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San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

sfchronicle.com

71–80 of 161 posts

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco is largely owned and controlled by about a half dozen extremely wealthy families, who don't just control SF...they're also "kingmakers" for the governor's office, and have been using their influence for personal gain for decades: https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-pol-ca-gavin-newsom-san-... Not a dime of public money should go to bailing out the Guggenhimes, Buells, Swigs, Marcuses, Fishers, Gettys, a…

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So you are of the opinion that we should continue the long tradition of bailouts to the wealthy?

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should we expect "civic attachment" when nerds are literally hardcore bullied from the beginning in our media, in our schools You’re describing rich and powerful people. If someone with those resources can’t grow up, yes, it’s reasonable for others to dissociate from them. What I’m describing is also uniquely San Franciscan. Tech workers in Berkeley, Oakland, Sunnyvale, Seattle, New York and overseas are civica…

unlike sf, tech workers in pretty much every city you listed tend to actually live in those cities. hell, half the tech workers in sf live in berkeley, oakland, sunnyvale, or other bay area communities. when i was a tech worker in sf, i wasn't civically engaged in sf because i spent that budget in berkeley, where i actually lived.

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Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#74
"downtown"

This sounds like the "downtown" real estate interests whining. By "downtown" they mean the area around Embarcadero Center. The working center of SF has been moving south into SOMA and Dogpatch for two decades. There have been desperate efforts to stop this, including the "transit center" and an unnecessary push for tunnels to terminate Caltrain in classic "downtown".

Those parts of SF seem to be doing OK. It's the tall office building sector that's in trouble.

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

after the huggingface event last night a group of us wasn't let into a bar/club because "y'all are nerds, we don't want your patronage" I don't think it's solved enough yet for their taste, what a beautifully schizoid city, never change, we should just throw money at the problem forever as a monument to hubris XD

I really wish that we could all just settle on using "whether or not someone is acting like an asshole" as our single tribal dividing line. Every other grouping scheme will lump lots of great people with lots of assholes all mixed together and then we cherry pick and make assumptions about the wider group that are generally unfair.

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Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#76
post #10
post #2

Hey, congratulations SF. You spent over a decade whining about tech-bros and Google buses. Guess those problems are solved now!

I think the fact that Prop J cruised to victory and Prop I went down in flames shows that the influence of the old guard is waning. There is a proliferation of groups trying to flex tech money in SF politics: Grow SF, Abundant SF, Together SF. And they are aligned with state politicians who get the goods like Weiner, Newsom, and Haney. Supervisor Peskin is termed out, again, in 2024 and Preston and his band of fake-a…

Tech money should be flexed in politics more. We’re paying taxes too, right?

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we should expect it given how fast AI is going to hurt a lot of these people It has nothing to do with tangible harm and a lot with the attitude of techno public figures, as well as, in San Francisco, the civic detachment of its tech workers.

Why should we expect "civic attachment" when nerds are literally hardcore bullied from the beginning in our media, in our schools, and now, they're starting getting bullied for being cerebral nerds by the bars of the one city that's supposed to be theirs. I don't blame them tbh. Frankly, society should be very happy uniquely for the "nerds at the HF event" since those nerds are working very hard on open source and de…

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Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#78
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fact that Prop J cruised to victory and Prop I went down in flames shows that the influence of the old guard is waning. There is a proliferation of groups trying to flex tech money in SF politics: Grow SF, Abundant SF, Together SF. And they are aligned with state politicians who get the goods like Weiner, Newsom, and Haney. Supervisor Peskin is termed out, again, in 2024 and Preston and his band of fake-a…

Tech money should be flexed in politics more. We’re paying taxes too, right?

Way more than fucking Dede Wilsey is paying.

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#79
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are certainly reasons other than jobs why some people choose to live in a major city. But eliminate the job/commute reason and the calculus changes for a lot of people given that "live near work" is at least one of the main reasons they would choose urban living.

> There are certainly reasons other than jobs why some people choose to live in a major city I agree, but without jobs, as a major city, SF looks pretty unattractive. It was better a decade ago, but since then, all its problems got worse.

I've spent a lot of time traveling to SF and the broader Bay Area over the years. What I tell people is that a lot of the pros are still there but the CON list especially for living in the city proper has definitely gotten longer and redder.

Re: San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?

#80
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder whether homeowners talking about more affordable housing realize that includes their own house likely declining in value….

Home value does not (generally) matter to you day to day if you plan to actually live there. Hell, if the value of your home goes down that could lower your property taxes! Of course in the US, homes are first and foremost an investment, so losing resale value is one of the worst things that could happen to a homeowner, or something.

Only issues I can think of would be going underwater on a mortgage which might cause financial problems or having the price or liquidity drop when you need to sell short term.
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