'We all suffer': why San Francisco techies hate the city they transformed

Post by sgift » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 11:31 AM UTC

rdl wrote: post #58

majewsky wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US public education is ... not exactly what one can expect from a first world country. As a European, I slowly wonder if there's any public service in the US that meets the "first-world country" standard. Not education. Certainly not healthcare. Infrastructure is also crumbling from what I hear.

Military. Fire service. Police (in specific ways). Government research. University education. Parks. Interstate highways.

Post by ghaff » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 11:32 AM UTC

ubertaco wrote: post #70

kieckerjan wrote: post #43

European here. My girlfriend and I are excited to do a tour of the West Coast later this year. As a tech I feel it would be silly to skip San Francisco and Silicon Valley, but I must say the stories I have been hearing have dampened my initial enthusiasm considerably. I now wonder if it is worth our while. If "avocado toast and class warfare" are the main attractions nowadays, we can probably spend our time more wise…

As someone who has been to San Francisco enough to hate it there (which doesn't take that long, really), I still think a couple of things are worth seeing: * Land's End (just outside the city) is beautiful, and worth a visit * The Palace of Fine Arts Theater (not a theater, rather a sort of "monument" made to look like old-world ruins) is very pleasant, and in a pretty area. * I've heard the Presidio in general is re…

Post by lm28469 » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 11:35 AM UTC

thinkingemote wrote: post #49

kieckerjan wrote: post #43

European here. My girlfriend and I are excited to do a tour of the West Coast later this year. As a tech I feel it would be silly to skip San Francisco and Silicon Valley, but I must say the stories I have been hearing have dampened my initial enthusiasm considerably. I now wonder if it is worth our while. If "avocado toast and class warfare" are the main attractions nowadays, we can probably spend our time more wise…

There's not much to see in SV apart from the computer history museum, unless you like seeing parking lots and industrial buildings.

Post by vasilipupkin » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 11:37 AM UTC

0815test wrote: post #78

vasilipupkin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of places in the US have excellent public schools. This is unique to SF.

Plenty of places in the U.S. have terrible public schools by developed-country standards. To the point where U.S. tertiary-education institutions are essentially required to compensate for the terribleness with ubiquitous remedial and GED-like courses that are essentially unknown elsewhere, where secondary education does the job properly.

Post by jtbayly » Mon, Jul 01, 2019, 11:47 AM UTC

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #74

jtbayly wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you just read people complaining on HN, then yeah, I’m sure you’d get that impression. The only OECD country to spend more per student than the US is Norway. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp San Francisco is not on the high end in the US, but it is suffering largely because of increasing pension and salary requirements. I assume the latter (and likely both) is itself caused by the extreme cost of…

You're somewhat arguing his point for him. We spend significantly more per student than almost anywhere, and our education is comparatively poor. We spend significantly more per patient, and our healthcare is comparatively poor. How much we spend isn't a metric of it being good. It's demonstration of failure.