New San Francisco Tech Boom Brings Jobs but Also Worries

[steve2470]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/us/san-francisco-tech-boom-brings-jobs-and-worries.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&src=recg



SAN FRANCISCO — When Twitter moves into its new headquarters in downtown San Francisco this month, it will occupy three floors of an 11-story 1937 Art Deco building that has sat shuttered for five years. Outside, its blue bird logo will replace the former main tenant’s sign, whose analog clocks remain frozen at 9:18, 4:33 and other times past.

Far from Silicon Valley’s self-enclosed campuses, Twitter and other tech start-ups are gravitating to an urban core here that has defied development for decades. Its soon-to-be neighbors include liquor stores, check-cashing stores and discount hotels.

At the Ironwok Japanese and Chinese restaurant, whose half-torn storefront banner flapped in the wind on a recent afternoon, the owners were waiting for Twitter with the same mixture of expectation and trepidation shared by much of the city toward the second tech boom in a little over a decade.

“Of course, Twitter is good for the city, but how about me?” said the owner, Jenny Liu, 41, explaining that her landlord was raising her monthly rent to $12,000 from $8,000.

[xchrom]

1. From 8 to 12?

Oy. Sit back & collect the money, I guess.

[fasttense]

2. Tax breaks for corporations, does that ever really last?

Giving tax breaks to corporations so they will move their jobs over doesn't last. Eventually the strain the corporation puts on the infrastructure it uses becomes too much and the local citizens have to pay for the missing taxes. Then taxes and fees start to creep to excessive levels and the middle class and artist depart. Then the corporation gets a better offer from some other city.

So you get jobs temporarily but the jobs' value declines because of the fees and taxes passed on to workers. Eventually the place becomes a ghetto for the rich. Then it's abandoned by them for better tax breaks elsewhere.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

3. As a San Franciscan I am deeply, deeply ambivilant about this --

I work in a block long building that has already been invaded by Tuppies -- the rents have skyrocketed, longtime tenants including artisans, blue collar manufacturing businesses, mom and pop service companies have been pushed out, and the entire neighborhood has been transformed from a lower middle class, largely African-American communities (one of the last in the City) to a Hipster Playground, with $16 organic, grass-fed hamburgers and a "Soul Food" Restaurant where not a single African-American crosses the threshold.

The first Tech Boom almost killed the working class in this town, and I fear the Second Boom will be the final blow.