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Starting your own thing in your garage is one thing, but we have a much bigger problem, in that service industry workers simply can't afford to live within a re

Starting your own thing in your garage is one thing, but we have a much bigger problem, in that service industry workers simply can't afford to live within a reasonable distance of this area, so there's a shortage of that form of labor, despite paying well over minimum wage. Local stores, bakeries and restaurants, are closing down at a fast rate. I've been living here for a long time, and I'm sad to see small businesses being displaced by upscale chains. Downtowns areas which used to be a mix of small businesses and restaurants, are turning into chains of upscale restaurants and shops that are out of my price range (mid range tech worker) We're going to find out what an industry town looks like when all industries but one or two are priced out, and the initial indications aren't very nice.

xeromal 7y ago
You're basically left with hipster restaurants and coffee shops that'll charge 10$ a coffee and 20$ a meal.
e40 7y ago
Service people? Seriously, people who make $100,000 a year will have a lot of trouble living in a nice place and still be able to save for retirement. I don't know how many people in the Bay Area make $100k or less, but I would guess many millions.
echelon 7y ago
I don't know why SF is so popular. It smells bad and is always cold. Atlanta, for instance, has way more culture (rap, hip hop, country, hollywood) and diversity (of race, wealth, background, career, etc). The food scene is phenomenal - I follow people on Instagram to find out where the trendiest midnight pop-ups are. Music is everywhere. Art permeates. It's about as far from a monoculture as you can imagine. I own a huge home in the city and pay less on my mortgage than people in SF pay for rent. It's a cool hipster place too - 1800s cotton mill with 20 foot ceilings. A couple of my coworkers have fairly large machine shops in their homes. Space is practically unlimited here. Food is cheap, rent is cheap, but the experience and lifestyle exceeds expectation. I work for a tech company and make the same wages y'all do. The only thing that sucks here is transit, but I live on the Beltline and walk/bike everywhere, so it's not so much a problem for me. I feel like tech needs an exodus from SF. A lot of the money for innovation is just being handed over to landlords.
- pj_mukh 7y ago
  Tech isn’t a constant pie. For Atlanta to grow, SF doesn’t need an exodus. In fact, the destruction of SF’s tech scene will be a giant blow to North America’s tech sector for a generation. The forced de-agglomeration of tech cities is not an experiment China or India are running. If you want Atlanta to grow, pray SF (and New York, and LA and Vancouver and Toronto) fix it’s real-estate problems.
  - inflatableDodo 7y ago
    >Tech isn’t a constant pie. Is that why it makes wierd spirals?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- notyourwork 7y ago
  SF is popular because the weather is incredible. The bay area has cultural diversity beyond what most cities aside from New York can offer. If you can afford it, SF is a wonderful place but it does have problems big cities with large homeless populations have. When you say "I work for a tech company and make same wages y'all do", I'd be interested in what that number is. edit: To clarify on wages, I'm not trying to have a pissing contest. I'm curious what you consider wages that are same as SF. Frankly, I wouldn't stay here if I didn't make what I make but I also know you won't make the same in most tech companies. I'd leave if compensation was sub $200k.
  - SomeOldThrow 7y ago
    > SF is popular because the weather is incredible. The weather is polarizing, to say the least. Some of us like feeling change, as in through seasons. I fucking hate feeling cold in August. There's about three good weeks of warmth in the year and the rest of the year you need layers.
    - scruple 7y ago
refurb 7y ago
If you check out a lot of neighborhoods in SF you can really see this. The more middle class neighborhoods have lots of small businesses that you'd use - mechanics, bakeries, restaurants, coffee shops, etc. Take a walk through an upper class neighborhood (Noe Valley is a good example) and it's either really expensive versions of the same ($7 for a cupcake? sure!) or weird niche stores that only the wealthy can afford (skin care clinics, high-end clothing, etc).
- eldenbishop 7y ago
  I lived in Noe Valley for 14 years in a rent controlled apartment that quadrupled in value during that time. I was eventually evicted with an owner move-in but during that period I saw all of the useful local businesses close and be replaced with ... 1. Doctor/Dentist offices 2. Real-estate agencies 3. Banking and financial institutions 3. Doomed boutiques riding off the areas old reputation - these always closed within 6 months. 4. Expensive date restaurants or bars serving just enough food to count as a restaurant. Off the top of my head, we lost the newspaper/magazine shop, hardware store, a few cheap restaurants, the glass blowing shop, the running store, a bunch of nice boutiques, the local butcher and most (but not all) of the businesses that made someone want to live in Noe in the first place. We gained a ton of financial and real-estate frontage (useless for day-to-day life) a couple of nice but expensive upgrades like a Whole Foods. All this money and no-one seems to actually spend it on local business, so nothing stays open for long.
  - birken 7y ago
    I used to live right by 24th street right before the whole foods moved in, and I can visualize all of those shops as I walked down the street to Holey Bagel (still going strong!). The little weird boutiques! The running store! But even then I would never go into any of those places. I am fully on board lamenting the fact that numerous one-of-a-kind stores no longer exist in SF because it is not economical for them to do so (RIP Macbeath hardwood), but a lot of those little shops on 24th street were put out of business by Amazon and the internet, not by SF.
    - 7y ago
davinic 7y ago
I was so disheartened to experience this when I visited last fall. I immediately ruled the area out for my move in a couple months.
rcurry 7y ago
I can’t wait for the Amazon Prime Steakhouse.
solidsnack9000 7y ago
The effect of SF’s nativism was to differentially push out all but the nouveau riche — ironic but inevitable because there is no restriction on internal migration in the United States.

xeromal 7y ago

You're basically left with hipster restaurants and coffee shops that'll charge 10$ a coffee and 20$ a meal.

e40 7y ago

Service people? Seriously, people who make $100,000 a year will have a lot of trouble living in a nice place and still be able to save for retirement. I don't know how many people in the Bay Area make $100k or less, but I would guess many millions.

echelon 7y ago

I don't know why SF is so popular. It smells bad and is always cold. Atlanta, for instance, has way more culture (rap, hip hop, country, hollywood) and diversity (of race, wealth, background, career, etc). The food scene is phenomenal - I follow people on Instagram to find out where the trendiest midnight pop-ups are. Music is everywhere. Art permeates. It's about as far from a monoculture as you can imagine. I own a huge home in the city and pay less on my mortgage than people in SF pay for rent. It's a cool hipster place too - 1800s cotton mill with 20 foot ceilings. A couple of my coworkers have fairly large machine shops in their homes. Space is practically unlimited here. Food is cheap, rent is cheap, but the experience and lifestyle exceeds expectation. I work for a tech company and make the same wages y'all do. The only thing that sucks here is transit, but I live on the Beltline and walk/bike everywhere, so it's not so much a problem for me. I feel like tech needs an exodus from SF. A lot of the money for innovation is just being handed over to landlords.

pj_mukh 7y ago
Tech isn’t a constant pie. For Atlanta to grow, SF doesn’t need an exodus. In fact, the destruction of SF’s tech scene will be a giant blow to North America’s tech sector for a generation. The forced de-agglomeration of tech cities is not an experiment China or India are running. If you want Atlanta to grow, pray SF (and New York, and LA and Vancouver and Toronto) fix it’s real-estate problems.
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  >Tech isn’t a constant pie. Is that why it makes wierd spirals?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
notyourwork 7y ago
SF is popular because the weather is incredible. The bay area has cultural diversity beyond what most cities aside from New York can offer. If you can afford it, SF is a wonderful place but it does have problems big cities with large homeless populations have. When you say "I work for a tech company and make same wages y'all do", I'd be interested in what that number is. edit: To clarify on wages, I'm not trying to have a pissing contest. I'm curious what you consider wages that are same as SF. Frankly, I wouldn't stay here if I didn't make what I make but I also know you won't make the same in most tech companies. I'd leave if compensation was sub $200k.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago
  > SF is popular because the weather is incredible. The weather is polarizing, to say the least. Some of us like feeling change, as in through seasons. I fucking hate feeling cold in August. There's about three good weeks of warmth in the year and the rest of the year you need layers.
  - scruple 7y ago

refurb 7y ago

If you check out a lot of neighborhoods in SF you can really see this. The more middle class neighborhoods have lots of small businesses that you'd use - mechanics, bakeries, restaurants, coffee shops, etc. Take a walk through an upper class neighborhood (Noe Valley is a good example) and it's either really expensive versions of the same ($7 for a cupcake? sure!) or weird niche stores that only the wealthy can afford (skin care clinics, high-end clothing, etc).

eldenbishop 7y ago
I lived in Noe Valley for 14 years in a rent controlled apartment that quadrupled in value during that time. I was eventually evicted with an owner move-in but during that period I saw all of the useful local businesses close and be replaced with ... 1. Doctor/Dentist offices 2. Real-estate agencies 3. Banking and financial institutions 3. Doomed boutiques riding off the areas old reputation - these always closed within 6 months. 4. Expensive date restaurants or bars serving just enough food to count as a restaurant. Off the top of my head, we lost the newspaper/magazine shop, hardware store, a few cheap restaurants, the glass blowing shop, the running store, a bunch of nice boutiques, the local butcher and most (but not all) of the businesses that made someone want to live in Noe in the first place. We gained a ton of financial and real-estate frontage (useless for day-to-day life) a couple of nice but expensive upgrades like a Whole Foods. All this money and no-one seems to actually spend it on local business, so nothing stays open for long.
- birken 7y ago
  I used to live right by 24th street right before the whole foods moved in, and I can visualize all of those shops as I walked down the street to Holey Bagel (still going strong!). The little weird boutiques! The running store! But even then I would never go into any of those places. I am fully on board lamenting the fact that numerous one-of-a-kind stores no longer exist in SF because it is not economical for them to do so (RIP Macbeath hardwood), but a lot of those little shops on 24th street were put out of business by Amazon and the internet, not by SF.
  - 7y ago

davinic 7y ago

I was so disheartened to experience this when I visited last fall. I immediately ruled the area out for my move in a couple months.

rcurry 7y ago

I can’t wait for the Amazon Prime Steakhouse.

solidsnack9000 7y ago

The effect of SF’s nativism was to differentially push out all but the nouveau riche — ironic but inevitable because there is no restriction on internal migration in the United States.