
Is San Francisco losing its soul? (2014) - edward
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/23/is-san-francisco-losing-its-soul
======
kens
Here's almost the same article from 1999: "How the Internet ruined San
Francisco"
[http://www.salon.com/1999/10/28/internet_2/](http://www.salon.com/1999/10/28/internet_2/)
"The dot-com invasion -- call them twerps with 'tude -- is destroying
everything that made San Francisco weird and wonderful."

Buildings getting converted to condos, soaring real estate prices, evictions,
artists unable to afford SF, traffic, class struggles against yuppies,
gentrification. The only thing missing from this 1999 article is Google buses.

Edit: with more comments than upvotes (45 vs 30 currently), the parent article
is going to get penalized off the front page. So you might want to slow down
the commenting... [http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-
really...](http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really-
works.html)

~~~
VonGuard
I was here the first time. I'm here now. This is so totally different than
1999. In 1999, the boom included a lot of counter-culture people. Hackerspaces
were still hidden underground things, and the technology was so new, a lot of
pie-in-the-sky dreamers were here trying to make their way in the world.

This time around, there is an established norm for how the startup scene
works, and that scene requires MBAs and business suits. The people who have
come around to take advantage this time are not nerds, they're not tech
people, they're people of all sorts. I think the best way to so describe them
is to say that these are normal people. That's fine anywhere else, but not in
SF, home of the weirdos.

SF has NEVER been a town of normal people. This gentrification process is
basically turning SF into the Valley. The old days where burning man types
held parties in their warehouses are long gone now. The first dot com boom
made millionaires out of some of these weirdos, like JWZ. But this boom is not
doing that. The people getting rich now came to SF just to get rich, and they
have no interest in being weird, burning man, or any of the SF-style
weirdness.

Yes, in 1999 artists had to leave SF. But at that time, it was just some
artists and weirdos leaving. This time, it's ALL of them leaving. There are no
more blue collar people in SF. No more weirdos in SF. No more poets in SF.
It's a real shame, and while it could have happened in 1999, it didn't quite
get going enough to really do the damage that's being done this time around.

~~~
lowglow
Where are all the tech weirdos moving to?

~~~
radley
Austin, Oakland, Portland, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Denver, Utah...

------
brianmcconnell
21 year SF resident and tech worker here. A lot of the people who are
complaining about the boom are using the late 1980s and early 1990s as their
baseline, the time in SF's history when it was actually cheap. That was
shortly after Loma Prieta, and at the height of the AIDS epidemic, before
anti-retrovirals came out. People were literally dropping like flies back
then. There was quite a lot of underground culture then too. A friend referred
to it as the "dancing in the ovens" period.

Since then, SF has reverted to its mean. People are moving here again,
building new housing is systematically blocked by NIMBYism, and predictably it
has gotten expensive again. This is really a failure of long-term policy. The
tech industry doesn't help itself in many cases, but if housing had been in
balance with demand, things wouldn't be so out of control.

These things always go in cycles. The get rich quick period will end. The
people who are only here for money will leave. The people who are here for the
city will stay or come back.

------
BashiBazouk
So, San Francisco only gained it's soul in the fifties? What about the
previous 100 years? You know, the years that all the beautiful architecture
was built? The Haight was once great but now it's a hollow shell of it's brief
glory and the shell emptied long before the tech millionaires showed up. Do we
really need to save it as a museum piece? Has anyone seen a real beatnik in a
generation?

I don't think a city should freeze it's self in time so the aging can relive
their youth. A truly thriving city is in a consent state of change. So the
city goes through a gentrification cycle. After the next crash or long
decline, neighborhoods will open up for a future wave of bohemians. In the
mean time, a lot of buildings in decline will get fixed and modernized...

~~~
agumonkey
Good question, same goes for Nations, what makes a nation ? Waves are naturel,
but how fast change is felt as breaking or losing its 'soul' ?

------
scythe
>Emerging in its place is the mostly white, male-dominated, monied monoculture
of the tech industry and there appears no end in sight.

It's weird to flinch at reading this. What am I, a racist? But this sentence
just isn't true for me. I mean, sure, as the demographic majority there are a
lot of white people in tech, but my experience just hasn't been "mostly
white". At some meetings I've been the only white guy in the room: how much
more diverse do we need to get, exactly?

What _is_ the case where I work is that white people are _far_ more likely to
live in San Francisco, whereas the nonwhite immigrants seem to be a little
more responsible and live in places like Fremont, Dublin, and Sunnyvale, and
tolerate 90 minute commutes to do so. Which is not an aspect of the tech boom
that a publication like _The Guardian_ would ever emphasize, because a story
about entrenched old hipsters making life difficult for people from Bombay who
worked themselves to the bone just to get into the country -- that just
doesn't fit the prevailing narrative -- nor does the fact that they're doing
so to preserve a culture famous mostly for its reputation among America's
majority demographic.

I mean, I'm not gonna deny that being white gives some tech workers (like me)
an unfair advantage in life, which also happens to be true in roughly every
single other American industry, but I've been exasperated by this enough to
point out that the people opposing expansion are generally shortsighted
hypocrites -- bring on the evictions, so that the nonwhites who comprise 75%
of my scrum team can live in the city where they work, maybe.

And I'd like to apologize apostrophically for stealing my coworkers' right to
represent themselves.

~~~
swatow
In this context, Indians and Asians count as White. Why? Because in the
narrative of the author, Whiteness is not a race, but rather a social
construct designed to reinforce the privilege of Whites, and to enforce a
uniform way of thinking and acting. Whiteness also serves to create and
justify economic disparity. In this narrative, anyone who accepts this system,
reinforces its values, and receives the benefits of Whiteness, is effectively
White.

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
The tech industry is disproportionately asian relative to the population of
the nation. So the whole thing is especially goofy.

~~~
swatow
Asians play a doubly unfortunate role in the anti racist movement.

On the one hand, they share the same guilt as Whites, since they cooperate
with and benefit from White society.

On the other hand, anti Asian sentiment is used as an escape valve, allowing
people to "harmlessly" express their racist feelings. It also is a way to
pretend to allow freedom of expression, by allowing racial jokes about Asians,
and criticism of Asian culture (which I see a _lot_ of on HN).

------
Cyclone_
'He complains of a "soulless group of people", a "new breed" of men and women
too busy with iPhones to "be here" in the moment, and shiny new Mercedes-Benzs
on his street.'

So he can't tolerate people different than him? Tough luck I say.

~~~
kordless
Someone isn't 'different' because they have their noses stuck in a device
24/7\. They are simply not considering others around them.

I see no reason why I should have to tolerate people going around not being
present with others. We all have a right to our feelings, so saying "tough
luck" is equivalent to saying "I don't care what you feel", which is actually
the point of all of this.

~~~
Wintamute
Aren't you saying "I don't care how you feel" to everyone choosing to engage
with the world less directly/personally and more removed/technologically?

~~~
kordless
I'm saying the inverse, I think. The person in the article has a good point,
and we shouldn't tolerate 'tough luck' as the response.

Someone in their phone clearly doesn't have the bandwidth to care how I feel
about their engagement with our reality. I've watched teenagers literally
shake their friends to try to get them out of their phones to answer a
question on which Jamba Juice they wanted. That behavior is irritating because
it mutes my ability to state my feelings to that individual.

Obviously I don't talk to everyone I see in the world, but given a significant
amount of people run around with their nose in their phone all the time, it
can affect how someone who isn't in their phone views the world. Less people
engage in conversation, less people 'see' you on the street, less people are
'aware' you exist, etc. It's a real problem and SF is the epicenter of it
because a) this is where it all gets built and b) it's part of the tech
culture.

~~~
orangecat
_Someone in their phone clearly doesn 't have the bandwidth to care how I feel
about their engagement with our reality._

Your aesthetic preferences do not impose any obligations on anyone else.

------
dannyr
I'm pretty sure that same question was asked decades ago.

Here's a story of urban development in SF during the 50s.

[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-11-09-245099...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-11-09-2450995649_x.htm)

------
vasilipupkin
The problem is, the restrictions on development, which make housing in such
short supply are also the very thing that makes San Fran a beautiful city.
Remove those restrictions and both of the following will happen

a) artists will have an easier time staying b) it will look like Midwest or
LA.

~~~
jessedhillon
With regards to b, just look at what's happening in Mission Bay. Developers
have been able to raise new building after new building -- and you have a glut
of bland luxury-style apartments surrounded by corporate offices and
uninspired restaurants whose main selling points are a high-end aesthetic.
It's pretty, but it's dry and dull.

~~~
vasilipupkin
I agree. that's the unfortunate tradeoff though. Not sure why I got downvoted
:)

------
big_astrocyte
Imagine every startup in the world moving to SF! The startup world will get
trapped in a cycle of exorbitant rents/salaries and exceptionally high burn
rates. This would mean that 'real' innovations would more or less die down and
any company which is in an 'attractive space' and can raise money would be
free to spend it on even more rent/salaries. Spending on ever higher
rent/salaries so that they can 'compete' for limited resources. The situation
has come down to '10 year lease deals' being the last option. The cycle will
continue until we realize how we got caught in this trap in the first place!!

I would've had no motivation to move if people didn't keep telling me that I
wouldn't be able to raise money because VCs didn't like to invest 'outside the
bay area'!! I tried to reason with a partner at one such VC firm and he said
'that is how the world works'. Seriously?!! This is a guy trying to invest in
innovation and yet is so oblivious to bringing innovation into their own
sector.

Sorry for the rant.

------
sandworm
San Francisco has a soul?

It's a port city. Like New York, Vancouver or any other city connected to the
outside world San Francisco gets waves of different immigrants with each
generation. Today's wealth is just another gold rush, of which SF has seen
many. It's a boom-and-bust city.

------
soggypopsicle
I would like to see the same article written from the point of view of bay
residents who are being displaced by the art folk.

~~~
TACIXAT
Or one from 50 years ago complaining about all the bohemians moving in. Change
happens.

------
steven2012
Don't worry. When VC funding dries up and 90% of these startups die, then
rents will fall, buildings will vacate, and the whole cycle will start over
again.

People forget that these things go in cycles and that nothing lasts forever.

------
skj
"Facebook, Google, Apple and other companies lay on shiny luxury buses to
ferry their employees on the approximately 90-minute trip. San Francisco's
Municipal Transportation Authority estimates about 35,000 ride the air-
conditioned, Wi-Fi-provisioned buses each day."

Facebook has only a couple thousand employees, and Google has maybe 15,000? in
Mountainview, and certainly not that many who live in SF. Not sure about
Apple. Are there more companies with shuttles, or is this number made up?

~~~
clsec
Considering the number of buses I see every day, I would agree. Companies like
Genentech & Yahoo transport emplyees as well. It's also an SF MTA estimate and
I'm pretty sure they have a good idea of the traffic & transit conditions in
the City.

~~~
mseebach
Since these busses are direct competitors, the MTA also has probably the
strongest incentives of any actor to overstate the severity of the problem.

~~~
Decade
SFMTA routes end at the borders of the city. They are not direct competitors
to buses going down the peninsula. If anything, SFMTA lines are feeders,
because the corporate buses don't wander all over the city.

------
jcnnghm
San Franciscans have no one to blame other than San Franciscans for the
housing policies that are pricing people out of the market. Well meaning but
ultimately deeply misguided liberals are still insisting that housing supply
doesn't affect pricing ([http://truth-out.org/news/item/26656-developers-aren-
t-going...](http://truth-out.org/news/item/26656-developers-aren-t-going-to-
solve-the-housing-crisis-in-san-francisco-the-definitive-response-to-supply-
side-solutionists)), while others are are calling for a moratorium on building
([http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-
estate/201...](http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-
estate/2015/02/mission-district-moratorium-david-campos-
calle-24.html?ana=twt)).

Meanwhile, in Washington DC, rents are falling because of the increase in
supply, while both the population and number of jobs in increasing. DC also
has a unique character that they've been able to preserve despite growth; San
Francisco needs to do the same, and fast.

San Franciscans need to start pushing the city for a lot of new housing units,
probably 100,000, with expedited planning, approvals, and building if they
don't want to get completely priced out of the market.

More on DC:

* [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/11/dc-rents-ar...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/11/dc-rents-are-falling-are-house-prices-next.html)

* [http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/falling-rents-in-dc-a-product-o...](http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/falling-rents-in-dc-a-product-of-satiated-demand)

* [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-04-23/washington...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-04-23/washington-faces-apartment-glut-after-boom-real-estate)

* [http://dcinno.streetwise.co/2014/08/01/did-you-know-d-c-s-re...](http://dcinno.streetwise.co/2014/08/01/did-you-know-d-c-s-rent-is-actually-getting-lower/)

* [http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dc_area_rents_drop_3_a...](http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dc_area_rents_drop_3_as_new_apartment_supply_rises/7979)

------
whybroke
If there had been any doubt about the Guardian's accuracy, the responses in
this thread have dispelled it.

Not a single post stating there's a vibrant, interesting culture emerging but
instead a flood of neo-liberal "screw you"s interspersed with a few "you're a
racist" and a "being absorbed in your iphone is diversity" along with a "good
riddance to the gays" for bonus points.

Dear god I'm glad I got out when I did.

~~~
swatow
The problem with comments like yours is that you've chosen to shame the top
level posters instead of replying to a single one of them. Shaming works well
to enforce uniform beliefs in a tight knit social circle, such as you may have
enjoyed in SF before the tech influx. It doesn't work so well online.

~~~
whybroke
I am in fact a software engineer. When I lived in the city I had fiends who
were social anthologists, post docs from over seas, drag performers, dance
studio mangers, red cross workers even a poet. Not single one still lives in
the city (even though one of them had a building named after him).

I only make software so that I can have a rich life outside of a cubical among
a diverse set of people who can teach me things. In today's San Francisco that
sentiment is no only unobtainable but would render a person un-hire-able.

------
astrocyte
Tech worker here who lived in the valley and frequented SF often. I ventured
elsewhere about 3 years ago and recently visited friends for a week to decided
if I want to come back. The city has definitely changed.. The valley has
definitely changed. Cultured has definitely fled. Egos have definitely gone
through the roof. People have definitely become more impatient and unfriendly
(esp in SF). If I come back, I would live in either Oakland or Berkeley. The
city looks a lot more worn (aside from the newly minted millionares who have
refurbished the Victorian homes in SF). Things have become a lot more
homogeneous (not in a good way) and scaled up to meet the expectations of the
monied. I have several friends who have lived in the valley for about 10 years
who are currently looking to go up to either Seattle/Portland or move out to
Austin. Female friends who comment about the nature of attitudes of males in
the valley and how they don't feel they can find a level headed husband... And
this all has to do w/ tech.

New Money .. Egos .. and ever escalating rent/property values putting even
more pressure on expression, culture, art, and the 'chill' atmosphere that was
hallmark of SF. The new types I could imagine enjoy it very much and the bay
still has much to offer everyone.

It is what it is. However, this time around (2015), individuals thankfully
have more choices around America and the world to pursue a tech minded career.
If the bay area doesn't excite you anymore, I highly suggest getting out of
there and seeing other parts of the world and not just for vacation. I am
constantly shocked at how much more I have begun to enjoy art/culture/music
venues/socialization/biking/nature after having left the bay. People tend to
drink the kool-aid while in the bay and believe it is the only and best place
on earth. Maybe that is a good thing as it keeps the hidden gems from getting
flooding w/ money.

I've gotten a chance to live in a city that was on the rise and have carefully
observed the way in which money has influenced the way it is shaped... Stuffy
SOHO mixed use development condos priced at $300k+ .. art that i paid $70 for
now goes for $600 ... Tinderfication of dating (everyone becomes a
transaction). Drowning out of culture/expression.

I guess it seems wise to me, from my experience, to simply move around and
enjoy cities in their prime. Life is too short to sit around playing bidding
wars for culture/housing and endure the snotty attitudes/foolishness therein.

There is no reason to get hostile in objection to these truths. The SF/bay
area of today is not the SF of yesteryear. Culture is absent. People are more
tense. The goal is to cram people in like sardines (much to the ignorance of
what the Nimbies wanted to preserve). Money talks is the new motto ...

I don't even want to get into the race (doesn't apply if you're white/Asian)
and gender issues that have become even more pronounced.

I will be quite thankful if the next revolution in tech is not spawned from
the bay area. Maybe it will focus more on actually improving society vs the
current trajectory of monetizing people w/o compensation.

------
swatow
I'm commenting because I don't want this on the front page. Not that I am
writing more comments that I would otherwise just to get it off the front
page, but rather that I think that the reasons that this algorithm is used,
apply to this article.

As a tech worker I am sick of being degraded and dehumanized in the media,
with terms like "twerp" and "soulless". What was our crime? Being awkward,
White (or Asian or Indian) and male? Not living the lifestyle or having the
attitudes that the Left require of SF residents?

The left dehumanizes people that it wants to attack (often physically, as has
happened in SF [0]). We should recognize that the dehumanization and
degradation of tech workers is not only hateful and unjustified, but also
likely to result in violent acts.

[0] [http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/14/tech/mobile/google-glass-
attac...](http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/14/tech/mobile/google-glass-attack/)

~~~
astrocyte
Give me a break with this garbage. The majority of the people on here are tech
workers. 'degraded' .. 'dehumanized'... The left? who the heck is that? Some
days I'm right. Some days I'm center.

No one enjoys or will celebrate a homogeneous population in 2015. People want
diversity. Money is an amplifier that has diminishing returns. Too much of it
and you get white noise and foolishness.

It doesn't matter what your occupation or race is (you could be purple and
grind stones for a living for all I care).

As for the google glass attacks, that highlights quite clearly the nature of
the type of a-holes that have been created in the tech-sphere : I have money
and I can do what I want no matter who it pisses off. Hello .. there is a real
world out there and people will punch your lights out if you selfishly go
about pissing them off w/o consideration.

The glasshole incidents reflect clearly on the types of jerks that are the new
cream of the crop in the valley. What, you think you are so high and mighty
that no one should dare knock you out for being a dick? Wake up and stop being
snotty.

~~~
swatow
I don't think that people who criticize tech workers are only saying that it
would be bad if everyone was a tech worker because the city would be less
diverse. Rather, they also claim that tech workers contribute less, and are
generally less interesting people to be around, than others. This is what I
was objecting to. But your claim that tech workers in particular, and rich
people in general, make a city less interesting, is also wrong. There is a lot
of diversity within the tech industry (apart from gender diversity). I work
with Indians, Chinese, Russians and US citizens. (EDIT: and even the claim
that middle class Whites are homogeneous is wrong, and the kind of prejudice
that I was originally complaining about).

I believe that attacks on glass wearers were primarily based on objecting to
people identifying with the tech industry in a very visible and gaudy way, not
on privacy concerns. E.g. the title of the article was "Google Glass targeted
as symbol by anti-tech crowd" and from the article, _In a video Sarah Slocum
shared with KRON-TV, a woman can be heard saying "You're killing the city"
while approaching Slocum and apparently trying to rip the headset off of her
face_.

Do you agree with this, and if so, do you still think that these attacks are
justified? Is simply being in the tech industry, and having the wrong
attitudes, enough to warrant violence? Or is it the privacy concerns around
glass that justify the violence?

------
FrankenPC
A buddy of mine (who happens to be gay) left SF to move to Chicago. His
parting words: "SF is the Calcutta of the West. F'k this place"

~~~
defen
Can you unpack that comment a bit, for people who aren't terribly familiar
with the demographics/culture of India?

~~~
refurb
I was going to say, i have no idea what that means.

------
rchiniquy
Thanks for chiming in, media from London. Is it possible to write about this
issue from a far-away or recently-arrived perspective?

Worrying about this a decade or two sooner would've been more timely. The city
changed dramatically from the late 90s to early 00s. We had a lull in change
during the macroeconomic recession, but now the machine is getting back up to
speed.

I've been increasingly sad over the years as my friends who are artists,
librarians, dancers, therapists, social workers, statisticians, teachers,
writers, musicians, accountants, anything other than software engineers, have
been falling away from the Bay because it is just so expensive.

Rapid growth can apparently kill anything. IMO it's likely too late to do
anything for San Francisco. There's still time to worry about Oakland though.

~~~
rchiniquy
btw, since this Guardian article uses the "Compare Oakland to Brooklyn" trope,
here's a great article putting change in Oakland into a historical context:
[http://nextcity.org/features/view/oakland-gentrification-
lib...](http://nextcity.org/features/view/oakland-gentrification-libby-schaaf-
tech-industry-inequality-foreclosures)

