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SF is still got more going for it but it's remarkable how fast Seattle is closing the gap.
I LOVE SF but not as much as I use to. It seems to be losing that quirkiness that made it so damn endearing in the first place. It will always be a great city of culture, arts, shopping, food, and architecture all set in a beautiful location with a wonderful climate. It has however lost much of it's alternative and creative class as the city has gentrified.
Despite all of SF riches and booming IT economy, Seattle is the one to watch. Despite her booming economy SF definitely gives me the impression that her days of being a alternative, trend setting, and counter culture mecca are well behind her.
Why wouldn't the same thing happen in Seattle? As far as I'm concerned, the natives living in Seattle say the same exact thing..it is losing it's alternative, hipster presence and being replaced by a bland yuppie tech presence. Wasn't Seattle once known for it's grunge culture in the 90s? That doesn't exist anymore.
Seattle is much cheaper than San Francisco and shows every sign of remaining so, so it should retain a broader range of income levels and more quirkiness.
As for closing the gap, it's not something I'd say but Seattle is breaking out as a clear #2 tech city in key ways (always subject to how you define tech, because it's massively variable). Startups are only part of the story. We have the headquarters of two of the top five or six tech companies, and the Seattle offices of seemingly every major SF-area outfit are booming.
The Bay Area's innovation has no peer or rival anywhere in the United States. Seattle isnt even 2nd or 3rd as far as start up activity, venture capital or patents issued.
Seattle hasnt really kept up with the Bay Area's constant leadership in the industry. Seattle is much weaker in biotech, in nanotech, in social media, in wireless tech, in artiticial intelligence, in the gig economy and the rush to automate driving etc.
When people make these absurd statements about Seattle or anywhere else 'closing the gap' with SV, there is never real proof to back up their claim.
Meanwhile Silicon Valley keeps expanding and booming and changing the world.
ijs.
You are proving the point I made.
As I said, SF's IT sector is booming but it's counter-culture, trend setting, and social influence have been waning for many years and that trend continues. It's still a truly great and wonderful city but not as unique or endearing as it use to be. SF use to be THE place to live an alternative lifestyle in a free thinking city with like minded people who's goals were not wealth accumulation. Now it seems to have become exactly what it tried to avoid, a place to make money. It use to set social trends and now seems to be only setting technology trends.
It use to be the place the young flocked to but Seattle, along with Portland, has taken that edge. SF has gone from a alternative lifestyle city to a technological one driven by money and keeping the socially creative young away and looking for alternatives and they are increasingly finding it in Seattle.
Like I said, SF is a wonderful city and wealthier than ever but conversely not as interesting.
You read too much into the possibility that artists and creatives are automatically moving to Seattle/Portland. Ultimately that amounts to breadcrumbs compared to the movement within the Bay Area itself. That's why Oakland has unfortunately catapulted to near the top of the list of most expesive large cities to live in, because the city is seeing a huge surge in techies, hipsters, artists etc-and mind you the city already had a large concentration of artists.
Seattle has its own issues with rising housing costs pushing artists out of the core. However, its easy enough to google for articles about San Francisco and find quotes like these
"The Arts Commission has spent a considerable amount of time lately discussing the ongoing dilemma of San Francisco’s artists losing their work spaces — not to mention their homes.
One commissioner even noted that artists were once fleeing to the East Bay, but as real estate prices have risen there as well, artists have begun heading farther away to Portland."
So maybe there is an actual trend just probably not up towards us. On the other hand, there is real data about tech workers migrating north.
Seattle has its own issues with rising housing costs pushing artists out of the core. However, its easy enough to google for articles about San Francisco and find quotes like these
"The Arts Commission has spent a considerable amount of time lately discussing the ongoing dilemma of San Francisco’s artists losing their work spaces — not to mention their homes.
One commissioner even noted that artists were once fleeing to the East Bay, but as real estate prices have risen there as well, artists have begun heading farther away to Portland."
So maybe there is an actual trend just probably not up towards us. On the other hand, there is real data about tech workers migrating north.
Once again, its not that many.
Los Angeles and New York are also receiving some techies and expansions of Bay Area companies-Seattle is hardly alone there.
Some recent air travel info pertaining to SV:
Israelis recently petitioned hard and succeeding in getting United to create a Tel Aviv-SFO flight because they want a direct route to SV. Qantas reported that SF has surpassed NY and LA to become the top US destination of Australian business travelers, Air India's new Delhi-SFO route is so successful that the airline is doubling their flights to 6 days a week-a lot of that is due to tech, United's direct routes from China to SF have seriously hampered Narita's status as the airline's gateway to Asia.
The funding and incubation infrastucture and unparalleled networking capabilities in SV attract the whole world and they are not really preoccupied with cost. They want to be in the center of the tech universe.
Seattle otoh, has certain tech strengths, but then so do Boston, LA and NYC. In order to compare to SV, it takes much more than what any of them offer and really even in the current environment, I dont really see a solid number 2.
Those cities don't have companies like Microsoft and Amazon, that employ tends of thousands of well-paid people within walking distance in each case.
I'm sure NYC does considering just the sheer amount of density in Manhattan. Midtown Manhattan probably has as much Tech workers as downtown Seattle does considering the amount of office space it has.
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