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I agree wholeheartedly. I first moved to San Francisco in 1998 for reasons unrelated to tech, and despite becoming a software engineer I cheered the effect the

I agree wholeheartedly. I first moved to San Francisco in 1998 for reasons unrelated to tech, and despite becoming a software engineer I cheered the effect the dotcom crash had on the city. The people who made the city great were being forced out and replaced by young tech workers who largely didn't care about anything other than their careers. The app boom was similarly heartbreaking, only this time most tech workers didn't even need to explore the neighborhoods they lived in -- they could Uber to the front door of any restaurant they wanted, and take tech buses instead of riding their bikes or taking public transportation to get to work. A few years ago I read that the average tenure of a business on Valencia was less than 18 months, which is nothing short of a death sentence for a neighborhood like the Mission. Long times residents no long feel connected to (or were able to take pride in) their neighborhood, and most new residents don't care to to establish those connections -- why bother if the upscale boutique that replaced a multigenerationally owned family business is just going to be gone in a year an a half? I mourn what happened to the city I used to love, but I'm optimistic that the decentralization of tech will leave San Francisco a better place.

astrange 5y ago
> The people who made the city great were being forced out and replaced by young tech workers who largely didn't care about anything other than their careers. I mostly get the impression people leave because they don't want to deal with the school lottery system. As for retirees, they tend to have incredible housing wealth built up - and old people being replaced by young people over time, even if bad, is much better than the alternative. > A few years ago I read that the average tenure of a business on Valencia was less than 18 months, which is nothing short of a death sentence for a neighborhood like the Mission. If you want to have businesses in the Mission, they need cheaper startup costs. That doesn't happen when SF is designed to make new businesses take 2-3 years to open so the planning commission can determine they're sufficiently quaint and precious, and all their neighbors and competitors can sue them looking for bribes.
- robbyking 5y ago
  > I mostly get the impression people leave because they don't want to deal with the school lottery system. In my experience that may be true for the small number of people who leave the city for Marin, Contra Costa or San Mateo counties, but members of the creative communities that gave the city the reputation it had before the tech booms typically don't have children. I can think of countless coworkers with children, but I only know two couples who decided to have children after moving to San Francisco.
- the_mar 5y ago
  Lol, right it's the school lottery (which tbh is shitty) and not all the astronomical cost of housing, high taxes or basic safety/quality of life.
jseliger 5y ago
SF could just build a lot more housing, and that would essentially solve the problems many lament: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/
- varelse 5y ago
  Pre-pandemic if they had done that I probably would have moved there despite passing on a reasonably priced penthouse condo in the mission that has tripled in value back in the early 00s. Post pandemic and post the past 5 years maybe not so much. You get all the density, they've got some huge budget surplus, but it comes with endless annoying petty crime and poop on the streets about which nothing can be done because of political paralysis. I think I'm too old for that now. But it's silly to assume this is San Francisco's last chapter, no?
  - voakbasda 5y ago
    Detroit is still clinging on. San Francisco would be wise to learn from its example. It may not be the last chapter, but it might have been the last good chapter for a while.
- vanusa 5y ago
  SF cannot "just" build massive amounts of housing, in any reality-based sense.
  - EricE 5y ago
    They could if the government and NIMBY neighbors would get out of the way. SF's housing problems are entirely self-created and also very solvable. No one wants to change in order to solve them, so the situation continues to get worse. Decades of single issue voting for idiot politicians leads to idiotic policies that literally are destroying what used to be one of the finest cities in America. People need to stop leaving SF and instead clean it up. But they won't. Like locusts that swoop in, destroy everything in sight and then move on they will leave CA, infest other nearby states and then vote for the same utter bullshit that destroyed the areas they came from. I'm watching southern Nevada slide into shithole status more and more from this right now and it's beyond frustrating.
tdeck 5y ago
> most tech workers didn't even need to explore the neighborhoods they lived in -- they could Uber to the front door of any restaurant they wanted, and take tech buses instead of riding their bikes or taking public transportation to get to work. This feels like a recurring theme I hear from people who resent the migration of so many "tech" (read: software) workers to San Francisco, but each time I wonder if it's legitimate. I took MUNI twice a day for 6+ years, and walked nearly everywhere else. I don't feel like that caused me to meet many people or form any particular connections with the community. I've certainly had more conversations with strangers taking Lyft than I have on MUNI or BART, despite taking Lyft much less often. Public transit isn't some kind of transformative bonding experience. Most people go to work, socialize with a small circle of friends, and have a private life at home. That's not some uniquely antisocial "tech worker" thing, as if everyone else spends much of their time painting street murals or serving in a soup kitchen. Poll the young people you know in other jobs and ask them how many local civic organizations they're involved in; folks don't have the time. I say this having been on the board of a small SF nonprofit for several years.

astrange 5y ago

> The people who made the city great were being forced out and replaced by young tech workers who largely didn't care about anything other than their careers. I mostly get the impression people leave because they don't want to deal with the school lottery system. As for retirees, they tend to have incredible housing wealth built up - and old people being replaced by young people over time, even if bad, is much better than the alternative. > A few years ago I read that the average tenure of a business on Valencia was less than 18 months, which is nothing short of a death sentence for a neighborhood like the Mission. If you want to have businesses in the Mission, they need cheaper startup costs. That doesn't happen when SF is designed to make new businesses take 2-3 years to open so the planning commission can determine they're sufficiently quaint and precious, and all their neighbors and competitors can sue them looking for bribes.

robbyking 5y ago
> I mostly get the impression people leave because they don't want to deal with the school lottery system. In my experience that may be true for the small number of people who leave the city for Marin, Contra Costa or San Mateo counties, but members of the creative communities that gave the city the reputation it had before the tech booms typically don't have children. I can think of countless coworkers with children, but I only know two couples who decided to have children after moving to San Francisco.
the_mar 5y ago
Lol, right it's the school lottery (which tbh is shitty) and not all the astronomical cost of housing, high taxes or basic safety/quality of life.

jseliger 5y ago

SF could just build a lot more housing, and that would essentially solve the problems many lament: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/

varelse 5y ago
Pre-pandemic if they had done that I probably would have moved there despite passing on a reasonably priced penthouse condo in the mission that has tripled in value back in the early 00s. Post pandemic and post the past 5 years maybe not so much. You get all the density, they've got some huge budget surplus, but it comes with endless annoying petty crime and poop on the streets about which nothing can be done because of political paralysis. I think I'm too old for that now. But it's silly to assume this is San Francisco's last chapter, no?
- voakbasda 5y ago
  Detroit is still clinging on. San Francisco would be wise to learn from its example. It may not be the last chapter, but it might have been the last good chapter for a while.
vanusa 5y ago
SF cannot "just" build massive amounts of housing, in any reality-based sense.
- EricE 5y ago
  They could if the government and NIMBY neighbors would get out of the way. SF's housing problems are entirely self-created and also very solvable. No one wants to change in order to solve them, so the situation continues to get worse. Decades of single issue voting for idiot politicians leads to idiotic policies that literally are destroying what used to be one of the finest cities in America. People need to stop leaving SF and instead clean it up. But they won't. Like locusts that swoop in, destroy everything in sight and then move on they will leave CA, infest other nearby states and then vote for the same utter bullshit that destroyed the areas they came from. I'm watching southern Nevada slide into shithole status more and more from this right now and it's beyond frustrating.

tdeck 5y ago

> most tech workers didn't even need to explore the neighborhoods they lived in -- they could Uber to the front door of any restaurant they wanted, and take tech buses instead of riding their bikes or taking public transportation to get to work. This feels like a recurring theme I hear from people who resent the migration of so many "tech" (read: software) workers to San Francisco, but each time I wonder if it's legitimate. I took MUNI twice a day for 6+ years, and walked nearly everywhere else. I don't feel like that caused me to meet many people or form any particular connections with the community. I've certainly had more conversations with strangers taking Lyft than I have on MUNI or BART, despite taking Lyft much less often. Public transit isn't some kind of transformative bonding experience. Most people go to work, socialize with a small circle of friends, and have a private life at home. That's not some uniquely antisocial "tech worker" thing, as if everyone else spends much of their time painting street murals or serving in a soup kitchen. Poll the young people you know in other jobs and ask them how many local civic organizations they're involved in; folks don't have the time. I say this having been on the board of a small SF nonprofit for several years.