Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#921

Post by boringg » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

headsupftw wrote: post #876

boringg wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure NY had a pretty heinous violent crime streak in the 70s. If memory serves SF was pretty gritty in the 70s/80s as well. The thing with SF is that the media and a large portion of the US loves to hate it - theres a narrative that keeps getting the replay button. They always will, and it will always die just like Silicon Valley is over and the next Silicon Valley will be in (insert any city, or china). These…

Crime or not, NYC seems to be doing pretty well. Top dog in the entire country for the past decades and the foreseeable future.

Depends on the metrics you are ranking by.

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#922

Post by tharne » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

headsupftw wrote: post #876

boringg wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure NY had a pretty heinous violent crime streak in the 70s. If memory serves SF was pretty gritty in the 70s/80s as well. The thing with SF is that the media and a large portion of the US loves to hate it - theres a narrative that keeps getting the replay button. They always will, and it will always die just like Silicon Valley is over and the next Silicon Valley will be in (insert any city, or china). These…

Crime or not, NYC seems to be doing pretty well. Top dog in the entire country for the past decades and the foreseeable future.

They're not looking so hot at the moment. Huge outflow of people and businesses due to the one-two punch of COVID and rising crime + defund the police.

The recent announcement by Goldman Sachs about moving a large chunk of their operations to Miami is not a good sign for NYC.

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#923

Post by Pet_Ant » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #882

DSingularity wrote: post #848

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unbecoming to point at the homeless and blame them for making our cities unattractive. These are human beings with souls and emotions. When they make us feel uncomfortable with their appearance or behavior we should remember they lead lives where they are likely suffering most of every day. We as a people have failed to create a society with space for these people to exist in peace, happiness, and good health.…

They are people, and I feel for the trouble they are in, but no amount of compassion or empathy could convince me to take a stroll through a majority of SF downtown after dark. Likewise with many of the South Bay trails and parks. I don't even go to SF downtown during the day anymore because of the number of times I've almost stepped in human feces, and the needles strewn about. 8 years of liberal politicians claimin…

> I'd also like to point out society does not exist to gift every person peace, safety, and health. A just society offers opportunities, not guarantees.

In that case I won't guarantee not to nick your stuff, just give you the opportunity to not have it nicked.

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#924

Post by carapace » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 3:29 PM UTC

Panini_Jones wrote: post #872

carapace wrote: post #852

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Mission ... currently isn't a nice town? I lived in the Mission District. I can tell you some stories. Gangsters and just crazy shit. It's still pretty wild there despite gentrification. Sunset used to have something called "Sunset District Incorporated" or something like that. Skinheads basically. Dunno how it is now. I went to high school in Hunters Point. Doublerock isn't as famous as Compton but it gets res…

I grew up in Toronto. I'm aware of the safety disparity but nevertheless I still think this is a nice place. There are also places in Toronto that I wouldn't go to. Anecdotally, I've been beaten up randomly in Toronto but not in San Francisco. Anecdotally again, I've seen people shoot up in Toronto but not in San Francisco. > Are you trolling? Those are the nice neighborhoods! Your assertion was that SF is not a nice…

But, again, from what my Canadians friends told me, Toronto is practically American in terms of roughness!

Toronto is like the New Orleans of Canada.

> Those neighborhoods are what SF is to many people, including myself.

Yeah, I know for a lot of people SF ends at Twin Peaks, but that's my whole point: folks ignoring the gritty reality of life in SF, living in bubbles, protected by wealth and privilege, and then complaining that the rest of the city can't be their Disneyland too.

> To me, SF is a nice place with bad parts. To you, it seems to be a bad place with nice parts.

Like I said, I love this city. I grew up here, it's my home town. But I also know our history. (And shady stuff goes on up to this very day, just for example check out the FBI corruption probe[1]. Shady.)

> I don't know if anyone has told you, but we've been allowed to go on walks.

Self righteous and snotty? No thanks, I'm all stocked up.

> Even in the current lockdown, you are permitted to walk to a park.

But that's not what you said you were doing. You said "I started taking walks in Russian Hill, North Beach/Telegraph Hill, the Marina, Ocean Beach, etc. Those are awesome neighborhoods with great people and many things to do."

Which sounds like you're touring around and chillaxing at the pub.

I'm out.

Good day sir.

[1] https://sfist.com/2020/07/15/ongoing-fbi-corruption-probe-hi...

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#925

Post by baja_blast » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #660

skrtskrt wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicago is pretty segregated, but the transit situation is easily the best of any major US city. A car helps you get places quicker, but an adventurous person can get all over the city easily on the buses and trains and any given neighborhood is very walkable. The main issue is the cold. You have 3 months of amazing summer and 8 months of cold with two weeks of spring and fall on either end. If you're not from the Mi…

Cold is fine. Getting robbed at gunpoint isn't. That's the real Chicago you have to contend with.

As someone how has lived in both cities, I can say I felt unsafe way more often in SF than Chicago. Chicago's crime is gang related and isolated to a part of the city kind of disconnected from the main hub. But in SF the craziness is in the nice areas, I have had to deal with way too many violent mentally unstable people there, in fact I remember one of the two years I lived there a British woman randomly got a kitchen knife jabbed through her skull. In SF you're dealing with a large number of seriously mentally ill going to and from work.

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#926

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 3:48 PM UTC

grillvogel wrote: post #374

bigyikes wrote: post #13

As it happens, tomorrow I’m putting in my 30-day notice to terminate my lease and leave the Bay. (And I’m paying 2 additional months rent in fees to do so) Not being tied to the office fundamentally changes the calculus of choosing where to live. There just aren’t good reasons to live here anymore for so many of us. Even if you enjoy the area, chances are you can get a better deal by moving just a bit further away. A…

what happens if everyone goes back to the office in a year and now you're the only remote employee?

[deleted]

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#927

Post by rconti » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

cltby wrote: post #778

rconti wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... so what you're telling me is, Washington has a very low tax rate and few people who complain about their overall tax burden?

My comment is a reply to this: "To blast the Bay Area and state which made them rich and then flee before they owe a penny is gross." It's not gross to minimize your obligations towards people who have done nothing for you. Seattle is the relevant counterfactual: flourishing tech scene without the punitive tax burden that we're supposed to believe enabled California's success.

Your comment is dripping with opinion and utterly devoid of any attempt at supporting evidence.

I've lived both places. Seattle is not a low-tax paradise, nor are tax dollars completely and utterly squandered in California.

It is gross how, the more money one makes, the more entitled one feels to not have to give a dime back. It's a game to them.

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#928

Post by learc83 » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #483

tschwimmer wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, this describes most metro areas over 100k people in the US I feel.

Except the access to nature aspect. I mean, that is a broad and ambiguous statement, but not too many places are as beautiful as California. If you were to take access to nature to mean, being within driving distance of nature sites that people travel across the country to experience, then the number of metro areas drops significantly.

Look at a map of national parks. Most of the population of the US is within driving distance of a national park.

The Appalachian mountain range stretches from GA to Maine, and contains dozens of state and national parks that people travel across the country to see. Nearly the entire eastern seaboard is within range of one of them.

The only part that isn’t is Florida, and they have better beaches than California, swamps, lakes, and massive crystal clear springs.

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#929

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:24 PM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #223

gonehome wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is it's the 'fuck off we're full' people that have made CA policy shitty. It's the NIMBY anti-change response to policy. The people that want a strong economy, incentivize building housing, and adapting lead to positive non-zero-sum outcomes. The people that say "fuck off we're full" block any policy and create perverse incentives that create a dysfunctional mess. This is ignoring the selection bias that th…

My experience living in an area that has high net migration from California is that the people leaving bring California's policies with them.

[deleted]

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#930

Post by wavefunction » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:27 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #264

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience living in an area that has high net migration from California is that the people leaving bring California's policies with them.

Anything specific? One guess I'd have is that an influx of new people creates that anti-housing response anywhere which can lead to some of the same problems. I suspect that's less about CA policy and more about bad incentives around housing being an investment in the US. If you mean that most people from CA don't like Trump (or the Republican support/defense of him), then yeah I think you're probably right about tha…

In my experience Californians move to a new area, often more rural or with a differing local culture and want the same chain-store consumerist culture they left behind in California. And sure, there may be some political differences between their old home and the new place but it's more about the lack of respect for where they're moving and pushing their old culture onto the new place with no disregard to what made the new place nice in the first place. Change is inevitable so I can't complain about it too much but there are fewer and fewer places to escape to that aren't becoming Californicated. Or New Yorkified. Or Floridiated.