No City for Poor Men

[unhappycamper]

http://watchingamerica.com/News/243821/no-city-for-poor-men/

San Francisco — the bastion of American culture and the farthest-at-sea lighthouse of liberalism in the West — now takes a surprising turn.

No City for Poor Men
Krytyka Polityczna, Poland
By Agata Popęda
Translated By Natalia Suta
28 July 2014
Edited by Nathan Moseley

At the moment, San Francisco boasts twice as many billionaires as London. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment comes to over $3,000 a month — the most expensive on the U.S. real estate market. In the gap between the poor and the rich, the city has just jumped up to the second position in the country, placed right behind New York.* One reason is that since 2011, when Mayor Ed Lee introduced tax incentives for technology companies, a new class of immigrants has been pouring into the city. They are Silicon Valley employees for whom San Francisco, 40 miles away, has become a new bedroom.

The indigenous citizens quickly started referring to them as "Google Bus People." Moving silently outside and beyond public transportation, these vehicles, with on-board Internet, have become a constant element of the urban landscape. City districts such as South of Market have become headquarters for Twitter, Dropbox and Angel List (direct investments in startups) as well as a hotbed for new startups (supposedly, there are over 5,000 at the moment). As many as 50,000 people are employed in new technologies. As a result, the unemployment rate in San Francisco is 4.8 percent, whereas in the whole of California it reaches 8.3 percent.

Where is the problem? San Francisco is proud of its history. It boasts that it has never been a city of economic contrasts. However, this is changing now.

While young billionaires are pouring into the city, poor citizens are being displaced. Rent prices are soaring up, causing speculations on the real estate market and mass evictions. Of course, there are plenty of jobs available in San Francisco, but they are exported rather than offered to the locals.

[Eleanors38]

1. Sounds like Austin, sans the goo-goo buses.

[yeoman6987]

2. So the poor are moving to the suburbs

Wow. To think that used to be the dream. Now they are getting the dream but so many years later.

[Eleanors38]

3. That dream ended with the RustBelt & S&L blowouts,

followed by the dot com debacle yrs later, then the organized piracy of 6 years ago. Frankly, I saw it a generation ago, and decided then to Never get strung out on suburban "life." Either live in the country and make your life there with only occasional trips into the big city for a new pick-up or heart by-pass, or stay right in the middle of town where services are close at hand, and regular transport is at least practical. I've chosen the latter, but in my age am thinking the former.

[gejohnston]

4. I always thought of suburbs as the worst of both worlds

Advantages of living in the country: see stars, have horses and crops, set up backyard range. Disadvantages being having to drive to cultural activities and no mass transit, and long wait for AAA to send tow truck and distance to mechanic.
Advantages of city: know the neighbors, reasonable zoning codes that allow front yard flower beds and veggies, don't always need a car. Disadvantages: nothing country has above, although there might be a decent indoor range.
None of those exist with suburbs. Have to drive everywhere (if public transit exists, it sucks) can't see the stars at night, front lawns are mandatory, bullshit zoning ordinances that prevent any kind of walkablity. Oh, then there are the HOAs that make Military Family Housing look down right libertarian.
Suburbs seem depressingly sterile to me.

[Eleanors38]

5. Even as a kid, I was never drawn to the "style" of the subs.

I always wanted a unique house in a unique area. You can have that in a city's core, or out in the country. Frankly, I'd take a 14-wide on a hundred acres, than a McMansion on a double lot. Barring that, a stick-built in the core.