5 ms·

I know this is schadenfreude, but I love this. As I see it, a city of people with backwards values is getting its just deserts. Unfortunately for me, when the

by viggity 17y ago

I know this is schadenfreude, but I love this. As I see it, a city of people with backwards values is getting its just deserts. Unfortunately for me, when the city eventually goes bankrupt, I'll probably end up footing the bill via my federal taxes.

spamizbad 17y ago
Kindly elaborate why San Francisco has "backwards values". I bet you think it's an accident it's a tech innovation hub.
- evgen 17y ago
  > I bet you think it's an accident it's a tech innovation hub. Actually this is an accident; San Francisco's reputation as a tech hub is due to its accidental proximity to San Jose and silicon valley.
  - pg 17y ago
    That is definitely not true. The atmos in the Bay Area is part of the reason SV is where it is. It may well be a coincidence that SF's government is so inefficient though. Portland has the same tolerant attitude, and their city government doesn't seem to be inefficient.
    - evgen 17y ago
      > That is definitely not true. The atmos in the Bay Area is part of the reason SV is where it is. Right. And the "atmos" of Boston is why the high-tech hub around route 128 is where it is, having of course nothing to do with its proximity to a couple of world-class universities... The "Bay Area" may help sustain SV, but San Francisco proper is a pretty small part of that -- it is a hub of night-life/clubs, an overly pretentious literature and arts scene, and a completely dysfunctional city government. SF is a fun place to live for people of a certain age, but as the better known city in a large metropolitan region it gets far more credit than it deserves for the "atmos" that gives the region its flavor.
      - pg 17y ago
        As in Boston, the atmos of the Bay Area is probably the main reason the universities here are so good. Universities planted in Boston and the Bay Area thrive. Those planted in cities that are bigger and richer, but have the wrong sort of culture, don't do as well. E.g. NYC vs Boston, LA vs SF.
        evgen 17y ago
        You keep conflating San Francisco with the greater Bay Area. This mistake was my central point. San Francisco proper is a small part of the Bay Area. It has a more storied history and is the more widely-known, but it is far from being the most significant city when it comes to defining the culture and norms of the area. SF gets the press, but Berkeley, San Jose, and numerous cities up and down the peninsula contribute just as much to this tech hub as San Francisco.
        pg 17y ago
        When the universities' reputations were established, SF dominated the Bay Area. Till suburbia spread down the peninsula in the 1950s, what we now call Silicon Valley was mostly agricultural land. San Jose's population in 1940 was 69,000. SF's was 635,000.
        evgen 17y ago
        Shockley did not come to the bay area for San Francisco, he came to be close to his ailing mother in Palo Alto. From Shockley Semiconductor came the traitorous eight and Fairchild and from this cluster came most of what we now know as silicon valley. Hewlett and Packard both came from Stanford, etc. SF may have dominated the bay area for quote a while, but none of the seminal events that can be pointed to as the seeds of what became silicon valley have a very direct link to what you and everyone else seems to consider the San Francisco "culture." The marine geography that makes San Francisco a great anchorage and led to a strong naval presence in the area probably had a bigger impact on silicon valley than anything you can point to an as a uniquely "San Francisco" impact on the valley.
    - defen 17y ago
      > The atmos in the Bay Area is part of the reason SV is where it is. I don't think you addressed evgen's point - Let's assume that the atmosphere in the Bay Area is part of the reason SV is where it is (having read Steve Blank's "Secret History of Silicon Valley" I'm not sure I'd agree) - to refute his point you would have to show that San Francisco is indeed a tech hub. Otherwise it could be the case the the tolerant attitude of the entire Bay Area caused SV to happen where it did, and San Francisco picked up its reputation as a tech hub because it is in the area and shares the atmosphere, even though San Francisco itself had nothing to do with the tech hub forming. I suppose you could argue that San Francisco and its history were indispensable in forming the Bay Area atmosphere and attitudes, but you did not say that.
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      The atmos in the Bay Area is part of the reason SV is where it is. I would say it's more to do with money than atmosphere. The Bay area is uber-rich because of a) gold and b) highly favorable geography. The natural harbor created by the bay made San Francisco the major port on the west coast until the early 20th century. At the time that the US wrested California from Mexico, SF was effectively the capital city in the state. Add to that the beneficial agricultural conditions stretching down from the Sacremento Delta (where the city's water still comes from) and it's the kind of perfect setup you read about in books like Guns, Germs and Steel.
  - dnsworks 17y ago
    I beg to differ. Twitter is a block away from me. Within 8 blocks: * iskoot * slideshare * rapleaf * wikia * ubisoft * google * gogrids * pivotallabs * technorati * dropbox * justin.tv * engineyard * heroku * socialcast * heyzap * yammer * sauce labs * shopittome * zenddesk * gigaom * twilio * bigtent * topsy * scribd * quantcast * cnet * lolapps * videoegg * snapfish * instructables * currenttv * vark * Sega * Dolby Research Labs * zipcar * kink.com It feels rather hublike to me. That is just a small subset of the tech companies in my neighborhod that I happen to know about.
    - bkudria 17y ago
      You forgot Ubisoft, and, of course, Younoodle.
      - dnsworks 17y ago
        I didn't forget ubisoft, actually. Younoodle, however, I apparently missed.
    - evgen 17y ago
      Google is not a San Francisco company. It has offices there, but no one can honestly claim that it is anything but a SV peninsula company. Nice list, but other than Dolby (and maybe, just maybe Twitter) these are all small companies whose significance in the long-term is quite questionable. Your list is about what one would see walking through any SV office park...
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    Silicon Valley became a tech hub because it's near San Francisco, which is the biggest financial center on the west coast, going back to the days of the gold rush. Leland Stanford was a director of the Pacific Union Railroad company, Wells Fargo, and became governor of CA as well as one of the state's US Senators. Stanford university used to be a farm property he owned, and the university was created as a charitable act after his own son died young. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland_Stanford http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland_Stanford
- viggity 17y ago
  The backwards values are solely in regards to how they view the proper role of government. Not their beliefs regarding things like gay marriage or other social values.
dubcomesaveme 17y ago
The only backward value apparent from this article is an extreme defecit in holding people accountable. One could argue that every other value must be phenomenal since it is still a thriving city despite this impairment.
tlrobinson 17y ago
I live in SF, where do I get my deserts?

by viggity 17y ago

spamizbad 17y ago

Kindly elaborate why San Francisco has "backwards values". I bet you think it's an accident it's a tech innovation hub.

evgen 17y ago
> I bet you think it's an accident it's a tech innovation hub. Actually this is an accident; San Francisco's reputation as a tech hub is due to its accidental proximity to San Jose and silicon valley.
- pg 17y ago
  That is definitely not true. The atmos in the Bay Area is part of the reason SV is where it is. It may well be a coincidence that SF's government is so inefficient though. Portland has the same tolerant attitude, and their city government doesn't seem to be inefficient.
  - evgen 17y ago
    > That is definitely not true. The atmos in the Bay Area is part of the reason SV is where it is. Right. And the "atmos" of Boston is why the high-tech hub around route 128 is where it is, having of course nothing to do with its proximity to a couple of world-class universities... The "Bay Area" may help sustain SV, but San Francisco proper is a pretty small part of that -- it is a hub of night-life/clubs, an overly pretentious literature and arts scene, and a completely dysfunctional city government. SF is a fun place to live for people of a certain age, but as the better known city in a large metropolitan region it gets far more credit than it deserves for the "atmos" that gives the region its flavor.
    - pg 17y ago
      As in Boston, the atmos of the Bay Area is probably the main reason the universities here are so good. Universities planted in Boston and the Bay Area thrive. Those planted in cities that are bigger and richer, but have the wrong sort of culture, don't do as well. E.g. NYC vs Boston, LA vs SF.
      - evgen 17y ago
        You keep conflating San Francisco with the greater Bay Area. This mistake was my central point. San Francisco proper is a small part of the Bay Area. It has a more storied history and is the more widely-known, but it is far from being the most significant city when it comes to defining the culture and norms of the area. SF gets the press, but Berkeley, San Jose, and numerous cities up and down the peninsula contribute just as much to this tech hub as San Francisco.
        pg 17y ago
        When the universities' reputations were established, SF dominated the Bay Area. Till suburbia spread down the peninsula in the 1950s, what we now call Silicon Valley was mostly agricultural land. San Jose's population in 1940 was 69,000. SF's was 635,000.
        evgen 17y ago
        Shockley did not come to the bay area for San Francisco, he came to be close to his ailing mother in Palo Alto. From Shockley Semiconductor came the traitorous eight and Fairchild and from this cluster came most of what we now know as silicon valley. Hewlett and Packard both came from Stanford, etc. SF may have dominated the bay area for quote a while, but none of the seminal events that can be pointed to as the seeds of what became silicon valley have a very direct link to what you and everyone else seems to consider the San Francisco "culture." The marine geography that makes San Francisco a great anchorage and led to a strong naval presence in the area probably had a bigger impact on silicon valley than anything you can point to an as a uniquely "San Francisco" impact on the valley.
  - defen 17y ago
    > The atmos in the Bay Area is part of the reason SV is where it is. I don't think you addressed evgen's point - Let's assume that the atmosphere in the Bay Area is part of the reason SV is where it is (having read Steve Blank's "Secret History of Silicon Valley" I'm not sure I'd agree) - to refute his point you would have to show that San Francisco is indeed a tech hub. Otherwise it could be the case the the tolerant attitude of the entire Bay Area caused SV to happen where it did, and San Francisco picked up its reputation as a tech hub because it is in the area and shares the atmosphere, even though San Francisco itself had nothing to do with the tech hub forming. I suppose you could argue that San Francisco and its history were indispensable in forming the Bay Area atmosphere and attitudes, but you did not say that.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    The atmos in the Bay Area is part of the reason SV is where it is. I would say it's more to do with money than atmosphere. The Bay area is uber-rich because of a) gold and b) highly favorable geography. The natural harbor created by the bay made San Francisco the major port on the west coast until the early 20th century. At the time that the US wrested California from Mexico, SF was effectively the capital city in the state. Add to that the beneficial agricultural conditions stretching down from the Sacremento Delta (where the city's water still comes from) and it's the kind of perfect setup you read about in books like Guns, Germs and Steel.
- dnsworks 17y ago
  I beg to differ. Twitter is a block away from me. Within 8 blocks: * iskoot * slideshare * rapleaf * wikia * ubisoft * google * gogrids * pivotallabs * technorati * dropbox * justin.tv * engineyard * heroku * socialcast * heyzap * yammer * sauce labs * shopittome * zenddesk * gigaom * twilio * bigtent * topsy * scribd * quantcast * cnet * lolapps * videoegg * snapfish * instructables * currenttv * vark * Sega * Dolby Research Labs * zipcar * kink.com It feels rather hublike to me. That is just a small subset of the tech companies in my neighborhod that I happen to know about.
  - bkudria 17y ago
    You forgot Ubisoft, and, of course, Younoodle.
    - dnsworks 17y ago
      I didn't forget ubisoft, actually. Younoodle, however, I apparently missed.
  - evgen 17y ago
    Google is not a San Francisco company. It has offices there, but no one can honestly claim that it is anything but a SV peninsula company. Nice list, but other than Dolby (and maybe, just maybe Twitter) these are all small companies whose significance in the long-term is quite questionable. Your list is about what one would see walking through any SV office park...
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Silicon Valley became a tech hub because it's near San Francisco, which is the biggest financial center on the west coast, going back to the days of the gold rush. Leland Stanford was a director of the Pacific Union Railroad company, Wells Fargo, and became governor of CA as well as one of the state's US Senators. Stanford university used to be a farm property he owned, and the university was created as a charitable act after his own son died young. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland_Stanford http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland_Stanford
viggity 17y ago
The backwards values are solely in regards to how they view the proper role of government. Not their beliefs regarding things like gay marriage or other social values.

dubcomesaveme 17y ago

The only backward value apparent from this article is an extreme defecit in holding people accountable. One could argue that every other value must be phenomenal since it is still a thriving city despite this impairment.

tlrobinson 17y ago

I live in SF, where do I get my deserts?