11 ms·

East of Palo Alto’s Eden

209 points by erehweb 12y ago

lsiebert 12y ago
This is some excellent long form journalism on how systemic issues have created an absurd divide between Palo Alto and East Palo Alto.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  What does "systemic" mean? How can I determine whether an issue is or is not "systemic"?
  - afarrell 12y ago
    "Systemic" generally means that something arises out of the interaction of parts, not simply being a result of the sum of those parts individually. At least, that's how I use it.
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      If that's the case, then the oppression of nerds (to take an example from current events) certainly qualifies as systemic - it's definitely not based on any individual part of being a nerd. Yet many people have disputed this conclusion in the strongest terms. Does this mean that more definitions of "systemic" are floating around?
      - misuba 12y ago
        Oh, what happens to nerds is definitely systemic in this exact sense. I'd bet the arguments you're seeing are not disputing whether what's happening to nerds is systemic; they're disputing whether it's oppression.
    - blackbagboys 12y ago
      He knows what systemic means in this context. yummyfajitas's shtick is to try to dismiss or derail any discussion of social issues by repeatedly posing disingenuous semantic questions
      - yummyfajitas 12y ago
        Or maybe I'm trying to understand. Discussions like this involve a lot of jargon, non-standard definitions and hidden (or nonexistent?) moral assumptions. I do this in all sorts of discussions when I don't understand the terms. "We want to increase engagement." "How do you define engagement?" "We want the estimator to be robust." "How do you define robust?" You can call a request for clarification of terms "derailing" (or just flag me and call me racist, as many people do), but that makes it look like you simply want to avoid clarity. Asking for clear statements of claims and definitions of terms isn't derailing - it's simply good practice if your goal is understanding.
        dalke 12y ago
        Says the person who thinks that "Disputing definitions is pointless", and implies that definition_yummyfajitas is no worse than any other definition.
        yummyfajitas 12y ago
        Asking what a person means when they use a word is not pointless - it's the only way to understand what they believe about the world. If you say "sound" and precisely define it as "auditory perceptions by a human", I then understand what you mean when you say "a tree falls in the forest and makes no sound". If you don't define "sound", then I might think you mean "a tree falling in the forest creates no vibrations in the air". In contrast, using the word "vibrations" or "fred" instead of "sound" doesn't change the physical behavior of the air. That's why disputing definitions is pointless.
        dalke 12y ago
        Okay, what do you think "systemic" means? What does "pointless" mean to you? What's a "vibration"? Are you a 'person' and how can I tell? You just used all those words, and I would like you to educate me.
    - lsiebert 12y ago
      System: a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole. I meant systemic in the sense of our society being a system.
  - hnriot 12y ago
    it simply means the opposite of local and really I think that's what the parent comment meant. The issues in EPA are local and not systemic.
  - jarsin 12y ago
    that depends on what the definition of "is" is...
  - tlb 12y ago
    You can determine that an issue is systemic when any solution would require major changes all through society. Other classes of issues include "budgetary", "political", "legal", and "personnel". The way you approach each class is different. Although most issues that cross a public official's desk are not systemic, the most publicly debated ones are. That may explain your semantic fatigue around the word.
enlightenedfool 12y ago
"We don’t even want people like you in our subdivisions". It happens even now. I see in our Boston suburb, whites usually abandon apartment communities that increasingly host foreign workers. And that's not because of violence. I really don't find it bizarre and it's perfectly natural. We find ourselves more comfortable among people of our own kind. If that's not acceptable then nationalism too shouldn't be because that's another kind of discrimination and at a different level.
- longlivegnu 12y ago
  >people of our own kind We're all humans? Aren't we all our own kind? There is no need to make further segregation.
  - mc32 12y ago
    While I agree there is no reason to segregate along artificial "racial" lines, with seven billion people its not the same as living in a "tight knit" village. Sometimes foes arise and you need to segregate to that extent. Also in the workforce you need to segregate on ability ; in education among age/development/ability lines.
    - lsiebert 12y ago
      Is ability innate or informed by environment? If you segregate individuals into sub-standard education, you end up with people who's ability doesn't match their potential.
      - mc32 12y ago
        I think both are present. Ever see two siblings go in opposite academic direction from grade school to high school? Yes some is innate on the other hand some kids with great aptitude just don't have the opportunity due to their circumstance
  - Domenic_S 12y ago
    Well, let's be honest, there are groups/divisions of people. Although the biggest divisions are, imo, related to wealth, not race.
elorant 12y ago
First time in the last three years that I bothered reading an article on Techcrunch.
- tomasien 12y ago
  People seem to be downvoting this, probably because they think it doesn't add to the discussion, but I agree and I think it does. It's worth noting that this is WAY WAY different than what TechCrunch usually writes and it's of a significantly higher quality.
- frankchn 12y ago
  If you liked this, I recommend TechCrunch's excellent piece on SF housing issues by the same author: http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/
  - Osmium 12y ago
    > I recommend TechCrunch's excellent piece on SF housing issues by the same author I think we should start paying a lot more attention to authors than to the domain names they write on. Not reading the byline is something I've been guilty of for sure, which is why I'm trying to become a lot more conscious of it now. In this case, both pieces were written by Kim-Mai Cutler.
- e28eta 12y ago
  I'm glad it was all on one page, not paginated
toehead2000 12y ago
They all voted for Obama but god forbid their neighbors look like him.
- ebiester 12y ago
  It's more complicated than that. It's a soft racism -- many are fine with wealthy or well-to-do black neighbors, but do not want poor neighbors. They also don't want to do what is really required to make sure the next generation of black citizens is truly on equal footing, including actual poverty remediation. That means taxes and wealth redistribution.
  - afarrell 12y ago
    Isn't that called "failing at intersectionality"?
  - cpncrunch 12y ago
    I think it's more to do with the fact that most people don't want to live in a violent or crime-ridden area.
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    Wealth redistribution will not be sufficient, there are cultural issues as well.
    - ebiester 12y ago
      That isn't to say "give them $100,000." That is to say it will cost money to put the programs in place to get education on an equal footing, including things like sufficient food subsidies that aren't based on calories but actual nutritive equality, and making sure that these graduates don't have soft discrimination like this: http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html There are cultural issues, to be sure, but they don't all lie on those in poverty.
jefflinwood 12y ago
There's a huge demand for housing of any kind in the Bay Area, so it doesn't surprise me that areas like East Palo Alto and the Bayview are going to face a lot of demographic upheaval, unless new housing units are brought online in other areas. There doesn't seem to be any appetite whatsoever for filling in more of the San Francisco Bay to create land, and there are restrictions and conservation easements on most of the land stretching from 280 to the Coastside. One possible area to expand into would be Coyote Valley, south of San Jose, which was a growth target during the first dot.com bubble in 1999, around a Cisco campus. If Caltrain could put in a station there, along with express lines, that may open up a middle-class area to new housing opportunities.
- lsiebert 12y ago
  But you can't treat those details, the restrictions on growth, the way that poor people were pushed into substandard locations that only now face demand, the lack of new housing elsewhere, as something that just happened. These are systemic issues.
  - jefflinwood 12y ago
    Nothing about this has just happened - if you read the article, they even have a link to a 1994 article in the Christian Science Monitor about the divide between East Palo Alto and Palo Alto. Rent control ordinances in East Palo Alto probably help the current community stay in place (unlike other Peninsula towns). The article also explains the role of subprime loans (in the context of refinancing for existing homeowners) in causing a loss of home equity with the existing community, especially between 2003-2008, which was in-between the booms in the SF Bay Area.
    - lsiebert 12y ago
      Yeah, if it wasn't clear, that's what I was saying.
- hijinks 12y ago
  problem is no one with money is taking a chance there. Everyone with money goes to other areas that have more of a chance to turn into a "good" neighborhood.
dluan 12y ago
When we first moved down to the bay area for YC, we moved into a new development house in EPA right next to Ikea. I frequently joke that EPA is not the same as Palo Alto, and while the rest of our batchmates had apartments in dowtown Mountain View or houses in the Los Altos hills, I really enjoyed living in EPA. It was grimy, I'd frequently hear cop car sirens at 4 in the morning. And, there wasn't much to do in the immediate area unless you wanted to cross the freeway into Palo Alto. Being there was always a stark reminder of how little that community had, and also how little we had compared to all of the riches around us. Being there felt appropriate for us. I appreciate my time in EPA, because it was a little microcosm that trapped some of the larger, harder problems of the real-world, hidden inside the bubble that is silicon valley.
- toehead2000 12y ago
  Such bravery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness
  - AndrewKemendo 12y ago
    This doesn't add anything of value to the discussion.
- salemh 12y ago
  Link below is dead dismissing your comment. To be honest, I'm not sure why your own comment adds to the discussion either. I appreciate my time in EPA, because it was a little microcosm that trapped some of the larger, harder problems of the real-world, hidden inside the bubble that is silicon valley. I suppose it is that. [1] dead link made a snarky comment towards bravery and a movie flick.
  - lmm 12y ago
    I've heard Heart of Darkness called many things, but not "movie flick". It's a novel, or novella if you want to get fancy.
  - dluan 12y ago
Stratoscope 12y ago
The redlining maps of San Francisco and Oakland are interesting, but their resolution is artificially limited. You can see the full resolution maps by removing the height and width parameters from the URLs: https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/nbnlkqxeiyyjuhtg.jpg https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/nbnlkqx... https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/oakland.jpg https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/oakland...
- thrownaway2424 12y ago
  A good use of these maps is to wave them under the noses of real estate agents and inform them that it is the Western Addition, not Pacific Heights.
IndianAstronaut 12y ago
White flight is still an occurrence today in the bay area. For different reasons though. Cupertino is very heavily Asian dominated and many whites move to south San Jose or other areas.
- lern_too_spel 12y ago
  Not sure why you're getting downvoted. This has been true for more than a decade. The remaining non-Asians in Cupertino have been sending their kids to private schools in higher numbers. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113236377590902105 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113236377590902105
bjones22 12y ago
I grew up in Redwood City and maintain very close friendships with high school teammates from EPA. This article caused me to make an account on hacker news so I could share a not so unique, but perhaps unheard, perspective on what it means to have a community like East Palo Alto (a.k.a. 'EPA') in the middle of silicon valley. EDIT: this post quickly digressed into a four page behemoth that was too long to post in a single comment. It's long and I fear the formatting would have been awful. I will put up a WP site sometime tomorrow so that I may edit it and format it nicely. Below is a brief excerpt from the end. I'll make an edit to this post as soon as the WP site is up. ---------------------- If anything is to be taken away from my experience and these stories is that the men and women who are forced to grow up in this environment live in cyclical state of despair. A vacuum that requires quite nearly a winning lottery ticket to escape. For it to be located so close to the affluent areas of silicon valley is practically criminal. It is eerily close to being the pit in which Bane grew up in during the Batman movies, the one where he lived in a prison that could see freedom and happiness just a couple hundred feet away. If I make any sort of dime in Silicon Valley I fully intend to research and hopefully participate in philanthropy that will contribute to problems such as these. I believe it becomes our responsibility when it is in our own back yard.
- mc32 12y ago
  To me this community being next to an affluent community is neither here nor there. It would not be better if it were in Yolo county. If I were in the same economic position as a resident, I'd prefer to be close to an affluent area --at least there are second and third tier jobs to be had not too far(probably anyone who is able to secure a first tier job would no longer stay in the community). But if you're in a trailer park in Yolo county, what are the prospects there? Also, let's not forget the myriad trailer parks which dot bay area cities and towns. They're hidden behind freeway sound abatement walls so people forget about them but they have it pretty tough as well.
  - bjones22 12y ago
    I was just considering the same point. While I didn't answer it in the first draft of the accidental essay I just wrote, I'll include it in the second. The jest is that by having two disparate groups so close to each other, it encourages an us versus them mentality that discourages community members from embracing some of the attributes of the other group (in the case of my essay it would be education, because I write a lot about the different ethos that students had depending on which region they lived in). Regardless I believe your points still have a large amount of merit. Especially the last which points out how those that are fortunate tend to alternate between fads of 'caring' for various less fortunate groups, in this case it is that of East Palo Alto.
gyc 12y ago
While the article is well worth reading, I was bothered by the article implicitly defining Asians as not counting towards a diverse workforce. I admit my point is unrelated to the bigger points of the article.
- mc32 12y ago
  This is quite true. Recently I've seen where neither Chinese nor Indians are counted as minorities. I think what happens is once a minority makes it then you're no longer considered a minority in some discussions... It should be noted Chinese in California were highly discriminated against in law till the 50s and 60s (could not own land, for example) so its not as though they had it "easy". They had to work hard to get to where they are. on the other hand I get it we want to lift up the classes which have not made it yet so once a current minority makes it we work toward integrating left out minorities till one day no one is a minority, economically speaking
  - ecspike 12y ago
    I read it as more so that Chinese and Indians are overrepresented by population in tech sector jobs. So while they are culturally minorities, in the workforce that might not be the case.
    - yen223 12y ago
      Don't forget that the tech sector hires globally, and Chinese and Indians are the majority ethnicities in the world.
      - tokenadult 12y ago
        Perhaps you meant "plurality ethnicities of the world," which is basically correct mathematically. A world with lots of ethnicities would be hard put to have two majority ethnicities. Wordage quibble aside, yes, I would expect analysis of workplace diversity in the United States to treat east Asian people and south Asian people (who in both groups in the United States are mostly recent immigrants, often but not always from families with fairly high levels of completed schooling and occupations with above-median salaries) as contributing to workplace diversity differently from other minority ethnic groups in the United States, as counted in official statistics, because those groups often include people from families who have historically been poor and with lower rates of completed schooling and lower salaries than the national average. It would be unrealistic to expect workers in any one local workforce of a particular occupation to match exactly the overall national ethnic proportion (or even the overall national male:female ratio). Local distributions of people by ethnicity are not the same as the national distribution, in almost every locality, and preferences for pursuing various occupations are not culturally the same across all ethnic groups. But socially perceived ethnicity also influences personal opportunities,[1] so smart employers go out of their way to look for talented people who have something to contribute not just in the usual places, but in all the places the employers' desire to hire talented people can be communicated. [1] http://pgbovine.net/tech-privilege.htm http://pgbovine.net/tech-privilege.htm
bcx 12y ago
If you liked this article, you might like the movie Dreams of a City, which talks about the creation of East Palo Alto: http://vimeo.com/23458988 http://vimeo.com/23458988 EPA's has a really interesting history, back in the 1920s an entrepreneur by the name of Charles Weeks started a Poultry Colony, preaching "one acre and independence". (http://www.paloaltoonline.com/print/story/2008/04/16/one-acre-and-independence http://www.paloaltoonline.com/print/story/2008/04/16/one-acr... , http://www.santaclararesearch.net/SCBIOS/cweeks.html http://www.santaclararesearch.net/SCBIOS/cweeks.html) - you can still see the remnants of this in the structure of the lots along Runnymede street. http://epawiki.pbworks.com/f/Remnants+of+a+Failed+Utopia.pdf http://epawiki.pbworks.com/f/Remnants+of+a+Failed+Utopia.pdf
mpweiher 12y ago
While the article is an interesting read overall (didn't know about the connection to "Dangerous Minds"), it perpetuates the myth that Palo Alto Airport was imposed on an existing poor/ethnic community. This is not true, the airport preceded other development, having been opened prior to World War 2.[1] There were similar voices after the twin-engine Cessna crash as to the outrage of building an airport next to (inexpensive) housing[2]. The causality is reversed from the truth: the housing was/is cheap because there was a pre-existing airport. (And routes do not go over East Palo Alto's residential areas). (Oh, and the starting photo brings back memories of entering the pattern to land) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto_Airport_of_Santa_Clara_County http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto_Airport_of_Santa_Clar... [2] http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0217/Tesla-plane-crash-Concern-about-airports-near-neighborhoods http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0217/Tesla-plane-crash-Con...
- MilnerRoute 12y ago
  "Dangerous Minds" was actually based on a school in Belmont, California (according to Wikipedia). Some of the students in that school were from East Palo Alto, but the article is conflating the two. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangerous_Minds I assume that's an innocent mistake, and not an attempt to make the city sound more dangerous than it is.
- ktothemc 12y ago
  Yes, that was my mistake about the airport and I corrected it.
  - mpweiher 12y ago
    Fantastic!
lrvick 12y ago
Decided to start over in the bay area last year with my wife. Our housing criteria was: central to everything (I have locations of interest all over the bay), Within walking distance of my job (Downtown Palo Alto), 1 bedroom, low rent (under $2k/mo), 100Mb+ internet, and the ability to move in right away. Everyone told me that was impossible. EPA however met all that criteria perfectly. Landed on a Friday, picked out an apartment over the weekend, and had the keys on Monday. Unlike many areas in the bay, demand is fairly low in EPA and there are available apartments everywhere. Despite being a perfect fit for my needs, never did I realize what kind of judgement I would get from so many people for living here. I get a shocked expression almost every time I mention I live in EPA. Some people even get angry. "Why would you drag your wife to place like that?!?!". Many people I know when shopping for apartments themselves openly say there is no way they could ever live somewhere so "unsafe" and just consider my wife and I to be "lucky" or "living dangerously". The very idea that a white couple with a tech job income would -choose- to live in EPA blows peoples minds. I used to just tell people I live in Palo Alto to avoid the judgement, but now I happily claim it and discuss the misconceptions. My wife and I are pretty happy with all our ideals met. We won at housing by ignoring meaningless stigma and will be squatting here for a while. Might even buy a house while the market is still 1/4. Property value here is sure to soar once people realize the "murder capitol" age is distant history. The stigma from past history is incredibly present, but the _reality_ is this is one of the safest feeling places I have ever lived. (And I have lived a lot of places)
- hueving 12y ago
  Interesting. I'm hunting for a new place on the Peninsula after getting bent over a barrel by my current landlord. Have you had any issues with car breaking or other nonviolent crimes? Do you see lots of 'street youths' loitering so to speak? :)
  - lrvick 12y ago
    Nothing of the sort. Mostly children playing kickball all day where I am.
- e40 12y ago
nawitus 12y ago
Pretty funny that Wikipedia states East Palo Alto had "only" five murders in 2008, even though the population is 28000. From an European perspective even a single murder would be significant..
- adventured 12y ago
  That really depends on what part of Europe you're talking about. Russia has around a 10 to 12 per 100,000 murder rate. Belarus is around a 5.7 per 100k. Tallinn is over 7 and Tirana is over 6, and Chishinau is near 6, Riga is 5.4, Vilnius is 5.4, Amsterdam is 4.4. The murder rate in NYC is lower than those for example at about 4 per 100k. The US murder rate is about 4.7, so it's comparable to Amsterdam as a whole country of 320 million people, including the extremely violent parts of the US. The murder rate in Boise Idaho is about 1 or 2 per 100k typically. Seattle is in the 3's these days, comparable to Brussels. Mesa Arizona has half a million people at a 3 murder rate; Portland is around 600k at the same. San Diego is at around 1.35 million people with a 3.x murder rate. The US has numerous cities with severe murder problems, and it also has a lot of cities without such. You can find many cities in the six figure population zone with murder rates of 1 or 2 per 100k. Ultimately in the US you can live in whatever kind of world you feel like living in.
  - nawitus 12y ago
    The typical intentional homicide rate in Western and Nordic Europe is slightly more than 1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...), which is a large contrast to about 18 of EPA.
    - adventured 12y ago
      Which is exactly why I was specific: it depends on which part of Europe you're talking about. Nordic countries have about 25 million people total. Well, the US has 320 million people, and a lot more people in the US live under a 1.x murder rate than do in Nordic countries. I typically see people make comparisons using the Nordic countries for everything in Europe, while ignoring the half of Europe that is problematic for those comparisons. The US compares extraordinarily well to the Nordic countries, if you want to do an Apples to Apples comparison, since the Nordics represent the elite outcomes of Europe - then let's compare using the elite outcomes of the US; ie the top 10% of Europe vs the top 10% of the US.

209 points by erehweb 12y ago

This is some excellent long form journalism on how systemic issues have created an absurd divide between Palo Alto and East Palo Alto.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
What does "systemic" mean? How can I determine whether an issue is or is not "systemic"?
- afarrell 12y ago
  "Systemic" generally means that something arises out of the interaction of parts, not simply being a result of the sum of those parts individually. At least, that's how I use it.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    If that's the case, then the oppression of nerds (to take an example from current events) certainly qualifies as systemic - it's definitely not based on any individual part of being a nerd. Yet many people have disputed this conclusion in the strongest terms. Does this mean that more definitions of "systemic" are floating around?
    - misuba 12y ago
      Oh, what happens to nerds is definitely systemic in this exact sense. I'd bet the arguments you're seeing are not disputing whether what's happening to nerds is systemic; they're disputing whether it's oppression.
  - blackbagboys 12y ago
    He knows what systemic means in this context. yummyfajitas's shtick is to try to dismiss or derail any discussion of social issues by repeatedly posing disingenuous semantic questions
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      Or maybe I'm trying to understand. Discussions like this involve a lot of jargon, non-standard definitions and hidden (or nonexistent?) moral assumptions. I do this in all sorts of discussions when I don't understand the terms. "We want to increase engagement." "How do you define engagement?" "We want the estimator to be robust." "How do you define robust?" You can call a request for clarification of terms "derailing" (or just flag me and call me racist, as many people do), but that makes it look like you simply want to avoid clarity. Asking for clear statements of claims and definitions of terms isn't derailing - it's simply good practice if your goal is understanding.
      - dalke 12y ago
        Says the person who thinks that "Disputing definitions is pointless", and implies that definition_yummyfajitas is no worse than any other definition.
        yummyfajitas 12y ago
        Asking what a person means when they use a word is not pointless - it's the only way to understand what they believe about the world. If you say "sound" and precisely define it as "auditory perceptions by a human", I then understand what you mean when you say "a tree falls in the forest and makes no sound". If you don't define "sound", then I might think you mean "a tree falling in the forest creates no vibrations in the air". In contrast, using the word "vibrations" or "fred" instead of "sound" doesn't change the physical behavior of the air. That's why disputing definitions is pointless.
        dalke 12y ago
        Okay, what do you think "systemic" means? What does "pointless" mean to you? What's a "vibration"? Are you a 'person' and how can I tell? You just used all those words, and I would like you to educate me.
  - lsiebert 12y ago
    System: a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole. I meant systemic in the sense of our society being a system.
- hnriot 12y ago
  it simply means the opposite of local and really I think that's what the parent comment meant. The issues in EPA are local and not systemic.
- jarsin 12y ago
  that depends on what the definition of "is" is...
- tlb 12y ago
  You can determine that an issue is systemic when any solution would require major changes all through society. Other classes of issues include "budgetary", "political", "legal", and "personnel". The way you approach each class is different. Although most issues that cross a public official's desk are not systemic, the most publicly debated ones are. That may explain your semantic fatigue around the word.

enlightenedfool 12y ago

"We don’t even want people like you in our subdivisions". It happens even now. I see in our Boston suburb, whites usually abandon apartment communities that increasingly host foreign workers. And that's not because of violence. I really don't find it bizarre and it's perfectly natural. We find ourselves more comfortable among people of our own kind. If that's not acceptable then nationalism too shouldn't be because that's another kind of discrimination and at a different level.

longlivegnu 12y ago
>people of our own kind We're all humans? Aren't we all our own kind? There is no need to make further segregation.
- mc32 12y ago
  While I agree there is no reason to segregate along artificial "racial" lines, with seven billion people its not the same as living in a "tight knit" village. Sometimes foes arise and you need to segregate to that extent. Also in the workforce you need to segregate on ability ; in education among age/development/ability lines.
  - lsiebert 12y ago
    Is ability innate or informed by environment? If you segregate individuals into sub-standard education, you end up with people who's ability doesn't match their potential.
    - mc32 12y ago
      I think both are present. Ever see two siblings go in opposite academic direction from grade school to high school? Yes some is innate on the other hand some kids with great aptitude just don't have the opportunity due to their circumstance
- Domenic_S 12y ago
  Well, let's be honest, there are groups/divisions of people. Although the biggest divisions are, imo, related to wealth, not race.

elorant 12y ago

First time in the last three years that I bothered reading an article on Techcrunch.

tomasien 12y ago
People seem to be downvoting this, probably because they think it doesn't add to the discussion, but I agree and I think it does. It's worth noting that this is WAY WAY different than what TechCrunch usually writes and it's of a significantly higher quality.
frankchn 12y ago
If you liked this, I recommend TechCrunch's excellent piece on SF housing issues by the same author: http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/
- Osmium 12y ago
  > I recommend TechCrunch's excellent piece on SF housing issues by the same author I think we should start paying a lot more attention to authors than to the domain names they write on. Not reading the byline is something I've been guilty of for sure, which is why I'm trying to become a lot more conscious of it now. In this case, both pieces were written by Kim-Mai Cutler.
e28eta 12y ago
I'm glad it was all on one page, not paginated

toehead2000 12y ago

They all voted for Obama but god forbid their neighbors look like him.

ebiester 12y ago
It's more complicated than that. It's a soft racism -- many are fine with wealthy or well-to-do black neighbors, but do not want poor neighbors. They also don't want to do what is really required to make sure the next generation of black citizens is truly on equal footing, including actual poverty remediation. That means taxes and wealth redistribution.
- afarrell 12y ago
  Isn't that called "failing at intersectionality"?
- cpncrunch 12y ago
  I think it's more to do with the fact that most people don't want to live in a violent or crime-ridden area.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  Wealth redistribution will not be sufficient, there are cultural issues as well.
  - ebiester 12y ago
    That isn't to say "give them $100,000." That is to say it will cost money to put the programs in place to get education on an equal footing, including things like sufficient food subsidies that aren't based on calories but actual nutritive equality, and making sure that these graduates don't have soft discrimination like this: http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html There are cultural issues, to be sure, but they don't all lie on those in poverty.

jefflinwood 12y ago

There's a huge demand for housing of any kind in the Bay Area, so it doesn't surprise me that areas like East Palo Alto and the Bayview are going to face a lot of demographic upheaval, unless new housing units are brought online in other areas. There doesn't seem to be any appetite whatsoever for filling in more of the San Francisco Bay to create land, and there are restrictions and conservation easements on most of the land stretching from 280 to the Coastside. One possible area to expand into would be Coyote Valley, south of San Jose, which was a growth target during the first dot.com bubble in 1999, around a Cisco campus. If Caltrain could put in a station there, along with express lines, that may open up a middle-class area to new housing opportunities.

lsiebert 12y ago
But you can't treat those details, the restrictions on growth, the way that poor people were pushed into substandard locations that only now face demand, the lack of new housing elsewhere, as something that just happened. These are systemic issues.
- jefflinwood 12y ago
  Nothing about this has just happened - if you read the article, they even have a link to a 1994 article in the Christian Science Monitor about the divide between East Palo Alto and Palo Alto. Rent control ordinances in East Palo Alto probably help the current community stay in place (unlike other Peninsula towns). The article also explains the role of subprime loans (in the context of refinancing for existing homeowners) in causing a loss of home equity with the existing community, especially between 2003-2008, which was in-between the booms in the SF Bay Area.
  - lsiebert 12y ago
    Yeah, if it wasn't clear, that's what I was saying.
hijinks 12y ago
problem is no one with money is taking a chance there. Everyone with money goes to other areas that have more of a chance to turn into a "good" neighborhood.

dluan 12y ago

When we first moved down to the bay area for YC, we moved into a new development house in EPA right next to Ikea. I frequently joke that EPA is not the same as Palo Alto, and while the rest of our batchmates had apartments in dowtown Mountain View or houses in the Los Altos hills, I really enjoyed living in EPA. It was grimy, I'd frequently hear cop car sirens at 4 in the morning. And, there wasn't much to do in the immediate area unless you wanted to cross the freeway into Palo Alto. Being there was always a stark reminder of how little that community had, and also how little we had compared to all of the riches around us. Being there felt appropriate for us. I appreciate my time in EPA, because it was a little microcosm that trapped some of the larger, harder problems of the real-world, hidden inside the bubble that is silicon valley.

toehead2000 12y ago
Such bravery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  This doesn't add anything of value to the discussion.
salemh 12y ago
Link below is dead dismissing your comment. To be honest, I'm not sure why your own comment adds to the discussion either. I appreciate my time in EPA, because it was a little microcosm that trapped some of the larger, harder problems of the real-world, hidden inside the bubble that is silicon valley. I suppose it is that. [1] dead link made a snarky comment towards bravery and a movie flick.
- lmm 12y ago
  I've heard Heart of Darkness called many things, but not "movie flick". It's a novel, or novella if you want to get fancy.
- dluan 12y ago

Stratoscope 12y ago

The redlining maps of San Francisco and Oakland are interesting, but their resolution is artificially limited. You can see the full resolution maps by removing the height and width parameters from the URLs: https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/nbnlkqxeiyyjuhtg.jpg https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/nbnlkqx... https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/oakland.jpg https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/oakland...

thrownaway2424 12y ago
A good use of these maps is to wave them under the noses of real estate agents and inform them that it is the Western Addition, not Pacific Heights.

IndianAstronaut 12y ago

White flight is still an occurrence today in the bay area. For different reasons though. Cupertino is very heavily Asian dominated and many whites move to south San Jose or other areas.

lern_too_spel 12y ago
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. This has been true for more than a decade. The remaining non-Asians in Cupertino have been sending their kids to private schools in higher numbers. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113236377590902105 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113236377590902105

bjones22 12y ago

I grew up in Redwood City and maintain very close friendships with high school teammates from EPA. This article caused me to make an account on hacker news so I could share a not so unique, but perhaps unheard, perspective on what it means to have a community like East Palo Alto (a.k.a. 'EPA') in the middle of silicon valley. EDIT: this post quickly digressed into a four page behemoth that was too long to post in a single comment. It's long and I fear the formatting would have been awful. I will put up a WP site sometime tomorrow so that I may edit it and format it nicely. Below is a brief excerpt from the end. I'll make an edit to this post as soon as the WP site is up. ---------------------- If anything is to be taken away from my experience and these stories is that the men and women who are forced to grow up in this environment live in cyclical state of despair. A vacuum that requires quite nearly a winning lottery ticket to escape. For it to be located so close to the affluent areas of silicon valley is practically criminal. It is eerily close to being the pit in which Bane grew up in during the Batman movies, the one where he lived in a prison that could see freedom and happiness just a couple hundred feet away. If I make any sort of dime in Silicon Valley I fully intend to research and hopefully participate in philanthropy that will contribute to problems such as these. I believe it becomes our responsibility when it is in our own back yard.

mc32 12y ago
To me this community being next to an affluent community is neither here nor there. It would not be better if it were in Yolo county. If I were in the same economic position as a resident, I'd prefer to be close to an affluent area --at least there are second and third tier jobs to be had not too far(probably anyone who is able to secure a first tier job would no longer stay in the community). But if you're in a trailer park in Yolo county, what are the prospects there? Also, let's not forget the myriad trailer parks which dot bay area cities and towns. They're hidden behind freeway sound abatement walls so people forget about them but they have it pretty tough as well.
- bjones22 12y ago
  I was just considering the same point. While I didn't answer it in the first draft of the accidental essay I just wrote, I'll include it in the second. The jest is that by having two disparate groups so close to each other, it encourages an us versus them mentality that discourages community members from embracing some of the attributes of the other group (in the case of my essay it would be education, because I write a lot about the different ethos that students had depending on which region they lived in). Regardless I believe your points still have a large amount of merit. Especially the last which points out how those that are fortunate tend to alternate between fads of 'caring' for various less fortunate groups, in this case it is that of East Palo Alto.

gyc 12y ago

While the article is well worth reading, I was bothered by the article implicitly defining Asians as not counting towards a diverse workforce. I admit my point is unrelated to the bigger points of the article.

mc32 12y ago
This is quite true. Recently I've seen where neither Chinese nor Indians are counted as minorities. I think what happens is once a minority makes it then you're no longer considered a minority in some discussions... It should be noted Chinese in California were highly discriminated against in law till the 50s and 60s (could not own land, for example) so its not as though they had it "easy". They had to work hard to get to where they are. on the other hand I get it we want to lift up the classes which have not made it yet so once a current minority makes it we work toward integrating left out minorities till one day no one is a minority, economically speaking
- ecspike 12y ago
  I read it as more so that Chinese and Indians are overrepresented by population in tech sector jobs. So while they are culturally minorities, in the workforce that might not be the case.
  - yen223 12y ago
    Don't forget that the tech sector hires globally, and Chinese and Indians are the majority ethnicities in the world.
    - tokenadult 12y ago
      Perhaps you meant "plurality ethnicities of the world," which is basically correct mathematically. A world with lots of ethnicities would be hard put to have two majority ethnicities. Wordage quibble aside, yes, I would expect analysis of workplace diversity in the United States to treat east Asian people and south Asian people (who in both groups in the United States are mostly recent immigrants, often but not always from families with fairly high levels of completed schooling and occupations with above-median salaries) as contributing to workplace diversity differently from other minority ethnic groups in the United States, as counted in official statistics, because those groups often include people from families who have historically been poor and with lower rates of completed schooling and lower salaries than the national average. It would be unrealistic to expect workers in any one local workforce of a particular occupation to match exactly the overall national ethnic proportion (or even the overall national male:female ratio). Local distributions of people by ethnicity are not the same as the national distribution, in almost every locality, and preferences for pursuing various occupations are not culturally the same across all ethnic groups. But socially perceived ethnicity also influences personal opportunities,[1] so smart employers go out of their way to look for talented people who have something to contribute not just in the usual places, but in all the places the employers' desire to hire talented people can be communicated. [1] http://pgbovine.net/tech-privilege.htm http://pgbovine.net/tech-privilege.htm

bcx 12y ago

If you liked this article, you might like the movie Dreams of a City, which talks about the creation of East Palo Alto: http://vimeo.com/23458988 http://vimeo.com/23458988 EPA's has a really interesting history, back in the 1920s an entrepreneur by the name of Charles Weeks started a Poultry Colony, preaching "one acre and independence". (http://www.paloaltoonline.com/print/story/2008/04/16/one-acre-and-independence http://www.paloaltoonline.com/print/story/2008/04/16/one-acr... , http://www.santaclararesearch.net/SCBIOS/cweeks.html http://www.santaclararesearch.net/SCBIOS/cweeks.html) - you can still see the remnants of this in the structure of the lots along Runnymede street. http://epawiki.pbworks.com/f/Remnants+of+a+Failed+Utopia.pdf http://epawiki.pbworks.com/f/Remnants+of+a+Failed+Utopia.pdf

mpweiher 12y ago

While the article is an interesting read overall (didn't know about the connection to "Dangerous Minds"), it perpetuates the myth that Palo Alto Airport was imposed on an existing poor/ethnic community. This is not true, the airport preceded other development, having been opened prior to World War 2.[1] There were similar voices after the twin-engine Cessna crash as to the outrage of building an airport next to (inexpensive) housing[2]. The causality is reversed from the truth: the housing was/is cheap because there was a pre-existing airport. (And routes do not go over East Palo Alto's residential areas). (Oh, and the starting photo brings back memories of entering the pattern to land) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto_Airport_of_Santa_Clara_County http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto_Airport_of_Santa_Clar... [2] http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0217/Tesla-plane-crash-Concern-about-airports-near-neighborhoods http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0217/Tesla-plane-crash-Con...

MilnerRoute 12y ago
"Dangerous Minds" was actually based on a school in Belmont, California (according to Wikipedia). Some of the students in that school were from East Palo Alto, but the article is conflating the two. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangerous_Minds I assume that's an innocent mistake, and not an attempt to make the city sound more dangerous than it is.
ktothemc 12y ago
Yes, that was my mistake about the airport and I corrected it.
- mpweiher 12y ago
  Fantastic!

lrvick 12y ago

Decided to start over in the bay area last year with my wife. Our housing criteria was: central to everything (I have locations of interest all over the bay), Within walking distance of my job (Downtown Palo Alto), 1 bedroom, low rent (under $2k/mo), 100Mb+ internet, and the ability to move in right away. Everyone told me that was impossible. EPA however met all that criteria perfectly. Landed on a Friday, picked out an apartment over the weekend, and had the keys on Monday. Unlike many areas in the bay, demand is fairly low in EPA and there are available apartments everywhere. Despite being a perfect fit for my needs, never did I realize what kind of judgement I would get from so many people for living here. I get a shocked expression almost every time I mention I live in EPA. Some people even get angry. "Why would you drag your wife to place like that?!?!". Many people I know when shopping for apartments themselves openly say there is no way they could ever live somewhere so "unsafe" and just consider my wife and I to be "lucky" or "living dangerously". The very idea that a white couple with a tech job income would -choose- to live in EPA blows peoples minds. I used to just tell people I live in Palo Alto to avoid the judgement, but now I happily claim it and discuss the misconceptions. My wife and I are pretty happy with all our ideals met. We won at housing by ignoring meaningless stigma and will be squatting here for a while. Might even buy a house while the market is still 1/4. Property value here is sure to soar once people realize the "murder capitol" age is distant history. The stigma from past history is incredibly present, but the _reality_ is this is one of the safest feeling places I have ever lived. (And I have lived a lot of places)

hueving 12y ago
Interesting. I'm hunting for a new place on the Peninsula after getting bent over a barrel by my current landlord. Have you had any issues with car breaking or other nonviolent crimes? Do you see lots of 'street youths' loitering so to speak? :)
- lrvick 12y ago
  Nothing of the sort. Mostly children playing kickball all day where I am.
e40 12y ago

nawitus 12y ago

Pretty funny that Wikipedia states East Palo Alto had "only" five murders in 2008, even though the population is 28000. From an European perspective even a single murder would be significant..

adventured 12y ago
That really depends on what part of Europe you're talking about. Russia has around a 10 to 12 per 100,000 murder rate. Belarus is around a 5.7 per 100k. Tallinn is over 7 and Tirana is over 6, and Chishinau is near 6, Riga is 5.4, Vilnius is 5.4, Amsterdam is 4.4. The murder rate in NYC is lower than those for example at about 4 per 100k. The US murder rate is about 4.7, so it's comparable to Amsterdam as a whole country of 320 million people, including the extremely violent parts of the US. The murder rate in Boise Idaho is about 1 or 2 per 100k typically. Seattle is in the 3's these days, comparable to Brussels. Mesa Arizona has half a million people at a 3 murder rate; Portland is around 600k at the same. San Diego is at around 1.35 million people with a 3.x murder rate. The US has numerous cities with severe murder problems, and it also has a lot of cities without such. You can find many cities in the six figure population zone with murder rates of 1 or 2 per 100k. Ultimately in the US you can live in whatever kind of world you feel like living in.
- nawitus 12y ago
  The typical intentional homicide rate in Western and Nordic Europe is slightly more than 1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...), which is a large contrast to about 18 of EPA.
  - adventured 12y ago
    Which is exactly why I was specific: it depends on which part of Europe you're talking about. Nordic countries have about 25 million people total. Well, the US has 320 million people, and a lot more people in the US live under a 1.x murder rate than do in Nordic countries. I typically see people make comparisons using the Nordic countries for everything in Europe, while ignoring the half of Europe that is problematic for those comparisons. The US compares extraordinarily well to the Nordic countries, if you want to do an Apples to Apples comparison, since the Nordics represent the elite outcomes of Europe - then let's compare using the elite outcomes of the US; ie the top 10% of Europe vs the top 10% of the US.