4 ms·

There are countless takes on this, but I'll add one more: Silicon Valley's failure is in being unable to diversify effectively from a failure in city-building.

There are countless takes on this, but I'll add one more: Silicon Valley's failure is in being unable to diversify effectively from a failure in city-building. For a good stretch, the bay area was the place to be. Lots of people wanted to be there, whether or not they were engineers. The cost of living made these ambitions completely unreasonable, except for the well compensated engineers. Monoculturalism is a failure to diversify, and it stems from an inability to build an effective dense urban region. The bay area could have had human AND financial capital rivaling NYC, a megapolis perhaps in league with Tokyo, but this failed to materialize so instead the region will likely go the way of Detroit: rising and falling in step with the industry it's built around.

kory 6y ago
I think a big challenge here is single family housing with a yard is by far the most desirable housing in the US. I doubt folks would accept a significantly more dense living if they were the engineers of tomorrow. They’d expect the single family home and yard for their work. Where in the USA is this not a challenge? Single family zoning is everywhere and existing residents in most American cities have little reason to want that to change.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  I don't think this is all democratic will. The legal and government structures we have that enable the NIMBYism undermine democracy. Yes, single family homes are the greater meme, but I'm convinced if we actually built the density we need (building and public transit) it would be prosperous and people wouldn't flee it. Simply put, the fact that prices go up in densest parts of SF and NYC basically confirms that there's people that enough people want real cities to bootstrap the process.
- novok 6y ago
  Many engineers of today and tomorrow would much prefer a large apartment in tokyo with SF weather than droll american suburbia and the worst of all worlds that is american city life with bad transit, choking car life and a lack of safety and hygiene due to a failure of public institutions. Millenials have show a preference for good cities, %50+ of SV engineers are immigrants from all over the world. A truely urban SV would be amazing.
tjr225 6y ago
People have been saying SV will be the next Detroit on HN for the past 5 years. I think this might be more of a wish than based in any sort of reality. Perhaps if it _does_ go the way of Detroit then I can afford to move there!
- helen___keller 6y ago
  To be clear, my position on "next Detroit" is > rising and falling in step with the industry it's built around The tech industry is definitely still rising
  - novok 6y ago
    It might definitely be leaving, giving the same result.
Lammy 6y ago
> Silicon Valley's failure is in being unable to diversify effectively from a failure in city-building. What if it's the other way around? Public school didn't teach me about the Second Great Migration of black Americans westward during and after World War 2, and I was unaware that there was basically zero black population here until then. Check out the first graph in particular in this article: https://belonging.berkeley.edu/racial-segregation-san-francisco-bay-area-part-2 https://belonging.berkeley.edu/racial-segregation-san-franci... It's impossible for me to ignore the time correlation between these demographic changes, the civil rights movement, and the birth of California's various anti-housing policies like Prop 13. All the houses in my area of San Francisco had racial deed covenants making it illegal to sell them to non-whites, and this was new construction in the 1940s and '50s! That obviously became illegal in the 1960s so segregation became economic, locking in existing segregation by pricing out newcomers and letting existing residents pass homes to their kids down with no tax reassessment: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OEHRENWBSHNO https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OEHRENWBSHNO
- rcpt 6y ago
  Prop 13 is the root of the issue. It's had an awful effect on minorities and is probably illegal as "disparate impact" under the Fair Housing Act. This paper makes it clear: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3012949 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3012949 I don't know if it's wise to pursue this under Trump's supreme court though

kory 6y ago

I think a big challenge here is single family housing with a yard is by far the most desirable housing in the US. I doubt folks would accept a significantly more dense living if they were the engineers of tomorrow. They’d expect the single family home and yard for their work. Where in the USA is this not a challenge? Single family zoning is everywhere and existing residents in most American cities have little reason to want that to change.

Ericson2314 6y ago
I don't think this is all democratic will. The legal and government structures we have that enable the NIMBYism undermine democracy. Yes, single family homes are the greater meme, but I'm convinced if we actually built the density we need (building and public transit) it would be prosperous and people wouldn't flee it. Simply put, the fact that prices go up in densest parts of SF and NYC basically confirms that there's people that enough people want real cities to bootstrap the process.
novok 6y ago
Many engineers of today and tomorrow would much prefer a large apartment in tokyo with SF weather than droll american suburbia and the worst of all worlds that is american city life with bad transit, choking car life and a lack of safety and hygiene due to a failure of public institutions. Millenials have show a preference for good cities, %50+ of SV engineers are immigrants from all over the world. A truely urban SV would be amazing.

tjr225 6y ago

People have been saying SV will be the next Detroit on HN for the past 5 years. I think this might be more of a wish than based in any sort of reality. Perhaps if it _does_ go the way of Detroit then I can afford to move there!

helen___keller 6y ago
To be clear, my position on "next Detroit" is > rising and falling in step with the industry it's built around The tech industry is definitely still rising
- novok 6y ago
  It might definitely be leaving, giving the same result.

Lammy 6y ago

> Silicon Valley's failure is in being unable to diversify effectively from a failure in city-building. What if it's the other way around? Public school didn't teach me about the Second Great Migration of black Americans westward during and after World War 2, and I was unaware that there was basically zero black population here until then. Check out the first graph in particular in this article: https://belonging.berkeley.edu/racial-segregation-san-francisco-bay-area-part-2 https://belonging.berkeley.edu/racial-segregation-san-franci... It's impossible for me to ignore the time correlation between these demographic changes, the civil rights movement, and the birth of California's various anti-housing policies like Prop 13. All the houses in my area of San Francisco had racial deed covenants making it illegal to sell them to non-whites, and this was new construction in the 1940s and '50s! That obviously became illegal in the 1960s so segregation became economic, locking in existing segregation by pricing out newcomers and letting existing residents pass homes to their kids down with no tax reassessment: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OEHRENWBSHNO https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OEHRENWBSHNO

rcpt 6y ago
Prop 13 is the root of the issue. It's had an awful effect on minorities and is probably illegal as "disparate impact" under the Fair Housing Act. This paper makes it clear: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3012949 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3012949 I don't know if it's wise to pursue this under Trump's supreme court though