People are having a go at nerds because they can. The scales of social status haven't changed since high school, but it turns out that nerds can earn a good salary, and in the "fascist" free market economy, this means they can live where they like, and the police will even protect them!
I wish I knew about this so I could show up in my Google sweater.
I disagree very much with your notion that this is people pummeling at nerds because of some remnant of high school social pecking order, but please don't do this.
This is the corner of 16th and Mission. The local police station is literally two blocks away and still have zero control over this intersection. It is a mad house. It is the Mos Eisley of San Francisco.
The level of class warfare (from both sides) in the Mission is pretty intense, and the area is already a bit lawless to the point where the police have little control over an open-air drug den just two blocks from the station house. You don't fuck around with that intersection, the cops can't protect you well there, and everyone knows it.
And there seems to be a discrepancy between the extreme danger you claim I would be in, and the claims of other people that this is a harmless gathering. Can you shed some light on this? No sarcasm intended there, I really am surprised by how you characterize the situation because in my experience, no one provoking left wingers is ever in serious danger.
What you should be worried about is groups of people angry at groups of people. Protests, jostling, fights, deaths.
Showing up in your Google sweater is just fanning the flames, irresponsible and unempathetic. These people have a problem, and it's real to them. You might want to keep that sweater at the bottom of a drawer, lest it get caught on a pitchfork and burned by a torch. I'll feel sorry for you (I will) as you unjustly burn.
If it's true that these people have organized an event where someone would be physically assaulted for wearing a Google sweater (if there were no police there) then that's precisely why I would want to do it. People have a right to express themselves, they don't have a right to make other people feel unsafe.
Why does the fact that these people are upset make their cause any more just? Why do my rights (and more importantly the rights of any tech employees who might happen to pass through there) end where their feelings begin?
Also, how sympathetic would you feel towards a Black man who "antagonized" white people by passing through a White neighborhood, and was attacked by Whites who were already upset by the civil rights movement.
You can get rid of the buses with a law, but then people will just drive or use other transportation, which causes traffic problems.
If you were to remove many of the laws restricting redevelopment and the construction of tall buildings, everyone would benefit - property owners, property developers, tenants, local stores, rich people, poor people, the government, etc.
Also, some more integrated policies would help; the ridiculous fragmentation of municipal governments and transit districts doesn't improve the situation. Why are BART, Muni, Caltrain, AC Transit, and the VTA run in such an uncoordinated manner? Why doesn't BART go down the peninsula? Why are there miles of light rail in the middle of nowhere in Santa Clara County, but not in more dense areas? Why is there no higher-density housing near the Caltrain stations in places like Palo Alto?
Maybe you could securitize the value of the tenant's rent control, entitling an exiting tenant to a windfall if they are replaced by a higher-rent paying replacement? This would be on the theory that residential property values are an externality created by the people living there.
Can you clarify how this is different from simply prohibiting rental, forcing residents to own their apartment? A securitized right to property value increases sounds a lot like equity.
edit: Oh I'm stupid. Clearly you mean all of this under price control: the renter gets the benefits of equity, without paying anything for them, and without taking on any risk of ownership (like property values collapsing). A complete soup of misincentives and disaster.
New units are not subject to rent control, but if you don't move, then you will never really pay much more for rent. People in my building pay 50% what I pay for the same layout, and new people will probably pay 2x what I am paying for the same layout as well.
Commercial property tho doesnt have rent control however. But that's kind of a different argument, right?
What? SF is infested by rent-controlled buildings. Rent control is the most tenant-hostile policy ever invented. It basically means that newcomers (or people who had to move) are subsidizing ridiculous rents of those who haven't moved in a while. Rent control restricts the freedom of movement.
My barber pays $1600 for a 2br apartment two blocks from the my building where a shitty 1br got rented within an hour after showing up on craigslist. The very same 1br was $2,400 just a year ago, and $2,200 two years ago.
But they still generally pay far, far less property tax than they should:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978...
Recent discussion:
"relatively". relatively low-cost housing areas.
Also, it's not a comparable living experience at all. Mountain View is bikeable, sure, but it's not walkable.
This has unfortunately been the case since the WTO protests in Seattle in late 1999.
Probably a moot point but do those new bars and cafes provide jobs? Do these people tip more or less than those who used to frequent the 'Cheap eateries' ?
I am sympathetic to the challenges of having a neighborhood go from affordable to "hip" (and not affordable) but does this bring more disposable income into San Francisco and increase the available money supply or not?
[1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/11/san_francisco...
Most residents of San Francisco -- homeless, tech, lower-income, whatever -- want absolutely nothing to change except for what makes them happier. And in most cases, the loudest, wealthiest, Pac Heights/Sea Cliff voices want the "charm" of San Francisco to stay the same. Meanwhile, it's one of the most undesirable places to merely walk around that I've come across in my life, and I only work in the city because I have to. I will never move to the city.
Some of the comments are already popping up on TechCrunch; "do you want SF to be the next NYC?" My answer to that is abso-fucking-lutely. New York City is perfectly suited to dense living without gritting your teeth; the subways run 24/7, the risk of stepping in homeless shit is significantly lower, there are very few places in NYC that make me cringe as much as the TL after sundown, the varying cultures get along and complement each other instead of beating Google Bus piñatas at a dirty-ass BART station...
If San Francisco slowly became the next New York City I'd be pleased as a peach. (Imagine NYC with SF's weather!) But it will never happen in our lifetimes. Honestly, I think it's a California thing, because L.A. has a better shot at it and that's not going to happen either.
It seems weird for the writer to try to separate himself from this. The mission starting gentrifying well before 2010, there was just a bit of a lull at the end of the last decade. Not to put too fine a point on it, but he's a white stanford-grad who covers the tech industry for a website. Even if you're a poor recent college graduate with five roommates, your presence changes the character of the neighborhood.
How far back do they want to go? Protesting in front of Tim Berners-Lee's house for being an enabling force in the creation of the technology that runs Google and other companies?
"All these youngish people are on the Google Bus because they want to live in San Francisco, city of promenading and mingling, but they seem as likely to rub these things out as to participate in them."
Earlier HN discussion, studiously failing to appreciate the piece:
Or maybe California could relax its constitutional restriction on city and county income taxes, which would make much more sense than relying on random benefactors to make the city more livable.
It is not displacement for a public works project. It is pure class displacement with a rub-it-in-their-face quality about it.
