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At the risk of the grossest generalisation, the Bay Area has worked because it's combined two very different types of people. On the one hand, the engineers/tec
by sbardle 10y ago
At the risk of the grossest generalisation, the Bay Area has worked because it's combined two very different types of people. On the one hand, the engineers/techies (with roots in the defence industry and conservative midwest backgrounds) and on the other, the idealists/utopians (with roots in the counter-culture movement).
Strange bedfellows, but a world-changing combination back then.
I don't live in the Valley now, so can't comment on the situation, but I hear it is far more of a mono-culture now.
- hx87 10y agoIf it is a monoculture now, it's because the engineer culture took on counterculture values while pricing the actual counterculture out of the region. The engineers still have their conservatism in that they tend to think of as many possible failure modes as possible and try to address then when they can. It's just not recognizable as such because the rational, cautious, establishmentarian 1950s conservatism has been almost completely replaced by emotional, religious, populist conservatism.
- pj_mukh 10y agoIt doesn't need to be. If all the tech companies are experimenting with ways to up-end different industries and ways of doing things. The municipality should also invest in experimenting with how to maintain affordability and accessibility and therefore diversity. Currently, the municipality, is geared to just make sure real-estate investor values are maintained. Therefore, the bill mentioned above.
- sbardle 10y agoMaybe it was also just a unique period of history, never to again be repeated.