4 ms·

I just wish the media didn't make this an "us" vs. "them" situation. This approach is so destructive: it improves the situation for nobody but only fuels class

by lpsz 12y ago

I just wish the media didn't make this an "us" vs. "them" situation. This approach is so destructive: it improves the situation for nobody but only fuels class hate. I remember reading a very long, well-researched, and balanced post from TechCrunch [1] about the housing shortage in SF. Media: more posts like that, please. Help identify underlying issues, flawed policies, or missed opportunities, instead of simply blaming the engineers. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/

mc32 12y ago
It's really ridiculous to say the tech industry is creating more of a problem than it does in helping the population. Before the tech explosion, let's say 1989, San Jose, and in particular, San Francisco, were dumps. The sort of looked like Fresno does today. Downtown San Jose was not a place most people from San Jose would ever venture to. Market St in San Francisco was scary. Maybe people think Fresno, as it is today, is what we'd like the SF bay area to look like. I prefer that it not look like that. Yes, gentrification does have some impact on people on the periphery, and we can't discount that, but on average, the population as a whole is better off. Back in the early '90s, SF's real estate was in a depression. RE agents were moving out, due to the RE market depression. What we have now needs addressing, but it's more of a governmental intervention which is necessary. Intervention to address the housing stock shortage. We need an organization like ABAG to have some executive power. Someone who can say, these will be green areas, these areas we can build up, and we need to bring mass transit here. We need regional governmental integration. Piece-meal works too slowly to adapt to the changes brought on by economic development. It's because the SF bay area is such an economic engine that we have so many people come here and find jobs they cannot find in their home states or counties. If we were in stagnation like Fresno/Bakersfield, we'd have people fleeing trying to find the economic magnet.
- gasull 12y ago
  Or we just need to allow more housing to be built, and soon. Anti-gentrification activists make it even worse since they oppose pretty much every new development. "We don't want luxury condos in our neightbourhood". Then you will have old tiny studios at the price of luxury condos. People don't move to SF because because they look for a luxury condo here. They move to SF because there are jobs.
  - mc32 12y ago
    Buried in what I said, was precisely this point. Allow housing stock to be created. Allow higher density in SF and in the El Camino corridor in SV. It's the activist and old timers who want to keep the area curated to look like it did in 1989 --it's deleterious.
- mahyarm 12y ago
  Is it possible for the california state legislature to create that sort of executive department for the greater bay area to resolve the deadlock? Or is there something constitutional that prevents it?
  - mc32 12y ago
    Good question --I don't know. I think mostly it's people in government, and to some extent, residents, who desire 'local' control over their locales. If we look at NYC, as they grew, they incorporated different areas into the city and eventually grew into the five boroughs there are today. I think something like that might allow better government coordination, better planning for the region.
- timr 12y ago
  "Before the tech explosion, let's say 1989, San Jose, and in particular, San Francisco, were dumps. The sort of looked like Fresno does today." Oh, come on. At least in SF, that's obvious exaggeration: San Francisco had been the west-coast center of the financial industry since before the 1980s, and most of what you see on Market street was built decades (if not a century) earlier. It looked nothing like Fresno. If you're referring to the economic status of the people living at mid-Market, it's equally wrong to use it as an example where "tech" is making things better: The Tenderloin was a blue-collar neighborhood before the war. It gradually descended into property as the rest of the city gentrified around it, leaving few places for working-class people to go. Gentrification absolutely made things worse in the Tenderloin. Mid-Market's decline came as part of the larger Tenderloin decline, but also as the result of BART construction, which killed business on the road in the 60s. SOMA was light industrial in the 1960s and 1970s, but by the late 1980s, this area was beginning to gentrify as well. For example, entire blocks of SRO housing were eliminated during the 1980s to build Moscone Center. About the only thing you can say regarding the "tech industry" is that it's the latest gentrifying wave of many, all of which have undoubtedly made things nicer for rich people, and worse for poor people. It's therefore completely unsurprising that someone in the tech industry would believe that gentrification makes things "better", but it doesn't reflect a lot of empathy.
  - mc32 12y ago
    Yes, before the tech industry, the main source of commuters into the city was the financial industry[1]. My point is that if it were not for the tech boom, SF would be finance and tourism and that economically speaking, the city would be as depressed as Fresno is without the capital provided by tech. Blue collar jobs were moving out --the bedding industry, furniture, etc. had begun moving out a long time ago. Basically people want the economic vitality progress without the gentrifiers --but that's not how it works. Yes, some people will lose out --but overall, you have a stronger more economically stable workforce. Now, in SF we have a problem where even with a good job you can hardly afford new rents. But that's not an issue created by the tech industry, it's an issue borne from bad city planning and NIMBYs --oh, oh, don't build in front of my building, I'll lose sight of the bridge when it's not fogged over. What, no, I don't want shadows from high rises cast over my park[2]. My overarching point is that without tech, the Bay Area would not be the place people come to find good paying jobs --it would be more of a retirement destination and a tourist destination. Let's look at North Dakota, yes, there are homeless despite the boom, but if it were not the for the boom, the state would be in the dull-drums but with shale, whatever you think of it, you have a vibrant economy which attracts all people looking for a way to make a decent living -not everyone will be lucky. That's not to say we should not try to provide for those not lucky (I think we should), but to say that industry creates the "luckless" to me, is disingenuous. Look at the population trends for SF as a proxy for economic vitality in the 70's and 80's: 1970 715,674 −3.3% 1980 678,974 −5.1% 1990 723,959 +6.6% 2000 776,733 +7.3% 2010 805,235 +3.7% 2013 837,442 +4.0% People were moving out --there was no new work to be had in the city. [1]When white collar was basically finance, people used to commute _into_ the city. Whereas now, SF is a place people have a desire to live --it was not always that way. [2]http://sfist.com/2013/07/18/enemies_of_the_tall_four_seasons_re.php http://sfist.com/2013/07/18/enemies_of_the_tall_four_seasons...
timr 12y ago
That was a horrible article. Cutler wrote a lot of words, and presented a lot of (dubiously researched) "facts" (interspersed with bald assertions), but I defy you to find a coherent thesis in the piece, other than "it's complicated...but it's wrong to blame my industry, because it's complicated." The thing read like a bad undergraduate essay, wherein the student decided the thesis ("tech isn't really responsible for the bay area housing crisis!") before doing the research, discovered that the data didn't support her conclusion, then simply chose to overwhelm the reader with disconnected facts in an attempt to distract from the self-evident conclusion that, yes, we really are responsible for the latest spike in housing costs. A more sophisticated analysis acknowledges that foregone conclusion, but then separates culpability from cause: the tech industry is certainly the cause of the latest housing crisis, but that doesn't mean growth in tech is automatically bad (or good, for that matter). Only once you have acknowledged those truths can you proceed forward with a rational discussion on what to do about the problem.
- viscanti 12y ago
  The article wasn't horrible. While it doesn't have any takeaways as far as next steps, it does introduce the idea that things actually are complicated. It's the start of a dialogue beyond just pointing at tech companies. It brings up points that need to be considered in what actually is a complicated situation, and that's better than pretty much everything else that has been written about the subject.
  - timr 12y ago
    The article doesn't go "beyond just pointing at tech companies" -- it tries to paint a picture where the obvious, principle causative agent (the tech boom) isn't responsible for the housing problems in San Francisco. Instead, it must be NIMBYs, or zoning, or owls, or...anything but just acknowledging that we've crammed a bunch of very wealthy tech people into a very small city in a very short time (circa 2007). Once you acknowledge that this is an acute crisis caused by a single industry, you have to consider that one reasonable solution might be to discourage tech companies from coming to the city via taxes, zoning and so on. There is, after all, no inalienable right for startups to have offices in live/work lofts in SOMA. Again, the whole thing was written to appeal to an audience of tech people who want to believe that they're not the problem and shouldn't have to sacrifice, even though the facts clearly point in the other direction. Why should the fabric of a city change instantaneously because a group of relatively entitled new arrivals believe that they somehow "belong" more than the people who arrived before? We can't have a useful conversation that doesn't start from the acknowledgement that tech is a big part of the problem.
hnnewguy 12y ago
>I just wish the media didn't make this an "us" vs. "them" situation. This approach is so destructive: it improves the situation for nobody but only fuels class hate. I agree. And yet, this place is set aflame every time a financial or banking article is posted, questioning when "we" are going to do something about "those people". It isn't constructive, at all.
ams6110 12y ago
The media have been fueling class and racial divides in society since the 1960s, and particularly since Watergate, when journalists started thinking that they were crusaders for social justice rather than reporters of factual events.
marcusgarvey 12y ago
Do you think this article is guilty of blaming the engineers? I thought nuanced views like this were actually quite well represented here: >“It’s not necessarily their fault, but they are stakeholders in the homelessness problem and have the power and brains to change it.” Where are you detecting notes of "us" vs. "them"?
- serf 12y ago
  “Growing up here it was all ranches and orchids, I was a cowgirl. You had everything you could want, and great weather all year round. I don’t blame them all for coming here, but they offer the people who live here nothing,” the author isn't nourishing the concept of 'us vs. them' it with what they wrote, just with the reports from others.
  - marcusgarvey 12y ago
    It reads to me like she's simply sharing her own experience.
anon4000 12y ago
Agree. I actually grew up in the south bay when there were orchards and fields of wild mustard and all. There is this assumption that high tech workers are foreigners or newcomers displacing the locals. It simply isn't true, there are many local residence who work in the industry. We contributed and benefited as much as anyone else. As I see it, we should focus on solving these issues as residence of the Bay Area as a whole. Pitting one group against another will just deplete the political will necessary to make vital policy changes to allow high density housing, mass public transit, raising minimum wage, improving education, etc.

by lpsz 12y ago

mc32 12y ago

It's really ridiculous to say the tech industry is creating more of a problem than it does in helping the population. Before the tech explosion, let's say 1989, San Jose, and in particular, San Francisco, were dumps. The sort of looked like Fresno does today. Downtown San Jose was not a place most people from San Jose would ever venture to. Market St in San Francisco was scary. Maybe people think Fresno, as it is today, is what we'd like the SF bay area to look like. I prefer that it not look like that. Yes, gentrification does have some impact on people on the periphery, and we can't discount that, but on average, the population as a whole is better off. Back in the early '90s, SF's real estate was in a depression. RE agents were moving out, due to the RE market depression. What we have now needs addressing, but it's more of a governmental intervention which is necessary. Intervention to address the housing stock shortage. We need an organization like ABAG to have some executive power. Someone who can say, these will be green areas, these areas we can build up, and we need to bring mass transit here. We need regional governmental integration. Piece-meal works too slowly to adapt to the changes brought on by economic development. It's because the SF bay area is such an economic engine that we have so many people come here and find jobs they cannot find in their home states or counties. If we were in stagnation like Fresno/Bakersfield, we'd have people fleeing trying to find the economic magnet.

gasull 12y ago
Or we just need to allow more housing to be built, and soon. Anti-gentrification activists make it even worse since they oppose pretty much every new development. "We don't want luxury condos in our neightbourhood". Then you will have old tiny studios at the price of luxury condos. People don't move to SF because because they look for a luxury condo here. They move to SF because there are jobs.
- mc32 12y ago
  Buried in what I said, was precisely this point. Allow housing stock to be created. Allow higher density in SF and in the El Camino corridor in SV. It's the activist and old timers who want to keep the area curated to look like it did in 1989 --it's deleterious.
mahyarm 12y ago
Is it possible for the california state legislature to create that sort of executive department for the greater bay area to resolve the deadlock? Or is there something constitutional that prevents it?
- mc32 12y ago
  Good question --I don't know. I think mostly it's people in government, and to some extent, residents, who desire 'local' control over their locales. If we look at NYC, as they grew, they incorporated different areas into the city and eventually grew into the five boroughs there are today. I think something like that might allow better government coordination, better planning for the region.
timr 12y ago
"Before the tech explosion, let's say 1989, San Jose, and in particular, San Francisco, were dumps. The sort of looked like Fresno does today." Oh, come on. At least in SF, that's obvious exaggeration: San Francisco had been the west-coast center of the financial industry since before the 1980s, and most of what you see on Market street was built decades (if not a century) earlier. It looked nothing like Fresno. If you're referring to the economic status of the people living at mid-Market, it's equally wrong to use it as an example where "tech" is making things better: The Tenderloin was a blue-collar neighborhood before the war. It gradually descended into property as the rest of the city gentrified around it, leaving few places for working-class people to go. Gentrification absolutely made things worse in the Tenderloin. Mid-Market's decline came as part of the larger Tenderloin decline, but also as the result of BART construction, which killed business on the road in the 60s. SOMA was light industrial in the 1960s and 1970s, but by the late 1980s, this area was beginning to gentrify as well. For example, entire blocks of SRO housing were eliminated during the 1980s to build Moscone Center. About the only thing you can say regarding the "tech industry" is that it's the latest gentrifying wave of many, all of which have undoubtedly made things nicer for rich people, and worse for poor people. It's therefore completely unsurprising that someone in the tech industry would believe that gentrification makes things "better", but it doesn't reflect a lot of empathy.
- mc32 12y ago
  Yes, before the tech industry, the main source of commuters into the city was the financial industry[1]. My point is that if it were not for the tech boom, SF would be finance and tourism and that economically speaking, the city would be as depressed as Fresno is without the capital provided by tech. Blue collar jobs were moving out --the bedding industry, furniture, etc. had begun moving out a long time ago. Basically people want the economic vitality progress without the gentrifiers --but that's not how it works. Yes, some people will lose out --but overall, you have a stronger more economically stable workforce. Now, in SF we have a problem where even with a good job you can hardly afford new rents. But that's not an issue created by the tech industry, it's an issue borne from bad city planning and NIMBYs --oh, oh, don't build in front of my building, I'll lose sight of the bridge when it's not fogged over. What, no, I don't want shadows from high rises cast over my park[2]. My overarching point is that without tech, the Bay Area would not be the place people come to find good paying jobs --it would be more of a retirement destination and a tourist destination. Let's look at North Dakota, yes, there are homeless despite the boom, but if it were not the for the boom, the state would be in the dull-drums but with shale, whatever you think of it, you have a vibrant economy which attracts all people looking for a way to make a decent living -not everyone will be lucky. That's not to say we should not try to provide for those not lucky (I think we should), but to say that industry creates the "luckless" to me, is disingenuous. Look at the population trends for SF as a proxy for economic vitality in the 70's and 80's: 1970 715,674 −3.3% 1980 678,974 −5.1% 1990 723,959 +6.6% 2000 776,733 +7.3% 2010 805,235 +3.7% 2013 837,442 +4.0% People were moving out --there was no new work to be had in the city. [1]When white collar was basically finance, people used to commute _into_ the city. Whereas now, SF is a place people have a desire to live --it was not always that way. [2]http://sfist.com/2013/07/18/enemies_of_the_tall_four_seasons_re.php http://sfist.com/2013/07/18/enemies_of_the_tall_four_seasons...

timr 12y ago

That was a horrible article. Cutler wrote a lot of words, and presented a lot of (dubiously researched) "facts" (interspersed with bald assertions), but I defy you to find a coherent thesis in the piece, other than "it's complicated...but it's wrong to blame my industry, because it's complicated." The thing read like a bad undergraduate essay, wherein the student decided the thesis ("tech isn't really responsible for the bay area housing crisis!") before doing the research, discovered that the data didn't support her conclusion, then simply chose to overwhelm the reader with disconnected facts in an attempt to distract from the self-evident conclusion that, yes, we really are responsible for the latest spike in housing costs. A more sophisticated analysis acknowledges that foregone conclusion, but then separates culpability from cause: the tech industry is certainly the cause of the latest housing crisis, but that doesn't mean growth in tech is automatically bad (or good, for that matter). Only once you have acknowledged those truths can you proceed forward with a rational discussion on what to do about the problem.

viscanti 12y ago
The article wasn't horrible. While it doesn't have any takeaways as far as next steps, it does introduce the idea that things actually are complicated. It's the start of a dialogue beyond just pointing at tech companies. It brings up points that need to be considered in what actually is a complicated situation, and that's better than pretty much everything else that has been written about the subject.
- timr 12y ago
  The article doesn't go "beyond just pointing at tech companies" -- it tries to paint a picture where the obvious, principle causative agent (the tech boom) isn't responsible for the housing problems in San Francisco. Instead, it must be NIMBYs, or zoning, or owls, or...anything but just acknowledging that we've crammed a bunch of very wealthy tech people into a very small city in a very short time (circa 2007). Once you acknowledge that this is an acute crisis caused by a single industry, you have to consider that one reasonable solution might be to discourage tech companies from coming to the city via taxes, zoning and so on. There is, after all, no inalienable right for startups to have offices in live/work lofts in SOMA. Again, the whole thing was written to appeal to an audience of tech people who want to believe that they're not the problem and shouldn't have to sacrifice, even though the facts clearly point in the other direction. Why should the fabric of a city change instantaneously because a group of relatively entitled new arrivals believe that they somehow "belong" more than the people who arrived before? We can't have a useful conversation that doesn't start from the acknowledgement that tech is a big part of the problem.

hnnewguy 12y ago

>I just wish the media didn't make this an "us" vs. "them" situation. This approach is so destructive: it improves the situation for nobody but only fuels class hate. I agree. And yet, this place is set aflame every time a financial or banking article is posted, questioning when "we" are going to do something about "those people". It isn't constructive, at all.

ams6110 12y ago

The media have been fueling class and racial divides in society since the 1960s, and particularly since Watergate, when journalists started thinking that they were crusaders for social justice rather than reporters of factual events.

marcusgarvey 12y ago

Do you think this article is guilty of blaming the engineers? I thought nuanced views like this were actually quite well represented here: >“It’s not necessarily their fault, but they are stakeholders in the homelessness problem and have the power and brains to change it.” Where are you detecting notes of "us" vs. "them"?

serf 12y ago
“Growing up here it was all ranches and orchids, I was a cowgirl. You had everything you could want, and great weather all year round. I don’t blame them all for coming here, but they offer the people who live here nothing,” the author isn't nourishing the concept of 'us vs. them' it with what they wrote, just with the reports from others.
- marcusgarvey 12y ago
  It reads to me like she's simply sharing her own experience.

anon4000 12y ago

Agree. I actually grew up in the south bay when there were orchards and fields of wild mustard and all. There is this assumption that high tech workers are foreigners or newcomers displacing the locals. It simply isn't true, there are many local residence who work in the industry. We contributed and benefited as much as anyone else. As I see it, we should focus on solving these issues as residence of the Bay Area as a whole. Pitting one group against another will just deplete the political will necessary to make vital policy changes to allow high density housing, mass public transit, raising minimum wage, improving education, etc.