William Gibson’s bridge trilogy.
It’s an interesting piece and also worthwhile reading the comments. The one by Larry Bush challenges some of Cutler’s claims and is worth reading in full.
I’ve just finished teaching a course on sustainable cities to a class in Hong Kong, and many of the issues arising in San Francisco are clear and present here as well. It would have been a good article to discuss in class.
Just to give you some idea about Hong Kong: I took the students on a city walk in Causeway Bay and Wan Chai, which started at US-based fashion retailer Forever 21’s Hong Kong store. It pays USD 1.4 million per month in rent. Sustainable city? With one-in-five living in poverty here, and a minimum hourly wage set at USD 3.86, Hong Kong is facing similar tough questions about how the future will look.
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Prepositions which might work better than “at” in this instance: “over”, “towards” or even better “about”.
“Resentment towards techies.”
“Resentment about techies.”
Let the anger “at” the recommended prepositions begin. 
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Meeting the neighbors isn’t going to fix the problem.
SF is cursed by its own success and appeal. They have brutally restricted growing housing and on top of that instituted rent control. The result is that new housing isn’t built anywhere near fast enough to keep pace with the booming economy. Worse, rent control does a number of very nasty things. First, it encourages people to not move around, further restricting the supply of housing. If you are rocking $400 a month because you get an apartment a couple of decades ago, you are a fool to leave. Second, it means that the only way to adjust your price is to brutally evict someone, and that someone has no where to go because with the housing shortage, anything new is going to cost vastly more. It is a fucking mess set into motion decades ago.
An economic boom should be something people are excited about. Yeah, techies make a pile of money, but people making money spend it supporting other jobs. These are not CEOs hording money in their money vault. These are glorified kids given a big pay check. Everyone in the area should be cashing in. Sure, there is always some level of displacement when any economic conditions change, but SF has made it infinitely worse.
The worst part is that there is no solution other than an econopoclypse that wipes out the area and SF gets to feel what it is like to get the Detroit treatment when your money pit of an industry dies, or pigs will fly and SF will have to unfuck their politics. An economic implosion would be ruinous for SF. SF has a massive stream of money coming in from the tech companies and have built their entire government around gobs of cash. Cutting off SF from tech would be like stealing Saudi Arabia’s oil. SF would be thoroughly and completely fucked. The government would be bankrupt in a year and the cascade of unemployment rip through city works. It would make people long for Google buses again. The other option, unfucking their politics would mean tearing down a huge portion of the housing regulation and building like mad to relieve the pressure. It isn’t going to happen, and even if it did, the unfucking would take years to accomplish, even assuming that a magic fairy lifted the vast majority of development regulations and bureaucracy overnight.
The “just talk to your neighbors” solution is on its face foolish. They want to be your neighbors. That is the problem. If they are your neighbor, it means they bought or rented property, driving up the cost. It isn’t going to get better. Until the number of housing being created exceeds the number of people moving in, or at the very least everyone moving in happens to be broke, SF is fucked. Build more housing, leave to a cheaper place, or pray for the economic gods to turn the area into a wasteland. You can get an apartment in Troy or Detroit real cheap. Those are the only three options.
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People have done some pretty amazing things by rising up, oh internet cynic. It could happen again. But it’s sooo much easier to be cynical on the internet, than organize.
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Hah. Thanks to my insular SAHD lifestyle, I tend to interact with people in teh Intarweb. I had an argument with some numbskull on Reddit, on a thread about what people did who made more than 100k. Dear God, there’s a self-deluded bunch. I tried pointing out that you can bust your butt and still end up being dealt a shit sandwich, added in an executive summary of my career so far, and his takeaway was that I was whining and needed to be willing to move.
Yes. Be willing to move. Very helpful. Especially after I pointed out why we weren’t moving…okay.
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I thought this was going to be on the topic of the general scenario of resentment being directed at techies in the sense that quite possibly every person that has used the internet has enacted some kind of resentment toward a techie. But it wasn’t. It was about property, social inequality and other stuff.
Hear, hear.
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A perfectly understandable delusion. The alternative, understanding that people are poor, homeless, hungry and suffering because the system is set up that way, is pretty horrible to contemplate on a daily basis. Much better to believe that people get what they deserve and that those folks somehow must deserve their fate.
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Yeah, and I mean, to a certain extent I can understand it. I mean, just looking in the mirror, I’ve gone through an extended period of time where I let depression kick me in the ass, didn’t seek help, didn’t try to help myself, and basically gave up on life while trying to keep it together enough to be a decent enough stay-at-home dad. I like to think I didn’t fail in the latter, but I can think of a lot of times when I fell asleep on the couch in the middle of the morning with my kid watching MLP for way too long. I’m sure the super-motivated tech crowd would look at me, conclude I was a loser, and I’d probably agree.
On the other hand, I can tell you that I’ve told people about my career path only to have people look at me dumbfounded and ask, “Well, why didn’t you just move?” Like it’s as simple as that. And I know people who did that, and it worked out great. And I know people who were more motivated than me, more intelligent than me, and have gone off to do that…and in a few years they move back home, broken. Usually it’s that their career didn’t take off the way they’d hoped. Maybe they’re like me and can’t interview for shit. Maybe they sat down with HR people who heard their drawl and thought, “I’m not hiring this hick.” Or they could have done just fine only to find out their spouse had a couple of lovers on the side and was spending all their money on that. Or they came home to an empty house, and one messy divorce later and they’re broke. Hell, I’ve found out before through the grapevine that I’ve lost out on job opportunities because I have red hair and we all know redheads are assholes.
Talking about such things, of course, is “whining” with this crowd.
Anything to keep it neat, simple, and to stay 100% in the right.
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It’s not so black and white, though. I know a lot of people who grew up in middle-class families, went to college, and are not doing all that well. Why? Crazy thought, but you know what? Sometimes it has to do with the choices they made. They didn’t concentrate on building a skill set that is highly marketable. They’ve slacked. They wanted more freedom. They wanted to get into a career that inherently doesn’t pay very highly, and they knew it going in. Yes, society is madly screwed, and cards are stacked against many people from day 1. But it’s not ALWAYS that the cards are stacked a certain way, and the USA does offer more chances for advancement than many other places. Sure, not as good as many others, and I know this. But I really do hate when the issue is panted as black and white. Some people make choices that lead to them not making as much money, simple as that. Let’s acknowledge that at least sometimes, people need to take responsibility for their situations?
You make good points, Shane. One thing I’d just say, though, is that many people in the USA are here (both generally, and the specific places in which they and their families reside) because previous generations went through HELL to get here in order to find great opportunity than their homeland. Half of my family had to get the hell out of Europe, and thank goodness they did, or I wouldn’t be here right now. The other half were poor-ass Italians (and an Irish), who were making a pretty big trek to get over here, and again, thankfully they did, because after a generation or two it worked out pretty well for their kin. A lot of people ended up in the West because there were no more opportunities out East, and they literally did the wagon-train thing for months, losing many people on the way, just on the DREAM they might find something better on the other end. Yes, I know moving is not the easiest thing, but let’s be frank – it is absolutely literally easier now than at any point in history to follow opportunity where it is, even if that’s thousands of miles away. People used to go through a LOT more, just out of hope. Have we really gotten so, well, lame as a culture, relative to those days?
I wasn’t just talking about power through voting, you know, because you’re right, it really doesn’t amount to shit, unless you REALLY motivate and somehow manage to get a sizable number of third party candidates into power, which seems almost impossible these days given how stacked things are against that happening. But things will have to get a lot worse I’m afraid, before people get to the point of “rising up” in a way that actually leads to significant change.
I didn’t concentrate on building a skill set that was highly marketable, though. I just lucked out, it turned out that people really wanted computer programmers.
Sure, there are people who study ‘useless’ college majors, but there are also people who study useful or important subjects or are talented artists but who don’t get rewarded well by society.
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So what exactly are you saying, society must guarantee every person a successful career? Don’t you think that may be a bit beyond the scope of what society is capable of? I’m all for strong universal education, universally guaranteed housing, healthcare, and food, so I’m quite a bit more socialistic than the mainstream, don’t get me wrong. And this coming from a guy in a pretty high tax bracket – high enough to pay a lot of income tax, not rich enough to get around high taxes by making a lot off of capital gains. And I don’t mind taxation at all, wish it was going to better causes. But there are always going to be strata in society, and there are always going to be people who just don’t do as well. Equalizing income/success hasn’t really gone too well when tried in the past on a mass scale…
Being descended from a family that’s been in North America since before the United States, I get what you’re saying. They endured hardships (and did some pretty terrible things.) And I live in an area that at one point had a pretty high immigrant population; a local minor celebrity from years ago did a writeup about one of the towns. Not so true anymore–oh, there’s still some recognizable Polish, Czech, and Italian names, and enough in a local town that they have a festival that’s basically a redneck get-together with a little bit of bocce thrown in.
On the other hand, when my ancestors moved to this region, it was still the western frontier. They moved to Virginia some time in the 18th Century, moved on to TN in the 19th, and to IL toward the end of that century, and have been here ever since. With few exceptions, they’ve stayed here. We just don’t have a history of moving. Hey, we managed to kill off the rattlesnakes, decided we could put up with the humidity in the summer, and stuck around. It’s not a horrible life here, despite any complaining I do here. Just wish I wasn’t in the red, but I digress.
And the thing is, I’m guessing that when they moved, while some aspects were harder, I’m betting some were easier. While it might sound crass to claim that it’d be easier for the folks living in the ghettos in the 19th Century…okay, my reasoning is a little overcomplicated (and probably impaired by cheap vino.) On the one hand, 19th Century ghettos sucked, and there were hardships if they lived on the farm. On the other hand, they didn’t have to worry about things like Child Protective Services, or about what address and phone number they were going to put down on a job application when they actually live in a car, or how on Earth they’re going to get their pay without getting ripped off because nobody who’s legit and in their right mind pays payroll in cash imho.
And since I’ve never been flat busted to the point where I have to drive my car 1000 miles away and live in my car, I’m sure there’s all kinds of issues I haven’t thought of.
I guess I’m saying that it’s an easier time to move…but it’s more complicated than that. And I didn’t even get into income vs. cost of living (something that prevented me from moving in the past) and the fact that there are less higher-paying, and more lower-paying jobs around. Know people who have done it, only to end up working in fast food or as waitresses. And honestly, when we have people moving from higher-income areas into my area to take the low-wage jobs, I’m not convinced that moving is the best option. And really, my fat butt is sitting here on a computer, drinking wine out of a pint glass, on a high-speed Internet connection in a nice, comfy house. My tune might be different if I was in 18th Century Ireland, or indeed modern-day Central America. Personally, despite my lack of success so far, I’m going to keep plugging away at trying to take advantage of the pie-in-the-sky You Can Work From Anywhere If You’re On The Internet pipe dream of the 90s. I may not be able to work as cheap as someone in India or the Phillippines, but I can work cheaper than the suburban dwellers.
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I guess city workers would be working in the city they live in though, right?
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This country in the last several decades has had a habit of consolidating and limiting success. That’s the problem. Whilst subsidizing the success of companies like Google.
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I’m saying that people fail to do well in society for reasons which have nothing to do with how smart they are, how good they are, how hard they work, how much intrinsic worth they have as a person, and so on. Society simply rewards some people more than others, for reasons which have nothing to do with any virtue on the part of the persons concerned.
Who is of more value to the world — the corporate lawyer who spends his time initiating East Texas patent driving trollies cases, or the schoolteacher who tries to teach science and math to inner city kids? I guarantee the lawyer is more generously rewarded by society.
Life isn’t fair. Say it like that and everyone agrees. But it’s just another way of saying that rich people aren’t rich because they’re super awesome or hard working; there’s a lot of luck involved.
I mean, look at Bill Gates. Plenty of better programmers have worked harder than he did at the start of his career. Maybe they didn’t have $1m-a-year trust funds to let them drop out of college and pursue setting up their own company without risking homelessness. Maybe they didn’t have a parent who had contacts and could get them their first big business deal even though they had no product.
And I haven’t even gotten into structural inequality, racism, sexism, and other barriers to people being paid what they’re worth.
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