
The People’s Republic of Zuckerstan  - ilamont
http://www.thebaffler.com/past/peoples_republic_of_zuckerstan
======
Zigurd
Tl;dr: Cranky hipster bemoans, five years too late, that Cambridge is overrun
with VCs and their money, and the clean, boring bistros they go to, and that
the money even managed to squeeze the seediness out of Central Square.

Every cool person, and cool place, has moved to Somerville, but rents are way
up there, too.

So go to the Gods, and to the Cantab Lounge, while you can. Before some story
of a deal that closed over PBRs in plastic cups shows up in TechCrunch.

~~~
the_watcher
Oh no, people who are willing to pay more than you to live somewhere have
caused you to have to live somewhere else. TL;DR: The same thing that has been
happening since the dawn of time continues to happen.

~~~
chadwickthebold
The issue that OP is concerned with is that those who are displaced don't
necessarily have the means to relocate to an area and remain in the same
living situation they were previously in. When you uproot lower-income
residents from their existing social structure, which may have served as their
safety net, where are they supposed to go? They may relocate physically but
the economic and mental/psychological strain from being forcibly moved may
have detrimental consequences that we haven't properly taken the time to
understand.

'Progress' and residential gentrification are not necessarily evil things, but
they become destructive when the people moving in have no interest in
maintaining social services for people other than themselves. If the tech
sector wishes to maintain the image that it is an industry with a 'heart', it
would behoove those of us working in it to inform ourselves as to the
consequences of our economic decisions.

------
diydsp
As usual, The Baffler is smug and ignorant to the point of dangerously
distracting incoherence.

Having visited and lived in Cambridge and Somerville for about 20 years, the
problem has nothing to do with entrepreneurs and everything to do with the
prices/value of transient housing. There have always been hugemongous
factories intermingled with the residences (remember Necco? Junior Mints?
Analog Devices?)

With or without recent crass attempts at branding, the area has been a
legendary entrepreneurship hot bed, from World War II radar to Ms. PacMan to
Guitar Hero and everything in between. It doesn't need explicit branding to
achieve this status. Innovation here comes in _waves_. Biotech was big 10
years ago. Now it's online social stuff with biotech still fairing strong.

There are more specific problems, such as Harvard's capital buying out houses
and turning them into faux fraternal organizations and ever more dorms. Or my
favorite frustration, the generation of do-nothings in Somerville and Medford
who inherited three-deckers from their parents and do little but collect rent
from Tufts, Harvard and MIT students.

Confounding the process is that fact that so much of the population is
temporary - 2 to 5 years in resident that they can - and hardly desire -
political coherency, thus yielding power to the incumbents.

------
Spooky23
What a bizarre rant. It's like an angry former chamber of commerce booster
knocking the only thing going on.

Be real. Cambridge is a dump. The full-time residents are angry old folks and
poor people, the city is dirty and the infrastructure is awful. The housing is
a mix of ghetto and college town -- lots of houses cut up into a warren of
teeny apartments and condos.

------
the_watcher
The idea that entrepreneurship is somehow opposed to "liberalism" is just
laughable. Startup communities welcome people no matter what their background
(high school dropout, college dropout, who cares?). At least, that is their
goal. This is not to say that there isn't some cognitive bias in favor of
those with access to elite educations (I'd say much less so than in older
institutions such as law, and even in modern institutions like banking and
consulting). However, the barriers to entry in technology essentially do not
exist in the way they do in banking and law (try getting one of those jobs
without a degree). Or even becoming a politician. Just off the top of my head,
Paul Buchheit started at Case Western Reserve. Jack Dorsey started at the
Missouri Institute of Technology. The President of the company I work at went
to USD. Evan Williams went to Nebraska. Biz Stone went to Northeastern, then
UMass. Trevor Blackwell started at Carleton. Other YC partners went to schools
like Bucknell and Stetson.

Apologies for the rant-like post, but this is becoming a major pet peeve of
mine.

~~~
lmm
"entrepreneurship" inherently favours those who can take risks - which means
those who are already financially secure, or from privileged backgrounds where
they can be sure of finding a new job quickly. It favours those who can get
money from VC, which is very much an old-boys club. And it favours the kind of
businesses that make a profit quickly, whatever their other effects.

~~~
klaptrapper
"living" inherently favours those who can breathe - which means those who are
already breathing, or from oxygen rich environments where they can be sure of
finding new O2 molecules quickly. It favours those who can get air from tanks,
which are very much old apparatuses. And it favours the kind of lungs that
exhale quickly, whatever their other effects.

~~~
stackcollision
I believe this is known as "reducto ad absurdum".

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taybin
I can't follow this essay. I'm not sure how the ex-NSA entrepreneurs ties into
transit workers working later because the train schedule was expanded. It
reads like a list of unrelated complaints instead of a cohesive argument
against...what? Trying to attract businesses?

------
cpr
Funny, I'm what you'd call a paleoconservative, lived in Cambridge for 6 years
(Harvard undergrad and MIT work after), but I think this "no one here but us
liberals and loonies" rant is more or less right on. ;-)

------
happyscrappy
Stupid title and a long wandering article padded with disconnected complaints
disparaging the City's efforts to remain a tech hub. This alleged "hard-core
nerd" was even in favor the software tax, pathetic.

