
The Two Silicon Valleys: One of Haves, One of Have-Nots - radmuzom
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/04/the-two-silicon-valleys-one-of-haves-one-of-have-nots/
======
bluedino
>> While whites and Asians are making more money, blacks and Latinos are
falling further behind.

What is the author trying to say? The truth is blacks and Latinos need to step
it up.

I come from a Mexican-American family, and have ten aunts and uncles. I'm
constantly amazed (or is it baffled) with the disparity between each of the
grandchildren, even within the same family.

My aunts and uncles all have at least 3, and at most 5 children. Some ended up
in prison, some ended up pregnant at the age of 14, some dropped out of high
school and some went on to finish college. Most are employed at various
levels. But when it comes to which ones are 'successful' and don't have the
problems the others have, it basically came down to personal choices they made
along the way, and continue to make (the oldest is 42 years old, the youngest
are just now finishing high school).

The worst-off grandchildren generally have parents in equally bad situations.
But one family has two convicts, a do-nothing, but then a nurse and a teacher.
The biggest 'help' seems to be from the parent marrying someone who's from a
better situation, but it's not always the case. Only about 5 of the
grandchildren are married.

My point is these kids all came from the same schools, same neighborhoods,
same families, and some of them managed to make it through while the rest
became statistics. Much of the problem is that the majority have all stayed
put in this rust-belt city with no jobs and no future.

~~~
Denzel
I know what you're trying to say, and I understand that you believe you have a
set of individuals with upbringings that are relatively equal, for all intents
and purposes, but as an African-American your comment rubs me the wrong way.
Sometimes, even when people come from the same family, you have to realize
that each person's situation is unique. Especially when you have such a
disparity in age: from 42 years old to 18 years old.

Allow me to present some counter anecdotal "evidence." I have two brothers.
We're all 6 years apart; I'm 21, the middle is 27, and the oldest is 33. We've
ended up in vastly different situations due to a series of personal choices
affected and limited by the environment we were given. The environment that
one grows up in, even within their family, is such an important factor.

The amount of money and mobility my parents had, when my oldest brother was
born, was an order of a magnitude less than what they had when I was born. As
a result, my oldest brother's only option was public school in an underfunded
district for grades 1-12. College was out of the qusetion, even if he could
make it! On the other hand, my middle brother had the option to go to private
school for grades 1-12, and graduated from University of Miami. For me, it was
private school for grades 1-8, and when my parents were faced with the
decision of sending me to the same public school my oldest brother went to,
they moved instead to send me to one of the best public schools in the state.
My oldest brother didn't have that option.

So when you see my oldest brother unable to hold down a moderately well-paying
blue-collar job, and me working a low six-figure white-collar job, you can't
simply say that one of us needs to "step it up." We are largely a product of
the totality of our environment.

~~~
bedhead
The problem is that you cannot say whether your older brother is the way he is
because of a lifetime of crummy public schooling or just because he's wired
that way. The age old causation vs correlation issue.

All else equal (in this case, primarily your family), I don't think school
quality has much to do with whether you are relatively dysfunctional as an
adult. Family values, work ethic, and god-given intelligence probably make up
95% of your outcome in life.

~~~
GVIrish
School quality absolutely has a big impact on how well you do in life, that's
not even a question. If you go to a school where most of your classmates read
2 or 3 grades below grade level and your teachers struggle every day to
maintain order in the class, much less teach the actual subjects, of course it
hurts the students. When you go to a school that is overrun with gangs and you
have to take care when walking home from school lest you get gunned down, that
certainly makes it far more difficult to do well in school.

A kid's upbringing and environment at home also play very large factors. Truth
is that all of those things matter.

I think whether or not someone does well in life is game of probabilities. If
you go to a bad school, it lowers your probability of doing well in life. If
they have great parents maybe that cancels out that negative, maybe it
doesn't. Some people will beat the odds and do well at a bad school with bad
parenting. But that doesn't mean that access to a quality school doesn't have
a big impact.

~~~
bedhead
Well, I suppose you are right, but you have to cite an extreme case of
literally worrying about getting murdered every day. Do those schools exist?
Yes, but they are few and far between, and there is a _world_ of difference
between "underfunded" and the case you're citing. Since the original comment
made no mention of a gangland war zone at his brother's school (seems relevant
to the story) I assumed this was not the case, though I could be wrong in
which case I'll concede the point.

Does school quality have an impact? Sure, I think around the edges it does. It
can certainly grease the wheels. But over time the people who are wired
properly for success (good values, work ethic, god-given intelligence) usually
figure out a way. Perhaps more accurately, they don't live relatively
dysfunctional adult lives and are unable to hold "neck down" jobs.

~~~
Denzel
Just to provide context, underfunded was my nice way of saying exactly what
you describe. Kids have been stabbed and gun fights have broken out inside the
school.

That was my fault for not making it clear, I apologize.

~~~
bedhead
Thanks for the clarification. As I said, in these extreme cases then yes, I do
believe school plays a larger role than normal.

Also, to further clarify, I think the more important issue with school isn't
so much the quality of the learning going on or what material is being taught
or whether every classroom has smartboard or whatever. I think it has far more
to do with the nature of the kids you're surrounded with, whether one starts
hanging out with the wrong crowd which can corrupt all those other things (iq,
family values, etc).

------
tomblomfield
"Fewer than half of first-time home buyers in Silicon Valley, including in
places like Palo Alto, Calif., can afford to purchase a median-priced home"

Half of people purchase homes that are below the median price.

Thanks for the insight there, NYT.

~~~
refurb
I thought America was over the house-horniness of the early 2000s?

Why is the inability to buy a home in one of the most expensive areas of the
US a danger sign? Do you read articles about not being able to afford homes in
Manhattan? It's a given!

~~~
cylinder
Actually, housing affordability is almost always a policy issue.

------
manishsharan
Can someone explain why we do not see the "us vs. them " in NY/NJ/CT. I used
to live in LI , where a lot successful Wall Street Bankers lived and never
once did I hear about this kind of resentment. I am just puzzled .

~~~
Johnie
I lived in NYC for 12 years prior to moving to Silicon Valley and spent 8 of
those years in the finance industry.

NYC government created a symbiotic relationship with the finance industry. NYC
used the tax revenue from the high income earners to build up local
infrastructure and make the city a better place. In the 12 years that I was
there and the many more that I've been there in the region, the city had
improved drastically. This was to the betterment of everyone.

Part of what made NYC great was its transportation infrastructure. It moved
millions of people around the city at all times of the day. There was no class
structure in the Subways; the 1% rode the subways alongside the service
workers. People got a sense that everyone benefited from the increase in
income and tax revenue.

This was dramatically different on the west coast. In the Bay Area, the local
government create policies (limiting housing specifically) that don't benefit
the long term future of the region. Compared to NYC, SF governance is pretty
dysfunctional.

When I first moved out here, I was shocked by how lacking the transportation
infrastructure was. I always had the vision that Silicon Valley and SF was
high tech and that the public transportation infrastructure must be better
than NYC. This was not the case. This lead to the high income earners to
create a separate transportation system that benefit them (Uber, corporate
shuttles, etc). This leads to a lot of friction between the haves and have
not.

~~~
rayiner
You hit the nail on the head about transit, because the Bay Area's poor
transit system exacerbates the problem creating by gentrification and rising
rents.

I used to work in Midtown, and commute in from New Rochelle, a city that's
mostly working class hispanics with a few yuppie high rises near the train
station. The ~18 mile trip used to take just over 35 minutes on Metro North,
and the service was highly reliable as well as highly available (8 trains to
GCT between 7:02 am and 8:47 am). One stop closer to Manhattan was Pehlam, an
upper middle class white area. The next stop after that was Mt. Vernon, a
working class black area. There were two other lines through Westchester, each
stopping in dozens of towns and with similar service. In sum, it was very
practical to work in Manhattan but live in a town where rent wasn't totally
unaffordable for people outside the upper middle class.

There is nothing comparable in the Bay Area. Rising rents don't just mean
moving a slightly longer walk away from the train, or down another stop, but
possibly moving somewhere else entirely.

------
GeneralMayhem
>rents are increasing faster than incomes, especially for the middle class.

This bothers me constantly. The middle class _is_ the "Haves." It would be
really useful if more people were aware of and honest about where they
actually stand in society, but poor people don't want to be called poor and
rich people don't want to be called rich.

------
j_baker
> Otherwise, the only people left will be the entrepreneurs and engineers.

> “The bar is so steep, the only people who can locate here are the high-
> income earners,” Mr. Hancock said. “We’re losing our middle class in Silicon
> Valley.”

I don't get it. Does being a engineer automatically make me upper-class?
Because I'm an engineer and I certainly make a middle-class income (albeit
likely being an upper middle-class income). I'd be willing to bet the average
engineer living in Silicon Valley does as well.

~~~
gaius
If you will ever have a mortgage, you are middle class. The lower class don't
qualify and the upper class inherit the family estate.

------
saalweachter
“We’re losing our middle class in Silicon Valley.”

I think the term has been eroded, but historically, white collar _was_ the
middle class. Blue collar, white collar, rentiers.

~~~
sosuke
It does feel like articles like this pit the lower class against the middle.

------
base698
>> Fewer than half of first-time home buyers can afford to purchase a median-
priced home, and rents are increasing faster than incomes, especially for the
middle class.

Dafuq? Isn't that the definition of the median?

------
anovikov
Why worry? Every boomtown in history had the same things happening, pricing
out its original population (if one existed). At least they enjoy the ability
to sell their homes for many times the price they paid for it, and buy way
better ones elsewhere (especially now when home prices nationwide are quite
low on average), this way ripping a great lot of boom's benefits (i'd even
say, more than a median techie-newcomer will ever get from it).

------
tobiasnn
I am a HN reader, so I have to criticize this article that criticizes Silicon
Valley:

Oh, this article is so inaccurate! What cheap journalism! I am so outraged.

~~~
radmuzom
I guess that was sarcasm.

~~~
tobiasnn
It wasn't. HN readers have no idea what is going on in the world.

------
tlogan
I'm not sure why but somehow it hard for non-white to succeed in white
society... It is vicious circle.

But I want to point out that belief of newly rich white libertarians that
market will solve this in peaceful way is a very dangerous dream. Trotsky said
"not believing in force is like not believing in gravity".

------
joesmo
“We have to be intentional as a community about addressing inequality."

Whenever I read someone making a statement like this or an article about
"inequality" I wonder if the author of the statement or article actually
believes the bullshit that he's spewing out. People pay so much lip service to
the idea of inequality that one would think it appears on some political
agenda or another. I suppose it's the expected topic of conversation, even as
nothing is done about it. Ever. Call me cynical, but I have yet to see any
action to remedy this and I simply do not believe that action on economic
equality is anything but lip service.

------
altero
> While whites and Asians are making more money, blacks and Latinos are
> falling further behind.

In London it is kind of oposite. You can only live in central london if you
are filthy rich, or non-white and get social housing.

~~~
staunch
White people are excluded from social housing in central London?

~~~
altero
Theoretically no, practically yes.

------
sabbatic13
The main problem with the article, I think, is that it tries to align the
oppositions between native-born and new comer, tech and non-tech, rich and
poor, educated and not, advantaged ethnic groups and disadvantaged. They don't
really align very well, though they do some, and each deserves its own
discussion, if one is really going to talk about social problems.

------
ajju
"The public opposes most new construction, not realizing that it’s the key to
keeping jobs"

------
benihana
I have a hard time taking these kinds of articles seriously, because the main
premise seems to be "you should feel some sort of moral guilt because you're
not solving problems that are important to the author."

