3 ms·

tptacek, I disagree with you that these tech companies are completely free of blame. They're not 100% blameworthy, but they're not 0% blameworthy either. I thin

by clicks 13y ago

tptacek, I disagree with you that these tech companies are completely free of blame. They're not 100% blameworthy, but they're not 0% blameworthy either. I think burning google effigies is a good PR tactic in renewing, or dramatizing the issue in the public sphere to hopefully instigate needed action as concern zoning laws.

tptacek 13y ago
Most cities look at large-scale, high-salary employers as a good thing; they go out of their way to solicit them, because high-income employees consume fewer services while paying more into the system, and because those employees are extremely valuable to the local retail economy. Most cities would see techies as a good thing: they ride bikes, they buy expensive local coffee, they eat out all the time, they're statistically very unlikely to mug people or steal cars. Why does San Francisco not see things that way? I think I answered that question upthread, but you don't sound convinced. A friend of mine who lives in San Francisco, when asked what he likes about living there, says "it's a postcard city". I agree, but allege that San Francisco is more interested in remaining a postcard than in being a city.
- clicks 13y ago
  At the risk of going more off-topic, but nevertheless answering your question: I judge most things on how they affect people at large. Not just high-salary employers and employees usually from stable households, but normal people that make up the cities. It is kind of a disgusting, spooky thing that we just cater to the well-doing, but ignore the folks who weren't afforded the same opportunities in their lives as the rest of us. It falls on us to level the playing field as much as we comfortably can, so they too can get good education, affordable homes, affordable food. Instead we're depriving them of that, we're displacing them from the homes they've been living in -- there's something very wrong there isn't there.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Generally speaking, improving the tax base of a city should improve education and health care. It doesn't in San Francisco because the city is mismanaged: it spends integer multiples per capita compared to other cities. Meanwhile, housing is expensive in San Francisco because San Francisco makes it difficult to build high-density housing, which it badly needs, because unlike Chicago San Francisco can't grow "out". When Wicker Park was gentrified in Chicago, residents got angry, but then they moved to adjoining neighborhoods. It's possible that many of them kept their kids in the same schools; virtually all of them kept their kids in the same school system. Chicago in 2013 could sustain at least 3 more waves of gentrification, waves that would turn Garfield Park into yuppie restaurant districts, without displacing residents outside of the city boundaries. San Francisco can't do that. Where Chicago has Garfield Park, then Lawndale, then Austin, then a border with a suburb, San Francisco has cold brackish water. When a working class resident of San Francisco loses their apartment, there's a good chance they're not going to be able to remain in the city at all! That makes gentrification in San Francisco far more painful than it is in other cities. There's a solution to this problem, which is to sacrifice some of the postcard beauty of Bayview and the Tenderloin to allow high-density housing. But for reasons other people have described on this thread, the residents of San Francisco are unwilling to do that. So they suffer, and then scapegoat.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  Most cities look at large-scale, high-salary employers as a good thing; they go out of their way to solicit them, because high-income employees consume fewer services while paying more into the system, and because those employees are extremely valuable to the local retail economy. Most cities would see techies as a good thing: they ride bikes, they buy expensive local coffee, they eat out all the time, they're statistically very unlikely to mug people or steal cars. I was in Austin recently and I definitely felt a much more positive energy out there than in California. At first, it was weird. "Wait, people here want people like us to move in?" As an economic arrangement, homeownership is (IMO) a less-than-optimal one-- possibly better than renting but only because the government makes it so-- but it's good for civic virtue because when middle-class people can own houses, there's a focus on making the place better for everyone (since you're planning to be there for several years) rather than this zero-sum mentality you get in the coastal star cities.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Owners vs. renters is of course one of the defining class conflicts of San Francisco.
    - michaelochurch 13y ago
      It's especially hilarious in New York, where purchase prices are now 40-50 years' worth of rent. At that level, buying is a terrible economic decision, unless you're doing it for prestige. People are that desperate to join the owning class, I guess.
      - fiskiran 13y ago
        Is there a generally accepted ratio where it becomes preferable to buy in NYC? You may find sales at 10- to 20-years' rent in the suburbs but I doubt it ever gets that low in Manhattan ever, even during the low points in the real estate cycle. So it seems buying here will always have some speculative component.

by clicks 13y ago

tptacek 13y ago

Most cities look at large-scale, high-salary employers as a good thing; they go out of their way to solicit them, because high-income employees consume fewer services while paying more into the system, and because those employees are extremely valuable to the local retail economy. Most cities would see techies as a good thing: they ride bikes, they buy expensive local coffee, they eat out all the time, they're statistically very unlikely to mug people or steal cars. Why does San Francisco not see things that way? I think I answered that question upthread, but you don't sound convinced. A friend of mine who lives in San Francisco, when asked what he likes about living there, says "it's a postcard city". I agree, but allege that San Francisco is more interested in remaining a postcard than in being a city.

clicks 13y ago
At the risk of going more off-topic, but nevertheless answering your question: I judge most things on how they affect people at large. Not just high-salary employers and employees usually from stable households, but normal people that make up the cities. It is kind of a disgusting, spooky thing that we just cater to the well-doing, but ignore the folks who weren't afforded the same opportunities in their lives as the rest of us. It falls on us to level the playing field as much as we comfortably can, so they too can get good education, affordable homes, affordable food. Instead we're depriving them of that, we're displacing them from the homes they've been living in -- there's something very wrong there isn't there.
- tptacek 13y ago
  Generally speaking, improving the tax base of a city should improve education and health care. It doesn't in San Francisco because the city is mismanaged: it spends integer multiples per capita compared to other cities. Meanwhile, housing is expensive in San Francisco because San Francisco makes it difficult to build high-density housing, which it badly needs, because unlike Chicago San Francisco can't grow "out". When Wicker Park was gentrified in Chicago, residents got angry, but then they moved to adjoining neighborhoods. It's possible that many of them kept their kids in the same schools; virtually all of them kept their kids in the same school system. Chicago in 2013 could sustain at least 3 more waves of gentrification, waves that would turn Garfield Park into yuppie restaurant districts, without displacing residents outside of the city boundaries. San Francisco can't do that. Where Chicago has Garfield Park, then Lawndale, then Austin, then a border with a suburb, San Francisco has cold brackish water. When a working class resident of San Francisco loses their apartment, there's a good chance they're not going to be able to remain in the city at all! That makes gentrification in San Francisco far more painful than it is in other cities. There's a solution to this problem, which is to sacrifice some of the postcard beauty of Bayview and the Tenderloin to allow high-density housing. But for reasons other people have described on this thread, the residents of San Francisco are unwilling to do that. So they suffer, and then scapegoat.
michaelochurch 13y ago
Most cities look at large-scale, high-salary employers as a good thing; they go out of their way to solicit them, because high-income employees consume fewer services while paying more into the system, and because those employees are extremely valuable to the local retail economy. Most cities would see techies as a good thing: they ride bikes, they buy expensive local coffee, they eat out all the time, they're statistically very unlikely to mug people or steal cars. I was in Austin recently and I definitely felt a much more positive energy out there than in California. At first, it was weird. "Wait, people here want people like us to move in?" As an economic arrangement, homeownership is (IMO) a less-than-optimal one-- possibly better than renting but only because the government makes it so-- but it's good for civic virtue because when middle-class people can own houses, there's a focus on making the place better for everyone (since you're planning to be there for several years) rather than this zero-sum mentality you get in the coastal star cities.
- tptacek 13y ago
  Owners vs. renters is of course one of the defining class conflicts of San Francisco.
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    It's especially hilarious in New York, where purchase prices are now 40-50 years' worth of rent. At that level, buying is a terrible economic decision, unless you're doing it for prestige. People are that desperate to join the owning class, I guess.
    - fiskiran 13y ago
      Is there a generally accepted ratio where it becomes preferable to buy in NYC? You may find sales at 10- to 20-years' rent in the suburbs but I doubt it ever gets that low in Manhattan ever, even during the low points in the real estate cycle. So it seems buying here will always have some speculative component.