Why San Francisco Is the New Renaissance Florence 250
waderoush writes "Despite legitimate concerns over sky-high rents, Ellis Act evictions, Google Bus traffic, and the like, the San Francisco Bay Area is perhaps the most prosperous, comfortable, enlightened, stimulating, and generative place to live in Western history. For satisfying parallels, you'd have to look to a place like Florence and a time like the Renaissance, argues an Xconomy essay entitled From Cosimo to Cosmos: The Medici Effect in Culture and Technology. Today's coder-kings are working to reinvent economic structures in much the same way Renaissance painters, poets, architects, and scientists were trying to extend the framework they'd inherited from classical Greece and Rome. And in the role of the Medici family, long Florence's most powerful rulers and art patrons, we have people like Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, and Seth MacFarlane. Wait, what — Seth MacFarlane? Yes, the reboot of Carl Sagan's Cosmos starring Neil deGrasse Tyson (itself a tribute to the rise of science) wouldn't have happened without the involvement of a California media mogul. It's true that Silicon Valley can feel like Dante's Inferno if you're stuck in traffic on 101, or working 70-hour weeks as a code monkey at a doomed startup. But 'It would be unthinking, and ungrateful, to overlook the surplus we're reaping from the tech boom,' the essay argues."
Not seeing this (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not seeing this. It's a dull period for San Francisco. The first dot-com boom was more fun. Connecting up everybody and everything was important. This boom is all from ad-based companies, and most of what they're doing is rather banal. So are many of the people doing it.
Almost all the artists who need more than a desk and a laptop moved out years ago. SF used to have lots of big empty warehouse and factory spaces that were used for art projects and wild parties. That's what SOMA was. Those are gone, replaced with "live/work lofts" or giant bullpen workspaces.
I do not get why tech people want to live in the Mission. I've had friends there for years, and it's tolerable, but not a place to live in by choice. Wednesday I went to a stand up comedy improv thing in the Mission where people tried to put together presentions from random PowerPoint slides. Heavy bouncer presence outside because it was right next to a service center for homeless people. The comedy sucked, too. That's what the tech crowd is bringing into the area.
Here's a typical Mission location [google.com], one which also happens to be a Google bus stop. "Cafe la Boheme" has crappy food, and it's had crappy food for years. The place with the graffiti is an upstairs dance studio which is hanging on. "Chinese Food and Donuts" isn't very good at either. That corner has looked the same for many years. There are some decent restaurants a few blocks over on Valencia, but not at this corner. There are cool places to live in SF, but this isn't one of them.
not telling anyone where you're going? (Score:2, Informative)
Don't worry, everyone isn't in the Bay Area because you're here, you egotistical asshole. They're not going to follow you just because you leave.
I think your 18 months timeframe is too long. Why torture yourself with asbestos and mold any longer? Get out now.