking for the good part of change, the possibilities, instead of fearing it and resenting it.
What a shame that, while we like to bemoan the conservatism of America elsewhere, so many of us are engaged in a war with the future right here where it's happening.
8
As much wealth and change that the technology industries have brought to the Bay Area, this article and author seems to refuse to acknowledge the importance and impact that zoning laws all over the Bay Area have on housing. Since the 70s the State of California, and the Bay Area at large, have made it more difficult to build dense housing in cities, and made it more & more attractive, from a financial perspective, to never, ever sell your home. Those two policy stances have become a toxic housing cocktail in the Bay Area that pushes out all but the wealthy who can afford to pay ever-rising housing prices.
Had the Bay Area and it's numerous counties and municipalities made it easier to build housing, we wouldn't be seeing the backlash and pace of change that we've witnessed. I fully recognize the huge difference in San Francisco, even since 2007, it wasn't caused by the tech industry. Their impact, and the change they've inflicted, on the city of San Francisco is merely a bad side effect and consequence of bad policy dating back to the 70s that made it next to impossible to build lots of high-density housing.
Had the Bay Area and it's numerous counties and municipalities made it easier to build housing, we wouldn't be seeing the backlash and pace of change that we've witnessed. I fully recognize the huge difference in San Francisco, even since 2007, it wasn't caused by the tech industry. Their impact, and the change they've inflicted, on the city of San Francisco is merely a bad side effect and consequence of bad policy dating back to the 70s that made it next to impossible to build lots of high-density housing.
8
An article on this subject - the underlying causes of the Bay Area housing situation, including the effects of prop 13, zoning laws, and resistance to denser housing - would be much more illuminating than continued articles grousing about the subject. We can't improve it without understanding it fully.
It's also not limited to SF. Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Millbrae...there are homes in San Bruno that increased 40% in value in less than 3 years. It isn't a situation where people can reasonably move to adjacent suburbs that are meaningfully cheaper, minus some of the tougher neighborhoods of Oakland and some parts of Daly City and South SF.
It's also not limited to SF. Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Millbrae...there are homes in San Bruno that increased 40% in value in less than 3 years. It isn't a situation where people can reasonably move to adjacent suburbs that are meaningfully cheaper, minus some of the tougher neighborhoods of Oakland and some parts of Daly City and South SF.
2
I bought a house across the bay in an area that had no such policies, and it tripled in value in 3 years. Some of that was the sweat equity me and my wife put into it, but the rest was speculative fever brought about by things like "pre-profit" funding.
What did kozmo.com raise in it's "pre-profit" mode - a quarter billion?
What did kozmo.com raise in it's "pre-profit" mode - a quarter billion?
Seems about right since most of San Francisco doesn't recognize Hunter S Thompson. I hardly think he is a benchmark for anyone.
Way to have the entire point of the article soar overhead.
3
I m surprised that someone from California would say Hunter Thompson is not a benchmark. Anyone who is a student of journalism would know that Hunter is the originator of Gonzo journalism with the crazed stream of delivery that were he alive today would make hash out of Trump. It is important to remember those who have innovated before us. They may be gone, but they were part of the creation of what we have now and are always relevant and a "benchmark" That is the value of the study of history.
3
You unwittingly proved the point of the article.
2
It's a shame to me that one of the most creatively vibrant cities of the last fifty years has been so inundated by the bottomless pit of tech money that there is no room for the artists, writers, and musicians to thrive, let alone middle and working class people.
I recently read a book about the Grateful Dead and chuckled at their ability to collectively hold cheap properties in the city. Ditto Janis. Not to mention Kerouac, and Cassady, and Ginsberg whenever he was in town. I guess City Lights is still hanging on.
I'm glad that I have access to a smartphone and gmail, and tech underpins a great deal of the economy, but what's the trade off when some of our greatest cities lose their souls? Where will the next innovative, creative people flourish? Where will the new ideas take root, when our innovative cities are turning into overpriced strip malls?
I recently read a book about the Grateful Dead and chuckled at their ability to collectively hold cheap properties in the city. Ditto Janis. Not to mention Kerouac, and Cassady, and Ginsberg whenever he was in town. I guess City Lights is still hanging on.
I'm glad that I have access to a smartphone and gmail, and tech underpins a great deal of the economy, but what's the trade off when some of our greatest cities lose their souls? Where will the next innovative, creative people flourish? Where will the new ideas take root, when our innovative cities are turning into overpriced strip malls?
15
One observation you make, which I've seen others make, which I think is a bit mistaken: there appears to be an assumption by many that someone that works in tech is incapable of being artistic or musical. That's a false assumption. Granted, not everyone in tech is, but I think people should be careful when they paint others using such broad strokes.
See what I did there? That's creative writing by a techie. ;)
See what I did there? That's creative writing by a techie. ;)
2
I like this piece.
I find that living in the bay area is, itself, an art form.
It appears that a small amount of seed investment could lead to
new ideas and flexible though dense housing for the bay area,
and good ideas, well-demonstrated, would travel well.
I would love to see new ideas tried.
The venture capital people don't see big enough returns in housing,
so they focus on technology. They like that big leverage.
The job of making the housing supply match the population on hand
then falls to small operators in real estate development. There don't
seem to be enough of them for the task.
I can't moan about the success of any business in the bay area.
I was living here and looking for work in the 1960's and 1970's.
Slim pickins, few and far between.
Soon after the current configuration of BART was proposed, around
1960, ABAG was formed. I remember when San Mateo County opted
out of BART, and the commonly stated reason is not the whole truth.
There was propaganda at that time that "a rapid transit system would bring street crime and lower property values" to San Mateo County.
This kind of denial of reality has plagued regional planning in the Bay Area.
It makes it hard to get something logical in place when the voices of fear,
uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) are well-financed and widely broadcast.
That's part of the reason it's hard to find to housing we can afford and
also why it is a challenge to get from one place to another.
I find that living in the bay area is, itself, an art form.
It appears that a small amount of seed investment could lead to
new ideas and flexible though dense housing for the bay area,
and good ideas, well-demonstrated, would travel well.
I would love to see new ideas tried.
The venture capital people don't see big enough returns in housing,
so they focus on technology. They like that big leverage.
The job of making the housing supply match the population on hand
then falls to small operators in real estate development. There don't
seem to be enough of them for the task.
I can't moan about the success of any business in the bay area.
I was living here and looking for work in the 1960's and 1970's.
Slim pickins, few and far between.
Soon after the current configuration of BART was proposed, around
1960, ABAG was formed. I remember when San Mateo County opted
out of BART, and the commonly stated reason is not the whole truth.
There was propaganda at that time that "a rapid transit system would bring street crime and lower property values" to San Mateo County.
This kind of denial of reality has plagued regional planning in the Bay Area.
It makes it hard to get something logical in place when the voices of fear,
uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) are well-financed and widely broadcast.
That's part of the reason it's hard to find to housing we can afford and
also why it is a challenge to get from one place to another.
4
(follow up to previous comment)
Driver-less car, do you know where you are, driver-less car?
How far is far, driver-less car, how far?
Is it all the way to San Jose?
How far driver-less car, how far?
Driver-less car, do you know where you are, driver-less car?
How far is far, driver-less car, how far?
Is it all the way to San Jose?
How far driver-less car, how far?
3
So, in 1960, San Francisco was a "city of no money" and a "city of no jobs."
It was the city of the Zodiac killer and Dan White, who murdered a city councilman because he was gay and the Mayor who backed up the city councilman, then got off with five years for two premeditated murders he blamed on a junk food diet.
It was the city of the tenderloin and Haight-Ashbury - which despite its "peace & love" reputation scared the bejesus out of George Harrison when he walked through it one afternoon.
It was the city where the University of San Francisco wind up dropping its basketball program after years of probation for violating NCAA rules and paying off players.
It was the city where Charles Manson spent the Summer of Love before heading for LA and the Summer of Senseless, Brutal Murder.
What a darn shame that Google had to go and ruin all that with jobs and prosperity. It's like Times Square all over again - no matter how hard you try you can't get Elmo to hit you over the head and steal your wallet like back in the good old days.
It was the city of the Zodiac killer and Dan White, who murdered a city councilman because he was gay and the Mayor who backed up the city councilman, then got off with five years for two premeditated murders he blamed on a junk food diet.
It was the city of the tenderloin and Haight-Ashbury - which despite its "peace & love" reputation scared the bejesus out of George Harrison when he walked through it one afternoon.
It was the city where the University of San Francisco wind up dropping its basketball program after years of probation for violating NCAA rules and paying off players.
It was the city where Charles Manson spent the Summer of Love before heading for LA and the Summer of Senseless, Brutal Murder.
What a darn shame that Google had to go and ruin all that with jobs and prosperity. It's like Times Square all over again - no matter how hard you try you can't get Elmo to hit you over the head and steal your wallet like back in the good old days.
6
Actually Dan White was 1982. And there were plenty of jobs in SF then. I didn't know anyone who wasn't working hard and making enough money to enjoy themselves. Rents were insanely cheap in awesome prewar buildings in Pacific Heights.
I think you missed the writers point entirely.
It was an entirely different city in the 80's when I lived there. Sort of like the Lower East Side scene for years in NYC. Hey, if you didn't like the Palladium and CBGB's and Dan Lynch's in NY then you won't ever miss them.
San Francisco isn't the same. For some it wasn't changing for the better.
Yippee! Google has jobs and has run the rents off the charts in SF. Isn't that wonderful progress.
Nostalgia is a terrible thing to waste. So is culture and real diversity.
I think you missed the writers point entirely.
It was an entirely different city in the 80's when I lived there. Sort of like the Lower East Side scene for years in NYC. Hey, if you didn't like the Palladium and CBGB's and Dan Lynch's in NY then you won't ever miss them.
San Francisco isn't the same. For some it wasn't changing for the better.
Yippee! Google has jobs and has run the rents off the charts in SF. Isn't that wonderful progress.
Nostalgia is a terrible thing to waste. So is culture and real diversity.
4
The Tenderloin is still scary to walk through. If you want to find addicts, dealers, street walkers, and people with serious mental problems at any hour of the day, the TL has it all. What it does have in its favor is awesome Vietnamese food, however, and Glide is still doing great work trying to make a difference in the community.
1
When I worked in the Tenderloin about 20 years ago, it had the highest proportion of children of any neighborhood in the city because families could live there without paying exorbitant rents. Yeah there were a greater than average number f troubled souls, but I also met some of the nicest people on my way from the bus to work.
How remarkable that SF isn't tne same city it was 56 years ago. What an amazing hook for an article! This might come as a shock, but almost nobody even knows who HST was.
2
"...almost nobody even knows who HST was." That's ABSURD. Are you talking about 25-year-old Ivy League grads? Because if you don't know who Hunter S. was you've got the wrong priorities in life. Ignorance AND wealth! What a great combo!
6
Harry S. Truman!
Missing from this story of wealth is the fact that few of the companies that are the engines of suddenly wealth in the City actually make any money. You list all the brands - Uber, Twitter, Instacart, Zynga, Salesforce and all the new kids on the block never make a profit. They are money pits. Essentially Ponzi schemes in which venture capitalists do their flimflam to create a illusion of success just long enough to unload these "start-ups" onto less smart investors.
Right now, companies like Uber are flying on dumb money...and it is running out. In reality there are very few good ideas and the ones that are touted as successes are just an illusion. Unfortunately the displacement taking place in the city with the Creative Class® replacing the creative class is real.
Right now, companies like Uber are flying on dumb money...and it is running out. In reality there are very few good ideas and the ones that are touted as successes are just an illusion. Unfortunately the displacement taking place in the city with the Creative Class® replacing the creative class is real.
9
Oh New York, how fortunate you are to not have to deal with this lopsided techbro economy and the desperate city supervisors who will do literally anything to cater to their desires. I spent almost ten years in SF (after ten in New York) and just gave up last year. Even though I had a great-paying job as a legal secretary at a major law firm making low six-figures, there was no way forward for me. People out of college started at Google making almost twice what I made mid-career. Buying a home was not even an option, and renting has become insane - Upper-East side rents for studios in the sleaziest parts of town, no parking, no smoking, no pets. You are expected to pay the equivalent of a hefty mortgage, but are excluded from making your own decisions about how to live in "your" space. Add to that San Francisco has no functioning transit system, so the equivalent of Queens or Brooklyn are only an option if you commute in during the day and commute out at five, but never enter the city after 9pm. San Francisco is over, the techbros have won. I moved 90 miles to Sacramento, where the artists are now. I bought a house for under 100k, and I create the culture rather than see it consumed mindlessly by the spaghetti-armed, socially inept techies. I will always rejoice I got to have a little time in that once great city, but that is all done now. It might as well be Austin. Farewell San Francisco.
14
You sow what you reap. You want artisanal cocktails so SF must pay the piper. Soon it will decay since there will be no one to serve the cocktails.
1
SF has changed.
To quote the article, SF was "all Republicans."
There hasn't been a Republican elected to the SF city government in 43 years.
The real tragedy is that the city spends $240 MILLION per year on homeless programs, and the problem just gets worse and worse.
Shut up, and keep throwing money at it.
To quote the article, SF was "all Republicans."
There hasn't been a Republican elected to the SF city government in 43 years.
The real tragedy is that the city spends $240 MILLION per year on homeless programs, and the problem just gets worse and worse.
Shut up, and keep throwing money at it.
2
As an SF resident, I get it. Everyone's (understandably) frustrated. But folks. Nothing's gonna give unless we stop fighting and cooperate for a change.
1. Progressives - stop hating on developers and businesses. 'For profit' does not mean 'evil.' Who else will build your affordable housing? Bring jobs? Raise families out of poverty?
2. Tech Companies - please. Get off the computer for 5 min. Meet your new neighbors before they're all gone! Don't be smug or self-congratulatory for a moment and actually engage in the community you've chosen to be in. You know, in their heydays, the auto, railroad and steel industries built great universities, libraries and museums. They were bedrocks of their city's societies. Tech firms, (Mark Zuckerberg notably excluded), you could at least say 'hello.'
3. Landowners - no, you do not have a constitutional right to low-rise, low density, suburban-esq open space in a major, globally relevant city. Others need to live and work here too.
4. Tenants - no, you do not have a constitutional right to subsidized rent in one of the most desirable cities on Earth. And to you development-hating tenants in particular. No. We will not sympathize with your desire to live here, as you actively lobby to deprive others of the same.
5. City Hall - instead of theatrics and hysteria, work together to find common ground for a change.
C'mon SF! I know can do it! And we will. When hell freezes over...
1. Progressives - stop hating on developers and businesses. 'For profit' does not mean 'evil.' Who else will build your affordable housing? Bring jobs? Raise families out of poverty?
2. Tech Companies - please. Get off the computer for 5 min. Meet your new neighbors before they're all gone! Don't be smug or self-congratulatory for a moment and actually engage in the community you've chosen to be in. You know, in their heydays, the auto, railroad and steel industries built great universities, libraries and museums. They were bedrocks of their city's societies. Tech firms, (Mark Zuckerberg notably excluded), you could at least say 'hello.'
3. Landowners - no, you do not have a constitutional right to low-rise, low density, suburban-esq open space in a major, globally relevant city. Others need to live and work here too.
4. Tenants - no, you do not have a constitutional right to subsidized rent in one of the most desirable cities on Earth. And to you development-hating tenants in particular. No. We will not sympathize with your desire to live here, as you actively lobby to deprive others of the same.
5. City Hall - instead of theatrics and hysteria, work together to find common ground for a change.
C'mon SF! I know can do it! And we will. When hell freezes over...
10
Point 3 - Wrong. Owners don't owe anybody high-density housing.
Point 2 - Ironically, you respond via your very own computer.
Point 5 - Solve what problem exactly? Live where you can afford to live. There's no inherent inequity.
Point 2 - Ironically, you respond via your very own computer.
Point 5 - Solve what problem exactly? Live where you can afford to live. There's no inherent inequity.
I am an elderly Bay Area fossil, and as such see precious little of value in any of the tech that has overwhelmingly seduced the youngsters. Their lives are reduced to a two inch screen, twiddling their thumbs at idiotic games and apps that are stripping them of all the real skills that humans have developed over millions of years. One day we will wake up to find that the electricity has stopped and humans will be too helpless to do anything but starve.
13
Another miserably one sided article with not attempt to talk about the advantages that a booming economy bring to a region or how tech has improved our lives. David Streitfeld sounds like a newcomer to San Francisco who has no historical memory and no interest in learning how San Francisco really was back in the old days. I really wish he would just stop.
3
"Who among us would willingly surrender their iPhone?" You gotta be kidding, right. I only wish I had 347 hands to raise. That's the number of times each day I spot someone out in public who looks kind of interesting and with whom I wouldn't mind a little eye contact, except every single one of them has their eyeballs glued to that infernal tiny little screen. God only knows what life-shattering event they'd miss if they'd dare glance up to acknowledge a fellow real live human being, here & now.
12
Where I really miss HST is in political coverage. Oh, to have his ability to pull Trumplestiltskin apart!
As he said in 72, and it applies even more now, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Unfortunately, what passes these days for political pros wouldn't know weird, or smart, if it bit them on the bottom.
As he said in 72, and it applies even more now, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Unfortunately, what passes these days for political pros wouldn't know weird, or smart, if it bit them on the bottom.
3
Check out Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone
I try to keep up with what is going on in S.F.. My son and his family live
there. I read, very recently, in the NYT that the increase of tech hubs in other
parts of the country and receiving more and more of those who are either
dissatisfied with S.F. or want more for their money in terms of housing and
living expenses. Many of the large companies, Google for one, has opened
hub centers in Washington State, Colorado, Raleigh, N.C., Austin, Texas and
will be moving to other areas. I lived there until the late eighties and returned
to the East Coast and have never looked back. I prefer the East.
there. I read, very recently, in the NYT that the increase of tech hubs in other
parts of the country and receiving more and more of those who are either
dissatisfied with S.F. or want more for their money in terms of housing and
living expenses. Many of the large companies, Google for one, has opened
hub centers in Washington State, Colorado, Raleigh, N.C., Austin, Texas and
will be moving to other areas. I lived there until the late eighties and returned
to the East Coast and have never looked back. I prefer the East.
1
I grew up on the Peninsula and I went to a racially diverse public high school, but I did not realize how segregated the area was until I moved away to college east of Los Angeles. This was before the tech boom. In addition, the Bay Area has been crowded forever. I would not leave the home on the weekends well before the tech boom. Racial segregation and overcrowding are problems that the Bay Area has had for a long time. Not everything is tech's fault.
2
The trends affecting Silicon Valley are happening worldwide, just via different industries depending on the location. It's called wealth inequality, folks, and it is not an inevitability. It is caused by the structure of the industries that currently thrive in our type of banker-run economy and taxation that favors the asset-rich.
In the Bay Area, it's the tech industry. In London, it's the banking industry and hedge funds. In Vancouver and other pretty regional capitals it is an influx of international buyers investing in real estate. The gaps between the rungs on the ladder are widening everywhere.
San Francisco's countercultural traditions make it all the more tragic here but people keep on voting for lower taxes and no reform of how we tax housing wealth so until that changes the rich will continue to get richer.
In the Bay Area, it's the tech industry. In London, it's the banking industry and hedge funds. In Vancouver and other pretty regional capitals it is an influx of international buyers investing in real estate. The gaps between the rungs on the ladder are widening everywhere.
San Francisco's countercultural traditions make it all the more tragic here but people keep on voting for lower taxes and no reform of how we tax housing wealth so until that changes the rich will continue to get richer.
9
"...Silicon Valley’s unofficial motto is that it is here to improve our lives..."
So much of tech is a solution in search of a problem.
Would that the SVer's would reverse that.
So much of tech is a solution in search of a problem.
Would that the SVer's would reverse that.
3
In 2013 I could see San Francisco was in another frenzy and would need a few years to get over it. I retreated to Reno Nevada and have never regretted it for a moment. Great food, marvelous weather, four actual seasons, kind and rational people and plenty of beautiful parks, the Truckee River, a decent city government, responsible and sensible police. There is poverty in Reno and some right-wing crazies, but they are a small presence. Reno is not San Francisco nor is it Lodi. Reno is the "Best of the Ordinary" I wish San Francisco well, in the meantime I drink great coffee chat with friends and enjoy a splendid day. 'Without Reno there is nothing!"
4
I've never been to Reno anytime other than summertime. What's it like in winter?
Every generation has said "It's not the same San Francisco I knew" and they have always been right. For every generation, rents have always been so expensive that you had to get lucky to find a place that was much worse than you had envisioned and much more expensive than you could pay, but you were young and got to live in the most exciting place you had ever known. Then eventually, just when life got affordable, you got evicted. So then you bought a house too small and in a bad neighborhood for way too much money. Now it's worth a million dollars but you can't sell it because then you'd have to leave the city which you still won't do even if now it isn't nearly as crazy as it was when you couldn't afford to live there. So life goes on in San Francisco. Hang on and wait for the next bust.
7
Something very similar is happening here in Seattle, and Portland's not far behind. I knew it was all over when a Chase bank appeared where Easy Street Records used to be.
3
Everyone of these articles, here and elsewhere, have proven a great place for the many Grandpas Simpson to shout at clouds (pun intended). To long time residents of San Francisco I say: I agree with you. If things were different they wouldn't be the same. Just as the 50s and 60s counterculture slowly overtook and shaped the city to the horror of the old timers at the time, we're here now. You wore down the squares, and we will wear you down.
3
>>and we will wear you down
Geez, that may sum up the problem with The Industry better than anything I've ever read.
Geez, that may sum up the problem with The Industry better than anything I've ever read.
I, for one -- a 70-year-old who has been here more than thirty years, enjoy tremendously the vibrancy and life brought to the city by the influx of young people. They are different than my generation and the world now belongs to them. Market St. is coming alive after decades of decay. We need to find a way to harness the energy and creativity of these new citizens to improve the lot of those who are suffering from poverty, low wages, and the effects of change. Certainly, the influx of high-paid tech workers causes many dislocations to San Francisco society, but would we rather the city die of old-age, or lack of opportunity for young people? They have a lot to offer the city and all of its residents. I see this as a time of unprecedented opportunity for the city to renew itself.
5
What would Herb Caen say?
9
"What a revoltin' development this is!"
It's ironic to read this in The New York Times, of all places. After all, how often are we treated to yet another article in the real estate section about New York's next "hot neighborhood" - invariably a working-class neighborhood inhabited by people of color or immigrants? Or the struggles of rich yuppies or "artists" (a.k.a. hipsters) looking for "cheap" million-dollar homes to buy or $3,000/month tiny apartments to rent, usually in those same formerly working-class/minority/ethnic/immigrant neighborhoods and often on mom and dad's dime?
I work in media and know this reporter probably has nothing to do with that endless stream of tone-deaf articles, but the Times as an institution - not to mention the Wall Street Journal and every other media outlet that publishes these types of stories - absolutely has a role to play in the growing shortage housing in major cities affordable to the average person and the yawning inequality that results.
I work in media and know this reporter probably has nothing to do with that endless stream of tone-deaf articles, but the Times as an institution - not to mention the Wall Street Journal and every other media outlet that publishes these types of stories - absolutely has a role to play in the growing shortage housing in major cities affordable to the average person and the yawning inequality that results.
2
So cranky. SF, Seattle, Austin, Manhattan, Brooklyn. Now Denver. And your point is? By the way, as you well know, Hunter S. retired to a Rocky Mountain redoubt to get hammered and shoot guns instead of living in a rental-controlled apartment in Disneyland. So what?
A few years back I found myself in SF on a job for a couple weeks. One day as I was walking through the Tenderloin, I saw a morbidly obese woman stuck in the middle of a busy intersection on her electric wheelchair. The battery had died. It took me a couple minutes to push her back up onto the sidewalk among the honking, speeding cars. She and the wheelchair were a combined 500-600 pounds, and the only other people around were too strung out on heroin or too hungry to help. The fragrance of the entire neighborhood made me reel. I'm sure that awesome scene is being played out again as I write this. Ah yes, the good old daze.
A few years back I found myself in SF on a job for a couple weeks. One day as I was walking through the Tenderloin, I saw a morbidly obese woman stuck in the middle of a busy intersection on her electric wheelchair. The battery had died. It took me a couple minutes to push her back up onto the sidewalk among the honking, speeding cars. She and the wheelchair were a combined 500-600 pounds, and the only other people around were too strung out on heroin or too hungry to help. The fragrance of the entire neighborhood made me reel. I'm sure that awesome scene is being played out again as I write this. Ah yes, the good old daze.
3
Go somewhere young voyagers. From Prince Rupert to Guayaquil to Valparaiso and beyond there are San Franciscos to be discovered and built in the bays and coves of the Pacific and elsewhere. Yesterday's business is nice to remember but you cannot live there anymore.
1
When I first moved to the City in the 1990s, I got a minimum wage temp office job and some roommates. It was expensive but no biggie. I befriended my mild mannered co-worker and learned that in his spare time (imagine the concept!) he ran an underground BDSM club.
S.F. used to be full of people like that: freaky lifestyle first and day job second. That calculus is no longer possible. To make matters worse, the tech culture just doesn't get how everyone is not a 24-7 entrepreneur who wants to change (ahem, monetize) the world. It's a total culture clash on top of the financial reality.
S.F. used to be full of people like that: freaky lifestyle first and day job second. That calculus is no longer possible. To make matters worse, the tech culture just doesn't get how everyone is not a 24-7 entrepreneur who wants to change (ahem, monetize) the world. It's a total culture clash on top of the financial reality.
6
San Francisco is what an investment 'bubble' looks like: lovely on the outside, rotting within. Every bubble contains the seeds of its own annihilation and this one in the Bay Area will evaporate like all the others before ... and to come.
Much of the business of technology is a Ponzi scheme ... new funds and higher prices are always needed. Without a doubt the smart money has cashed in its chips and is already safely out of town.
This leaves Chinese money launderers to keep the real estate parts of the bubble inflating ...
Much of the business of technology is a Ponzi scheme ... new funds and higher prices are always needed. Without a doubt the smart money has cashed in its chips and is already safely out of town.
This leaves Chinese money launderers to keep the real estate parts of the bubble inflating ...
3
I think you nailed it here Steve, it's NOT about being anti-progress and anti-prosperity, it's that all this VC-funded nonsense is a house of cards. Normal businesses earn capital and then spend money, but tech companies spend un-earned money like drunks on payday, paying huge salaries and benefits to inexperienced workers, and hoping that a lot of social media buzz will turn into solid returns. Hoping seems to be the key word, and hope is not a strategy. Meanwhile the real costs of everything rise for everyone else.
They don't need hope when they are pulling in large salaries "pre-profit" funded by investment bankers hoping to find the next big thing.
It's ironic that so many lament the latest boom to hit SF. After all, it was the Gold Rush that created SF. That quest for riches was no different than today's quest for riches. There are always winners and losers in boom times. The song remains the same. San Francisco was never a darling city. It has always been a place where scalawags, ne'er do wells, schemers, and the rapacious have held fort.
3
Good article. A few observations. The place is really expensive. Like NYC, you can be a so-called 1%er and feel like you're going broke at the same time. Housing is really expensive, state taxes are high and then you get hit by the AMT. The public schools are not that good, traffic is ridiculous and eating out is too serious a matter.
I have nothing against technology, but these companies have a giant effect on us. As prices rise, I see my employees commuting even further ridiculous distances to find affordable housing. It's hard to hire anyone from outside the Bay Area because of the cost of living. And then, you keep noticing that despite all the wealth coming in, the schools and roads never improve! I hear rumors that Apple is hiding tax dollars overseas, and am sure that other companies do the same. Each time they build a new edifice, it just clogs up the roads.
Then, the rich folks are all techie and VCs and there's Stanford. So, this is not really about money, but it's just about where are the regular people? And why is it so hard to get around? And why does everyone work in a tech company? It does make you think a lot about who deserves what and the role and danger of corporations. This place is part of greater Richistan. It's not heading in a normal direction for a city. It is lacking soul.
I have nothing against technology, but these companies have a giant effect on us. As prices rise, I see my employees commuting even further ridiculous distances to find affordable housing. It's hard to hire anyone from outside the Bay Area because of the cost of living. And then, you keep noticing that despite all the wealth coming in, the schools and roads never improve! I hear rumors that Apple is hiding tax dollars overseas, and am sure that other companies do the same. Each time they build a new edifice, it just clogs up the roads.
Then, the rich folks are all techie and VCs and there's Stanford. So, this is not really about money, but it's just about where are the regular people? And why is it so hard to get around? And why does everyone work in a tech company? It does make you think a lot about who deserves what and the role and danger of corporations. This place is part of greater Richistan. It's not heading in a normal direction for a city. It is lacking soul.
4
" if the value of your rental rapidly increases to more than you afford to can pay "
Hmmm, having sat through that movie in the late 60s, it is hard to imagine that you thought this was new. For instance, as a driver below the age of 25 living in the City, I was put into the "assigned risk" category. Minimum liability ran to $600 a year (my pay ran to $2400 a year). I moved to Hayward to enjoy splitting $180/mo rent with another for a two bedroom apartment. Bart was only a hole in Market street, then.
Try inflation adjusting these numbers. The insurance sucks the oxygen out of the room, the rent probably tracks quite well (or maybe not).
Hmmm, having sat through that movie in the late 60s, it is hard to imagine that you thought this was new. For instance, as a driver below the age of 25 living in the City, I was put into the "assigned risk" category. Minimum liability ran to $600 a year (my pay ran to $2400 a year). I moved to Hayward to enjoy splitting $180/mo rent with another for a two bedroom apartment. Bart was only a hole in Market street, then.
Try inflation adjusting these numbers. The insurance sucks the oxygen out of the room, the rent probably tracks quite well (or maybe not).
1
. The very values that made Silicon Valley great are being destroyed. I think the rot set in with the Facebook IPO. Prior to then the valley was about ideas for the sake of ideas. Accidental billionaires had lunch with those who accidentally did not become billionaires - on equal terms so long as someone had a great new idea and a good understanding of engineering. The Google boys, as machievilian as the best of them, were OK, because they wrote that algorithm! themselves. They were one of the boys. But then with Facebook something east coast happened. It was just about chasing the dollars. Who cares about the product, or the people, or whether it destroys lives and turns teens to despair and addiction. Who cares about rigging the IPO. From that moment on it just became a dash for cash. Every ugly idea an opportunity.
There is still a lot of energy, and a lot of true innovation but it is being drowned out by a deadening aping of creativity fanned by easy money from the Fed. Now its all about showing how rich you are! Can you believe that! Appearing rich! Steve Jobs would be turning in his grave! Cant end well.
There is still a lot of energy, and a lot of true innovation but it is being drowned out by a deadening aping of creativity fanned by easy money from the Fed. Now its all about showing how rich you are! Can you believe that! Appearing rich! Steve Jobs would be turning in his grave! Cant end well.
6
This X 1000. And I like the "something East Coast happened". It hits the nail right on the head.
As a finance person in SF I must admit I do get a kick out of seeing a new villain in town. It's always someone, isn't it? I get why we all hate wall street, but tech? Really? Would you rather SF be the home of shale oil? Big Banks? Dying auto companies? Monsanto and processed food conglomerates? I think we are very lucky to have a dynamic industry that is changing the world (and mostly in a positive way). The alternatives are all so much worse.
This city, like many others, suffers from a simple imbalance of supply and demand. That's not going to be fixed in our lifetime, so I'm not even going to bother advocating building more housing. What it seems to suffer from more uniquely is 1) a severe sense of entitlement across the socio-economic strata, and 2) crippling bouts of nostalgia for a time that wasn't even that great. Let's be clear - Hunter S. Thompson was a drunk who offed himself. It might be nice to have a poster of him in your room, but living in his version of SF is not something many of us would choose to go back to. I suspect most New Yorkers feel the same way about today's Brooklyn and Manhattan. I suspect most Londoners would prefer not to go back to the 70's either. Let's let this era of SF die a peaceful death and move toward its next iteration. Great cities reinvent themselves. You can try to fight it, but history is not on your side.
This city, like many others, suffers from a simple imbalance of supply and demand. That's not going to be fixed in our lifetime, so I'm not even going to bother advocating building more housing. What it seems to suffer from more uniquely is 1) a severe sense of entitlement across the socio-economic strata, and 2) crippling bouts of nostalgia for a time that wasn't even that great. Let's be clear - Hunter S. Thompson was a drunk who offed himself. It might be nice to have a poster of him in your room, but living in his version of SF is not something many of us would choose to go back to. I suspect most New Yorkers feel the same way about today's Brooklyn and Manhattan. I suspect most Londoners would prefer not to go back to the 70's either. Let's let this era of SF die a peaceful death and move toward its next iteration. Great cities reinvent themselves. You can try to fight it, but history is not on your side.
8
I find it amusing you say no one would compare Brooklyn and Manhattan to the old days, either. NO ONE would want to come from Quens, EVER! (But that's where Trump comes from.)
San francisco faces so many issues, but I'll just say it's easier to cure homelessness than heartlessness.
May my hometown be cured of the latter, and soon.
May my hometown be cured of the latter, and soon.
4
May you be cured of your dim point of view. At what point do you suspect folks with good incomes will simply lose interest in living in SF? BTW there are lots of great places NEAR SF that are great too. There's nothing sacred about an SF zip code, unless you can actually afford real estate there. What's the matter? You affraid of Fruitvale?
1
Goodness, Fuzzman, that's a lot of malice over a fairly benign comment-
I grew up in SF and have a lot of love for the whole Bay Area- I have friends and family from all over, from Petaluma to Livermoore to Santa Cruz-- why would you think I have less affection for their hometowns? But when you are from a place, and your family lives there, of course you going to feel concern for it--- it is, simply, 'home'.
And if you find my desire to see wealthy residents take better care of those less fortunate distasteful, and protections for the elderly or disabled, perhaps you are the one with a dim point of view?
I grew up in SF and have a lot of love for the whole Bay Area- I have friends and family from all over, from Petaluma to Livermoore to Santa Cruz-- why would you think I have less affection for their hometowns? But when you are from a place, and your family lives there, of course you going to feel concern for it--- it is, simply, 'home'.
And if you find my desire to see wealthy residents take better care of those less fortunate distasteful, and protections for the elderly or disabled, perhaps you are the one with a dim point of view?
8
So when the author says "doesn't seem available to all" what does this mean? The drunk homeless guy deserves nothing. The guy who can code and develop advanced applications will make $300K per year. My point is wealth is not available to all period. Some win in life others lose. The more liberal the city in fact, the more it is for the elites. IE San Fran/Seattle/NYC
Besides if you can hack in San Francisco MOVE! There are tons of places crying out for more people.
Besides if you can hack in San Francisco MOVE! There are tons of places crying out for more people.
1
>> The drunk homeless guy deserves nothing.
Could you explain this? Because at two different times, someone very dear to me who could code and who developed advanced applications that keep our country safe was homeless, and drunk. I just don't get the bravado in this statement. Please explain it like I'm five.
Could you explain this? Because at two different times, someone very dear to me who could code and who developed advanced applications that keep our country safe was homeless, and drunk. I just don't get the bravado in this statement. Please explain it like I'm five.
Artists need cheap space and each other. Oakland exists but is experiencing the same pressures as SF. Think Vallejo.
3
From what I remember Oakland seems to have done a wonderful job of making downtown in the evening more enjoyable than it used to be.
For decades, dating before email and the internet, San Franciscans have believed the "new people" are ruining their city.
For even longer, they have been fighting growth, limiting development and favoring existing tenants/homeowners.
SF can't be immune to the rules that apply to any popular, growing city (increasing housing costs, traffic/congestion, landlord/tenant friction), especially when the local government prides itself on shrinking new development to a size that it can drown in a bathtub.
For even longer, they have been fighting growth, limiting development and favoring existing tenants/homeowners.
SF can't be immune to the rules that apply to any popular, growing city (increasing housing costs, traffic/congestion, landlord/tenant friction), especially when the local government prides itself on shrinking new development to a size that it can drown in a bathtub.
The tech worker hate is of course misplaced; these are just folks coming to where the jobs are, as with the oil workers who went to North Dakota. The city, however, has evolved from an artsy/union town to one run by an SF Politburo of lefties using taxpayer money (as all politicians) to buy votes.Their constituents are the self-identified underclass and the "progressives", creative and otherwise, and seemingly very resentful of those with a steady middle-class paycheck. Even with that paycheck many of these folks are with roommates for financial reasons. The Politburo, meanwhile, adopts numerous policies which directly reduce available housing and retard new affordable construction, i.e., rent controlled housing, AirBnB turning rental units into pop-up hotels and etc.
Count me as one lucky gal. I lived in a one bedroom apt for $630 a month in Cow Hollow for ten blissful years in the 90's. And now I've returned to my home in Big Sky country -- Nevada. My husband and I feel as if we can finally breath again. The Bay Area is an intense ride. Too bad it has no room for anyone making less than a high six figure salary. If you're young and seeking adventure -- seek it elsewhere. If you want to make a contribution to society that doesn't involve writing code say teaching kids, rescuing folks from city streets, or writing the great American novel you can do it anywhere but there. Believe it or not people who live in places like Reno will actually welcome and value your contributions, want you to actually experience raising your family, and have the time and space to live a real human's life. Good bye, San Francisco, good bye.
4
"Who among us would willingly surrender their Gmail or iPhone camera?" I would, and I suspect more would if they thought about it. What is this technological onslaught gaining us, really? Really? Other than some medical advances, human civilization peaked with the hot shower and cold beer.
7
If you aren't regularly and actively seeking (and paying your own money for) art, music, philosophy, dance, live theater, new books published locally, performance art, and actively learning about the city's natural history, history and architecture, you'd sound mighty dumb complaining about cultural loss into your facephone. As D. Boon sang, "What you make it." or as Shakespeare said "Physician, heal thyself."
1
San Francisco is the city that embraces change. I lived there 20 years. There is nothing you can do to stop sf from changing. You had your chance but you made poor decisions and now people who made better decisions are driving the changemobile. Stop whining and learn JavaScript.
2
No, pointing fingers at the obvious misses the point entirely.
Techies are not to blame for the fact that all Americans, in addition to San Franciscans, have aborted themselves of not only poetry, but all the humanities.
It's become routine in K-12, for instance, that craven administrators and helpless teachers have to sacrifice humanities all the more to suck up to the mass invasion by a for-profit, corporatized standardized testing hegemon. It's not merely San Francisco or even nearby Silicon Valley that insists only on numbering, quantifying, monetizing all life.
All "higher" ed now, too, to make matters more dehumanized, speaks wonk. None will ever dare reference -- ever -- any novel, film, song, or poem. The tenured comfy in their departments all mutually isolated from each other have all, for careerism, made connection to any and all humanities taboo -- just so much merely human, as if that were now ornamental at best.
When ed has so atrophied, from K-12 to "higher," any dunce can point fingers and claim victim status. And the schools across America are now doing a great job of creating dunces, all now ignorant of and far, far removed from all the humanities.
Techies are not to blame for the fact that all Americans, in addition to San Franciscans, have aborted themselves of not only poetry, but all the humanities.
It's become routine in K-12, for instance, that craven administrators and helpless teachers have to sacrifice humanities all the more to suck up to the mass invasion by a for-profit, corporatized standardized testing hegemon. It's not merely San Francisco or even nearby Silicon Valley that insists only on numbering, quantifying, monetizing all life.
All "higher" ed now, too, to make matters more dehumanized, speaks wonk. None will ever dare reference -- ever -- any novel, film, song, or poem. The tenured comfy in their departments all mutually isolated from each other have all, for careerism, made connection to any and all humanities taboo -- just so much merely human, as if that were now ornamental at best.
When ed has so atrophied, from K-12 to "higher," any dunce can point fingers and claim victim status. And the schools across America are now doing a great job of creating dunces, all now ignorant of and far, far removed from all the humanities.
5
Beautifully written, great voice.
4
Not that NYC ever had a heart, other than for business, although it has been a cultural center, but fighting each other does not win this 'war'. On some level, I would be part of those barbarians invasion, in that I work for financial firms using technology, have a high income, and am relatively immune to the invasion of the 'plutocrats'. Worse, I work for them.
That said, the problem is not so much an us against them, but as us against an electorate that has allowed money to gain disordinate power, to control and ruin the lives of most people. San Francisco might be the poster child for this inequality, but it is happening everywhere.
Bernie Sanders is a step in the right direction - I don't wholly agree with him, but we need something more - but our country needs to move in a better direction, one in which people's lives matter, where a higher quality of life matters, where our lives are not directed by the interests of marketers and the wealthy.
That said, the problem is not so much an us against them, but as us against an electorate that has allowed money to gain disordinate power, to control and ruin the lives of most people. San Francisco might be the poster child for this inequality, but it is happening everywhere.
Bernie Sanders is a step in the right direction - I don't wholly agree with him, but we need something more - but our country needs to move in a better direction, one in which people's lives matter, where a higher quality of life matters, where our lives are not directed by the interests of marketers and the wealthy.
4
San Francisco now has new buildings, neighborhoods are being beautified, and there is new energy. What's not to like?
1
What's not to like? They've written several articles about it actually, this is one of them.
1
The people hoping for a large quake perfectly encapsulates the ridiculous entitlement attitude of the renters in SF. They would wish destruction upon other citizens and homeowners simply to play the odds their residence would survive unscathed. Many homeowners do not carry earthquake insurance because of the cost. Only about 9% of people in the Bay Area have it. But that's ok as long as renters have a chance to keep their unit right? Some of the people now being "forced out" could have purchased a place in SF during the the recession. Prices in the suburbs or areas like Bayview and Visitation Valley have doubled in price the last five years. But these renters just couldn't give up the prestige of their rent controlled units in more posh or desirable areas of the city. Just like there are consequences to being a drug addict so too are there consequences to being a rent control junkie. I do feel bad for the long time residents being pushed out but many of these people were living a lifestyle subsidized by another private citizen for decades. It seems a bit foolish to cry about it when the music finally stops.
1
The story reads like an article in the Seattle Post many years ago during the "Invasion of the Californians". Now the Californians are being invaded by the Techies.
1
First, Invasion of the Body Sanches (1956) was filmed in Sierra Madre, CA a suburb of LA not San Francisco. Now, the real issue remains the value of " High Tech" no matter where it plants itself. What is its valuable to whom and for what .. Twitter earns ? ( not all that much and its valuation is out of whack ) Facebook is nothing more than a glorified advertising agency , the question is how successful is it at really selling products ? the data supplied seems highly questionable. The endless "apps" and games with a shelve life of months, that is "High Tech "? Products and industry that employees thousand have real value to society and the economy not to just a few "techies " who have the skills set to create code and nothing else. San Francisco is betting the farm on on the likes of Uber ( a taxi service with a future value of what ?).
9
It's a real tragedy (says this non-hippie who first went to the City when I went to Cal in 1966), but there is, quite simply, nothing that can be done about it. It's still much less hyper-gentrified than Manhattan; if you go to the Mission district, it doesn't look much different than it did a generation ago; still lots of flophouses and fleabag joints.
I never tire of visiting and I get there every two or three years, but living there is impossible for any ordinary person. But that's how it is; money is legal, and should stay legal.
I never tire of visiting and I get there every two or three years, but living there is impossible for any ordinary person. But that's how it is; money is legal, and should stay legal.
7
Last time I checked there is a place called Oakland and a thing called BART.
8
Oakland has become very expensive. Unless you make a tech level salary, it's not affordable. Consider the mass exodus of longtime residents from Oakland who can no longer afford to live there. There's displacement at every level.
11
Rent and property values are skyrocketing in Oakland too.
Cross out Oakland and substitute Vallejo, and substitute BART with car, ferry, or bus. Check the real estate, man. Oakland is hot.
Trust me, the techies are far to busy changing the world to concern themselves with this trivia. It is a given, to them, that tech is God, all economic disruption is good, and anything not related to tech is irrelevant. They do, however, want a nice playground.
As the tech-bro Justin Keller (a city resident for three years) said in an open letter to San Francisco's mayor, "I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle, and despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day. I want my parents when they come visit to have a great experience, and enjoy this special place."
That's what he wants. He works. He has expectations. His needs and expectations must be met. He is a techie, and if you're not, get your rotting shell of a corpse out of his city.
As the tech-bro Justin Keller (a city resident for three years) said in an open letter to San Francisco's mayor, "I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle, and despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day. I want my parents when they come visit to have a great experience, and enjoy this special place."
That's what he wants. He works. He has expectations. His needs and expectations must be met. He is a techie, and if you're not, get your rotting shell of a corpse out of his city.
33
it was a lot like this back in the dot.com era as well, as I recall. We also secretly wished for "The Big One," and every weekend was another owner-move-in eviction party. Back then, however, Oakland was still cheap in comparison. And yet so many recent college grads I meet seem to be excited to move there. I guess at bottom it was ever thus.
3
The SF of the 50's and 60's is gone, as are the 50's and 60's. People over time continually explore for new and cheaper places to live and in the process create new and exciting communities (or recreate communities - i.e. Detroit).
When the bohemian aspects of a city become nothing more than a tourist attraction, it may be time to consider moving on to a place where you can be part of something that really is new.
And as far as the dream that Silicon Valley's tech geniuses will solve the contradictions of capitalism... good luck.
When the bohemian aspects of a city become nothing more than a tourist attraction, it may be time to consider moving on to a place where you can be part of something that really is new.
And as far as the dream that Silicon Valley's tech geniuses will solve the contradictions of capitalism... good luck.
15
I get so very tired of all the old hippies and self-proclaimed artists who think nothing should ever be allowed to change in the Bay Area. They think nothing new should be built, and yet they feel entitled to cheap rent. And how exactly should we decide who gets to live here, since there is obviously way more demand than our current housing will accommodate? I love our city, and I'm happy to see them it and change. We are incredibly privileged to live in a geographically gorgeous, economically vibrant region. Quit complaining and get out there and enjoy it!
23
It is much easier to 'get out an enjoy' the Bay Area when you're not being kicked out of your home, or scrambling to earn of enough money to get by on rent.
"Hippies and artists" that you seem to despise so much are very much a vibrant part of SF and the Bay Area's soul... without cultural and artistic balance to the financial and economic world, you are left with a soulless city. Any world-class city will show you that.
But poor renter's protections, laws that favor greed and landlords over communities and people, businesses that do not pay their fair chafe....these are the things that are at the crux of this issue.
And you are wrong- most people do not fight against change itself, but against change that does not make life better for everyone...only the few and the rich. That is not progress, that is death.
So when you think the elderly woman next door being evicted, or the school teacher who has invested his life in teaching children is kicked to the curb, or the handicapped person who cannot get on his bus because a Google bus blocks his way.....do you really want to call them 'complainers'? They are a part of the community and the warm heart of San Francisco, too.
You sound incredibly privileged, indeed.
"Hippies and artists" that you seem to despise so much are very much a vibrant part of SF and the Bay Area's soul... without cultural and artistic balance to the financial and economic world, you are left with a soulless city. Any world-class city will show you that.
But poor renter's protections, laws that favor greed and landlords over communities and people, businesses that do not pay their fair chafe....these are the things that are at the crux of this issue.
And you are wrong- most people do not fight against change itself, but against change that does not make life better for everyone...only the few and the rich. That is not progress, that is death.
So when you think the elderly woman next door being evicted, or the school teacher who has invested his life in teaching children is kicked to the curb, or the handicapped person who cannot get on his bus because a Google bus blocks his way.....do you really want to call them 'complainers'? They are a part of the community and the warm heart of San Francisco, too.
You sound incredibly privileged, indeed.
5
Michele,
The article and your comment begs the question: who's city is it? Longtime residents, sometimes poor or working class, or new arrivals with gads of money?
If the latter are necessary to maintain economic growth and prosperity (apparently for all), does that mean they also can change the character of the city and its different neighborhoods?
In Manhttan, the influx of new residents, some with high-paying jobs, some at ubiquitous NYU, some putting every penny they have into obtaining their New York experience have changed the city and not for the better. Despite their claims, they don't want to live in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic city. They don't appreciate the grit and toughness that made New York special and New Yorkers a breed apart. They move here but they want the city to be sterilized and homogenized like the lily white suburbs from where they came. They like the Disneyfied Times Square and they want the rest of city to be as fake, vapid and mundane.
They drive up not just the price of rental housing, but commercial rents. Local pizzerias, delis, bakeries, restaurants -- all which give a neighborhood its unique flavor, literally, -- are driven out (as well as dry cleaners, pharmacies, hardware stores, etc.). Replacing them are not new self-employed small business people but chain stores --Chase, Chipolte, Dominoes, Duane Reade, and Walgreens.
If you move to NYC or SF, embrace the city as it is and become a part of it. Don't remake it into something else.
The article and your comment begs the question: who's city is it? Longtime residents, sometimes poor or working class, or new arrivals with gads of money?
If the latter are necessary to maintain economic growth and prosperity (apparently for all), does that mean they also can change the character of the city and its different neighborhoods?
In Manhttan, the influx of new residents, some with high-paying jobs, some at ubiquitous NYU, some putting every penny they have into obtaining their New York experience have changed the city and not for the better. Despite their claims, they don't want to live in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic city. They don't appreciate the grit and toughness that made New York special and New Yorkers a breed apart. They move here but they want the city to be sterilized and homogenized like the lily white suburbs from where they came. They like the Disneyfied Times Square and they want the rest of city to be as fake, vapid and mundane.
They drive up not just the price of rental housing, but commercial rents. Local pizzerias, delis, bakeries, restaurants -- all which give a neighborhood its unique flavor, literally, -- are driven out (as well as dry cleaners, pharmacies, hardware stores, etc.). Replacing them are not new self-employed small business people but chain stores --Chase, Chipolte, Dominoes, Duane Reade, and Walgreens.
If you move to NYC or SF, embrace the city as it is and become a part of it. Don't remake it into something else.
5
Here here! This! So.Much.
Thank you for writing this, and Anna, you're also quite correct. Thank you both.
Thank you for writing this, and Anna, you're also quite correct. Thank you both.
Excellent observations all. It is largely forgotten, but San Francisco used to be a city where people got up in the morning and made things of value. Not so now. What the author calls 'tech' is largely composed of utterly disposable ephemera that, when it all collapses, will barely leave a trace. It is nice to imagine this city returning to its funky and special ways, however that would take an epic shake-up to dislodge the infestation of money. 8.5 anyone?
22
A thought experiment:
Let's assume that manufacturing and shipping companies do want to locate in San Francisco. How likely do you think it is that SF politicians, activists, and voters will approve carving out development zones large enough for factories and container shipping operations, owned and operated by large, multi-national companies? Further, what is the probability of these activities passing Bay Area-influenced environmental reviews?
Let's assume that manufacturing and shipping companies do want to locate in San Francisco. How likely do you think it is that SF politicians, activists, and voters will approve carving out development zones large enough for factories and container shipping operations, owned and operated by large, multi-national companies? Further, what is the probability of these activities passing Bay Area-influenced environmental reviews?
4
Uh... an 8.5 temblor is not an H bomb: it would take the city with it. So unless you want a repeat of 1906 be careful what you wish for.
1
Then you have an 'economy' based on cute ways to order dinner and cat cafes. When you don't create real wealth anymore, the foundation is weak and when the next financial implosion happens outfits like Twitter and Facebook will dissolve like so much cotton candy.
1
I'm a native of Berkeley but I've been living in Santa Monica the last 5 years, and it is known here as "Silicon Beach". A lot of the same issues happening in SF are happening in Santa Monica, which is fast becoming more exclusive, wealthier, more tech bro-y, and very white. And I am clinging on for dear life to my rent controlled garden cottage 3 blocks from the beach, which is about $500 below market rates.
I think it's worthwhile also to celebrate what is great about my community (clean air, sun, sea, quiet) and not always emphasize the ills. Similarly, San Francisco is still San Francisco...you might just have to look a little harder. But it's there. Cities evolve and not everything that was wonderful can be frozen in amber.
I think it's worthwhile also to celebrate what is great about my community (clean air, sun, sea, quiet) and not always emphasize the ills. Similarly, San Francisco is still San Francisco...you might just have to look a little harder. But it's there. Cities evolve and not everything that was wonderful can be frozen in amber.
7
150 years after the first Gold Rush, SF is having another transformation but which will dissipate as the first one did. Turns out there wasnt as much gold as the people who showed up seeking it.
The SF I remember from 30 years ago had not only the interesting neighborhods charm, but the grime and urine smell in the Tenderloin, the BART station and the fear of getting mugged if you lingered too long even on Market Street.
Now people are too busy with their phones to listen to the street musicians, watch the cable cars or dont carry enough cash to be worth mugging.
And all this 'tech' is a mirage - being able to hail a taxi with your phone is not technology, nor being able to tweet a picture - this does not add to the goods and services being produced or consumed -
people will realize sooner than later that there is no tech Gold - just people selling used shovels ..
The SF I remember from 30 years ago had not only the interesting neighborhods charm, but the grime and urine smell in the Tenderloin, the BART station and the fear of getting mugged if you lingered too long even on Market Street.
Now people are too busy with their phones to listen to the street musicians, watch the cable cars or dont carry enough cash to be worth mugging.
And all this 'tech' is a mirage - being able to hail a taxi with your phone is not technology, nor being able to tweet a picture - this does not add to the goods and services being produced or consumed -
people will realize sooner than later that there is no tech Gold - just people selling used shovels ..
16
The Tenderloin still smells like urine, as do the BART stations. And muggings (and much worse) are a regular occurrence on Market near Civic Center (often it is those very smartphones that are the target). Plus ça change...
2
There used to be a bar me and my wife liked right off the subway stop where Van Ness meets Market St. I think it may have been called Bull's Tavern. Would you know, is it a Subway now?
I argue that in the 1960s work was relatively easy to find. I was a high school graduate (no college) but I was able to get into advertising production and with a semi-freelance salary able to live in a large one bedroom apartment which included separate kitchen, dining room, living room and bedroom (and a view & garage). I owned a car, had a little money in my savings account and had no credit card debt. Most of my non-college grad friends were employed. If you lost your job, you could afford the rent even on unemployment. The city now excludes a native like me--even working as a teacher in SF I can't afford to live anywhere except the end of the Bart line (a 4 hour round trip commute to work)--and even then I am eyeing Arizona because I am falling behind financially.
37
I think that the employment situation in Hunter's day was relative. I have a National Geographic from WWII that has pictures of a bustling shipbuilding industry on the shore in San Francisco. By comparison it must have seemed like there wasn't much work by 1960.
Why has your salary situation not improved?
Over the last 40 years both Republican and Democratic administrations have advocated policies that have allowed profitable American industries and jobs to be shipped overseas. This country is a hollowed out wreck of what it used to be and has no one to thank but its own government, voted in by the (ignorant) people, who were distracted from issues like the above to discussions of abortion, gay rights, welfare, etc. All to distract you.
Vote Bernie Sanders !
Over the last 40 years both Republican and Democratic administrations have advocated policies that have allowed profitable American industries and jobs to be shipped overseas. This country is a hollowed out wreck of what it used to be and has no one to thank but its own government, voted in by the (ignorant) people, who were distracted from issues like the above to discussions of abortion, gay rights, welfare, etc. All to distract you.
Vote Bernie Sanders !
I just got back from SF. I was thinking about this very issue - how in god's name can all these people afford to live here? Housing prices are downright criminal.
Personally, I believe their housing market is due for a huge collapse. (The man-made kind, not the earthquake driven kind).
I walked over toward the Tenderloin district one afternoon, and for what it's worth, there are small bits of older San Francisco visible here and there. Mostly, in the form of small, oddly configured foreign car repair shops, with signs that date to 40 or 50 years ago. They paint a real contrast to the overly technical world we live in today.
Personally, I believe their housing market is due for a huge collapse. (The man-made kind, not the earthquake driven kind).
I walked over toward the Tenderloin district one afternoon, and for what it's worth, there are small bits of older San Francisco visible here and there. Mostly, in the form of small, oddly configured foreign car repair shops, with signs that date to 40 or 50 years ago. They paint a real contrast to the overly technical world we live in today.
7
Try buying a place in London.
1
Maybe it would have been better if SF had become another...Detroit? It is always so that there is a culture clash between the fully employed, the producers and the hipsters and those who are in SF because it is the last stop, the rest of the country lying behind it on the interstates (railroads and older roads in earlier times). The wealth of SF and other great cities makes art and creativity possible to be supported. SF is good at reinventing itself, but there are always dissenters. Maybe after the 1906 quake and fire some thought it would be better to continue living in tents in Golden Gate Park? The City could have limped along without its port and emptied by its suburbs, as a theme park, but its present incarnation seems better than that.
7
You may be interested in this history fact - did you know that during the devastating fires following the '06 quake, firefighters dynamited mansions in Nob Hill and along Van Ness Ave to halt the destruction of the fires?
Or that people lived in trolley cars pulled out to the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset, and that it is believed some of those old trolley car living quarters are still in use?
Or that people lived in trolley cars pulled out to the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset, and that it is believed some of those old trolley car living quarters are still in use?
I lived and worked in San Francisco during the first Tech boom. No, not 1998-2001. It was in the 80's when Finance was taking off in SF and using more Tech. I was evicted from 2 apartments in 3 years, and I was a well paid software developer. This at a time when you rolled out of bed to find a homeless person sleeping in your car every morning and drug paraphenalia.
Annual raises, then, could be in the double digits, and real estate was inflating even faster. Ultimately it's the real estate owners that drive out the long time residents as they try to maximize their return on owned property.
Tech is now moving to San Francisco because there is not enough housing on the Peninsula. The cities there realized too late that they needed to force commercial developers to build housing for the tech workers they were filling their new R&D office space with.
Within a 10 mile radius of the Facebook campus (with 12,000 employees), there are currently about 50 homes for sale. Starting price: $1M for a 1,000 sq ft house. $2,000 a month for a 750 sq ft apt. if you can find one.
It's not just San Francisco's issue. It's a regional problem we have to address. Part of it is mother nature. A lot of land is not buildable. Earthquake faults, unstable hillsides, landfill that "liquefies" during a quake. It's a peninsula. The Pacific ocean to the west, the SF Bay smack in the middle.
While everyone fought development of regional mass transit, Tech kept building, and engineers kept moving in.
Annual raises, then, could be in the double digits, and real estate was inflating even faster. Ultimately it's the real estate owners that drive out the long time residents as they try to maximize their return on owned property.
Tech is now moving to San Francisco because there is not enough housing on the Peninsula. The cities there realized too late that they needed to force commercial developers to build housing for the tech workers they were filling their new R&D office space with.
Within a 10 mile radius of the Facebook campus (with 12,000 employees), there are currently about 50 homes for sale. Starting price: $1M for a 1,000 sq ft house. $2,000 a month for a 750 sq ft apt. if you can find one.
It's not just San Francisco's issue. It's a regional problem we have to address. Part of it is mother nature. A lot of land is not buildable. Earthquake faults, unstable hillsides, landfill that "liquefies" during a quake. It's a peninsula. The Pacific ocean to the west, the SF Bay smack in the middle.
While everyone fought development of regional mass transit, Tech kept building, and engineers kept moving in.
San Francisco has certainly changed. You can not deny it's physical beauty, which will keep tourists coming here forever. But I detect a sadness among many long time residents that it will never be the city that has drawn young people, artists, writers, or just people coming in from other parts of the country to reinvent themselves. Gone are the days where you can get an apartment with a couple of other folks who might be bartenders, students, waiters, electricians and enjoy the energy of a creative place. Like Manhattan, it is becoming a Disneyland version of itself. Progress is a difficult balance. We all want a strong economy that creates jobs, but the growth in San Francisco has not raised all boats. Perhaps this is a microcosm of the country as a whole: manufacturing jobs have left, jobs at the top have increased, and many at the bottom and in the middle have been left behind. I Just think in SF it is more obvious because of the speed at which it has happened, the more than usual glaring inequalities, and the reputation that the City has for being a haven for the offbeat.
26
We've seen this movie before.
The Gold Rush settlers were displaced by those who built up the Port of San Francisco; the fishermen and longshoremen were displaced by company headquarters; both blue and white collar workers were displaced by all those who came for the Summer of Love and never left; and now it's the turn of aged hippies to make way for the social media generation.
San Francisco has never stopped evolving. That is what has made it into the place it was and is. That's what has allowed it to escape the fates of cities such as Detroit and Baltimore. It is setting SF into aspic, as is the wish of "progressives", that will kill San Francisco, not accepting and adapting to change.
The Gold Rush settlers were displaced by those who built up the Port of San Francisco; the fishermen and longshoremen were displaced by company headquarters; both blue and white collar workers were displaced by all those who came for the Summer of Love and never left; and now it's the turn of aged hippies to make way for the social media generation.
San Francisco has never stopped evolving. That is what has made it into the place it was and is. That's what has allowed it to escape the fates of cities such as Detroit and Baltimore. It is setting SF into aspic, as is the wish of "progressives", that will kill San Francisco, not accepting and adapting to change.
17
What is this grand vision of change that the "aged hippies" should accept and adapt to? The "social media generation" in San Francisco has no vision. They are focused on start-ups and beer tastings.
6
There is no "grand vision". That is exactly the point. Giving elected officials, activists, and NIMBY groups the power to anoint private sector winners and to annihilate any project or group they deem as unworthy has led to the present situation in San Francisco. It is time to unfetter the animal spirits of entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators.
Even when national governments support them, history time and time again has shown command economies fail. SF cannot devise inclusive and sustainable solutions to its problems through micromanagement of its economy, especially by those responsible for such fiscal disasters as CCSF, Muni, and the Housing Authority.
Even when national governments support them, history time and time again has shown command economies fail. SF cannot devise inclusive and sustainable solutions to its problems through micromanagement of its economy, especially by those responsible for such fiscal disasters as CCSF, Muni, and the Housing Authority.
The tekbros don't seem to have any emotional investment in the city. They use the parks and walk away from mounds of litter at the end of the weekend; they complain about the unaesthetic homeless; they are clueless about the cultural life, and mind-boggling self-involved and entitled. I've been here since 1977, though recessions and droughts and booms and earthquakes and none if those ripped the soul out of San Francisco.
37
A thorough city hall housecleaning including prison terms for 'Honest' Ed Lee and the worst of his cronies and backers, followed by a good earthquake, would be the best redevelopment project this city has ever had. At least we're guaranteed to get the earthquake.
I am a IT worker that can work remote. I live in a community across the Delaware from Philadelphia where housing is dirt cheap, I can be at the Ocean in less that an hour, in the Pennsylvania mountains in an hour, in NYC in 90 minutes.
12
Where is it written that anyone who wants to is guaranteed to be able to live in San Francisco? Is everyone entitled to live here? How does that work?
10
If you were born here, grew up here, worked your entire life here, paid taxes here, then yes, I'd say you're entitled to live here.
45
I do believe that only someone who feels entitled would ask that question.
16
What about those of us who worked hard, grew communities and families, are we to be disposed of? What kind of society exiles it's citizens for a handful of silver?
2
This is not a techie problem but rather the unaccountable snail-paced bureaucracy that stymies all efforts to move the city towards the future. I suggest you write an article about how to get a permit for the smallest of changes to your house or yard. They won;t allow it, and if they do, at extortionate fees.
The biggest problem in SF are its bureaucrats.
The biggest problem in SF are its bureaucrats.
8
I agree. But the problem is not the bureaucrats themselves. It is the policies (and the attitudes - in my experience the bureaucrats take on authority they really don't have) of the politicians of San Franciso.
Those "Progressives", as they like to be called.
Those "Progressives", as they like to be called.
The truth is that what is happening in San Francisco is just one version of what is happening everywhere. We no longer have choices about the world we live in or the ways it changes. Everything is sacrificed to feed the beasts of technology & profit. The world is becoming a machine, soulless, pointless & brutal, except to the oligarchs running the corporations & writing the rules. San Francisco is different only because it used to imagine that it was different, and because the worst of our rulers have made it their headquarters.
46
I hope you're voting for Bernie Sanders. The points you bring up are the ones he's campaigning on.
I was born and raised in San Francisco and I love the city as if it were one of my own relatives. What has happened to the city, is not new, The first tech boom displaced many, including my own family in the late, 90's. What made me fall in love with the City, was not the view, and sights alone, but the people. These people opened all of world up to me, from painters, musicians, photographers, writers, inventors... However I also have come to understand, that the city is forever changing, just like the human body, it replenishes, itself, and gets rid of old cells. It is also important to remember that the city that was born in a boom (1849) and reborn in an earth quake, (1906). The city truly does have a soul, and if you don't like its soul right now, just wait a few months. While I have been guilty of cursing the techies, the hipsters, or even the gangs, and homeless, the only remedy to see a different San Francisco is to allow time to take its course, and let S.F. be S.F. Everyone does have a place in S.F. the only question is when that time and place will be. I have heard pre-hippies, complain about the hippie invasion, and how beautiful the Height was before the summer of love, I have heard one group complain about the other, no matter how integral that subsequent group was to the City, these changes and culture shifts, are as vital to what Makes San Francisco, what it is, as sour dough, and the Golden Gate Bridge.
12
If you think SF is the only place where ridiculous real estate prices are ruining the social fabric, you need to get out and travel. Vancouver, Sydney, Toronto, London, etc. are all going through the same thing - but instead of tech money, it's foreign investors looking to launder their money. Governments turn a blind eye, as the rising house values make their citizens feel richer (the % that own houses anyway), but no one seems to care about what it's doing to society. Grown adults living at home with their parents! 50 year olds that live in shared houses despite 6 digit salaries! No where to park, with units getting crammed with more people. Homeless numbers rising. Jokes on us.
60
We doubled the world's population since then. Today, not enough resources for too many people.
Of course, unvarnished greed doesn't help either.
Of course, unvarnished greed doesn't help either.
26
No one said that SF would never change. The disagreement is about how fast. SF has always been getting more expensive and developed. Why are we suddenly up in arms?
Even those who now decry the "gentrification" happening, were once themselves the gentrifiers of the SF that doesn't exist any more. Yet they don't hold the same mirror to themselves? Only the newcomers are the problem, huh? The principles they use protest are akin to those who got in and pulled up the ladder behind them.
If the majority of SF really wanted the situation better, they vote out draconian restrictions on housing development, rent control, and speed up permit review that's designed to be complex and stop improved housing, etc. Now they complain that the shortage they created is coming back to roost, but against them.
I feel just as bad for the young intern or programmer who moves here and has to pay $2500/mo for a shared apartment after a 3mo wait, as I do for the 70y.o. who lived here for 30 yr on $500 rent. In fact more so, cuz no one is rooting for the young people, while every elderly eviction makes the headlines. Which one is more important?
Everyone wants to live in SF, and there is no fighting that. Sometimes you have to admit you've been priced out, and move to a more favorable place. If you're fortunate to find a better job, then stay and live with the costs. The ones who are making it difficult have only themselves to blame when it comes to bite them in the rear.
Even those who now decry the "gentrification" happening, were once themselves the gentrifiers of the SF that doesn't exist any more. Yet they don't hold the same mirror to themselves? Only the newcomers are the problem, huh? The principles they use protest are akin to those who got in and pulled up the ladder behind them.
If the majority of SF really wanted the situation better, they vote out draconian restrictions on housing development, rent control, and speed up permit review that's designed to be complex and stop improved housing, etc. Now they complain that the shortage they created is coming back to roost, but against them.
I feel just as bad for the young intern or programmer who moves here and has to pay $2500/mo for a shared apartment after a 3mo wait, as I do for the 70y.o. who lived here for 30 yr on $500 rent. In fact more so, cuz no one is rooting for the young people, while every elderly eviction makes the headlines. Which one is more important?
Everyone wants to live in SF, and there is no fighting that. Sometimes you have to admit you've been priced out, and move to a more favorable place. If you're fortunate to find a better job, then stay and live with the costs. The ones who are making it difficult have only themselves to blame when it comes to bite them in the rear.
43
"The ones who are making it difficult have only themselves to blame." As you would say, eric, huh? What is "it" and who are the people making "it" difficult? The evicted elderly are not to blame, it seems. The young "intern or programmer[s]" are not to blame. Why then claim to feel "bad" for any of them only to then say the if they're priced out, they should just admit that fact and move?
I see a lot of thumbs up, but I'm not sure what they're approving of.
I see a lot of thumbs up, but I'm not sure what they're approving of.
1
Adding housing, like adding more freeways, is never a long term solution. Look at Paris. New York. London and many others.
1
Explain to me how the 70 y.o moves to a "more favorable place".
Explain to me how how a lifetime spent growing old in a community shouldn't be granted the respect of allowing it to conclude there.
Explain to me how how a lifetime spent growing old in a community shouldn't be granted the respect of allowing it to conclude there.
They should reclaim parts of the ocean and make more land. then folks could move west once again.
1
I assume you're joking. the ocean floor right off shore in central California is 100s and 1000s of feet deep, there's very little continental shelf.
bay lands that were filled in after the 1906 earthquake were where all the serious damage from the 1989 earthquake happened.
bay lands that were filled in after the 1906 earthquake were where all the serious damage from the 1989 earthquake happened.
Why didn't you take BART when returning from the beach? San Francisco today has public transit not known in Hunter Thompson's day. But more to the point, remember that there is an intersection between the technology of today and the art of yesterday. Go to the Exploratorium on Pier 15 and get introduced to the children of this marriage.
4
I don't know how anyone can rationally claim the city is unchanged or no worse. Yes, there's still some aging working class people living there, hanging on in homes they bought fifty years ago, but most have long since cashed out and been replaced by very wealthy people, and within ten years, they'll all be gone. And then what? A city with no working or middle class people, no artists, no people of color, no young people? That's not a city, that's a mummified carcass. San Francisco's politicians need to do something drastic, or the city will literally die.
8
"I don't know how anyone can rationally claim the city is unchanged or no worse."
And that's the problem. When those who are anti-growth and anti-private sector believe that anybody who is not an Occupier or a social justice activist is incapable of rational thinking, conflict is inevitable. It is not a good path to finding solutions that allow economic activity and growth, which are the source of the funds for all of the "progressive" programs here after all, while providing a social safety net.
And that's the problem. When those who are anti-growth and anti-private sector believe that anybody who is not an Occupier or a social justice activist is incapable of rational thinking, conflict is inevitable. It is not a good path to finding solutions that allow economic activity and growth, which are the source of the funds for all of the "progressive" programs here after all, while providing a social safety net.
4
I don't think anyone considers Newport Beach or Greenwich, Connecticut to be "mummified carcasses". Money will always prevail over everything else. It's ironic when you think about it. The pursuit of money (gold) is the reason for SF existence in the first place. Never forget that.
1
Long time SF political guru Richard DeLeon of San Francisco State's Political Science Department, was fond of claiming that nothing, not even a nuclear bomb, could destroy a city faster or more efficiently than unchecked and unleashed capitalism. Professor DeLeon was referring to our prior boom cycles. I've lived here since 1978 and until now, I demurred.
I demur no longer
I demur no longer
21
Thank God he wasn't a physics professor.
1
They are not really building any housing -- especially in the suburbs, where they are largely just renovating existing houses to make them bigger, not increasing density.
1
I'm a little surprised that the wealthy companies and individuals haven't invested in affordable private sector housing, as a charity, since they all want to do good things and change the world for the better. My theory is that they simply don't recognize or understand the real world, a result of being always online.
That is so untrue. Housing density in many Bay Area cities and towns has increased dramatically over the past 10 years.
2
sp--you are way off on your statement. My city, Redwood City, in the heart of Silicon Valley & 5 miles from Stanford has built over 7000 new living "units" -- mainly apartments --w/i the last 3 years!
1
Want to solve the housing crisis? Build more housing. Want to solve the traffic problem? Build more public transportation. It really is that simple. A built San Francisco will still be beautiful. It might even still be quaint. It would also be more affordable.
8
Agreed. The beautiful thing about cities is that they can go up, up, up.
My brother lived on 18th and Hartford in the Castro in an old house that leaned so far out over the street it looked like a Roald Dahl illustration. He had one of four or five bedrooms and was a working professional along with four or five others who paid about 500 dollars a month (this was ten years ago). It was a nice, fun group of people. No idea what happened to the rents there. Bet it didn't end well for tenants.
A judge just struck down an ordinance paying for tenant relocation after rent hike displacement, and the city of S.F. pays far less than surrounding cities for Section 8 market rate subsidy upgrades. Sounds like the private and public sectors are struggling to get a handle on this crisis.
Microhouses for young people; one and two bedroom places for teachers, police and firefighters and public servants who live in the city and end Ellis Act evictions. It's my wish list. I wish...
My brother lived on 18th and Hartford in the Castro in an old house that leaned so far out over the street it looked like a Roald Dahl illustration. He had one of four or five bedrooms and was a working professional along with four or five others who paid about 500 dollars a month (this was ten years ago). It was a nice, fun group of people. No idea what happened to the rents there. Bet it didn't end well for tenants.
A judge just struck down an ordinance paying for tenant relocation after rent hike displacement, and the city of S.F. pays far less than surrounding cities for Section 8 market rate subsidy upgrades. Sounds like the private and public sectors are struggling to get a handle on this crisis.
Microhouses for young people; one and two bedroom places for teachers, police and firefighters and public servants who live in the city and end Ellis Act evictions. It's my wish list. I wish...
2
In the case of SF there are geographical limits to how many people you can cram into an enclosed space. Increase SF population to 2 million? That would be a hellish place to live. Or try to escape from. SF is already over-crowded.
1
This piece seems to operate under the premise that everyone has a right to live exactly where they want. It is also ironic to listen to a progressive complain about progress.
8
How is this progress? Its a return to Gilded Age values of which SF knows quite a bit about. In a city famous for it's cultural cachet it's a serious loss and certainly not "progress" to become an economic monoculture.
15
SF is done for. And Joey Ramone would be stuck in Queens forever in current NYC.
7
As a New York transplant to San Francisco for nearly a decade, having watched (and taken part in) the economic recovery here, it feels very similar to the recoveries felt in several parts of NYC during the oughts (eg, Harlem, Brooklyn).
The main difference is that the SF and the Bay Area in general has no central planning authority, and thus has no cohesive strategy in place as does the NY-NJ-CT Tri-State. Instead, we are left with a smorgasboard of halfwit solutions. Eg, just try to count all the different public transportation systems. We have no MTA or Port Authority equivalent. Every single municipality and county fights each other with NIMBYism and elitism, and it takes forever for anything to happen.
The result is that the San Francisco Bay Area simply does not have the infrastructure to handle a modern vibrant economy, the chicken of tribal Californian attitudes coming home to roost. Don't blame the tech industry for being successful, blame everybody here for keeping their head stuck in the sand for so long and refusing to be proactive when we had the opportunity.
The main difference is that the SF and the Bay Area in general has no central planning authority, and thus has no cohesive strategy in place as does the NY-NJ-CT Tri-State. Instead, we are left with a smorgasboard of halfwit solutions. Eg, just try to count all the different public transportation systems. We have no MTA or Port Authority equivalent. Every single municipality and county fights each other with NIMBYism and elitism, and it takes forever for anything to happen.
The result is that the San Francisco Bay Area simply does not have the infrastructure to handle a modern vibrant economy, the chicken of tribal Californian attitudes coming home to roost. Don't blame the tech industry for being successful, blame everybody here for keeping their head stuck in the sand for so long and refusing to be proactive when we had the opportunity.
12
You should do your homework...Are you aware of the existence of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission? It is the central planning authority for the 9 Bay Area counties. Comparing a transit authority that is funded by three different states to one that is largely funded by Caltrans and local agencies is like comparing apples to oranges.
3
Love how you call it 'recovery'.
From what, pray tell? Lack of dot-coms?
You've been in SF ten whole years....yet I grew upon SF and don;t recall us needing to recover from anything other than occasional earthquakes.
From what, pray tell? Lack of dot-coms?
You've been in SF ten whole years....yet I grew upon SF and don;t recall us needing to recover from anything other than occasional earthquakes.
2
As an avid tech user and East Bay Area resident, I applaud Mr Streitfeld's excellent observations and comments. But one more item is worth noting. Among many, perhaps most of the people in Bay Area, myself included, there is a very strong consensus that the products of San Francisco's current tch boom, primarily "service apps" such as Uber and Lyft et al, provide little value to society at large. They are viewed as merely engines of speculative wealth for venture capitalists and hedge funds. In many cases, companies like Air BnB directly contribute to inflated housing costs by facilitating speculative investment in housing, Moreover, the actual services offered by these apps are no different than what has been available for years on Craigslist. The poetry of Alan Ginsburg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti set the world on fire. The same could be said for Apple's Mac and Adobe's software based sixty miles to the south. Uber at best just get you an unregulated "taxi" driven by a poor slob moonlighting for a few extra bucks. That's a high price to pay for the wholesale destruction of one the most culturally alive, dynamic and beautiful cities in North America.
75
I would not go so far as to unrealistically glamorize the product economy of yore - producing unnecessary stuff (read junk) that is marketed and sold to millions of predominantly manipulated consumers is not necessarily much better for the laborers involved or the general environment.
Getting around the city before Uber was a nightmare. It was oftentimes faster to just walk than try and hail a cab. It's been an absolute godsend.
I work in tech and live in Silicon Valley. I was a little bummed when I saw that slogan for UCSF for two reasons: 1) education should be about more than just 'getting funded' 2) when a school is saying this and everyone wants to get 'funded' it suggest we are in a serious tech bubble. I'm sure the Bay Area will remain expensive after the bubble bursts (or leaks) but I've heard some really dumb ideas that have been funded. It's not going to last at this pace for long.
15
I believe that slogan was for USF, not UCSF.
1
I moved to San Francisco from LA more than 20 years ago in 1995. Even then, the dot com revolution had begun taking hold but at a much slower pace. I lament the lost of the city I moved to at 18 years old. To me it was a magical place where you can "fly your freak flag" and not be judged, work on infinite projects outside work because rent was so cheap, and more importantly, you can run into a friend while doing errands and have a conversation everyday. It was a community.
Of course there were problems, no jobs, lots of homeless, and slumlords, but the wealth streaming into the city has not solved these problems. Small businesses, restaurants, non-profits, or any other enterprise who can't pay high-tech salaries are challenged with finding employees. People who don't work in the tech industry or in finance simply cannot afford to live here. Traffic has gotten much much worse. Most of my friends have moved elsewhere.
Of course there were problems, no jobs, lots of homeless, and slumlords, but the wealth streaming into the city has not solved these problems. Small businesses, restaurants, non-profits, or any other enterprise who can't pay high-tech salaries are challenged with finding employees. People who don't work in the tech industry or in finance simply cannot afford to live here. Traffic has gotten much much worse. Most of my friends have moved elsewhere.
8
I've lived here for forty years and I want to tell you that San Francisco never was that free and easy place that Mr. Thompson, no doubt in one of his drug soaked stupors, so imagined it to be.
San Francisco has always been an expensive place. When I moved here from New Orleans after graduating from school, my rent tripled. Food was more expensive, restaurants the same - even a donut was 3 X what I was used to paying for.
San Francisco has a limited area - 49 sq miles roughly. It has had City Planners who aggressively opposed any effort to build anything. I know. I tried (and succeeded) in 1987, after waiting 18 months to get a permit. And I tried again in 2005, this time waiting 5 years to get a permit - after investing over $13,000 to fulfill this City's need to have a "historic assessment" of an ordinary stuccoed over Victorian House.
For whatever reason, San Francisco City Planning says "No" to everything you suggest. Getting a permit to build or renovate is like getting blood out of a rock.
So a place that was expensive to live in in 1976 had very little housing construction until about 5 years ago.
Don't blame Tech Workers or Silicon Valley. They are the new arrivals of the last 5 years, and they finally brought a building boom in housing. And in the process are moving to clean up central Market St, always a disgrace. Blame the philosophy and attitude of an arrogant city government that has allowed this situation to come to pass.
San Francisco has always been an expensive place. When I moved here from New Orleans after graduating from school, my rent tripled. Food was more expensive, restaurants the same - even a donut was 3 X what I was used to paying for.
San Francisco has a limited area - 49 sq miles roughly. It has had City Planners who aggressively opposed any effort to build anything. I know. I tried (and succeeded) in 1987, after waiting 18 months to get a permit. And I tried again in 2005, this time waiting 5 years to get a permit - after investing over $13,000 to fulfill this City's need to have a "historic assessment" of an ordinary stuccoed over Victorian House.
For whatever reason, San Francisco City Planning says "No" to everything you suggest. Getting a permit to build or renovate is like getting blood out of a rock.
So a place that was expensive to live in in 1976 had very little housing construction until about 5 years ago.
Don't blame Tech Workers or Silicon Valley. They are the new arrivals of the last 5 years, and they finally brought a building boom in housing. And in the process are moving to clean up central Market St, always a disgrace. Blame the philosophy and attitude of an arrogant city government that has allowed this situation to come to pass.
52
Lot of truth in that comment. It has always been pretty expensive.
4
Was this contributed by the pro-development lobby? They have, after all. provided hundreds of thousands in election campaign funds to our San Francisco Supervisors. You want facts? Look at photo of the San Francisco skyline ten years ago, and today - there is the proof a non stop building boom going on. this is anything but a Victorian here or there but a new gold rush.
Even if/when the tech bubble does pop, what will be the end result? Will the elderly grandmothers, Ellis-Act evicted from their rent-controlled apartments, suddenly be able to come back? Not likely. The response to this displacement epidemic, I fear, like most responses to problems not affecting the 1%, will be too little, too late.
4
I left North Beach and the city twenty years ago for the East Bay. I have watched the waves of fortune and reversal wash through SF several times in my 50 years in the Bay Area. The changes were inevitable and generational. The Manhattanization of San Francisco began with the first wave of 'yuppies' who brought the MBA mindset to SF culture and lifestyle back in the '80's. The changes weren't all bad. In many ways, San Francisco was forced to grow up and realize the opportunities of the future. The old labor unions that ran the city were corrupt and tainted everything and anything political. The gay community dominated much of the image of the city, and flirted with the risky behavior they later paid dearly for during 'the plague' years. Now it's all about talent, terms, deals and stock options. In San Francisco everyone is a tourist. They come and they leave; wave after wave of dreamers and schemers. Those who remain must live with the cultural and economic changes despite their own self-styled system of belief. The Beat movement of the '50's is no more relevant than the Anarchist moment of the 1890's. To hold on to the past is like hugging a tombstone. It's all just a state of mind.
4
But the Summer of Love is still groovy: my wife and I were married at age 19 in May 1967. We lived in Berkeley, but I did propose in SF!
49 years ago in a couple of months...so, we're 49ers, too!
49 years ago in a couple of months...so, we're 49ers, too!
5
My son goes to school a block from Facebook. FB is pretty much requiring all of its employees now to commute on their big shuttle buses to minimize traffic, but nonetheless, the roads are way, way, way too crowded. And yet, Menlo Park (where FB is located) and its neighbor, Redwood City, continue to build as if we live on a plantation.
W/i 3 yrs, RWC has added over 7000 living units without expanding its roads, much less build new ones. Most of those 7000 homes are apartments where 1 bedroom rents for over $4000 a month!
It's crazy and a big hassle to live here now, although like the author said, my home price has sky rocketed and my home is worth 4 times more than what I bought it for in 1997.
Bottomline: Don't move here. It's too inconvenient!
W/i 3 yrs, RWC has added over 7000 living units without expanding its roads, much less build new ones. Most of those 7000 homes are apartments where 1 bedroom rents for over $4000 a month!
It's crazy and a big hassle to live here now, although like the author said, my home price has sky rocketed and my home is worth 4 times more than what I bought it for in 1997.
Bottomline: Don't move here. It's too inconvenient!
5
One of the biggest changes is from a friendly, civilized city to one filled with rude, arrogant, selfish, status-symbol obsessed, materialistic people. The old friendliness and civility are fast receding in favor of the rich obnoxious types.
23
So, you're saying it's become like NYC?
The greedy landlords ran me out in the early 1990's from a city I loved. My friends and peers were all bike messengers, film makers, musicians and blue collar people. They have all been ran out because somebody 'just' had to get richer. The city is now a sterile landscape of people without art. They pretend they are artists because they can make an app that will bring them a pizza. They forget that the guy bringing the pizza has to drive one hundred miles to work at this job. These replacements have no soul and could care less about anybody else than themselves. The landlords were always vampires for money on the necks of people's bank accounts but these greed heads are another type of fiend.
18
"The 32-mile trip back from the beach on President’s Day took me two hours."
Sounds like a good bike ride!
Sounds like a good bike ride!
6
The problem is that many San Franciscans want the city to be a museum to the 1960s (or whenever they arrived). The laws are all designed around keeping things the same. There are caps on the amount of office space built, there is rent control for all multifamily units built before 1979 (which is most of the apartments in the city), there are citywide referendums on any development along the water, there is no development by right (every change is reviewed by the politicians), and it goes on and on. As a result, the residential capacity of the city has barely changed. In the end, the city must change or it will become a plaything of the rich and those lucky enough to already live here.
San Francisco has a land mass of 47 sq. miles and a population of 830k, Manhattan has an area of 23 sq. miles and about 1.6 million people. The problem is not an ability to house more people (SF could house 3.2 million at the same density as Manhattan), but rather a willingness to change.
San Francisco has a land mass of 47 sq. miles and a population of 830k, Manhattan has an area of 23 sq. miles and about 1.6 million people. The problem is not an ability to house more people (SF could house 3.2 million at the same density as Manhattan), but rather a willingness to change.
6
Oh, are you new to cities?
I'm an SF native who moved back to the Bay Area after college. There are many emotionally-charged articles being written about the housing problems in the area, but I expect the Times reporting to be a little more nuanced. To blame the problems on tech companies and to hold them accountable for the solution is imbalanced at best. What about public policy and local government? Mountain View, the city where Google and LinkedIn are headquartered, has had a sharp limit on housing growth. San Francisco's own housing policies are "baroque" (that's an understatement!) and the problems long pre-date the tech boom. This is an important and complicated issue, reflecting - among other things - a profound societal change in American wealth disparity that is not localized to the Bay Area. The Times should do an in-depth report, and not simply rehash the superficial rhetoric that can found all over the Internet.
16
The reason they don't figure out a way to help the less fortunate is that they couldn't care less about them. They want them gone. They don't even write checks, let alone realize the importance of a diverse city.
Technology may bring benefits but thinking about others isn't one of them. Many, if not most, are young, immature and selfish. They've been brought up in the generation of "me" and that's their only concern. They've taken more photos of themselves than anything, or anyone, else. Hard to imagine and rather troubling.
Selfie...and selfish, that's the tech generation.
Technology may bring benefits but thinking about others isn't one of them. Many, if not most, are young, immature and selfish. They've been brought up in the generation of "me" and that's their only concern. They've taken more photos of themselves than anything, or anyone, else. Hard to imagine and rather troubling.
Selfie...and selfish, that's the tech generation.
57
Hear hear!
1
Perhaps. But let's not forget whom the Baby Boomers bestowed on not only the United States but the rest of the world...GEORGE W. BUSH.
Lou, this is not a fair assessment, particularly when you don't live here. If folks didn't care, this would not be such a big deal. Most cities, like mine, require a certain amount of apartments/rentals be for low income citizen, plus Habitat for Humanity is very large and active.....right now, in my own city, Redwood City, an entire block in downtown (next to expensive homes) is being built for HH's people.
Also, I have 25 years in fundraising in the SF Bay Area and can tell you that by ***percentage of population***, it is one of the most philanthropic areas in the USA>
Also, I have 25 years in fundraising in the SF Bay Area and can tell you that by ***percentage of population***, it is one of the most philanthropic areas in the USA>
1
Back in 1977, it was elderly Filipinos who got evicted from the International Hotel at 848 Kearny Street in Manilatown, San Francisco.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Hotel_(San_Francisco)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Hotel_(San_Francisco)
3
Your point?
If all these wealthy young folks were working on a cure for cancer, the current situation might be justified.
30
While, obviously, nobody building "Facebook for dogs" or "Uber mashed up with Snapchat on steroids" is going to solve pressing societal problems, many in the tech industry ARE working towards the common good. It's just that what they're doing isn't sexy enough for the general press or the inbred, myopic tech media to cover.
2
Those working on a cure for cancer have been priced out and live in the secret island city of Alameda. Been there, done that. Sadly, mobile apps pay enough to actually afford a mortgage, medical R&D doesn't.
Don't give out the secret!!
Well, I've lived in the bay area for 20 years, and I visited regularly for at least a decade before I moved here. I'm not interested in blaming a particular group of people or talking about the city losing its soul -- this seems like rhetoric to me, not something you can do anything about. Whether we're in a boom or a bust, there's nothing *inherently* evil about people selling their property to other people. I'm not interested in diatribes about techies and the latest boom being the end of the world as we know it (whoever "we" are). I'd like to see some journalism that at the very least acknowledges the complexity of the problem and explores ways to help make the boom work for more people.
75
It's not a complex problem; the wealthy are pushing out middle and poor classes. Stop giving away the city to privilege.
4
I'm just curious, and as you don't say, do you rent, or were you able to buy the place where you live? From the tone of your comment, it sounds as though in the 20 years that you've been in the bay area, you've been able to not just secure your home, but you might even be someone who is justifying a prospective eviction.
I don't live anywhere near SF, but where I do live people who own houses and rent them out can raise the rent, and evict people who don't pay.
It's not even "capitalism". It's just private property.
It's not even "capitalism". It's just private property.
4
Ah, yes, gone are the days when I parked anywhere, rented an apartment in a Victorian house for $125 a month with a view of the Bay, had a great meal in North Beach for $2.00. The last time I was there it took me two hours just to drive across The City.
4
Yeah, and gone are the days when I rented a whole house in Atlanta for $170 a month and went downtown on the weekends and watched the B-52s and Iggy Pop. Nothing stays the same.
8
The city is far different from when I moved to the Bay Area in 1987. But what has changed even more is the East Bay. Oakland was seen as a struggling working class community with a crime problem but also lots of cheap housing. Today housing prices have skyrocketed, perhaps even more on a % basis than San Francisco. My colleagues who teach and are renting in the East Bay are being driven further and further north and east to find affordable housing.
This isn't the fault of tech. The tech boom has benefited many young people who have excellent jobs and career paths. Unfortunately, the Bay Area is a very desirable place to live. Part of what makes it a great place to live is its contained geography and large amounts of public land. This constraint, along with strict limits in San Francisco and other communities on the height of residential buildings in most neighborhoods means that housing can't keep up with growth.
So I would point to the "no growth" SF Board of Supervisors and say that either you let the city grow and focus on requiring substantial amounts of lower income rentals as part of that growth, or you doom the majority of current citizens to being forced out to the far suburbs. A temporary lull in tech growth is not going to cure the problem, and it would be neither legal or ethical to tell property owners that they can't sell their property to the highest bidder.
This isn't the fault of tech. The tech boom has benefited many young people who have excellent jobs and career paths. Unfortunately, the Bay Area is a very desirable place to live. Part of what makes it a great place to live is its contained geography and large amounts of public land. This constraint, along with strict limits in San Francisco and other communities on the height of residential buildings in most neighborhoods means that housing can't keep up with growth.
So I would point to the "no growth" SF Board of Supervisors and say that either you let the city grow and focus on requiring substantial amounts of lower income rentals as part of that growth, or you doom the majority of current citizens to being forced out to the far suburbs. A temporary lull in tech growth is not going to cure the problem, and it would be neither legal or ethical to tell property owners that they can't sell their property to the highest bidder.
34
San Francisco was quite different when I moved there in Jan. 1969. The Bay Bridge toll was a quarter, and outside of rush hour, the trip from Berkeley to S.F. was fast. Not that many cars on the road. Twenty-five miles north of S.F., one could wait by the road for some time before another car passed.
By 1987, many streets had prevalent panhandling and a noticeable mentally ill or substance-abuse population.
When my Gold Rush ancestor arrived in S.F. in 1850, it was a much more chaotic although less populated town.
By 1987, many streets had prevalent panhandling and a noticeable mentally ill or substance-abuse population.
When my Gold Rush ancestor arrived in S.F. in 1850, it was a much more chaotic although less populated town.
2
Where is the city going to grow? It's crowded enough, both sidewalks and streets, here as it is.
With all due respect to Hunter's booze and drug-addled ode to San Fran of yore, things are never so rosy or ever so gloomy. Yes, there's a much larger cohort of techies living here and the presence of "Silicon Valley North" is impossible to miss. But SF is still a wonderful city and I wouldn't move to any other place in the country. I
11
This part, Hunter Thompson would know. http://www.relix.com/articles/detail/refuge_at_the_end_of_san_francisco_...
"San Francisco is dying. The epicenter of American counterculture—a spawning ground for beat writers, wave after wave of psychedelic rock and punk rock, the environmental movement and the gay rights movement—has been colonized by tech companies. Planet-scale social networks flow through this city, every digital transaction leaving a penny, every click a micro-penny. Information and wealth are accumulating here, attracting young coders and venture capitalists seeking fortunes, and rapidly washing the old, weird Frisco away. Construction cranes perch like alien landers. New office buildings and luxury high-rise condos seem to pop up weekly, obscuring the views of the mountains, the bridges, the Bay. A tsunami of evictions and displacements seems to rise relentlessly, along with home prices and rents. At this writing, it costs, on average, $4,200 to rent a two-bedroom apartment and over a million to buy a house. If, as David Byrne has said, the most important thing an artist needs is cheap rent, then San Francisco is no longer a place for artists. And artists—once drawn here by the city’s storied history— have been fleeing in droves, for Oakland, Calif., Portland, Ore., Seattle and LA."
"San Francisco is dying. The epicenter of American counterculture—a spawning ground for beat writers, wave after wave of psychedelic rock and punk rock, the environmental movement and the gay rights movement—has been colonized by tech companies. Planet-scale social networks flow through this city, every digital transaction leaving a penny, every click a micro-penny. Information and wealth are accumulating here, attracting young coders and venture capitalists seeking fortunes, and rapidly washing the old, weird Frisco away. Construction cranes perch like alien landers. New office buildings and luxury high-rise condos seem to pop up weekly, obscuring the views of the mountains, the bridges, the Bay. A tsunami of evictions and displacements seems to rise relentlessly, along with home prices and rents. At this writing, it costs, on average, $4,200 to rent a two-bedroom apartment and over a million to buy a house. If, as David Byrne has said, the most important thing an artist needs is cheap rent, then San Francisco is no longer a place for artists. And artists—once drawn here by the city’s storied history— have been fleeing in droves, for Oakland, Calif., Portland, Ore., Seattle and LA."
12
Yeah, well look at the "Deal of the Week" in NYC and tell me about how many "artists" can afford a $30 million condo. The artists will form new colonies elsewhere, and from those colonies, more artists will emerge.
If homeless, filth and crime are the hallmarks of a great city, everyone would be moving to Detroit.
If homeless, filth and crime are the hallmarks of a great city, everyone would be moving to Detroit.
5
I think the article was an opinion piece, not objective reporting.
All of the supposedly widespread discontent and anger described in the story simply parrots the narrative that is enforced here by anti-growth activists and politicians. The viewpoints of people who think changes enabled by the success of the tech industry are positive are rarely heard or acknowledged. This is due to a number of factors, including journalists' bias on both the national and local levels, a self-reinforcing cycle of taxpayer-funded micro-non profits and public employee unions backing the politicians who supply their budgets, and the fact that elected officials make it virtually impossible for anybody who is not a professional protestor to attend or be heard at public proceedings.
The most disappointing aspect to the story, though, is that it left out any mention of how the very people who complain the loudest about the high cost of living, stratospheric real estate prices, and the gutting of the middle class share the blame for these problems. "Progressives" have had de facto control of City Hall for decades now. Their policies and legislation have contributed just as much to evictions, $45 pizzas, traffic gridlock, and an intractable homeless situation as anything the private sector has done.
All of the supposedly widespread discontent and anger described in the story simply parrots the narrative that is enforced here by anti-growth activists and politicians. The viewpoints of people who think changes enabled by the success of the tech industry are positive are rarely heard or acknowledged. This is due to a number of factors, including journalists' bias on both the national and local levels, a self-reinforcing cycle of taxpayer-funded micro-non profits and public employee unions backing the politicians who supply their budgets, and the fact that elected officials make it virtually impossible for anybody who is not a professional protestor to attend or be heard at public proceedings.
The most disappointing aspect to the story, though, is that it left out any mention of how the very people who complain the loudest about the high cost of living, stratospheric real estate prices, and the gutting of the middle class share the blame for these problems. "Progressives" have had de facto control of City Hall for decades now. Their policies and legislation have contributed just as much to evictions, $45 pizzas, traffic gridlock, and an intractable homeless situation as anything the private sector has done.
14
Durga, you want us to hear the viewpoints of "people who think changes enabled by the success of the tech industry" are positive and rarely acknowledged. Yet the changes that you site (and blame on "progressives") are evictions, $45 pizzas, traffic gridlock, and an intractable homeless situation.
I hear you and acknowledge your contribution.
I hear you and acknowledge your contribution.
You wrote >> I think the article was an opinion piece, not objective reporting.
I thought that was explained in the first paragraph. Am I missing something?
I thought that was explained in the first paragraph. Am I missing something?
The author's lament seems a little over-dramatic to this native San Franciscan. The city is much like it's always been, full of cute neighborhoods and oddball characters. There's a Bernie Sanders on every corner here loudly preaching to his or her own choir and the commenters certainly reflect that. But it's been boom and bust since the Gold Rush. I live in a house on a quiet street with neighbors who are nurses and police officers and retired military. It isn't all tech bros and crazy homeless people. The city has its problems but good gracious they're more of the champagne variety than anything else.
25
They all are getting priced out of San Francisco and have moved on to killing Austin, TX.
22
I grew up in Austin and moved to SF in 1970. I believe Austin was the first to fall to the hoards. Only difference is Austin had lovely, rolling hills surrounding it - full of beautiful little creeks and sweet two lane roads overhung by old trees, neat secret caves and hidden swimming holes - all bulldozed now to make way for mile after mile of hideous, monotonous apartment blocks to accommodate all the people rushing in to take a piece of what was special and in the process destroying it. Makes me want to cry.
2
The reality of the situation is that San Francisco is just full of a bunch of nativists who, like Trump, just want to build a wall to keep certain people out of "their" city. The fact that the people they want to live with are hippies does not make it less nativist. Rent control and Proposition 13 make long term tenants and homeowners natural enemies of people moving into the city, who pay the inflated prices caused by protections for those who are already here. Those protections are important, but they have also eroded the market to the point where people now a landlord knows they must set initial rent super high, because somebody may be still paying that amount in 30 years. Newcomers have no fault here.