150 San Franciscans Explain How Tech Money Changed Their City (sfchronicle.com)

DevNull127 writes: In a remarkable odyssey, documentary-maker Cary McClelland interviewed more than 150 San Francisco residents — including a tattoo artist, a longshoreman, a venture capitalist, and a pawnshop owner — to capture the real voices of a changing city, in a kind of oral history of the present. It becomes a magical "documentary without film... panoramic, complex — and surprisingly well-balanced," writes one reader, applauding the book's "dazzling omniscience." Legendary Silicon Valley marketer Regis McKenna speaks fondly of the days when young Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were dropping into his office, and despite the apparent challenges facing San Francisco, many people interviewed remained surprisingly hopeful.

"Idexa, a German-born tattoo artist who'd hitchhiked to the city from Los Angeles as a teenager, says despite the new displacements happening today, 'It's also beautiful. There's been a lot of money put into the neighborhood and into the buildings. Buildings that would have fallen apart have been renovated. Oh, it's the end of the world soon. We're not the first generation who thinks that.' It's an almost poetic picture of San Francisco that proves the world isn't as simple — or as discouraging — as it's often made out to be, and the book's passionate purpose seems to spontaneously find its way into the words of each interview subject."

"Until you're standing in front of someone and listening to them with your own ears, you're never going to understand them," says a survivor of one of California's recent wildfires. So Cary McClelland listens — writing in his introduction that his book asks us to hear the city of San Francisco speak in a chorus of voices, with a message for all the other cities. "The goal of the book," he says, "is to reflect people's subjective perspective, their experience — lived, visceral, emotional, intimate. The living-room experience..."

Comments

Change gives, change takes away.

[hey!]

And money destroys any place it loves too much.

I remember when San Francisco was a city with nice weather and a blowsy, affordable charm, which made it a Mecca for misfits with oddball ideas but not much money. Gays discharged at the military base in Alameda found their way into the low-rent districts; hippies established communal houses; gurus, mountebanks and self-anointed visionaries set up shop.

Any one of these groups individually were just social deviants, but collectively they brought a creative energy to the city that made it world class. Then one group of visionaries struck gold: the tech entrepreneurs. Worse than gold: a gold rush is limited by the finite supply of gold in the world.

And just like that, it was over. It's not that San Francisco is a bad place, it's just not what it was; it's a facsimile of old San Francisco stretched over a machine built to process vast quantities of money.

The same thing happened to Key West; rich people go there to play at being Bohemian, but the actual Bohemians who serve their drinks have to drive for hours to get home after their shift is done. San Francisco is a peninsula, Key West is an island; neither could expand geographically to accomodate the burgeoning financial enthalpy, and the resulting economic pressure forces out the oddballs that put the place on the map in the first place.

Continual evolution, yet always the same

[swell]

Recently a wealth of photos and even video of SF from the time of the earthquake and fire became available on the 'web. Despite the devastation, there were signs of great prosperity and an active population forging their way into the future. Since the Gold Rush, San Francisco has attracted the ambitious and the creative people of every generation.

I lived there in 1963 along with Alan Ginsberg and the beats. Long before there were hippies, there were beats. They tended to be adults, educated, cultured, artistic, and they were travelers. They rode the rails, hitchhiked and explored from sea to shining sea.

Coffee houses were unlike your corner Starbucks. They had florescent lights, linoleum floors, Formica tables and even then they looked shabby. Coffee prices were outrageous at more than one dollar (when you could still get coffee for 25 cents in a proper restaurant). But someone would wander in and play guitar or recite poetry for tips. There would be a loud argument about Fidel Castro at the next table, or a scruffy beat with a guitar case covered in stickers from around the world. You went there to be with people who had a broad world view.

I spent much of my time at Cochran's Billiards, 1028 Market St. Hard core players from across the country, just like the movie The Hustler. My fortunes varied from poor to destitute so I walked the city rather than drive or use buses. Many people today never see the city from the sidewalk, the gutter, so to speak. Chinatown, Market street, everywhere it was dirty, noisy, grey and the weather was mild but unfriendly.

But the city was alive. People were on the move, hustling, scheming and dreaming and making things happen. This has been true since the beginning. It's what attracted Mark Twain and it's what attracts some of the most creative people on earth even now.

[Nice reminiscence of Cochran's Billiards: https://forums.azbilliards.com... ]