Is this really the trichotomy of the Bay area? I thought it was interesting that none of these groups are turned out to be Trump supporters. I think it would be fun to contrast this mode of thought with the thought of people in flyover territory, as was done with these groups.
Not trying to exclude you, I've lived in San Jose and on the peninsula, neither of which was worthy of being stereotyped in the original article. It's better to avoid those games anyway.
Santa Clara (South Bay) went 72.2% to Clinton plus another 7.2% to third parties
San Francisco went 85.0% to Clinton, with another 5.7% to third parties
So yeah, painting a picture of three people of different economic backgrounds, it would not be illustrative to make even one of them a supporter of the current regime.
Source: https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2016-general/sov/17-pre...
From 10,000 ft, pretty much, although with any topic as complex as this, much nuance lost in the caricature. There are significant shades of gray between these three broad groups. I know households with blue collar workers married to doctors for example, and teachers married to property developers.
Where you really find the caricatures in this story are in households where all the workers are either highly compensated or very low compensated, or somewhere in between.
> Is this really the trichotomy of the Bay area? I thought it was interesting that none of these groups are turned out to be Trump supporters.
It's not terribly surprising though. The only population of the Bay Area who has a strong shared interest with the current POTUS is the wealthy established professional and capitalist class. Many of them still wouldn't openly support POTUS because of their disagreements on social and cultural issues - they are the "racism/homophobia is horrible but don't raise my taxes" crowd, which around here slots you a conservative Democrat.
And sure, there are xenophobes and ethno-nationalists in the Bay Area just like everywhere, but statistically there are fewer of them here than you'll find in other parts of the country more friendly to the current POTUS, so there's no point in calling them out as a major group around here.
Also lot of people in the elite group described in the article have close family "back home" that do fit the description of POTUS supporters, which is sort of a flaw of this article in that it only attributes such relationships to the blue collar class, when in fact they're quite ubiquitous. So much so that it has caused rifts between such people and their families. I am myself just such a person.
I’ve changed my oil on the side of the road many times. (No garage) If the car is raised enough, you don’t even need a jack. Oil drain pan and some paper towels is all you need beyond basic tools.
If anything - you sound like you get your oil changed with an app...
Then again I was raised by a single immigrant mom. I was taught to pinch pennies in ways many people cannot relate to.
It’s also a whimsical satire piece, so I wouldn’t expect it to include every group. That said, note the the site has follow on stories for each group, so maybe they expanded the groups.
EDIT: Also, the title is The Three Bay Areas, not "A Tale of Three Bay Areas" or alike.
There's South Bay, East Bay, North Bay and the Peninsula.
They're all very different, but lumping in the Peninsula with the South Bay feels hamhanded given that most of the South Bay IS NOT like the Peninsula.
It's kind of an in-joke that nobody actually knows where Silicon Valley is.
I suspect it's because the author is a 20something who doesn't go anywhere the BART won't take him.
I love how asians are the new whites. For all its worship of success, Americans hate success like no other.
I've seen instances of US-born American Asians to not fall under the "People of Color" label when referred to by Latin-American or Black employees, thus being associated more with White Americans, and yet they themselves would self-label as "People of Color" in other conversations.
My impression is that, at least in coastal metropolitan cities, East and South Asians are informally part of the white "class". Economically those two groups are more accomplished than most white ethnicities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U... , which I imagine makes other minorities less than thrilled about being affiliated with them, as they don't get to share the same levels of success.
Given the current political climate I'm worried we're swinging towards the latter.
With US and China going into a cold war too, it gets more awkward, and that's even more difficult to speak up about since they're public enemy #1 here.
You order your groceries via app. You make restaurant
reservations via app. You have your laundry picked up via
app. You manage your investments via app. You have casual
sex via app. You refill your Xanax prescription via app.
Who doesn’t want to be rich, given the chance? We’re crabs in a bucket, we’re just too evolved to admit it.
I struggle with this idea as a consequence of growing up among conflicting ideas. Will I send my kids to public school to do our part to avoid further segregation of schools, or send them to private school because we can afford to and they’ll get better teachers? There’s a name for this: opportunity hoarding. It’s a contributor to inequality in the US. But that doesn’t lessen the internal conflict.
What about the people that earned their keep as category one? For example I have friends who are refugees who now fit into bracket one.
This article makes it seem like category 1 are self entitled yuppie brats.
> You grew up in one of these five counties: Marin, Santa Clara, Orange, Loudoun or Westchester. You went to a private high school that cost $40,000 a year to attend, yet when you mention it, you emphasize that it “almost bankrupted your parents,” one of whom is an engineer, and the other of whom is a clinical psychologist who has written two best-selling self-help books.
Obviously this piece is not a comprehensive list of all classes of people in the Bay Area. Just 3 common tropes.
Bracket one broadly is intended to apply to many if not most upper middle class professionals, including ones who went to top public schools. Some just happen to enter the circle later in life (their 20s rather than at birth).
Holy shit I never thought I’d see my hometown mentioned in this context. Yes, the chickens roam old town (maybe a square mile) freely but you don’t really see them elsewhere. They are really loud though.
[0] https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/2-California-towns-wh...
But do you not have friends and relatives from all three of these categories? I don't even live in the Bay Area, but I have Bay Area friends and relatives in all three.
Is your standard for friendship facebook friends, of which the average person has hundreds, or close personal friends of which the average person has 3-7?
Did they grow up where they're living, thus forming a non-work social network, or did they move there for work and find the distance made it hard to keep in touch with old friends?
Do they have interests (religion, sport clubs, parenting etc) that bring them into contact with people outside of their professional circles, and give them a chance to get to know each other?
If you couldn't do it, would there much motivation to succeed in the first place?
From another angle, does the movement to equalize children have any chances against those above the median (and those from below hoping to get ahead)?