Almost two years ago I moved into a city, just north of Silicon Valley, which for all intents and purposes falls under the same label. A place referred to as 'Fog City,' famous for its hippies, rolling hills, cable cars and an icey ocean, complete with the legacy of Harvey Milk who fought for the freedom to love whoever you want regardless of their gender, a legal right to run naked through the streets, where Mary-J is legal with the right license and wearing flowers in your hair was encouraged in folk song. Where all too many people would leave their hearts, and often their shoes, there is still evidence of the latter on the streets today. The city where Mark Twain experienced his coldest winter, one summer, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once looked out onto a spooky, foggy park in Pacific Heights. Alcatraz stands out as a beacon of history, a nod to the notorious, drawing tourists from all over the world to listen to the wind whistle through the walls, walk the haunted cells and revisit the legend of Alcapone. The hills and legends remain but the city's face has changed with age, that is to say the population is getting younger and younger with the latest infestation of techies and maturing venture capitalists.
The tech sector is fixated on innovation, and changing business as usual, from breakthroughs in energy efficiency and energy storage to breaking in a new skyline, the city is changing. Much of the above is still part of the city's character, the fog still rolls in on warm afternoons chilling you to the bone, the wind still flies between the buildings like an invisible jet-stream, gaypride still very much is, and occasionally walking down the streets you'll be bombarded by someone's second hand smoke, the greener kind. The green movement, however, is not solely medicinal, a 'crunchy' social scene meets yearly at GreenFest and 'sustainability' is all the rage. Organic is the word on the streets, recycled clothes are marketed under the 'vintage' label, but being naked is now only 'in' for juice labels. The buses bear clear the signs of 'zero emissions vehicles,' and ride sharing is in fashion along with the rest of the 'sharing economy,' from Airbnb to Lyft, Uber and Sidecar. Share your homes, share your cars, share your food, and most of all share your ideas. Meetup with strangers, Yelp your contentment or dissatisfaction with local establishments and Tweet to your heart's content.
Amongst all these trends and between the trendy new buildings and artistic walls the city is still on a fault, several to be more precise. It still teeters on the brink of the 'big one' with scientists citing a 99.7% probability of a magnitude 5.7 earthquake or greater within the next 30 years. However the tremors being felt locally are political ones of dissatisfaction over the route gentrification is leading the city and how the prices are being driven up. As the techies move in, the long-term locals are having to move out. Prices are on the rise, as are tensions. Whilst many locals are using the tech buses transporting employees to and from Mountain View as a scape-goat, it does little to ease the inequalities, which are evident on the street. Homelessness is rife, right outside the buildings bearing exorbitant rental prices. Ironic scenes like catching a glimpse of a man fast asleep on the pavement outside of a bed store, are not uncommon. The so-called focus on sustainability may prove to be little more than an environmental buzz as the socio-economic direction does not seem to be headed near that label, at least not very soon. If this is a bubble, there might be many locals wishing it would pop, very soon.
San Francisco was once a harbour for runaway children and a Mecca for the homeless, attracted by milder weather and free social attitudes. Evidence of substance abuse, smacks of elements of the popular series, Breaking Bad. And despite many local efforts to alleviate the plight of the homeless, they are still a feature of the city. Gentrification is supposed to be a slow process but I have been able to see clear changes from two years ago, when I rolled my suitcase lost and looking for my short-term rental, until now, where my lost meanderings are far less intentional.
Walking through one of the suburbs the other day I noticed men and women lying littered on the street, napping up the sunshine, some next to a discarded beer can that sat collapsed vigilantly, watching over their dreams. Shoes and socks, and last night's take-aways scattered along the pavement, estranged from their original owners and friends, like a trail left by Hansel and Grettel, with a road-map to get back to the time, the one you'll remember when you awake from your meandering waking-dream. Following the breadcrumbs, you can zig and zag through the graffiti-lined alley ways, to an unspoken promise of finding treasure hidden in plain sight, if you look hard enough you just might find...
Tucked between the hills reminiscent of the little steam engine, the wind whispers in your ear, 'I think you can, I think you can, you know you can.' The wind hugs you tight for a moment, before settling down to an audible shout. Any glimpse of the ocean might have you expecting to see white horses, only to learn they've been treading goosebumps into your arms, rustling through the hairs on your arms and tussling them like wild weeds blowing in the wind. They threaten to blow away like dandelions if you would only promise to make a wish they can carry to the sun.
The city is colourful, you can find yourself lost in a maze of faces staring you down, right down to the ground you've chosen to stand on. Colour exploding from the bottom of your soles, the faces of Marilyn Monroe, Rolling Stones' lips and scattered flowers from the seventies, lie in their painted graves, resting in peace until someone's restless creativity drives them to digs it all up and plants new thoughts, inviting you to trample through their freshly painted flower beds of artistic eccentricity. The walls shout messages in bold fonts, and dark and bright paintings whisper possible meanings. Leaving you to wonder what it actually does mean. For a city with some much creativity it's astonishing that there aren't more solutions in the works to alleviate present tensions.
Looking at it from an economic point of view, the demand for housing is greater than the supply so the price must go up, but the implication is that owners stand to benefit from the increased rental prices, and higher income earners will have more to spend at local establishments. The city is working to increase the supply, but the prices are far from coming down. This might be an issue that can only be resolved with time. More tech jobs means more employment, which should be a net benefit for the city, in theory. In practice marginalised communities, are remaining just that. But for how long? One question is whether there is a spill-over benefit to the new arrivals of jobs, and establishments, and more housing, or whether it will just take time to realise these benefits. Higher income increases the city's revenue, the city receives higher taxes, in a state that already has one of the highest tax rates in the nation, this should translate to better funded social programs, the ability to invest more in education, something which judging by the University of San Francisco's latest building developments is just around the corner. If so, is time and patience something locals can afford, or is that too out of the price range? To look at things from a different angle, without these new jobs and developments, would anyones living situation necessarily be better? Would there be more opportunities for growth? Chances are this would just be happening in another city, but this is San Francisco's second gold rush, and it's likely going to take some time to stabilise. There are hidden treasures, and if you sift through the fools gold, who knows what you might just find...
Amongst all these trends and between the trendy new buildings and artistic walls the city is still on a fault, several to be more precise. It still teeters on the brink of the 'big one' with scientists citing a 99.7% probability of a magnitude 5.7 earthquake or greater within the next 30 years. However the tremors being felt locally are political ones of dissatisfaction over the route gentrification is leading the city and how the prices are being driven up. As the techies move in, the long-term locals are having to move out. Prices are on the rise, as are tensions. Whilst many locals are using the tech buses transporting employees to and from Mountain View as a scape-goat, it does little to ease the inequalities, which are evident on the street. Homelessness is rife, right outside the buildings bearing exorbitant rental prices. Ironic scenes like catching a glimpse of a man fast asleep on the pavement outside of a bed store, are not uncommon. The so-called focus on sustainability may prove to be little more than an environmental buzz as the socio-economic direction does not seem to be headed near that label, at least not very soon. If this is a bubble, there might be many locals wishing it would pop, very soon.
San Francisco was once a harbour for runaway children and a Mecca for the homeless, attracted by milder weather and free social attitudes. Evidence of substance abuse, smacks of elements of the popular series, Breaking Bad. And despite many local efforts to alleviate the plight of the homeless, they are still a feature of the city. Gentrification is supposed to be a slow process but I have been able to see clear changes from two years ago, when I rolled my suitcase lost and looking for my short-term rental, until now, where my lost meanderings are far less intentional.
Walking through one of the suburbs the other day I noticed men and women lying littered on the street, napping up the sunshine, some next to a discarded beer can that sat collapsed vigilantly, watching over their dreams. Shoes and socks, and last night's take-aways scattered along the pavement, estranged from their original owners and friends, like a trail left by Hansel and Grettel, with a road-map to get back to the time, the one you'll remember when you awake from your meandering waking-dream. Following the breadcrumbs, you can zig and zag through the graffiti-lined alley ways, to an unspoken promise of finding treasure hidden in plain sight, if you look hard enough you just might find...
Tucked between the hills reminiscent of the little steam engine, the wind whispers in your ear, 'I think you can, I think you can, you know you can.' The wind hugs you tight for a moment, before settling down to an audible shout. Any glimpse of the ocean might have you expecting to see white horses, only to learn they've been treading goosebumps into your arms, rustling through the hairs on your arms and tussling them like wild weeds blowing in the wind. They threaten to blow away like dandelions if you would only promise to make a wish they can carry to the sun.
The city is colourful, you can find yourself lost in a maze of faces staring you down, right down to the ground you've chosen to stand on. Colour exploding from the bottom of your soles, the faces of Marilyn Monroe, Rolling Stones' lips and scattered flowers from the seventies, lie in their painted graves, resting in peace until someone's restless creativity drives them to digs it all up and plants new thoughts, inviting you to trample through their freshly painted flower beds of artistic eccentricity. The walls shout messages in bold fonts, and dark and bright paintings whisper possible meanings. Leaving you to wonder what it actually does mean. For a city with some much creativity it's astonishing that there aren't more solutions in the works to alleviate present tensions.
Looking at it from an economic point of view, the demand for housing is greater than the supply so the price must go up, but the implication is that owners stand to benefit from the increased rental prices, and higher income earners will have more to spend at local establishments. The city is working to increase the supply, but the prices are far from coming down. This might be an issue that can only be resolved with time. More tech jobs means more employment, which should be a net benefit for the city, in theory. In practice marginalised communities, are remaining just that. But for how long? One question is whether there is a spill-over benefit to the new arrivals of jobs, and establishments, and more housing, or whether it will just take time to realise these benefits. Higher income increases the city's revenue, the city receives higher taxes, in a state that already has one of the highest tax rates in the nation, this should translate to better funded social programs, the ability to invest more in education, something which judging by the University of San Francisco's latest building developments is just around the corner. If so, is time and patience something locals can afford, or is that too out of the price range? To look at things from a different angle, without these new jobs and developments, would anyones living situation necessarily be better? Would there be more opportunities for growth? Chances are this would just be happening in another city, but this is San Francisco's second gold rush, and it's likely going to take some time to stabilise. There are hidden treasures, and if you sift through the fools gold, who knows what you might just find...
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