Slashdot Mirror
Why San Francisco Is the New Renaissance Florence
waderoush writes "Despite legitimate concerns over sky-high rents, Ellis Act evictions, Google Bus traffic, and the like, the San Francisco Bay Area is perhaps the most prosperous, comfortable, enlightened, stimulating, and generative place to live in Western history. For satisfying parallels, you'd have to look to a place like Florence and a time like the Renaissance, argues an Xconomy essay entitled From Cosimo to Cosmos: The Medici Effect in Culture and Technology. Today's coder-kings are working to reinvent economic structures in much the same way Renaissance painters, poets, architects, and scientists were trying to extend the framework they'd inherited from classical Greece and Rome. And in the role of the Medici family, long Florence's most powerful rulers and art patrons, we have people like Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, and Seth MacFarlane. Wait, what — Seth MacFarlane? Yes, the reboot of Carl Sagan's Cosmos starring Neil deGrasse Tyson (itself a tribute to the rise of science) wouldn't have happened without the involvement of a California media mogul. It's true that Silicon Valley can feel like Dante's Inferno if you're stuck in traffic on 101, or working 70-hour weeks as a code monkey at a doomed startup. But 'It would be unthinking, and ungrateful, to overlook the surplus we're reaping from the tech boom,' the essay argues."
nt
don't tell anyone! -it will just mean that more people will want to live here...
Disclaimer -I live in the East Bay(Newark), but spend most weekends in Berkeley/Oakland or SF and it is a great area to live and have fun, se shows, recreate, eat great food, etc
-I'm just sayin'
At least they don't have an over developed sense of their own importance.
You can't have a renaissance city and evict struggling artists at the same time, which is what's happening in San Francisco.
You pretentious cunt. San Francisco sucks.
Wow. I feel much dumber now. Do people really eat this shit up?
I guess the drive to feel important is pretty strong.
...just say STOP BLOWING YOURSELVES.
I love the Bay Area, lived there as a kid, lived there as an adult. It's beautiful, fun, and hideously expensive.
All that other crap you ascribe to it could be said about most large cities throughout the world.
Get over yourselves FFS.
Loading...
The most smug, pompous and expensive place to live....
It's the land of the have and have nots.
Want you kids to go to good schools in the area? Get ready to either send them to private school or fork out $1m plus for a 1600 sqft home with no land that was built in the early 60s.
If you didn't make in a killing in the previous dotcom bubble or the one we're in (Snapchat, i'm looking at you), enjoy mediocre housing and schools.
Let me guess the city where the writer lives...
I'd argue that it is nothing like classical Florence, where the artists had sponsors. There's no analog in Silly Valley for that, none of the new rich are sponsoring great art, whether for themselves or the public.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Sorry, finding new ways to rent out your car through an iPhone app is not any kind of Renaissance.
If anything, it's the decline of computer science from world-changing to trivial amusements for trivial, pointless people.
Futurist Traditionalism
It's time to have a bonfire of the vanities!
You must have used Dragon software to write this article because you were obviously patting yourself on the back with both hands.
I think they got the wrong family. Maybe Borgia would be a better fit.
Sorry, I don't see any Leonardo, Michelangelo or Raffaello in San Francisco. Let alone anything close to their work of arts. Comparing a trashy kid who violates privacy for a living to any of them is simply an insult to human intelligence.
In 100 years nobody will remember who the f**k zuckerberg was, surely facebook won't even exist, while Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raffaello have been on history books for 500 years and will always be.
Note that Renaissance artists don't even need being called by last name, that's how great they are.
Michelangelo was the original hipster?
or great art, particularly in this country, you don't know much about this country.
The most prosperous, comfortable and enlightened place in Western society is Scandinavia. And quite clearly so. You get all the liberalism of SF and more (most of their churches even conduct homosexual weddings), and far more prosperity and comfort due to the fairer distribution of income. Sure, there are less Zuckerbergs and whonots there. But the average guy, the guy cleaning the street or working at the butcher's is far more educated, content and wealthy.
If you like everything being expensive and high crime then I guess San Francisco is the place for you. Don't forget about the awful weather and huge homeless population. Actually it sounds like a liberal paradise.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Where it's a good day if you don't get yelled at by a bum.
Which one is Niccoló Machiavelli?
For those who are living in SF, good for you! It is a very beautiful city, and I enjoyed it when I lived there.
That said, I am not sure how this self congratulation piece actually passes for news on slashdot. It did not happen after some major breakthrough happened in the Bay area. There were no earth shattering events. In fact, the only thing of note is that it is Pi day, and I am fairly sure SF had little to do with that.
In fact, to say it is under a current Renaissance would be a horrible stretch. In fact, I am not sure an there has been anything of note that is new produced in the bay area in a decade. At best, you could claim that people who develop tech elsewhere, like to move to moderate climates when they get money. Remind which of those start-ups these 70 hour code monkeys that you are referring too actually amounted to anything?
As for enlightened? I know people in SF and who like to post on slashdot like to feel they are. But in reality, these "enlightened" philosophies are becoming increasingly exposed for the totalitarian darkness that they inevitably are. Wasn't there another article this weak about how Facebook (not created in SF, btw) wash shocked that the politicians of the "enlightened" actually were the Palpatinesque people behind the drones and NSA spying?
That great period in Italy brought us lasting art and philosophy. By comparison, 400 years from now, i see no equal achievements of such magnitude from the bay area.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
Smug Alert
Mod parent up!
That has to be the dumbest, most flabbergastingly ill-educated headline I've ever seen. What a ton of pish. If SoylentNews wasn't so shit I'd be tempted to move over there.
Why should I have to make over $125,000/year to live comfortably when I can make under half elsewhere in the country and be equally content? Why should I be forced to rent unless I can afford a million dollars for a house? How am I supposed to lay down roots? Why should any home short of a mansion cost a million dollars in the first place? Silicon Valley is pretty close to my idea of hell. The only thing I like about it is the City of Berkeley and the surrounding mountains and national parks where you can get away from the people living there on the weekends. San Francisco is bleak, dirty. There's nothing I like about it. It was good in the 60's but that was 50 years ago. Why would I want to surround myself with 99% ghetto rich (making a lot of money but having to spend it all on rent and expenses) men mostly struggling, thinking that their website will be the next Facebook.
For the 1% of people living there, I bet it's great. Those same people would be happy anywhere, because they're very wealthy.
San Francisco has always envied Southern California: the land of palm trees, movie stars and endless summer.
There is a reason why Silicon Valley is not in San Francisco. San Francisco may be an entertaining place to live as long as you ignore the homeless people, drug dealers and nutty politicians. The real innovation is near Palo Alto, Cupertino, Mountain View, Santa Clara and San José. Those places are just too laid back and relaxing for some people living in San Francisco.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Things are getting worse and worse in SF, SiVal/Peninsula and bay area in general.
The public schools are terrible, the cost of living is outrageous even with the high salaries, all families are dual income so most of the kids are latch-key, and my kids - we have to work overtime to protect them from how bad the kids are in general. There are a ton of richie rich kids who have money and they do bad things, drugs, etc. Cupertino, supposedly a great school district, polled kids and found that 75% had tried illegal drugs by 12th grade.
Also most of the universities here have non-California kids in ever increasing numbers. That means the land of milk and honey is not producing high end high school graduates.
I have a plan to relocate out of here within 18 months now. I refuse to say where because I can only hope that others wont follow and bring the pain and suffering and horribly low standard of living with them yet again.
And I've recently been to japan and switzerland. The public transportations STINKs here, the quality of life is far lower than either of those two places and in they have better primary/grade schools in both those places.
This is not living here. There is also little room for a family lifestyle. And the facebook pop has caused a lot of places to be one-percenter-only. All houses under 2 million are horrible, shabby and full of asbestos and mold. Built in the 1950s/60s to a very low standard.
Roads are fairly in poor repair despite there being no winter. Certain areas are crime ridden but the houses are 700K+. Schools - even greatschools-10 schools and blue ribbon schools - are a joke. They are a shadow of schools Ive seen in other places.
Please, never come here thinking you will be better off. Coming here is just like playing the lottery. Dont even think being smart will make you wealthy enough to get a real life here. you have to be either very lucky , or smart and lucky. Nobody earns their way to the top. Also there is a big time old boys club mentality. Inferior people will be much farther than you even if you work 80 hours a week and bleed for work.
The bay area is no longer about technology anymore. its about big gigantic pan national business and the monetization of the internet.
Google has the best, smartest, most driven brightest people in the world working day and night to not cure cancer, or invent new things (they bought a thermostat company for 3billion) but to Shovel Ads in Your Face. Thats it. Same with F-book
Hardly noble.
Welcome to SillyCON Valley.
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
But tastes vary. Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Sydney, Singapore, Seattle ... take your pick. Calling one 'the best' like this is simply a reflection of one author's personal tastes.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
You mean "enlightened" like this coder-king?
http://valleywag.gawker.com/ha...
And prosperous? Well, I guess if you don't count the homeless human "trash" or the "degenerates" he and his enlightened friends complain about. Oh, those pesky poor people... if it weren't for them, SF would be even more of a "comfortable, enlightened, stimulating" city. Why must he and our other coder-kings be forced to look at them? It is thoroughly uncomfortable, I tell you! It completely ruins his stimulating experience of driving a BMW to Fisherman's Wharf for an enlightened lunch!
Can something be done to help this poor Medici-esque man-mogul? I hope he or one of his fellow coder-kings is even now "working to reinvent economic structures", as you say. I'm certain there is a Bitcoin solution to all this. After all, if we dispense with dollar bills entirely, the computer-less poor won't have any way to beg for cryptocurrency and they'll have to return to wherever they came from.
But there I go, being "unthinking and ungrateful", as usual...
Koans and fables for the software engineer
I lived in Firenze & San Francisco: one I eagerly look forward to visiting each trip and the other I cringe when work takes me there. South Park put it best: the place is overcome by smug and the thesis of the essay is proof.
Let's say everything mentioned here actually was entirely self-contained to the author's city, as he or she obviously believes. Which it is not, obviously. I pose to you, if it weren't there, it would just be somewhere else.
I've been here for 10 years. I arrived a few years after the dotcom crash and I fell in love with the city. And it wasn't the city that tech built. It was the city that was recovering from the tech devastation. It was a city of artists and just plain old regular people doing their thing. This was still the place to go to get your visual effects done or to get a video game made. Rent was high, but not beyond what a college student couldn't manage with a serving job. It had old tried and true spots that survived the ups and downs. New spots would come about, but they seemed to grow organically and not sprout up and become overcrowded due to hype. It was almost like it was our little secret. But then that secret got out, and the money flowed in and along with it came the greed and the shallowness. Prices skyrocketed, people were driven out. All to make room for people who don't care about community or the beauty of a "lived in" city. They want to be perceived as cool and as important. They don't want to see the homeless and they have no patience for public transportation or a long commute. And finally they write stupid comments like the one above all in an effort to boost their sense of self worth. Because in the end, they are all miserable because they realize deep down inside that most of what they do is all filler for the world at large. They aren't saving lives, they aren't curing disease, they aren't feeding the poor. It's all just distractions.
But given that they're doing everything in their power to kick out google and face book... I don't see it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I'm not seeing this. It's a dull period for San Francisco. The first dot-com boom was more fun. Connecting up everybody and everything was important. This boom is all from ad-based companies, and most of what they're doing is rather banal. So are many of the people doing it.
Almost all the artists who need more than a desk and a laptop moved out years ago. SF used to have lots of big empty warehouse and factory spaces that were used for art projects and wild parties. That's what SOMA was. Those are gone, replaced with "live/work lofts" or giant bullpen workspaces.
I do not get why tech people want to live in the Mission. I've had friends there for years, and it's tolerable, but not a place to live in by choice. Wednesday I went to a stand up comedy improv thing in the Mission where people tried to put together presentions from random PowerPoint slides. Heavy bouncer presence outside because it was right next to a service center for homeless people. The comedy sucked, too. That's what the tech crowd is bringing into the area.
Here's a typical Mission location, one which also happens to be a Google bus stop. "Cafe la Boheme" has crappy food, and it's had crappy food for years. The place with the graffiti is an upstairs dance studio which is hanging on. "Chinese Food and Donuts" isn't very good at either. That corner has looked the same for many years. There are some decent restaurants a few blocks over on Valencia, but not at this corner. There are cool places to live in SF, but this isn't one of them.
Our tax policies have made our most rapidly expanding market sector resemble the 1500s. I, for one, welcome our new economic lordship. Give most of the money to a very small number of people, and let them decide if and when to parcel it out through patronage, buying electric sports cars, and financing asteroid mining projects. Surely the broader income ranks wouldn't do any better with it. I mean, think about it; other than the 1950s to 1960s in America, when has a far more progressive tax policy ever been correlated with broad-based entrepreneurship, small business expansion, and a nation rising to superpower?
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
cronyism
That's all I need to say...
If SoylentNews wasn't so shit I'd be tempted to move over there.
I think the other sites have better stories on average, but there are better comments on /.
Moderated Usenet
I have to say, I completely agree with you. It's not even just SF, it's the whole Bay Area. I just moved from Oakland to Walnut Creek, a busy busy 'burb. I was talking to some coworkers who also live there and they mentioned that they hardly ever see homeless people there. Certainly, there are much fewer than in the Town or the City, but I see a few every day (and we take the same BART train to work).
The point is, a lot of people here (and everywhere, lets be honest) develop a strange sense of entitlement. Homelessness is a problem, for sure, but it's not the kind of thing you can fix once and be done with it.
I've always been of the opinion that if you're willing to complain about something, you should be willing to do something about it. For all the rich, entitled tech workers who complain (for example) that some homeless person has parked a shopping cart full of cans in the only available parking spot, they're the last people to even step outside of their fucking car to move it to the side or even speak to the person standing next to said shopping cart, much less volunteer time at or donate money to a shelter.
Directly related to the link about AngelHacks, his complaints are completely worthless. If he wants to work somewhere without homeless people and drug dealers, he probably shouldn't be in downtown SF. Like, say, Mountain View...
And I've recently been to japan and switzerland.
Good for you, those have higher costs of living and even richer folks to deal with, mind that there is more racism in those countries that in SF.
Your article makes sense, but I want to let everyone know: it's nice that one has options to goto those places. A lot of us really don't have that option to move.
Yes, traffic flows so slowly through Palo Alto (including Highway 101 on weeknights where drivers slow to a crawl as soon as you enter Palo Alto) that you can always find parking. You see, the entire city of Palo Alto is one big parking lot!
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
I've been living in San Francisco for 10+ years. Sorry, Wade Roush & Ed Lee, but San Francisco doesn't need tax breaks for startups or 1/1/1 programs. We need the rich people in this area (including myself and my wife who are both in tech) to pay way more taxes so that we can balance things out a little bit and make the city livable for artists, waiters, musicians, etc. Awesome breakthroughs typically happen when fields intersect, and people bring experiences and impressions from one field into another. San Francisco's power has come from its diversity.
Ed Lee & Ron Conway, the entire San Francisco city is turning into Upper East Side New York. It's madness, and I can't imagine it's going to work out well long term for anyone, including the tech companies and startups that the current economic policies appear to be optimized for. How much awesome creative work is coming out of the Upper East Side? Zero.
Twitter is a great example of misguided policy. I love the service that the company provides and have many friends who work there, but why the hell are they getting tax breaks? It's lunacy. If they don't want to "give back" they can set up shop somewhere else. If they'd rather move to Fresno where they get a tax break, or Austin where there's cheaper talent they can do that. The reason they won't is that they want the stuff that makes SF awesome, its diversity. By creating these types of unnecessary economic incentives you're eroding the very thing that makes SF great to begin with. Why try to compete in cost when the competitive advantage is creativity and diversity?
m
That's funny. I've always thought of San Francisco as the new Sodom and Gomorrah.
In fact, if God doesn't destroy San Francisco, He owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology.
Don't worry, everyone isn't in the Bay Area because you're here, you egotistical asshole. They're not going to follow you just because you leave.
I think your 18 months timeframe is too long. Why torture yourself with asbestos and mold any longer? Get out now.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Doesn't look like it ...
Look for the lowest number on the list ...
That's right everyone knows that the treatment of gays is the measuring stick for a societies enlightenment. /sarcasm
Thank you. I have been seeing this bull shit about the wonderful city of San Fransisco blahblahbalh... for the past couple of weeks on various tech sites and it is getting to be fucking annoying. Especially while the same danm sites report on the Luddite bullshit they have been doing.
You want to know what San Fransicso really is?
San Francisco is city that pushes a go green eco freindly message thats people protest when a tech company tries to create a mass transit system to cut traffic and emissions. The city that objects to innovators moving there and ruining their culture by virtue of living there. The city who populous mobbed the house of googles self driving car team head for no good reason. They sound more like a liberal arts version of the old black and white monster movie peasant mob chasing down scientists and innovators with pitchforks and torches.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
FUUUUUCK THIS
Am I the only one that watched the show and thought, "Neil deGrasse Tyson stole Boba Fet's ship!"?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
what a bunch of shit. comparing getting people to view ads or click 'like' for inane bullshit consumerist garbage is not even the same fucking game as the renaissance.
Sure, it's semi-fine right now, but it'll end up like Manhattan, with all of its artists moving to the fringe edges then out even further. No more cool venues, as housing is a bigger money maker. Goodbye subcultures, hello gated communities! Way to fuck it up, San Francisco,
You're right in saying that religion should generally become less powerful as enlightenment increases. However, the point is that those who still are religious in Scandinavia are far less backwards than those in the US. Society is more liberal and enlightened on most levels, be it the state, religion, or individual views.
Of course Scandinavia isn't perfect either. Most of them have monarchies and state churches! But effectively, they are still more liberal, progressive, enlightened and prosperous than other Western countries. Their xenophobic parties are less powerful than in other European countries. Their education is faaaaaaar better. I would claim that your "average guy" on the street is able to explain the basics of Kant's "What is Enlightenment?" Try that in America, or even his home country Germany. Their strong social systems are evidence of a society that values solidarity and compassion. They have fewer working hours, but greater productivity and effective wages than others. The list goes on, but the point is that they are generally more progressive etc.
today's coder-kings !!!
what is almost as hilarious is that 'Soulskill' posted the summary without a HINT of irony!
Thank you Dave Raggett
SF has a great climate and the areas nearby are breathtaking.
But a city without any signature foods? Lacking in substance, I say.
San Francisco is peopled by the self-entitled and the disenfranchised and very little in between. This is a natural factor of the immense property values. Sooner or later there will be a big earthquake and it will all slide back into the sea and we can all have a good laugh. In the meantime they will continue gentrifying the last vestiges of personality out of it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Having just left there for greener pastures, a better job, etc. all I can say is puke.
Those hard-core liberals, lesbian activists, and diehard modern hippies young and old.
[turns around and sighs]
I swore I would never set foot in San Francisco. God help me.
The most prosperous, comfortable and enlightened place in Western society is Scandinavia.
Scandinavia seems to you like the 'lost valley' or Shangri-La or something, the mythical place that does everything right and everything is perfect.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Also most of the universities here have non-California kids in ever increasing numbers. That means the land of milk and honey is not producing high end high school graduates.
It actually means out-of-staters pay more. Sometimes a lot more.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The stalking and mobbing of the individual Google engineer actually took place in Berkeley.
Berkeley is, compared to San Francisco, what San Francisco is compared to the rest of the country.
After all, when the big one hits there won't be much left...
That bit about SF is junk. Houston Texas is the best place to live. It's second only to New York in culture according to the New York times. The cost of living is reasonable and the city is drawing tons of artists. Besides, there is no state personal income tax, and no regulatory and fee overhead like California.
The Bay Area has been getting worse; a lot worse. But unless you're terminally stupid, you can still live a good life and save lots of money.
Of course, the fact that you aren't too smart is obvious from your other comments. For example, if you think that you can make it as a foreigner in Switzerland or Japan, you really don't understand the first thing about those places. And that wonderful public transportation will seem a lot less wonderful if you realize your 30 minute commute now involves three changes and takes 2h, or that your subway ride consists of being compacted by subway pushers into a cube with hundreds of smelly, sweaty, grabby sararymen.
I only went to San Francisco once and that was enough.
It is a city that's supposed to be on the cutting edge of progress and yet you see homeless FAMILIES eating out of trash cans and sleeping anywhere there was a patch of grass.
I saw the well-to-do people eating as they walked passed a homeless and they paid them no more attention than a lamp post and then throw their food in the trash right in front of them as though to say "If you want it start digging."
In your own way, you are just as much of an asshole as the "coder king". It's the combination of people like you and people like him that make SF such a lousy place to live, and you complement each other in destroying the city.
You seem familiar with the language of the Google Bus debate, but you don't exemplify any higher intellectual analysis beyond just agreeing with whatever in-group you *feel* closest to
It's not about comparing paint cost.
It's as if one of the biggest private tennis academies in the city decided to use all public courts for its tennis lessons.
A 'bus stop' isn't just a coat of paint...it's a ***NODE IN A SYSTEM***
Google is using public property (bus stop) as if it was its own infrastructure...it's similar to theft...it's taking resources on a time/space basis.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I read your comment b/c it got up-modded, but I'm not sure I know where you're coming from...
I don't disagee with you...it's your opinion...but I just don't know, comparatively, what would not be a "shithole" to you...and it's not evident by context other than the types that vacation in SF are usually from the midwest.
So what's **not** a shithole?
I live in Portland & often people mistake *problems inherent to any big city* with problems of the specific city, or even neighborhood they visit.
I've had country bumpkin friends visit & had to explain that all big cities have homeless people downtown...
Thank you Dave Raggett
Hello
Google has the best, smartest, most driven brightest people in the world working day and night to not cure cancer.
This is exactly how I feel about most of the internet industry, but Google and others do some useful stuff on the side.
Thank you for making me choke on my soda with unexpected laughter -- I'm from the North Bay (Sonoma County), andmost of the longtimers are tired of both hearing how awesome SF & the wealthier parts of the South Bay are and with having outsiders assume that we share their belief. Insipid articles over-glorifying SF that use "Bay Area"as a synonym don't help.
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
did it need it?
yeah...it did..otherwise Soulskill looks like a shill or loses credibility...he looks like Tom Delay when he mistook a parody show for a real show
the little "from the X dept" area is completely neutral..."left my pants in SF" ???...that's where the /. editors *always* get cute...even if they just quote TFA for their summary
i'd have looked askew at this article as presented even ***if*** the "from X dept" was sarcastic...but we don't even have that
Thank you Dave Raggett
no
yes...i mean 'no'...the right answer to the first question you posed was answered correctly by you: no
b/c those aren't the criteria for misuse/abuse of public property...***cab drivers have all kinds of rules & limitations for using public roads and bus stops***
cabs can't line up at bus stops for the same reasoning...
it's part of a **system** and it taxes **other parts of the system**
if google wants buses to be able to use the stops, they must get permission and pay...or they could **donate money to the city to improve the infrastructure**
see, your problem is you don't see yourself as *part* of the community you live in...its a complex system and you only look at THE PART THAT AFFECTS YOU DIRECTLY...
you (and Google) are being myopic & selfish
Thank you Dave Raggett
I guess it depends what you consider the definitions of 'prosperous','comfortable', and 'enlightened' to be.
Prosperous: 50% tax rates (+25% VAT) is not prosperous by any means. It only works out if you're happy with whatever the government decides to give you for that money. With all that education and prosperity, why isn't your economy taking over the world? It's because your bill gates and zuckerbergs expatriate when they start to make money. The guy sweeping the streets doesn't need to be overeducated (and thus underpaid) to sweep streets..and he can't be more wealthy than a sweeper in, say, the US, if 75% of his income is redirected into The Peoples' fund. Despite all that money flow, you've still got budgetary and inflationary problems not dissimilar to the USA (why is gasoline ~10$/US gal. in norway when they have all that oil? pointless tax). Again, I guess it depends on how you define prosperous.
Comfortable: Well I like cooler weather, so I suppose this is possibly true (for me).
Enlightened: I don't consider identity politics or cultural marxism examples of enlightened thought. They make hypocritical assumptions to the point where they embed the very biases they claim to fight right into the law (in opposing directions). For example, sweden's got a bunch of muslim immigrant thugs causing problems, but its government shames its indigenous population when immigration policy is questioned. Your lack of free speech (due to political correctness) and self defense rights mar your utopia because it makes it difficult to criticize leadership (and the castes it protects) when necessary. People who are not on the PC protected list are second class citizens. It's all about the feminist/gay, nonwhite/immigrant suffrage narrative, even worse than it is in the states. Any contrary expression is labeled 'hate speech' or 'misogyny' and shamed. These are not enlightened policies or actions. Truly enlightened societies do not fear individual liberty or the truth (and yes, the USA is slipping further away from this, too, unfortunately). They also don't fear protecting themselves from caustic outside influences. The infinite compromise and pussyfooting that is the hallmark of modern western international politics is leading to the decay of the very principles it claims to stand for.
That said, I wouldn't mind visiting some of these countries as I understand the people are nice, but I would never want to live there permanently. You guys might not have tanks in the streets like the north koreans/russians, but that's only because your cultures have been thoroughly cowed from within. I hope you wake up one day and realize this. The USA is going through, now, what you already went through.
San Francisco is a nice place to live if you are making a good wage, but it's been stripped of personality. The thing that made San Francisco an interesting city to live in left, years ago. For instance, middle class persons can no longer afford to live or raise a family here. If you are a teacher, nurse, social worker, restaurant manager, small cafe owner, policeman, fireman, librarian, hotel worker, truck driver, car salesperson, etc,. etc. - you cannot buy in. Add to that the sense of snobby entitlement that has begun to sink in here. The place is filling up with upper-middle-class types who are nice enough, but there is a "sameness" about them that kills the heady diversity San Francisco was known for. Last, comparing San Francisco or the Bay Area to Florence is ridiculous. Seriously, stop with the fawning praise. The one thing that does separate San Francisco from a lot of other cities is its physical beauty. It's a stunning place. People want to live here because of that. If you look in the SOMA district where all the techies are living and working, it's become a stultifying, boring, architectually uninteresting place. Comparisons to Florence are self serving and reflect the degree of disconnectedness and lack of historical perspective shared by the tech industry. Everything is "now". San Francisco doesn't hold a candle to Florence, even today!
"I have a plan to relocate out of here within 18 months now. I refuse to say where because I can only hope that others wont follow and bring the pain and suffering and horribly low standard of living with them yet again."
Yeah, I live in somewhere that's probably a lot like the place you want to move to. Let me educate you:
(a) We don't want *you* here any more than you want your neighbors here.
(b) The reason things don't suck here is because people like you aren't voting for stupid shit in our political system. Once enough of you move here, you'll bring the same political ideologies that destroy California here and destroy our state, too. Think about the high-minded elite-liberal mindset you've got over there. Think through what effects those policies have, and why they lead to failed cities and states. Try to not to fuck up more states with the same stupid, idealistic, unreasonable policies.
You're just measuring prosperity by how far left the government is with its policies. That's hardly the only relevant measurement. The terms 'progressive', 'xenophobic', 'education', 'solidarity', and 'compassion' are so heavily loaded in your statement (and in the statements of most leftwing politicians) they are essentially meaningless. The left routinely violates the real definitions of these terms when it comes time to tolerate those that wish to live by differing views (that aren't on the white list). Suddenly, the dirty bootheels come out of the woodwork to 'reeducate' them away from their 'anti-social' behavior.
'progressive': is supposed to mean an objective net-improvement. in leftwing newspeak, it means 'more culturally marxist policy than yesterday.'
'xenophobic': is supposed to mean someone who fears a different culture. in left wing newspeak, it means someone who questions the law-given privileges to the castes labeled as oppressed. This ad-hominem is often hurled at people who question immigration policy. A related term used in the same way is 'homophobe'.
'education': Is supposed to teach people how to think logically and give them skillsets they need to function in reality. When left wing politicians use it, they're really referencing a system meant to indoctrinate politically correct views onto society's next generation.
'solidarity': oft abused by hardline communist governments. It's meant to foster a desire to serve others before the individual, which is laudable, except that in many cases, such governments are asking their citizens to give up unreasonable fractions their life's produce and effort, and in many historical cases, basic necessities as well.
'compassion': more shaming language. In its most extreme forms, the left wing politician uses it to shame citizens who refuse to give up just a little more than they did yesterday.
So, in several hundred years visitors will travel to San Francisco to gasp in awe at the beauty of what is being there created right now?
it's the same as taxi cabs lining up for pick ups at a bus station...they are not allowed & neither should google busses
***but i wrote that in my previous comment*** and you didn't actually respond
if you want to start make demands in the conversation ***YOU HAVE TO ENGAGE AS WELL***
just like i pointed out in my last comment, you're being selfish and myopic...the community of *this conversation* is the same as your Bay Area community...and in both you're completely self-centered and myopic
if you want to continue this conversation, actually engage my counterpoints from the last two rounds
otherwise, this conversation is over
Thank you Dave Raggett
Yup. It's true. You can pretty much tell how enlightened a society is on how it treats gays and women are treated. Can you name an enlightened country that oppresses gays and women? I doubt you will be able to because sexism and homophobia go hand in hand with authoritarianism and anti-intellectualism which is the polar opposite of enlightenment.
I have a plan to relocate out of here within 18 months now. I refuse to say where because I can only hope that others wont follow and bring the pain and suffering and horribly low standard of living with them yet again.
Wow! You've certainly have a case of unwarranted self importance. You really think that people are going to follow you to your new location because of your endorsement. If anything they are going to avoid whatever city you go to because if you find it attractive, it's undoubtedly going to be filled with douchebags like yourself.
Anyways, enjoy your new home in Atlanta. I'm sure it will be the perfect city for paranoid right wing hicks like yourself.
Gays, Jews and immigrants are the canary in the mineshaft. They're the first to be stepped on, historically speaking. So it makes sense to view their treatment as a convenient shorthand for social enlightenment.
SF is the new Florence? I would hardly call "recycling failed ideas from the past" a renaissance. I guess SF is the leading producer of smug after all.
As many here have commented, the Renaissance generated unprecedented amounts of culture, art, science, economic activity, etc. improving life for everyone for the centuries that followed.
Silicon Valley, on the other hand, has consolidated unprecendented amounts of culture, art, science, economic activity, etc. impoverishing thousands, if not millions, of people who used to work at making things and providing services.
unless they are illegally in the country, then they pay the in state resident cost....
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Yep, I lived in Novato as a kid, and I recall SF being distinctly middle class. Then the late 80's/early 90's rolled in and that vanished.
Loading...
Sounds like the chamber of commerce of a city managed to place another ad.
There are surveys about life quality in cities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Oh, SF does not appear in the top ten. And in my personal opinion, when we use big words like a "new renaissance", former super powers struggling with their decline are not the candidates I associate with a renewal of art and science...
Actually they don't anymore. They did in the 80's. I spend time in Zurich, St. Moritz, and a few other areas in Switzerland, and although I haven't been to Japan in a decade I've been around Honshu a bit and Hokkaido. They are still very expensive, but the only place I know that is more expensive than the Bay Area is Hong Kong.
Loading...
Almost any city in Europe beats SF easily.
I don't understand your point. Is it that I'm being intolerant of his intolerance of the poor, which makes me intolerant, so I'm just as bad as he is? Or am I just not being suitably deferential to the magnificent apotheosis of technology and culture that is the City of Saint Francis? Next time, don't post AC, and we can discuss.
Either way, my post was not about the city itself; it was responding to the self-congratulatory hyperbole in the original summary, and judging by the other responses to it I don't think I'm alone. I've spent enough time in SF -- including the parts of the city where people actually live, including friends and relatives of mine -- to find the tone absurd to the point that I wondered if we were being trolled by the author. I mean, my God, look at that first sentence:
Look, there isn't a city in the civilized world where people don't live in the alleys and piss in the streets, and San Francisco is no exception. Likewise, the Bay Area is not the only place to have contributed to the technology boom. Tim-Berners Lee created the web in Switzerland, and Marc Andreessen was at NCSA in Illinois when he wrote the first web browser. The best and the brightest aren't all born in SF, and they don't all come to settle there either.
So let's not gloss over those "legitimate concerns" about SF so quickly, or be so quick to raise SF on a Vingeian pedestal as the planned future site of the techno-Rapture. I've seen the city before and after the tech boom, and I liked it better before. It was more affordable, more laid-back, more quirky and artistic, less full of traffic and self-importance. Maybe it wasn't the Utopian Neo-Florence of the author's fevered imagination, where giants like Zuckerberg and Celebrated-Startup-Child-of-the-Month stride among us mere mortals and generously allow the poor to eat from their garbage cans, but it was a good old town that looked fondly upon its past and its present, warts and all.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
right.
so **you agree** that Google is abusing public property...and now you want to know my **opinion** of whether opponents of Google's bus system were justified in using direct action?
yes, i agree with blocking the busses with human chains and have a huge sign that says "FUCK YOU GOOGLE"...no i don't agree with breaking windows, slashing tires, or other property destruction
Thank you Dave Raggett
just because **on paper** there are **theoretically** fewer cars (you assume they wouldn't carpool or take public transit or bike/walk)
so you're theory is blown right there b/c your only evidence is conjecture
the busses could in fact cause **more** traffic problems by **disrupting traffic at the bus stop**
if you've ever been behind a city bus on a busy two-lane street, you'll know quickly that line forms of cars trying to go left around the slow, often stopping bus
public transit is a **balanced system**
this is abuse of the property & public right of way
****taxi cabs can't just sit at the bus stop in a line...it's against traffic laws....Google must obey the same****
Google should get permission and pay or be denied access.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I used to go there for fun. I even owned a Disco there back in the 1980's. Starting with Mayor Feinstein the city sucks! The atmosphere isn't friendly anymore, not since the 1970's has it felt good to be there.
Go there if you want to be used, fleeced & ripped off.
I don't know which is worse, the thieves or the cops.
There is nothing friendly about the city anymore.
Things are getting worse and worse in SF, SiVal/Peninsula and bay area in general.
The public schools are terrible, the cost of living is outrageous even with the high salaries, all families are dual income so most of the kids are latch-key, and my kids - we have to work overtime to protect them from how bad the kids are in general. There are a ton of richie rich kids who have money and they do bad things, drugs, etc. Cupertino, supposedly a great school district, polled kids and found that 75% had tried illegal drugs by 12th grade.
Also most of the universities here have non-California kids in ever increasing numbers. That means the land of milk and honey is not producing high end high school graduates.
I have a plan to relocate out of here within 18 months now. I refuse to say where because I can only hope that others wont follow and bring the pain and suffering and horribly low standard of living with them yet again.
And I've recently been to japan and switzerland. The public transportations STINKs here, the quality of life is far lower than either of those two places and in they have better primary/grade schools in both those places.
This is not living here. There is also little room for a family lifestyle. And the facebook pop has caused a lot of places to be one-percenter-only. All houses under 2 million are horrible, shabby and full of asbestos and mold. Built in the 1950s/60s to a very low standard.
Roads are fairly in poor repair despite there being no winter. Certain areas are crime ridden but the houses are 700K+. Schools - even greatschools-10 schools and blue ribbon schools - are a joke. They are a shadow of schools Ive seen in other places.
Please, never come here thinking you will be better off. Coming here is just like playing the lottery. Dont even think being smart will make you wealthy enough to get a real life here. you have to be either very lucky , or smart and lucky. Nobody earns their way to the top. Also there is a big time old boys club mentality. Inferior people will be much farther than you even if you work 80 hours a week and bleed for work.
The bay area is no longer about technology anymore. its about big gigantic pan national business and the monetization of the internet.
Google has the best, smartest, most driven brightest people in the world working day and night to not cure cancer, or invent new things (they bought a thermostat company for 3billion) but to Shovel Ads in Your Face. Thats it. Same with F-book
Hardly noble.
Welcome to SillyCON Valley.
i couldn't agree with you more! It's become parasitic. If only food were free and money was worthless! I'd love to see things TILT!
They get others to talk about how great they are. Yawn... Seriously, it's like a bunch of prospectors trying to find gold there. It's not a way of life - it's just a fallacious economy.
Or Wanking off with one hand while scrolling through a bunch of SF pictures with another.
San Francisco has a lot of things going for it, but humility is not one of them. Neither is affordability, nor freedom from crime, nor civil rights. In fact, the only real thing going for it is easy access to drugs and lots of high-paying jobs.
If SF is Florence then it's already the 18 century version of Florence - in decline...
THE heyday of "renaissance SF" as Florence was in the 1970s. You already missed!!
I was thinking this was going to be about the power and influence San Francisco wields on a national stage, but instead it was just an atta' boy to SF.
I live in San Francisco. If the Bay Area is the new Florence and we're living through the new Renaissance, why are the houses so ugly?
show me evidence that Google has paid the city for Right of Way access to the bus stops
let's see it
Thank you Dave Raggett
I am exactly the type of person who *should* enjoy living in San Francisco. But I never will, due to the people.
I love windsurfing, skiing and mountain biking. I am a leading researcher in a technical field who has twice been offered jobs in the bay area (SF proper and Marin). I have good friends who live in SF. But I simply cannot stand the people there, all of whom seem to think of themselves as about one standard deviation smarter and more interesting than they really are.
I'll never forget the day I was visiting one of my friends and we went out with some of his buddies. one of them, who grew up in Ohio, saw some people figuring out the transit system on a map. He struck up a conversation, as though to help them out. He asked where they were from, and they said "Indiana". He said, "Oh -- where's that?".
At that moment, I decided never to live in SF. And I never will.
Aren't SF libtard fuckwits the people responsible for inflicting that filthy fascist cunt Feinstein on America?
Fuck SF, fuck the bay area. (I lived there for 15 years for the record.)
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
It's ingredients would be piss, pot and privilege.
Seriously.
Transplant from Boston 18 months ago. Weather is fantastic. But... Having a traveled widely in the US I can say that this is a physically dirty, grimy, crummy, expensive Disneyland for Douches and rich foreign shoppers. The poverty, civic corruption and general crappiness tainting a physically stunning landscape is a DISGRACE. so much money, so much greed, so many self-absorbed spoiled, clueless little shitheads working on things like drones that deliver toothbrushes to other douches. (Seriously, this was in the Examiner today.). It is a scandal to have so much poverty and wealth side by side.
One true parallel- SF is increasingly run by merchant tech kings and crooked government. I could go on. But Google Moloch and Howl and read the second stanza. Even back in the 1950s, Ginsberg had it right...
SF is no Florence. Rich libs and burnt out Deadheads. Hard for anyone else can afford a life there. Great ethnic food, lots of entertainment. But, hard to justify an hour to search for a place to park.
yeah that changes everything...thnx!
i'm sure there are some counterpoints from the protesters, but at first glance i don't think the opposition can really quibble with this as a solution
i'd have to actually use the system (i live in pdx) to know if the tech-busses clog traffic too much, but again...this seems like a legit attempt at a fix
thnx again for posting that...
Thank you Dave Raggett
Where I work, we've hired some people from the valley to try to add "window dressing" to the business. Lets just leave it at that.
What they brought with them is that no business that has developers can really exist outside of SF. They believe that every coder outside of SF is worthless and each bay area developer is worth 10-20x a normal person. What they want to do now is buy some startups to "acquire" devs, work them 65+ hours a week, and reduce their development force by the same factor (10-20x). Their acquisition process? Don't let anyone vet the companies they are looking at -- they are "good guys they know from the valley". Vouching for a company and looking at nothing else is now how companies are getting bought and sold. There isn't going to be any wrinkles in their plan.
Also, any criticism of their plan means that "you don't get it... but you wouldn't your're not from the valley."
They honestly believe in the absolute superiority of anyone living in the Bay Area in all ways. Its very sad and they don't even try to hide their discrimination.
For six years, at the height and immediately after the tech boom, I lived and worked in just about every city along the SF peninsula, including SF itself.
It was not the paradise described in this article. The jobs, food, and scenery were cool, yes. But rents, taxes, politics, quality of housing, quality of schools, pollution, roads, and such were significantly worse than even economically marginal Midwest cities like Louisville or Cincinnati. While northern Indianapolis has everything the SF Bay has (including a Frys), but also good roads, top-tier schools, and significantly higher take-home pay. Plus a decent proximity to Chicago.
For some reason I thought he lives and works in Los Angeles.
Am I wrong?
As someone born, raised, educated, and living in the SF Bay Area, it's interesting to see outsiders' perspectives. But to get a more realistic picture, one only needs to look at the vast economic disparity between the predominantly African-American natives of West Oakland and their wealthy 20something (mostly white and Asian) programmer counterparts across the bay.
I've lived in SF off and on for ten years. The land is stunningly beautiful beyond compare; the food is good; and there's lots of public art. As a tenant of a rent-controlled apartment I have at least as many rights as the mortgaged owner of a condo in any other city. Unlike NYC, where rent control is an inherited privilege, here it applies to all buildings built before 1978 (~90% of the city's stock). It never snows and is often sunny. The air in many neighborhoods is clean & fresh due to the strong winds from the ocean. Californians on average are good drivers. The bike commuter lobby gets some respect from city hall.
Other than that, it sucks dogballs. The culture is smugly self-congratulatory like I've never seen anywhere else. Lots and lots of ultra smarmy trust fund man-children. The average woman is square, surly, and mannish; the average man effete and passive-aggressive. Something is badly wrong with the local education system - a fortune is spend educating the native yokels, yet they are often ignorant, aggressive, and/or openly bigoted - more so than the cheaply-educated poor folks I grew up with in the Rustbelt.
The weather is never actually "warm", the best we get is "kinda chilly". The architecture outside of downtown is hideous; and the buildings in all neighborhoods are ill-maintained. The live music scene in SF (not Oakland) is kinda lame. People from other cities - including NYC - are always shocked at how many street people we have (many/most are housed at City expense, and so not technically homeless) and how aggressive they are. The mayor is widely rumored to be a mob employee (not even the boss). The local bigmedia is crap even by bigmedia standards. Taxes are higher than Massachusetts.