I'm sympathetic to these arguments, largely until the people making them open their mouths.
Are The Techno Riche Really Ruining San Francisco? Yes, Says Rebecca Solnit
51–60 of 80 posts
Re: Are The Techno Riche Really Ruining San Francisco? Yes, Says Rebecca Solnit
#52There is a lot of focus on Ellis Act evictions, but the fact is that there just aren't very many of them. This article claims only 116 in the last year, which is significantly less than the numbers 5 or 10 years ago: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-eviction... The solution to the rising price to rent is to increase supply. Anybody in SF should be able to drive up Market and see evidence of the mas…
Ellis Act is tricky. It's threatened far more than it's executed. That's because it bad for renter credit (supposedly) to have an eviction and it imposes a bunch of random restrictions on the owner. So it gets threatened and then occupants take a payout and move out quietly.
Re: Are The Techno Riche Really Ruining San Francisco? Yes, Says Rebecca Solnit
#53> Caltrain does run down there. We could have beefed up that system and had a tremendously efficient train system, with trains leaving every 15 minutes or so for the peninsula The problem is that Caltrain (and BART outside SF proper) has its stations along the periphery instead of the heart of town. You can't jump on Caltrain in the Mission or Noe Valley or even Market St, and on the southern end, it's not going to d…
This sentiment has its roots in the Freeway Revolts of the 60s and 70s. Caltrans had massive plans to wrap the entire Bay Area in freeways (plans which were only partially implemented) and the backlash put the brakes on not just new highway construction, but any kind of major infrastructure improvement. The high number of land takings is part of the reason why high speed rail is drawing a lot of criticism. In fact, peninsula residents more likely oppose the aerial grade-separation structures that would improve Caltrain service as well, not HSR itself.
Re: Are The Techno Riche Really Ruining San Francisco? Yes, Says Rebecca Solnit
#54There's a related conversation happening in the neighborhood I live in, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Not about techies specifically, but about the general wave of wealthier young folks moving in and driving up rents. Displacing existing residents. Gentrifying. Etc.
Now, I can afford to continue living there, so maybe it's easy to hold this view, but I never felt I could get too upset about this situation.
First: It's a great sign that the neighborhood's so desirable that people will spend to move there. It's bringing in business (and helping existing businesses). It's making things safer. Making things more interesting.
Second: I've been around for longer than many people, but I transplanted there at some point, as well.
Third: Neighborhoods and cities change. No way around it. Much rather they grow and become popular with smart, upwardly-mobile young people (with a creative streak) than grow stale or decay.
Fourth: If something is a limited resource but in high demand, the price goes up! While I don't believe people should be kicked out their homes willy-nilly, I also believe that if a ton of people want something, then it's fair for the market to respond by raising prices (with some constraints, of course, which I'm not going to get into here). To me, this is one of the downsides of renting. You run that risk. If that's not appealing, then one should try to own (which could be a nice investment if your area is booming).
Am I being a douchebag gentrification-sympathizer? Maybe I'm just one of the people the "real residents" get to hate on -- a white male with a bit of extra disposable income.
Anyway: Not SF-specific. But certainly other parts of the country are having similar issues. (I lived in Austin for 27 years, and though I don't keep up with local politics there, I bet they're also going through a light-weight version of this in areas.)
Re: Are The Techno Riche Really Ruining San Francisco? Yes, Says Rebecca Solnit
#55> Caltrain does run down there. We could have beefed up that system and had a tremendously efficient train system, with trains leaving every 15 minutes or so for the peninsula The problem is that Caltrain (and BART outside SF proper) has its stations along the periphery instead of the heart of town. You can't jump on Caltrain in the Mission or Noe Valley or even Market St, and on the southern end, it's not going to d…
Uh...have you actually ridden Caltrain? Outside of SF, Caltrain stops in the very heart of each down town. San Bruno, Burlingame, San Mateo, Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood city, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Mountain view, San Jose all have stations that border the historical main down town (I think Sunnyvale and Santa Clara as well). In SF proper, it's probably more to do with geography than land purchases. Trains really don…
> Uh...have you actually ridden Caltrain?
No, and that's sort of my point. I've lived in SF since the summer of 2008, and not once in all that time has Caltrain ever been useful to me. It doesn't pick up anywhere near anything, and it doesn't run to any place I want to go.
Meanwhile, when I lived in New York, I rode the subway, the LIRR, the PATH train, Metro North, and even Amtrak all over the place, in no small part because Penn Station and Grand Central are located right in the middle of everything and thoroughly connected to local transit.
Re: Are The Techno Riche Really Ruining San Francisco? Yes, Says Rebecca Solnit
#56"I met a guy who lives at 24th and Valencia [Street]. He says the Wi-Fi signal on the buses is so powerful that when the Google bus pulls up in front of his house, it uses all the broadband and his Wi-Fi signal crashes." That's not really how WiFi works. Chances are his router is on the same frequency as the buses and he can fix this by changing to a different frequency. Even more likely (since one SSID shouldn't mak…
Actually wifi does work that way, notwithstanding the odd word 'crash'. It's entirely possible that so much bandwidth is being used by the Google network that his network has extremely high packet loss and is effectively useless, especially if Google is using better gear (like directional antennas). And you're aware there's only actually three channels, and each bus wouldn't be using the same one, right?
But sure, use a partial understanding of technology to generate a narrative in which this guy has only a self-created problem, and take from him the benefit of the doubt. Then we can turn off our empathy circuits, reject this very dear example, and continue pretending that its workers (and users) are not pawns of a malevolent Google.
Re: Are The Techno Riche Really Ruining San Francisco? Yes, Says Rebecca Solnit
#57I don't know about San Francisco because I live in Oakand, but I know there are lots of wealthier (like people who can afford $600+/mo in rent) people moving in who are hurting my neighborhood. I try to mitigate the harm I'm doing, but know I'm one of them too.
We don't acknowledge other people in the street. We draw arbitrary lines between "scary" people and "less scary" people, but in reality are using race and class markers to make those decisions. And we treat somewhere between "the scary few" and "everyone not white" as if they don't exist. We don't shop at local shops and restaurants, we leave the area to go to restaurants that either appeal to their class background or their racial comfort zone.
I'm not trying to place blame, or say we are "classists" or "racists". As someone who tries and often fails to do the opposite, I can see how hard it is. There are real dangers to be afraid of. It's not easy to walk into a barbeque place where you're the only white person and have that be your Date Night go-to spot.
That said, I think a lot of people moving out here aren't even trying to understand what it's like having a different class of people move into your neighborhood and "walk among you" as if you don't even exist, terraforming the space you struggled in your whole life with a snap of the fingers.
I know San Francisco is a different place, and it's more white, which changes some of this stuff. But in the Mission I know there are similar things happening in Latin@ neighborhoods. People who have been living in those neighborhoods for decades who were central contributors to that place are being pushed out to the East Bay and elsewhere because they can't afford rent.
Maybe it's inevitable, and maybe it's no one's fault. But I don't see how anyone can deny that important cultural institutions are being destroyed so that rich tech folks can have nice apartments to live in in "funky" neighborhoods.
Re: Are The Techno Riche Really Ruining San Francisco? Yes, Says Rebecca Solnit
#58Like there’s a $3 million prize that some of the Facebook and Google billionaires have put up for medical breakthroughs. They seem to misunderstand how medical research takes place.
This lady is out of her gourd. She appears to be talking about this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/science/new-3-million-priz...
This alone makes it obvious what her real problem is. She wants people to give their money to causes that she supports. She does that by stating that they aren't civicly minded but she's just belittling what civic-minded tasks they're doing because she thinks other ones are important.
Entire article was a waste of time to read.
Re: Are The Techno Riche Really Ruining San Francisco? Yes, Says Rebecca Solnit
#59I wonder how she feels about hispanic immigrants to the USA? Does she think we should keep them out because they're "ruining" American culture? This whole thing smacks of this weird anti-immigration mentality that I wouldn't have expected from the left-leaning groups leading the protests. I'm going to make a side-by-side of Texans upset about Latinos and San Franciscan hipsters upset about techies.
Re: Are The Techno Riche Really Ruining San Francisco? Yes, Says Rebecca Solnit
#60There's a related conversation happening in the neighborhood I live in, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Not about techies specifically, but about the general wave of wealthier young folks moving in and driving up rents. Displacing existing residents. Gentrifying. Etc. Now, I can afford to continue living there, so maybe it's easy to hold this view, but I never felt I could get too upset about this situation. First: It's a gr…
> Am I being a douchebag gentrification-sympathizer?
Maybe. Do you interact with poorer and long-time residents, or only other wealthy people? Do you support longstanding shops, or just the new expensive ones?