Finding the Downside In San Francisco's Tech Boom 373
snydeq writes "The NYTimes reports on the San Francisco's shifting socio-economic landscape thanks to a massive influx of tech workers and tax and regulation breaks to big-name startups. 'In a city often regarded as unfriendly to business, Mayor Edwin M. Lee, elected last year with the tech industry's strong backing, has aggressively courted start-ups. But this boom has also raised fears about the tech industry's growing political clout and its spillover economic effects. Apartment rents have soared to record highs as affordable housing advocates warn that a new wave of gentrification will price middle-class residents out of the city. At risk, many say, are the very qualities that have drawn generations of outsiders here, like the city's diversity and creativity. Families, black residents, artists and others will increasingly be forced across the bridge to Oakland, they warn.'"
So what they're really saying is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Complain, complain..... (Score:5, Insightful)
First they complained because of "suburb flight" where affluent persons moved to the suburbs and left-behind a poor base in the city.
Now they are complaining that the affluent people are moving back in.
I wish they'd make up their mind.
Do they want the upper/middle incomes to leave the city, or stay in the city? Either way, it appears they will wine about it.
Re:Complain, complain..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Complain, complain..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who wants all those well paid, self sufficient people around? What good are people who can't be put into government servitude to the sociopaths in office?
And I love the stealth racism in the summary. Successful people moving in means no black people, or simply that a successful, educated population can't be "diverse".
Re:Complain, complain..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Also I like how they act like the huge Asian population, including one of the biggest chinatowns in America, isn't "diversity".
It's the culture. (Score:1, Insightful)
California is rich in the real resources that these new start ups need. People, and culture. - No really! It's the place to come if you've got good ideas and the drive to execute them. It's also a great place to live if you enjoy being with people that think that way. (In b4 shitstorm of groupthink California hate-on comments. Sorry guys, get your own ideas.) The facebook movie illustrates this idea very well. They went to California because it's the only place they could find the people, talent, places, and other resources to make their idea work. It's the culture.
-
Funny how supposedly business hostile California is home to the most cutting edge, high tech companies in the nation. California is only "hostile to business" if you are in the business courting of govt handouts to corporations or abusing your workers.
Nice summary (Score:5, Insightful)
So there's no way a successful and educated population can be diverse and creative. Got it. I do like to check in on ideologythink now and again.
Why not report on the apparent boon that's coming Oakland's way, what with the tide of diverse and creative refugee artist families heading their way.
Basic Economics! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you make X more desirable, you will likewise make X more valuable. It doesn't much matter what X is as long as X is a finite resource. Whether it's a boom town in North Dakota with rents in the thousands of dollars per month or San Francisco is completely moot. Demand increases value, value increases cost, cost decreases affordability.
Why, oh why, are people surprised by this? This was old news in the times or the ancient Romans. To put it simply, this economics 101, supply and demand in action. Next big surprise story, Chinese factories have long hours for little wages, yet still turn down 10 applications for every job?
as if they truly care about affordable housing.... (Score:5, Insightful)
it takes years to get any large structure built and while you read about politicians and community activist bemoaning the lack of affordable housing you never see real progress. Instead you get locals doing the classic NIMBY maneuver. Oh its fine and dandy if you build it OVER THERE!... which of course the over there crowd don't want it either. Lots of lip service and little action, the point being that the type of construction needed for truly affordable and sustainable housing is not the type that occurs.
then there is the whole concept of what affordable housing really means.
The East Bay is totally cool. (Score:5, Insightful)
Booms are unsustainable. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Overspecialize, and you breed in weakness." - Major Motoko Kusanagi
This situation probably sounds like something somewhere on the scale from no big deal to f'in great if you are a 20-30 something temporarily occupying that space between overpaying employer and overcharging rentier.
Meanwhile, cities can not sustain themselves on these kind of demographic patterns. Cities need all kinds of people working at all income levels to work efficiently. Banishing the working poor to the hinterlands drives up costs (commuting). It also perverts the perspectives of those living on either side of the tracks, where the motivations and plights of each other become alien, leading to misunderstanding and unnecessary tensions.
Sooner or later, these booms become busts or the underlying social structure collapses, leaving dysfunction.
What I want to know is how an industry that constantly sells itself on easy communication and reduced operational friction continues to centralize itself in a way that drives up its own costs of living and makes it physically vulnerable.
Re:Why not just celebrate diversity? (Score:5, Insightful)
Diversity is all about which races you need to have to be diverse.
Racial diversity is not what diversity is all about. Its also about differences that tend to break down on financial lines (though that is often just a coincidence of our societal priorities).
A community where a 1400sq ft. house costs $1m has no place for people who devote their lives to educating children, caring for the victims of unpopular maladies like getting old or mental illness, or even ensuring that basic infrastructure is maintained and protected. When the providers of these services are not part of the community, they invisible to residents, the value that they provide is artificially diminished, as is their incentive to perform or even continue to provide services. This drives quality down, and the cost of raising quality up.
Re:Complain, complain..... (Score:4, Insightful)
My point is that, inevitably those oscillations hurt some people in visible ways. There are also positive effects; but it bleeds, it leads and human-interest sob stuff are always highly visible.
City on an upswing? Here's a story about some colorful local business/resident of 40 years who cannot pay his now tripled rent and is being driven out to make way for a Starbucks and a 'Social Enterprise Incubator'. Artists are hunted down and slain by yuppies, etc, etc.
City on a downswing? Here's an abandoned building, a business going out of business, and a kid who got shot by crack dealers or something, complete with a quote from Police HQ about how terrible budget cuts are for the cops' toy fund.
People don't say(or even necessarily believe) in as many words that "I desire stasis forever and a statistically perfect equilibrium"; but deviations can be painful in quite visible ways for some, even as they are exciting for others.
Asians don't count for diversity (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't pretend to be a victim, you are not welcome as a participant in "diversity".
Re:as if they truly care about affordable housing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Complain, complain..... (Score:3, Insightful)
There's as much diversity there as there is with a whole bunch of Caucasians of European descent.
Actually, they are saying something else (Score:5, Insightful)
They are a New York paper complaining about a competing city getting all the high tech startups and therefore venture capital now that Wall Street has basically self-destructed the New York financial markets. Meanwhile the same paper is reporting that the jobs ax is going to fall again on the banking sector as upper level management throws middle management overboard in order to save their own bonuses: http://news.yahoo.com/wall-st-few-places-hide-jobs-ax-hovers-220146813--sector.html [yahoo.com]
About the only thing that needs changing about San Francisco (and California, in general) is to not have Prop 13 apply to non-residential commercial properties. There would be a quick rebalancing in what gets built.
-- Terry