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I find it shocking that anyone still chooses to live in this broken city. I left >4 years ago and am never coming back. It's unfixable. Let's move the tech in
by kenneth 3y ago
I find it shocking that anyone still chooses to live in this broken city.
I left >4 years ago and am never coming back. It's unfixable.
Let's move the tech industry somewhere that isn't rotten to the core.
- astrange 3y agoThe tech industry is mainly South Bay (you know, Silicon Valley.) Any tech being in SF is a last-decade phenomenon, possibly a zero-interest-rate one. Since SF has some of the worst governance in the country, maybe it won't last that long. There's always East Bay.
- 0max 3y agoPlease no, I like the square footage I get for my rent. Keep all the startups on the bourgie side of the bridge and tunnel.
- alephnerd 3y agoEast Bay (by which I assume the Tri-Valley and LaMoraga+Walnut Creek) always had a massive tech presence - going from Livermore+Sandia+Berkeley Labs to PacBell to PeopleSoft to HPC@Cheveron+PGE to Workday+Veeva today and the Telcos in LaMoraga+Walnut Creek. Most Asian and White techies with families try to buy houses out there hence why you see Palo Alto level housing prices. If by East Bay you mean Oakland and its denizens, I don't see it happening. Oakland+Berkeley local govt makes SF appear very startup friendly.
- Domenic_S 3y ago> LaMoraga I've heard it as LaMorinda - Lafayette, Moraga, & Orinda
- alephnerd 3y agoYour right. I always forget Orinda in that acronym. So much for growing up in the Tri-Valley
- browningstreet 3y agoI call it the East-east Bay, having lived in Lafayette and Walnut Creek after I left SF proper.
- raverbashing 3y agoSome company would have to pull themselves by the bootstraps and just go somewhere else close-ish to SV (East Valley? North?) Pick a city who wants to get the money and has fewer NIMBYs and has space to build. Move one office there and incentivize who wants to be there This is how it was in the "good old days" with factories, no? But instead of IceRock, WI it will be a place close to the valley But sometimes companies are lazy for places that don't have avocado toast I guess.
- hotpotamus 3y agoI wonder where it would move to? Does it seem a bit curious that a "rotten to the core" city would be so synonymous with the tech industry? Perhaps they are intertwined for a reason. Personally, I've never been there, but am somewhat curious to visit. Not so much after dark though.
- galleywest200 3y agoPacific Northwest already has a lot of giants, and no reason to live in Seattle itself. Microsoft, Valve, etc are over in the forested towns like Redmond. Nintendo is over in North Bend.
- 206lol 3y agoNo reason to live in Seattle itself?! It's the best part of the Seattle area! The Eastside is sterile suburbia.
- teg4n_ 3y agoYeah, you see a ton of people commuting from Seattle where they live because they want to be around culture to the east side to work because they have to
- pera 3y agoValve is in Bellevue and Nintendo is next to the Microsoft campus in the outskirts of Redmond. There is nothing in North Bend (except Twin Peaks fans and hikers).
- floren 3y agoThere's a Nintendo packaging/distribution center in North Bend. Given that the discussion is about tech jobs, you're still basically correct though.
- louwrentius 3y agoThe Tech industry caused a lot of the isdues in SF due to rising housing prices due to high wages. The problem will just move around.
- racl101 3y agoClassic "why does it smell like shit everywhere I go" situation.
- carlivar 3y agoHow much new housing was built?
- prottog 3y agoA causal relationship seems very difficult to establish here. Housing prices in SF are mostly due to the fact that it's very, very difficult to build more homes. High wages, even if it's concentrated in one particular sector, spreads out to the rest, since those high earners have to spend their money somewhere. The average hourly wage among all occupations in the SF area is almost 50% higher than the nationwide average; in food service, 35% higher. Of course, none of this causes drug addiction and mental illness.
- dannyr 3y agoI left in 2017 after having to spent over 10 years in the Bay Area. It was bad then and pandemic made it worse. So many closed shops on Market St/Union Square area. Walk a few blocks West and Tenderloin looks like doomsday. Lines for soup kitchens, tents, drugged-up and mentally-ill people walking like Zombies.
- fernandotakai 3y agoit makes me super sad to see SF like this. it's by far my favorite US city -- the weather is great, people are quite welcoming, the food scene is out of this world. but the last time i went there, just before the pandemic, it was just... horrible. within 1h of leaving my hotel, i saw a guy breaking into a car. a block later, two homeless people were arguing and then started beating each other to a pulp. and no police officers around anywhere.
- olalonde 3y agoReminds me when I first moved to SF. I saw a guy breaking car windows on the street at night and called 911 to notify the police. They seemed a bit baffled that someone would call to report something so trivial and I don't believe they did anything about it.
- bigtex88 3y agoWhy don't they do anything to fix it? I truly don't understand the logic here. It's the same as Seattle. They've gone so far left that they've started delving into the absurd.
- TylerE 3y agoBecause fixing it makes it worse. Provide services for the homeless? Surrounding states start bussing their homeless in and dumping them on you. It's especially bad considering SF's year round mild weather.
- cardy31 3y agoTech in SF causing massive inequality in the city combined with structural American problems is how SF got where it is today though. Moving tech somewhere else (Austin seems to be next) will just result in a similar situation.
- ipaddr 3y agoLol. Tech or backlash against tech didn't create SF culture. SF culture comes from the 60s, Berkeley, Hippies and left wing policies, protest movement politics. Austin has rich cultural background that is different. Moving to Austin won't change it into SF unless enough people bring failed ideas with them.
- hotpotamus 3y agoUm... > Hippie Hollow Park (originally known as McGregor County Park) is a park located on the shore of Lake Travis in northwest Austin. It is the only legally recognized clothing-optional public park in the State of Texas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie_Hollow_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie_Hollow_Park If you're going to Austin to escape a lefty culture on the west coast, then you've probably found the exact worst city in Texas to do so.
- themaninthedark 3y agoI would bet that Austin's culture is not the same to SF's culture but there is probably some overlap that makes it appealing to the people moving there.
- thefourthchime 3y agoI've lived in both cities. Austin and SF are pretty different culturally. There is a healthy dose of "Texas" in Austin. Not so much in SF.
- ipaddr 3y agoParent was wondering if the same will happen. Of course Austin is lefty culture. Anyone suggesting Austin wants that.. but it is not SF... you can open carry your gun in the nudest park..
- galleywest200 3y agoPacific Northwest has loads of tech giants, move up here to the woods. No reason to live in Seattle, the big kids are over in the forest in Redmond (Microsoft, Valve, etc).
- alexchantavy 3y ago> No reason to live in Seattle Seattle is very under appreciated imo. The pandemic didn’t do it any favors but it’s more affordable than the eastside suburbs with all the things you’d want from a city plus access to nature. Not everywhere is 3rd and Pike.
- loeg 3y agoI agree. I live in the city and it would be more expensive to live on the east side. Public school quality in the city varies a lot, if you have young kids. The east side runs some really highly funded public schools.
- loeg 3y agoFB/GOOG have small footprints in Seattle proper and bigger footprints on the east side (Bellevue and Kirkland) as well.
- cvhashim04 3y agoThe weather is terribly depressing
- beardedwizard 3y agoYa let's move the tech industry and ruin the next place, Austin.
- tempsy 3y agoIronically Austin’s housing market seems to have suffered the hardest since peak 2021-2022 prices because it’s more clear now that it isn’t becoming the next Silicon Valley.
- all2 3y agoThere's this brewing sentiment in the rest of the US as California residents move out: please go away and keep your broken politics and social policies away from us. I have family out in Idaho, and they complain that there a lot of folks from California moving there and screwing up the local politics by voting for policies that broke the state of California. They joke that the first thing people do is change their plates because they don't want anyone to know they're from Cali. I can't blame them, though, because it is an absolute train-wreck of a state whose condition is epitomized by SanFran.
- beardedwizard 3y agoI moved from Dallas and don't find it all that different. You don't leave anything in your car there, and you might get stabbed downtown.
- 650REDHAIR 3y agoSF is suffering the brunt of failed politics across the US. It doesn’t have to spread because it’s already there… It’s just easier to see in SF because the elements are far less likely to kill you here and we’ve decriminalized homelessness.
- danaris 3y agoNIMBY is an inherently local problem, and from what I've heard, that is at the heart of SF's issues: "you can't build affordable housing here, that will lower my property values"; "you can't build a big apartment building here, that will destroy the quaint local character". I'm not saying that's a problem unique to SF, but SF can solve it without fixing the political issues that affect the rest of the country.
- whalesalad 3y agoOr, let’s decentralize the center of the tech universe so that everyone can prosper and we don’t fall into this trap again.
- chaostheory 3y agoFor that to happen, people need to accept more remote work related technologies like AR and VR. AR is still far away with NReal being the closest thing that’s usable. With VR, the device form factor is so intimidating to people that many refuse to even try it.
- packetlost 3y agoI go back and forth around whether these dense communities of industry are bad or not. It certainly creates bubbles and echo chambers, but there's also a lot of real innovation that happens because there's a rich ecosystem of skilled people to hire to build things. This is coming from someone who has never lived in SF.
- adam_arthur 3y agoYou can hire people from anywhere with the internet. Economics alone are likely to dictate that things move from centralization to decentralization. $3m dollar homes, extremely high office rents, wasted energy and time on commuting, higher comp expenses, smaller hiring pool. Even if centralization/in-person is more efficient, likely not efficient to enough to overcome these economics. The businesses that learn how to maneuver in a decentralized/online first manner have huge starting advantages over those that don't. Though, we will see in time. It's possible the centralization gap will be much smaller in cities that choose to meet demand for housing/office/amenities.
- packetlost 3y agoThat only really applies to work that can be efficiently done remotely. While a lot of software can, there's a significant chunk that cannot and never will be able to. As soon as you have situations where you need specialized hardware, remote work becomes really inefficient/untenable.
- MrMan 3y ago[dead]
- fortran77 3y agoSunnyvale, San Jose, the real Silicon Valley
- JoshTko 3y agoHonest question, what if the tech industry is a root cause?
- maerF0x0 3y agoHow could it be? Please explain your hypothesis a bit more.
- slg 3y agoA lot of high income people concentrated in one area leads to things like income inequality compared to everyone else. It also causes housing prices to rise which leads to homelessness which causes or worsens property crime, drug use, mental illness, and general desperation that can incite violent crime.
- dcolkitt 3y agoIt only leads to housing prices rising (in the long-term), if NIMBY politics makes building new housing essentially illegal. There are plenty of examples of "boom towns" throughout history where prices may have rose initially, but didn't spiral out of control, and usually settled back to a reasonable baseline relative to wages.
- slg 3y agoWe aren’t at the root cause yet. NIMBY politics are largely caused by the idea that housing is an investment rather a basic human need and depreciating asset which is a rather new idea in relation to “throughout history”. People generally don’t want to vote for things that harm their investments and building new housing harms the investment that all current homeowners have made. If society thought of housing similarly to other large purchases like cars in that there was no expectation of profit, we would all be a lot better off. Now what caused this housing as investment idea? I haven’t seen any research on this, but my guess would be as a form of forced retirement savings as it allows people to build net worth without the self-control normally required of saving. And the difficulty of that delayed gratification is really just human nature.
- time_to_smile 3y agoAnyone who spent considerable time in SF before the most recent tech boom would likely argue that it was the tech industry that caused the rot in the first place. The foundation of safe cities is vibrant local communities with historic roots. Parts of the city where people choose to have and raise kids. Places with a sense of shared community where neighbors look out for each other. The rapid influx of extremely high income individuals transformed SF over the course of the last decade. Uprooting those communities and replacing them with largely transient techworkers with no real interest in forming communities that don't help them to increase their TC and level up with their next new role. Then when tech declines you really see the impact this has. SF was treated as basically a luxury mall for rich tech workers to get whatever they want whenever they want. As tech workers start to leave it's no wonder the city feels like an abandoned mall.
- alephnerd 3y agoSF has definetly seen QoL drop like a stone, but how much of that is because techies now live in neighborhoods that used to be the ghettos until the early 2010s. Like Hayes Valley used to be crack dens until Twitter money, Mission District was a Latino ghetto until FB money, and Portrero Hill and West Add were the African American projects. Plus Chinatown and Tenderloin had an active Triad and Vietnamese+Cambodian gang presence. Now you see upper net worth people living in Hayes Valley, houses in Portrero go for millions, every new grad SWE getting a shithole studio within walking distance of DoLo Park, much of Polk St and northern Tenderloin is now classified as "Lower Nob Hill", and all the Triad members and Viet gangs got caught in the ICE dragnet or retired.
- augment001 3y ago> Hayes Valley used to be crack dens until Twitter money, Mission District was a Latino ghetto until FB money, and Portrero Hill and West Add were the African American projects I lived in Potrero hill and Hayes valley in the early 2000s and was no stranger to the mission. Your comment is completely false.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 3y ago
- poorbutdebtfree 3y agoMaybe SOMA needs to double the amount of BLM, Ukraine, and trans flags?
- dang 3y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 650REDHAIR 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoAdding to a regional flamewar with personal attack is the sort of thing we ban accounts for. I'm not going to ban you because it doesn't look like you do this habitually, but please don't post like this to HN, regardless of how provocative another comment is or you feel it is. We need users here to follow the site guidelines even when that happens (or rather, precisely when that happens). Otherwise we end up in a downward spiral. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- rfwhyte 3y ago[flagged]
- chewz 3y ago> The ONLY thing that's ever really going to fix most of the problems in the world today is MASSIVE global reduction in wealth / income inequality That's just happening. One robbery at a time... All these robberies happening at once are called revolution...
- cyrialize 3y agoI see this mentioned often when people move to SF or other large cities and then complain about a lack of culture. The people who brought culture into a city and were part of the city for a while end up leaving due to prices being driven high because of the tech industry (or really anything that causes huge price spikes). Cities become known for their people and their culture. If nothing is done to keep those people in the city, then no wonder this complaint pops up.
- arpowers 3y agoThis is the idealist and ignorant perspective that created the problem. The woke mind virus. Meritocracy is critical. Someone has to do the actual work.
- 27fingies 3y agoI don’t disagree that the person you are replying to has an idealistic perspective on this… but turning around and blaming the situation on the “woke mind virus” is _even more_ idealistic.
- pms 3y agoHaving less inequality does not contradict meritocracy. Studies show that a fair society does not spread welfare equally [1]: a fair society still rewards merit, work, and contributions, but not to the exaggerated extent as we do nowadays most likely due to the herding and random effect of advertisements [2]. The U.S. and California lead the pack. Hopefully we will learn and adjust, but most likely it's going to be a very slow and unfortunately painful process... [1] Starmans, C., Sheskin, M., & Bloom, P. (2017). Why people prefer unequal societies. Nature Human Behaviour, 1(4), 0082. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0082 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0082 [2] Salganik, M. J., Dodds, P. S., & Watts, D. J. (2006). Experimental study of inequality and unpredictability in an artificial cultural market. Science (New York, N.Y.), 311(5762), 854–856. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1121066 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1121066
- vxNsr 3y agoThe main issue is that wherever you move if you don't change your ideology you'll turn the new place into the same as the old.
- outside1234 3y agoWhat's the alternative? Moving to the south with high amounts of gun violence? * https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/...
- auggierose 3y agoVery sad to hear that. I loved this city when I lived there at the end of the nineties, although it was much more violent already than what I was accustomed to.
- Eumenes 3y agoOr most cities for that matter. I keep hearing "but culture" and I scratch my head... is culture expensive bars, restaurants, breweries? Yes the museums and art galleries can be cool, but most people see those once every few years. Similar to concerts/live music, its easy to travel into a city a few times per year for an event. Otherwise, they seem far from vibrant. (I've lived in SF, NYC, and LA - and haven't been back since the pandemic).
- quacked 3y agoMost Americans have no idea what "culture" is; they assume it refers exclusively to consumption, i.e. what is available to consume and how people prefer to consume it.