> The tech industry is not responsible for any of these problems. But it's revealing that through forty years of unimaginable growth, and eleven years of the gr

> The tech industry is not responsible for any of these problems. But it's revealing that through forty years of unimaginable growth, and eleven years of the greatest boom times we've ever seen, we've done nothing to fix them. This bothers me. This bothers me a lot. There are two problems with this. First, it's not tech's problem to fix. It's a city-wide problem. Faulting tech for not solving problems that are not tech's to solve is at best dishonest. Second, this ignores the way that these problems have been codified as unsolvable by the city. For instance, you'll find a lot of support for housing first approaches among the tech community. You'll find virtually zero real support in the city, because that approach requires building housing. We all know how well that goes over. Pretty much any change encounters similar entrenched resistance. So we wind up with a tech community that finds itself incapable of solving problems for everyone. We cannot contribute to our neighborhoods because our neighbors blow their tops when we try. We do the next best thing - we solve problems for ourselves. It's very far from ideal, but at least we can make ourselves a bit less miserable. We're going to get yelled at either way, so we might as well do so in comfort. Want to see this change? Start by looking at why we stop caring about the communities we're in. I know I can't be bothered to care about people who have done their best to make me feel unwelcome from day one. "We don't want your kind here" does not move me to empathy - or funding local artists.