
The Three Bay Areas (2017) - mdu96
https://thebolditalic.com/the-three-bay-areas-b09aa2c4d727
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username4567
I enjoyed this. I probably read it in 2017 but it carries new meaning given
the new vectors of disparity. Of these caricatures of late 20-somethings, two
are likely now out of work and dealing with a whole new set of problems. The
third mostly complains about having to work from home and how food delivery is
less reliable than it used to be.

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ThrowAwayBay
This ignores a huge chunk of the bay area: first generation tech immigrants.
Not working class, not elites, not hip.

~~~
csa
I am fairly certain that this was written from the perspective of people who
were born and raised in the Bay Area, which first generation tech immigrants
by definition cannot be.

It’s also a whimsical satire piece, so I wouldn’t expect it to include every
group. That said, note the the site has follow on stories for each group, so
maybe they expanded the groups.

~~~
cortesoft
The second one was from Sacramento, which isn’t the Bay Area... and the first
one suggest two places they were born that are on the east coast.

~~~
csa
My reading was:

\- friends moved to Sac because it’s cheaper.

\- some folks went to university on the east coast.

Maybe I missed some details.

~~~
jhatemyjob
plus even if they were from sac, that's basically the east bay. its one hour
driving on I-80 from davis to oakland (which is shorter than a lot of people's
commute)

~~~
cortesoft
It is way more than an hour during commute times.

~~~
jhatemyjob
its around 2 hours

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pkkim
There are two reasons I'm guessing the author doesn't see himself as part of
the working class. 1\. He doesn't make fun of the working class like he does
to the other two. Either because he doesn't know them well enough to do so, or
because he doesn't want to insult them. 2\. The UAW locals in the Bay Area
represent graduate students, postdocs, and nonprofit workers. No one in
"service jobs or government jobs" or "nurses, teachers or craftsmen."

~~~
whatshisface
3\. Oil is not something that you can change in your own car unless you're
ready to permanently ruin whatever concrete you do it on. Sounds like the
author gets their car maintained with an app. ;)

~~~
GhettoChild
Thats just not true at all. All that means is that you're slow and forget to
move your oil pan from underneath your oil drain to underneath the filter.

Then again I was raised by a single immigrant mom. I was taught to pinch
pennies in ways many people cannot relate to.

~~~
marviio
Four Yorkshiremen.

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throwaway1147
I don’t know about these stereotypes. In my own case, I grew up and went to
college in the southeast, moved here for the tech, food, nature, and sunshine,
and totally ignore everything political because I’m slightly conservative
which makes me feel like an alien around here. Will probably move back at some
point to be closer to family but I’m not thrilled about losing the sunshine
and nature.

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sabujp

        You order your groceries via app. You make restaurant 
        reservations via app. You have your laundry picked up via 
        app. You manage your investments via app. You have casual 
        sex via app. You refill your Xanax prescription via app.
    

modern (American) Psycho

~~~
kyleblarson
I was thinking Dorsia.

~~~
ZephyrBlu
How did you manage to get a reservation?!

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nhf
This feels kind of like the article equivalent of a political cartoon: sure,
it's accurate and worth a chuckle if you squint at it from a distance, but
it's been done to death and I'm unsure if it's a productive portrait outside
of the instinct to say "lol sooooo true!"

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DevKoala
I have definitely met tons of individuals in SF/Oakland who fit these
stereotypes. Also, the individuals I met who resemble the second stereotype
are the most inconsistent in terms of ideals. They want to be rich, but they’d
rather accrue “moral capital”. It’s quite the oxymoron.

~~~
munchbunny
_They want to be rich, but they’d rather accrue “moral capital”. It’s quite
the oxymoron._

Who doesn’t want to be rich, given the chance? We’re crabs in a bucket, we’re
just too evolved to admit it.

I struggle with this idea as a consequence of growing up among conflicting
ideas. Will I send my kids to public school to do our part to avoid further
segregation of schools, or send them to private school because we can afford
to and they’ll get better teachers? There’s a name for this: opportunity
hoarding. It’s a contributor to inequality in the US. But that doesn’t lessen
the internal conflict.

~~~
082349872349872
An exploration (from the days of the 2600) of having dollar-denominated
capital while seeking mellow capital (uphill):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Serial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Serial)

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odomojuli
As someone who grew up in the Bay I find it curious to make the distinction
that there are three.

There's South Bay, East Bay, North Bay and the Peninsula.

They're all very different, but lumping in the Peninsula with the South Bay
feels hamhanded given that most of the South Bay IS NOT like the Peninsula.

It's kind of an in-joke that nobody actually knows where Silicon Valley is.

~~~
xvedejas
The article isn't at all about three geographical bay areas, it's about three
socioeconomic bay areas. I see elements of all three (but mostly the third) in
my neighborhood in SF.

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umeshunni
The article, of course, completely misses the stereotypes of people in the
Peninsula and South Bay.

I suspect it's because the author is a 20something who doesn't go anywhere the
BART won't take him.

~~~
stu2b50
By the way, what are the peninsula stereotypes? I know a few people in redwood
but it seems mostly like the same stereotypes, but I really dont know that
much about the area.

~~~
205guy
Well, there are the rich Asians moving south from SF for better weather (the
fog belt ends right where property values pick up in Millbrae). Then there are
the rich whites moving north to Palo Alto to escape the sprawl of San
Jose/Sunnyvale/Mountain View. Said sprawl is mostly vanilla suburban, middle-
class families who work in corporate tech. Also new transplants filling in
cheaper apartments, as I once was, not cool enough or paid enough to live in
SF. Then you have the hard-working and long-time Latino communities getting
squeezed in the middle (Redwood City and San Mateo) or pushed into the fog
belt (Daly City). There is a bit of the social angst and class-conflict
mentioned in the original article, but nowhere near as much--I found the south
bay and the peninsula to be much more down-to-earth.

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fotta
> charmed by the feral chickens that roamed the streets freely.[0]

Holy shit I never thought I’d see my hometown mentioned in this context. Yes,
the chickens roam old town (maybe a square mile) freely but you don’t really
see them elsewhere. They are really loud though.

[0] [https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/2-California-towns-
wh...](https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/2-California-towns-where-
chickens-have-free-range-5675133.php)

~~~
rhacker
Ah yes, after seeing that I thought immediately Yuba City, near Wendys.

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ww520
This is way too simplistic to segment the Bay Area into 3 social-economic
classes. I've seen people from what the author describes but way more other
types/classes of people.

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Ericson2314
Born on one coast, living on the other, I can safely say it's the same people
stereotypes, just different land use.

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iarejenius
This reads like a satirical version of Robert Putnam's book _Our Kids_. I
highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in the topic and likes their
data interwoven with personal stories to bring it to life.

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lordnacho
Do people really only know people who do what they do? Of course you expect a
coder to know more coders than the normal population, and the same for doctors
or any other profession.

But do you not have friends and relatives from all three of these categories?
I don't even live in the Bay Area, but I have Bay Area friends and relatives
in all three.

~~~
michaelt
It depends:

Is your standard for friendship facebook friends, of which the average person
has hundreds, or close personal friends of which the average person has 3-7?

Did they grow up where they're living, thus forming a non-work social network,
or did they move there for work and find the distance made it hard to keep in
touch with old friends?

Do they have interests (religion, sport clubs, parenting etc) that bring them
into contact with people outside of their professional circles, and give them
a chance to get to know each other?

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shajznnckfke
This article is bullshit. A house in Potrero for under two million?

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LifeIsBio
A quick Zillow search shows multiple places in Potrero that are for sale and
under $2M right now. I've been casually watching the area for most of the year
and there's usually a place or two available in the $1.3-$2M range at any
given time.

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Nuzzerino
With all the turmoil and despair of 2020, this article made me happier than
I've felt in weeks, because it reminds me of what I don't have to deal with
these days.

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wfbarks
$1.1 mil for a 2 bedroom house in Potrero is a steal.

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tathougies
> You are utterly certain that you are not racist, even though your friend
> circle is exclusively white, Asian or hapa.

I love how asians are the new whites. For all its worship of success,
Americans hate success like no other.

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8f2ab37a-ed6c
That's been fascinating to watch from the inside of tech companies as well.

I've seen instances of US-born American Asians to not fall under the "People
of Color" label when referred to by Latin-American or Black employees, thus
being associated more with White Americans, and yet they themselves would
self-label as "People of Color" in other conversations.

My impression is that, at least in coastal metropolitan cities, East and South
Asians are informally part of the white "class". Economically those two groups
are more accomplished than most white ethnicities
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income)
, which I imagine makes other minorities less than thrilled about being
affiliated with them, as they don't get to share the same levels of success.

~~~
tathougies
It's almost like this is all more about interclass dynamics than skin color.
But skin color is a convenient distraction and factionalism drives votes.

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noncoml
You can recognize the "Three" crowd on dating sites by their first sentence
which is usually something like "Bay area native"

~~~
GhettoChild
I am always amused by the people who think that being scared to move as an
attribute. Yet, they hate people who have moved to where they live.

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rexarex
Some pretty exaggerated stereotypes. A false trichotomy?

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thehappypm
It’s always fun to stereotype people.

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aluminum96
Article is paywalled?

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cbHXBY1D
Yep. I'm paywalled out of it. Anyone want to give a summary?

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why_only_15
This is medium's paywall. Just open an incognito tab or the like. Personally I
have no guilt about it because medium doesn't pay the people who write on it.

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marsrover
Being from the south, I couldn't relate to anything in this article but I
really enjoyed reading it. The author has a good writing style.

Is this really the trichotomy of the Bay area? I thought it was interesting
that none of these groups are turned out to be Trump supporters. I think it
would be fun to contrast this mode of thought with the thought of people in
flyover territory, as was done with these groups.

~~~
seiferteric
The author is painting with a broad brush but some of it does resonate with
me. Realistically most people I know are a combination of two or more of those
"bay areas". Although I was not from the bay area "proper" as many "true bay
area people" would remind me being from the most southern town in Santa Clara
county :)

~~~
205guy
Gilroy is the same distance from SF as Sacramento--and Stockton is closer.
Also, Gilroy is not even in the SF Bay watershed. However, unlike many places
in the Bay Area, it does boast a direct rail link to downtown SF.

Not trying to exclude you, I've lived in San Jose and on the peninsula,
neither of which was worthy of being stereotyped in the original article. It's
better to avoid those games anyway.

~~~
seiferteric
Just want to say, growing up, SF was not the center of the universe in the bay
area. If anything the south bay seemed more of a draw and I spent plenty of
time in San Jose, Maintain View etc.

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julius_set
Even if this article is a satire peace, it’s extremely ignorant.

What about the people that earned their keep as category one? For example I
have friends who are refugees who now fit into bracket one.

This article makes it seem like category 1 are self entitled yuppie brats.

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function_seven
Your refugee friends probably didn't fit this intro to bracket one:

> _You grew up in one of these five counties: Marin, Santa Clara, Orange,
> Loudoun or Westchester. You went to a private high school that cost $40,000
> a year to attend, yet when you mention it, you emphasize that it “almost
> bankrupted your parents,” one of whom is an engineer, and the other of whom
> is a clinical psychologist who has written two best-selling self-help
> books._

Obviously this piece is not a comprehensive list of all classes of people in
the Bay Area. Just 3 common tropes.

~~~
usaar333
As it is satirical, it tends to narrowly bucket people.

Bracket one broadly is intended to apply to many if not most upper middle
class professionals, including ones who went to top public schools. Some just
happen to enter the circle later in life (their 20s rather than at birth).

~~~
zeckalpha
Those who enter later in life may not ever quite feel at home.

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jojobas
The author seems to be unhappy about parents being able to pass some of their
success on to their children.

If you couldn't do it, would there much motivation to succeed in the first
place?

From another angle, does the movement to equalize children have any chances
against those above the median (and those from below hoping to get ahead)?

