> I still can’t believe that such a wealthy area has such a fundamental problem meeting basic human needs. It doesn't have trouble meeting basic needs despite

> I still can’t believe that such a wealthy area has such a fundamental problem meeting basic human needs. It doesn't have trouble meeting basic needs despite of the wealth, but because of it. Henry George observed this fact (that as cities get wealthier, poverty also increases) way back in the late 1800s, and in SF, funnily enough. This is what his book Progress and Poverty [0] covers, and the title is a reference to this phenomenon. The TL;DR is that as locations get better and progress, much of this wealth gets captured by landowners, because they have an ownership over a monopoly; the supply of land is fixed. This leads to higher land prices and rents, which makes it harder for those on the margins, leading to more poverty. [1] This problem is worse in SF (and CA as a whole), because Prop 13 restricts how much property tax can be collected, which is the primary way the community as a whole can reclaim the wealth extracted by landowners. Blaming tech workers for the problems of Silicon Valley seems a little misplaced, given that most longterm homeowners in the Bay Area not tech workers, and they (longterm homeowners) are the ones who benefit the most from Prop 13, and ever increasing housing costs. The problem in the Bay Area are the landed gentry. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty [1]: A good snippet from the Wikipedia article: > George saw how technological and social advances (including education and public services) increased the value of land (natural resources, urban locations, etc.) and, thus, the amount of wealth that can be demanded by the owners of land from those who need the use of land. In other words: the better the public services, the higher the rent is (as more people value that land). The tendency of speculators to increase the price of land faster than wealth can be produced to pay has the result of lowering the amount of wealth left over for labor to claim in wages, and finally leads to the collapse of enterprises at the margin, with a ripple effect that becomes a serious business depression entailing widespread unemployment, foreclosures, etc.