The way "techies" are being talked about and treated right now is straight up Xenophobia and it's fucked up.
We can't just be "nerds" that are easy targets to be scapegoated and picked on. If someone tries to blame you for the low supply of housing (instead of restrictive building codes) or for "changing the culture" of the city in a way that they don't like (who died and made them the arbiter of good taste). Call them out on it, its bullshit.
Technology has improved a lot of peoples lives and supplied this state a ton of money in tax revenue and for every one technology job 4-5 other jobs are created [1]. The companies in the bay area are the envy of the world, don't let peoples jealousy bring you down.
You are replacing one scapegoat - techies - with another - restrictive building codes. You're complaining about people adopting one-sided, myopic viewpoints whilst putting forward one of your own - that the tech industry is great, and wonderful, and has no downsides whatsoever.
You talk about how tech gets vilified, but at the same time label people who object to tech as "jealous". I think we would get a lot further if people would acknowledge things like the housing situation in San Francisco are not the fault of either techies or building codes, but the result of a complex melting pot.
For the record, I work in tech, and I live in SF. I would like to think I'm able to see that tech has brought many benefits to SF, but at the same time has indirectly contributed to various pressures that any financially successful city will eventually encounter. London and New York both have equally crappy housing situations - different causes, different symptoms. I do, however, see how people living in SF could come to the conclusion that tech is causing these issues.
I think rather than simply turning their argument around ("you're jealous") it would be better to engage in rational discourse about how best to solve these problems in a way that leaves everyone better off. Sadly, people on both sides seem to be entrenched to the point where this is very difficult.
I work in tech. I'm a nerd. I love Star Trek, StarCraft, and *.gif.
I also love democracy, taxes, and public infrastructure.
Unfortunately for some of us there are a few very pushy leaders in the tech industry who don't like democracy, taxes, or public infrastructure and those asshats are making the rest of us look bad.
Oh no, we all get lumped in together and judged based on our appearance, I guess it feels sort of weird when it finally happens to us, right?
If you don't like it, what are you going to do about it? Resort to deciding that a bunch of perfectly good, hard working people are jealous because you have no other way to empathize with them?
I don't think that people in general have a problem with "techies" or "nerds". They do, however, have a problem with people who are generally referred to as "hipsters" today.
It is understandable why the dislike is there. Hipsters do tend to exhibit an attitude, behavior, fashion sense and materialism that can easily been seen as socially obnoxious.
Residents of long-established neighborhoods, especially those made of working-class individuals and families, will not be pleased when their neighborhoods are invaded by hipsters. The resulting changes to the community can be quite rapid and painful for those already there, both economically and socially. It's not about jealousy, but instead about unwanted disruption of established communities.
To some extent, the traditional "techie"/"nerd" community has been similarly co-opted by hipsters. This is especially true with Apple's resurgence over the past decade, when it comes to social media, and in SV in particular.
There was never this much strife when the tech industry was made up mostly of "techies"/"nerds", who in general behave in a way that is more socially friendly to established communities. Now that the balance has shifted toward hipsters being more and more prevalent within the industry, it's perfectly understandable why there's more hatred toward the industry as a whole. Their way of life invokes a very negative reaction out of basically everybody else.
Well, those tech critics just need to wait for the current "social web" bubble to implode, and then we'll see people showing cardboards saying stuff like:
and then as the shares of Facebook, Twitter and even the almighty google drops, the tech unemployment raises in the valley and SF, engineers get evicted and then prices will lower!
They just need to stop complaining, be patient for a few years and that will happen…
…until the next tech bubble gets the valley crazy again ;-)
It would be a net benefit for everyone if people stopped believing San Francisco was some kind of "technology/business mecca" or something.
We need budding tech sectors all over the world, and we don't need everyone trying to move to California (and a lot of us frankly don't want to move to California, to begin with).
California doesn't offer anything which can't be found elsewhere.
One of the memes of the Bay area is that people want it to remain the same as it was the day they arrived and that anybody who arrived after them is "the problem".
But seriously I find it amusing that the author thinks that Berkeley and Oakland will attract people away from SF. Berkeley is even more hostile to change than SF. Witness the nasty campaign against Measure T in 2012 where Berkeley voted to keep a cesspool over a nice new business park and kept parts of the city zoned for manufacturing that is never coming back instead of startups. Berkeley should have a thriving startup culture with the university, but everybody drives across the bridge rather than dealing with the NIMBYs.
Oakland's current and previous administration couldn't find its arse with both hands. Witness how much new development has ended up in Emeryville.
So yeah businesses setup in SF because because at the moment its the least incompetent or hostile of the Bay area cities to have to deal with. And will most likely remain so.
Seeing as the financial sector has failed to do so for decades, I wouldn't hold my breath. Whatever happens, CW Nevius will still be writing columns complaining about his neighbors as he has done for the last quarter-century or so.
I think we may well see a situation similar to what's happened in Los Angeles and the entertainment industry. The main players are still based there, but the city has become so expensive to shoot and work in that many films are now made elsewhere.
The debate about whether ___Group X/Y/Z____ needs to flee is a false one -- just build more housing that will accommodate all types of people who want to stay.
To do that, the NIMBY laws and once-romanticized ideal in SF that prevent building up need to change.
Pity how that telewoking nirvana the telephone companies keep plugging doesn't really work for a lot of use cases - I know a lot dont want to hear this but I am afraid its the truth teleworking is suboptimal for at minimum 80% of TMT jobs
"They will cling to the fantasy that rents will magically drop,"
Oh really? Less demand equals smaller prices. It may take some time, but, yes, it will happen.
About the issue: the USA is huge and it's sincerely stupid to keep cramming people into an ever tight space.
There's nothing about it fundamentally that makes it absolutely necessary. The big companies like Twitter, Google are big enough so they can stand by themselves and do not need the SF/SV influence.
Companies could go to Stockton, they need the money, and it's not so far away.
> The big companies like Twitter, Google are big enough so they can stand by themselves and do not need the SF/SV influence
That only works if your employees know they are going (and want) to be with you for a long time. In tech things change fast, and both companies and people want to be in a place where they have a good amount of options. This naturally creates local maxima around a few geographical locations. The only way out is widespread remote work.
As a guy who is moving to SF for geographically-relevant reasons (wife is a medical resident) and who works tech remotely, I'd be all in favor of this.
It's not tied to any one place. It is tied to a few places, and Silicon Valley more strongly than most: in no small part because you can hire programmers there, because programmers live there, because they can get hired there (all circular-referency-like).
But it's also tied to places like New York, and London, and Seattle, and Boston, and Austin, heck, Shanghai and Hong Kong and Bangalore -- any place where there's enough of a critical mass of reasonably well-educated raw population that "programmers live there" because everyone lives there. Not tied as strongly, mind you -- the network effect and the venture capital in the bay area are hard to beat. But tied enough that it works.
Why shouldn't it? It seems to be a huge reduction in friction of all types to have everything in the same place. Not just coders, but investors, people willing to start companies, accountants and lawyers specializing in the field, marketing, graphic design, etc. Face-to-face interactions are simple, and always work. The multitude of internet-based remote-work assistants all seem to have their own issues and limitations.
[+] [-] wavesounds|12 years ago|reply
We can't just be "nerds" that are easy targets to be scapegoated and picked on. If someone tries to blame you for the low supply of housing (instead of restrictive building codes) or for "changing the culture" of the city in a way that they don't like (who died and made them the arbiter of good taste). Call them out on it, its bullshit.
Technology has improved a lot of peoples lives and supplied this state a ton of money in tax revenue and for every one technology job 4-5 other jobs are created [1]. The companies in the bay area are the envy of the world, don't let peoples jealousy bring you down.
1. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tech-hiring-creates-other...
[+] [-] objclxt|12 years ago|reply
You talk about how tech gets vilified, but at the same time label people who object to tech as "jealous". I think we would get a lot further if people would acknowledge things like the housing situation in San Francisco are not the fault of either techies or building codes, but the result of a complex melting pot.
For the record, I work in tech, and I live in SF. I would like to think I'm able to see that tech has brought many benefits to SF, but at the same time has indirectly contributed to various pressures that any financially successful city will eventually encounter. London and New York both have equally crappy housing situations - different causes, different symptoms. I do, however, see how people living in SF could come to the conclusion that tech is causing these issues.
I think rather than simply turning their argument around ("you're jealous") it would be better to engage in rational discourse about how best to solve these problems in a way that leaves everyone better off. Sadly, people on both sides seem to be entrenched to the point where this is very difficult.
[+] [-] williamcotton|12 years ago|reply
I also love democracy, taxes, and public infrastructure.
Unfortunately for some of us there are a few very pushy leaders in the tech industry who don't like democracy, taxes, or public infrastructure and those asshats are making the rest of us look bad.
Oh no, we all get lumped in together and judged based on our appearance, I guess it feels sort of weird when it finally happens to us, right?
If you don't like it, what are you going to do about it? Resort to deciding that a bunch of perfectly good, hard working people are jealous because you have no other way to empathize with them?
The entitlement is palpable in this city.
[+] [-] Pacabel|12 years ago|reply
It is understandable why the dislike is there. Hipsters do tend to exhibit an attitude, behavior, fashion sense and materialism that can easily been seen as socially obnoxious.
Residents of long-established neighborhoods, especially those made of working-class individuals and families, will not be pleased when their neighborhoods are invaded by hipsters. The resulting changes to the community can be quite rapid and painful for those already there, both economically and socially. It's not about jealousy, but instead about unwanted disruption of established communities.
To some extent, the traditional "techie"/"nerd" community has been similarly co-opted by hipsters. This is especially true with Apple's resurgence over the past decade, when it comes to social media, and in SV in particular.
There was never this much strife when the tech industry was made up mostly of "techies"/"nerds", who in general behave in a way that is more socially friendly to established communities. Now that the balance has shifted toward hipsters being more and more prevalent within the industry, it's perfectly understandable why there's more hatred toward the industry as a whole. Their way of life invokes a very negative reaction out of basically everybody else.
[+] [-] guyzmo|12 years ago|reply
"will do community management for food!"
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070820063441/uncyclo...
and then as the shares of Facebook, Twitter and even the almighty google drops, the tech unemployment raises in the valley and SF, engineers get evicted and then prices will lower!
They just need to stop complaining, be patient for a few years and that will happen…
…until the next tech bubble gets the valley crazy again ;-)
[+] [-] hindsightbias|12 years ago|reply
I guess ranting tech-n00bs can't be asked to know their own history and the locals can be forgiven for the smokey-mj haze.
But when your wait staff is having to move to Oakland, there might be a point where it can't make a come back.
[+] [-] caitp|12 years ago|reply
We need budding tech sectors all over the world, and we don't need everyone trying to move to California (and a lot of us frankly don't want to move to California, to begin with).
California doesn't offer anything which can't be found elsewhere.
[+] [-] lutusp|12 years ago|reply
Except a self-referential belief that California is where it's happening.
Also: s/which/that/
[+] [-] spiralpolitik|12 years ago|reply
But seriously I find it amusing that the author thinks that Berkeley and Oakland will attract people away from SF. Berkeley is even more hostile to change than SF. Witness the nasty campaign against Measure T in 2012 where Berkeley voted to keep a cesspool over a nice new business park and kept parts of the city zoned for manufacturing that is never coming back instead of startups. Berkeley should have a thriving startup culture with the university, but everybody drives across the bridge rather than dealing with the NIMBYs.
Oakland's current and previous administration couldn't find its arse with both hands. Witness how much new development has ended up in Emeryville.
So yeah businesses setup in SF because because at the moment its the least incompetent or hostile of the Bay area cities to have to deal with. And will most likely remain so.
[+] [-] natmaster|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walshemj|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theorique|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] objclxt|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elangoc|12 years ago|reply
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francis...
The debate about whether ___Group X/Y/Z____ needs to flee is a false one -- just build more housing that will accommodate all types of people who want to stay.
To do that, the NIMBY laws and once-romanticized ideal in SF that prevent building up need to change.
[+] [-] raverbashing|12 years ago|reply
In fact, let's concrete the SF bay to have more space for houses, it's better that way
After all, all those people 100% need to live there, there's no space left in the USA for them.
[+] [-] alexnking|12 years ago|reply
If only there were some way for employees to do digital work without being in a centralized geographical location...
[+] [-] walshemj|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raverbashing|12 years ago|reply
Oh really? Less demand equals smaller prices. It may take some time, but, yes, it will happen.
About the issue: the USA is huge and it's sincerely stupid to keep cramming people into an ever tight space.
There's nothing about it fundamentally that makes it absolutely necessary. The big companies like Twitter, Google are big enough so they can stand by themselves and do not need the SF/SV influence.
Companies could go to Stockton, they need the money, and it's not so far away.
[+] [-] Jare|12 years ago|reply
That only works if your employees know they are going (and want) to be with you for a long time. In tech things change fast, and both companies and people want to be in a place where they have a good amount of options. This naturally creates local maxima around a few geographical locations. The only way out is widespread remote work.
[+] [-] pndmnm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmapes|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] presidentender|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fennecfoxen|12 years ago|reply
But it's also tied to places like New York, and London, and Seattle, and Boston, and Austin, heck, Shanghai and Hong Kong and Bangalore -- any place where there's enough of a critical mass of reasonably well-educated raw population that "programmers live there" because everyone lives there. Not tied as strongly, mind you -- the network effect and the venture capital in the bay area are hard to beat. But tied enough that it works.
[+] [-] ufmace|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rbanffy|12 years ago|reply
Silicon Valley is not easily replicated.
As for me, a person who visits the place on vacations, I love it. I wish I could do more to solve its many problems.
[+] [-] peatmoss|12 years ago|reply