I rarely post here but fuck it. I was born in Redwood City. I went to school briefly at UCB and graduated from UCD. I spent the entirety of my life in this small stretch of land. I immediately started working as an engineer in tech as soon as I graduated but now had to deal with this new reality the author describes. I was involved in the music and art scene in the Bay Area and almost everyone has left. The few that remained kind of despised me for working in technology. It was also a weird disconnect to hang out with people and everyone knows that I easily make four times the amount they make while living at my Mom's house. I just didn't feel myself around them anymore. I didn't really care to make friends with tons of engineers. I spent my day with engineers (albeit with very few even born in America let alone the Bay Area) and I wasn't rushing to spend time with tons of more engineers on my free time. The shows and parties dried up and I became more and more depressed wondering what am I going to do with my life?
Everyone here is posting in the typical Hacker News way of trying to rationalize the situation. If only we build or built more housing, etc. It doesn't matter. More housing wasn't built and even if more housing comes quickly (which it won't), the area has changed and there isn't really an artistic or cultural zeitgeist to attract artists like there used to be here. Of course, there is Oakland but unfortunately I didn't fit in there because politics and identity seemed to be everything people cared about with their art and it wasn't interesting or fun. I have no idea if Oakland continues to change or not.
I ended up leaving. I sold almost everything I owned and moved to Israel. I wanted to go somewhere radically different than California. My only other options were LA and NYC. I wanted to be near a Jewish population because that is important to me. It's nice to see how different life is outside of the Bay Area. While Tel Aviv definitely has it's fair share of technology, I still see people walking on the street with guitars and there is a vibrant night life here which is nice.
There are of course drawbacks too. The Bay Area really is a special place. I understand what the author is getting at in the piece. There is an implicit cost to these people. If your entire area becomes engineers, data scientists, and product managers, I am sorry but the area is fucking boring and uninspiring. It also becomes a bubble where no one is actually solving anything anymore or creating anything inspiring.
Edit: Another huge thing I forgot to mention is the commute. The commute here is fucking INSANE. We make an obscene amount of money and ride on these screeching subways with junkies and schizophrenics. We get off and walk over corpses on the street to get to our beautiful offices that all look similar with reclaimed wood and steel and program. I couldn't rationalize the absurdity of it all anymore. I couldn't deal with the time and energy cost of commuting. I lived in Redwood City and drove to BART and then BARTed into SF. When I lived in Berkeley, the commute was just as bad. If I was lucky to stand on a Transbay bus, it was tolerable but BART took so long. If I decided to move to Oakland, I would have to deal with an even longer BART where we are packed in like cattle. It is insane to me. The first thing I did was get a sublet where I could walk to work.