> Protest? I'm confused by what they're protesting. I do know what their stated aim is - driving Google and other tech companies out of San Francisco. I just d

> Protest? I'm confused by what they're protesting. I do know what their stated aim is - driving Google and other tech companies out of San Francisco. I just don't think that it's the right thing to be protesting. There's a shortage of housing because of rent control, restrictions on building new housing, and the fact that San Francisco is a really desirable place to live. The first two are pretty easy to solve - just repeal the laws (The second would be much easier to repeal). I wouldn't want to mess with the third. Yelling at tech companies will not do very much. Even if they leave, other rich people will replace them. > Because they can't afford to live anymore in a city where they have lived their whole life. It's difficult for me to say much other than "Shit happens." The city is really expensive. Space is scarce, and people are willing to pay a premium for it. I don't think that "But I've lived here for my whole life" gives people the right to tell other people, "Sorry, you can't live here." If they owned the land, that would be one thing. But they've rented there for their entire lives. If someone else is willing to pay a higher rent than you, that's the way it goes. And that brings us to this: > Maybe they "chose to buy" but could not afford to. And to phrase your sentence correctly, the landlord has legal right to evict the renters, but that says nothing about the renters' moral right to live there. I could also "choose to buy" a 70-inch television for every room in my house and a new Mercedes-Benz every two years. Just because I make that choice doesn't make it a good one. And if the price of a new Mercedes-Benz goes out of my price range, I'd be on pretty shady ground trying to say, "But I've bought a new Mercedes-Benz every two years for the last thirty years! I have a moral right to get this car!" Lastly, on your comment that people don't choose to be poor - this is definitely true. But it just seems so ridiculous that people would defend buying a luxury (in this case, it's living in an expensive city) and then accuse their detractors of infringing on some moral right to that luxury. You'd laugh in my face if I told you that I had a moral right to have that new Mercedes, right? But for some reason we give these people a free pass when they say, "This apartment is worth millions of dollars, and people are willing to pay $1500 a month to live here. I am entitled to live here for less than that." I can choose not to buy a new Mercedes... which is why I chose instead to drive a shitty Civic. I can also choose not to live in a city where rent is more than half of my salary.