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Turning Santa Cruz Into a Haven For Hackers, Makers & Startups
waderoush writes "While Santa Cruz, CA, may be most famous for its surfing, its boardwalk, and its lax marijuana laws, it was also the birthplace of big tech companies like Plantronics, Borland Software, SCO, Seagate Technologies, and Netflix. But that was all a long time ago. As entrepreneurs and city leaders in Santa Cruz work to revive the city's technology scene today, they're starting largely from scratch. In a three-part series this week, Xconomy looks at efforts in this sunny beachside town to build a thriving high-tech ecosystem with a unique identity, separate from that of nearby Silicon Valley. Part 1 surveys the products and industries that make up the Santa Cruz brand, from sports and recreation to organic food. Part 2 looks at the city's past technology successes and its crop of emerging startups, and efforts to build a strong local network of startup mentors, advisors, and investors. Part 3 details efforts to increase the local talent supply, in part by encouraging more students from UC Santa Cruz to live and work in the city after they graduate; it also looks at the city's campaign to reverse perceptions that it's an anti-business haven for beach bums and pot smokers."
...isn't a lack of talent, or retaining students, or anything else related to business - it's crime. The once-quaint "beach bums" are actually violent street kids and mentally ill homeless people, and unless you're on campus and removed from the city itself, you can't help but to experience this everywhere you go.
I lived there for four years while at UC Santa Cruz, and while there was a street kid problem then (15 years ago), it's much worse now, crime rates are up, and I don't feel safe there at all, just walking down the street. I've lived in various low-income communities, and for the most part they're "just" poor - there's crime, of course, but you can walk down the street safely. Santa Cruz is absurdly rich for some people, destitute for others, and it attracts a homeless/street population that make it no longer worth visiting. It's sad but true.