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Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

oaklandlocal.com

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Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#51

Post by fsloth »

justizin wrote: post #13
nailer wrote: post #10

I don't live in the US, but it's weird: downtown San Francisco people tend to look down on Oakland, but every time I've been, San Francisco is unique in having human feces on the streets. In Oakland: there's a bunch of parks, a hacker space called the sudo room, a bunch of JS related companies included npm Inc are headquartered there and the last JSFest was there.

Please do not try to understand this through such a narrow lens. San Francisco has human feces because it is one of the only cities in the USA which has not completely criminalized homelesness, because there are a lot of services there, and because once people decide that San Francisco is home, they really, really, really do not want to leave. First of all, there are plenty of human feces in Oakland, but again, let's…

"San Francisco has human feces because it is one of the only cities in the USA which has not completely criminalized homelesness"

Getting offtopic but: Holy crap. Talk about cultural differences. The system in my nordic wellfare state makes sure people capable of renting a house and going to the wellfare office will have at least minimum accommodation (without criminalization).

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#53

Post by danbmil99 »

gcv wrote: post #43
delackner wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walking down the street in SF near the Caltrain station, right on the street in a parking space I saw a huge pile of discarded construction of waste wood, with exposed nails and sharp edges. In any city with functioning cleaning services, this would trigger a cleanup response, since it is unsafe and a nuisance. Yet this pile of crap appeared to have been there for quite some time. To me this is the soft version of th…

> SF is dirty because the people prefer low taxes to real government services. No. Coastal California is populated by Democratic voters, people who generally prefer high taxes and more (albeit of questionable quality) government services. SF is dirty because it has never had a Rudy Giuliani to clean it up — and the aforementioned residents would never vote someone like that into office. (I grew up in NYC, and have be…

Hear here. ex-NYC too -- SF is a lot like the New York of around 25+ years ago.

It's a bit unfortunate, but getting a substantially cleaner, safer SF would require a cultural shift away from egalitarian principles that are deeply ingrained in the city's DNA.

Note that while downtown Manhattan is approaching a dystopian Disneyland of tourist-friendly homogeneity, there are still parts of the city that are scary no-man's-land, you just don't see them if you visit or live & work in gentrified neighborhoods.

Back in the day, NYC was nice or nasty block by block, just like SF is today.

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#54

Post by rifung »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #49
tzs wrote: post #7

According to Wikipedia, "Oakland has the fifth largest cluster of 'elite zip codes' ranked by the number of households with the highest combination of income and education". That's a good sign. On the other hand, Oakland is also persistently near the top of the list of most dangerous cities in the US. One recent report put it at #2 [1]. That's generally not a good sign. Is there much interaction between the high inco…

Being in danger in Oakland is related to being part of a dense network of dangerous people. If you're not in that network, you're not in danger. I don't know why those people make their home in Oakland, but basically if you're not a criminal or friends with criminals than you'll survive.

Is this really true though? I mean even if you are not in that crowd you could just happen to be a witness to a crime. In that case I imagine they might not be so happy about it.

Or, probably more commonly, if you have nice things you could be a victim of theft.

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#55

Post by briandear »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #38
delackner wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walking down the street in SF near the Caltrain station, right on the street in a parking space I saw a huge pile of discarded construction of waste wood, with exposed nails and sharp edges. In any city with functioning cleaning services, this would trigger a cleanup response, since it is unsafe and a nuisance. Yet this pile of crap appeared to have been there for quite some time. To me this is the soft version of th…

> SF is dirty because the people prefer low taxes to real government services New Yorkers pay similar taxes as San Franciscans. Yet our service level is substantially better. I think it comes down to city governments that are willing to make trade-offs (versus those that tend to get locked down by incumbent interests and populist temptations).

Houston has far lower taxes than both SF and NYC and I have never seen human poop on the sidewalks. My point is that the tax rate has little to do with it; it's a question of priorities.

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#56

Post by Perdition »

danbmil99 wrote: post #53
gcv wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SF is dirty because the people prefer low taxes to real government services. No. Coastal California is populated by Democratic voters, people who generally prefer high taxes and more (albeit of questionable quality) government services. SF is dirty because it has never had a Rudy Giuliani to clean it up — and the aforementioned residents would never vote someone like that into office. (I grew up in NYC, and have be…

Hear here. ex-NYC too -- SF is a lot like the New York of around 25+ years ago. It's a bit unfortunate, but getting a substantially cleaner, safer SF would require a cultural shift away from egalitarian principles that are deeply ingrained in the city's DNA. Note that while downtown Manhattan is approaching a dystopian Disneyland of tourist-friendly homogeneity, there are still parts of the city that are scary no-man…

> It's a bit unfortunate, but getting a substantially cleaner, safer SF would require a cultural shift away from egalitarian principles that are deeply ingrained in the city's DNA.

No it wouldn't. It would just require spending more money on public sanitation.

Of course if you let homeless congregate and don't provide the services to clean up after them the place is going to get filthy. But there are more solutions than getting rid of the homeless.

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#57

Post by digitalwaveride »

nailer wrote: post #10

I don't live in the US, but it's weird: downtown San Francisco people tend to look down on Oakland, but every time I've been, San Francisco is unique in having human feces on the streets. In Oakland: there's a bunch of parks, a hacker space called the sudo room, a bunch of JS related companies included npm Inc are headquartered there and the last JSFest was there.

There is a lot more data why Oakland is an interesting place - check http://bayarea.teleport.org - it analyses the whole Bay Area regarding rent costs, commute times but also several other quality of life factors.

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#58

Post by ulfw »

fyell wrote: post #3

Great article. The diversity in tech is definitely apparent in Oakland. Not just in employee demographics, but in how companies tend to think in a different manner. The article mentions that start-ups in Oakland are driven by a social mission, and it's very true. I work at VSCO and we're based in Oakland. VSCO is not about giving likes, being popular, or generating money through ads. We are simply about empowering th…

> VSCO is not about giving likes, being popular, or generating money through ads. We are simply about empowering the community with the art of photography.

Wow - so you're not in business to make money or get sold and get a huge paid-out for the founders. Congrats!

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#59

Post by nailer »

fsloth wrote: post #51
justizin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not try to understand this through such a narrow lens. San Francisco has human feces because it is one of the only cities in the USA which has not completely criminalized homelesness, because there are a lot of services there, and because once people decide that San Francisco is home, they really, really, really do not want to leave. First of all, there are plenty of human feces in Oakland, but again, let's…

"San Francisco has human feces because it is one of the only cities in the USA which has not completely criminalized homelesness" Getting offtopic but: Holy crap. Talk about cultural differences. The system in my nordic wellfare state makes sure people capable of renting a house and going to the wellfare office will have at least minimum accommodation (without criminalization).

The person doesn't mean homelessness itself is criminal, but as they attest to later, homelessness related crime is. Which is true in Nordic countries too.

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#60

Post by millermp12 »

Really only two takeaways from an overly long article:

1) the diversity thing has more than a whiff of wish fulfillment to it. Repetition in this regard just makes the dubious sound downright desperate.

2) if money is really flowing to the next Netflix for Latinos, what stronger "sell" signal do you need?

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