San Francisco split by Silicon Valley's wealth (Folsom, San Joaquin: sales, 2013)

[phoenixmike11]

San Francisco split by Silicon Valley's wealth - latimes.com

It seems that lower and middle class people are being pushed out of a lot of big US cities due to rising costs of living.

[HappyinCali]

San Francisco has completely failed its middle class. All the policies it tries to pass to promote ethnic and socio-economic diversity or whatever have been utter disasters that have basically resulted in the city getting richer and and more homogeneous. Families' exodus leaves S.F. whiter, less diverse - SFGate


Just look at the examples. School bussing has caused many middle class couples who can't afford private schools to flee to the suburbs. What kind of city thinks that it is a good idea to NOT allow kids to attend their neighboorhood schools with their friends. As a result San Francisco has fewer families with kids than any other city in CA and I think US
San Francisco Households Have Fewer Kids - WSJ.com

The other day I struck a conversation with a cleaning person in a park on Folsom and he went on a rant about how all the homeless in SF are not native and they all come here from other states, because of all the benefits. he said a homeless guy told him North Carolina's department of social work sent him to SF. I always thought it was an urban legend, but it isn't. Despite the HUNDREDS of millions of dollars spent on homeless, the population has not budged. http://www.sfgov3.org/modules/showdo...ocumentid=4831
Homeless problem lingers as S.F. spends millions - SFGate

Finally the rent controlled apartments and draconian building restrictions have severely limited the # of available units, which has caused a huge increase in rents. It has also hurt mom & pop investors in favor of large investors who control the newer buildings https://www.baycitizen.org/columns/s...es-super-rich/

All of the above result in high taxes and fees that mostly hurt the middle calss. Why? because the rich don't give two ______ because they view SF as an awesome playground. The poor don't pay them and are the main beneficiaries. As a result, the middle class gets screwed. They don't qualify for any of the subsidies, but also don't make enough to not care about getting fleeced for EVERYTHING - Sunday parking, sales tax, rent, Healthy SF etc. etc. etc.

[Tor_Nado]

San Francisco is like a tale of two cities - you have the rich and then you have the homeless.

Affordable housing is so rare that you'll see hundreds of people lined up for an open house, but then you have the very poor who qualify for public housing. Hence, you could be paying $3K for an apartment and living near someone who pays next to nothing.

[checkup]

SF is the best example of progressive policies hurting the exact ppl they're intended to help

where do you think ppl who make less than 100k (or especially less than 60k) are better off? Houston or SF?

[Kurinji]

Quote from the LA Times article:

"San Francisco entrepreneur Chris Tacy admonished fellow techies about their boorish behavior in a series of blog posts after watching a young man reluctantly give up his seat on a bus to an elderly woman and then say loudly to his friends: "I don't know why old people ride Muni. If I were old, I'd just take Uber."

I believe this behavior (lack of politeness) is probably due to his upbringing. I've seen older kids (with their parents) on MUNI sitting in the front of the bus, ignoring the older person standing in front of them who would obviously appreciate having a seat.

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by checkup

SF is the best example of progressive policies hurting the exact ppl they're intended to help

where do you think ppl who make less than 100k (or especially less than 60k) are better off? Houston or SF?

I'd rather live in Solano County or San Joaquin County than Houston.

[darkeconomist]

Originally Posted by checkup

SF is the best example of progressive policies hurting the exact ppl they're intended to help

In reality, the problem is demand for housing is so much greater than supply, but the development process is a long, arduous, expensive slog in SF, and, rightly or wrongly, entrenched NIMBYs have slowed development to a crawl. Almost nobody wants to dismantle the historic housing stock, but there are artificial limitations on building height in areas where development has been allowed.

It's nothing to do with progressive policies.

[ilkhd2]

The reason is much deeper than "rent control hurts middle class, SF failed middle class" etc. The reason is that EVERYTHING urban and high density is popular and expensive nowadays. Here, in Omaha, where I am now 1 br costs 600-650/mo depending on neighborhood, but downtown is about as expensive as Silicon Valley (> 1200 for 1br). Did Omaha fail middle class? Does rent control hurt it? No. It is just return of everything urban. Urban is scarce resource in USA.

[mini_cute]

Originally Posted by phoenixmike11

San Francisco split by Silicon Valley's wealth - latimes.com

It seems that lower and middle class people are being pushed out of a lot of big US cities due to rising costs of living.

Yes, if you zoom out of SF and take a broader view look, this is happening in all big and desirable cities across the US. I started a thread awhile back about how a lot of the problems in SF are reflective of problems at the national level. The middle class in SF is disappearing. The middle class in the US is disappearing. These are large scale demographic changes taking place.

Kids these days growing up do not have the luxury to think, I just want to be a normal, good citizen, make a decent pay I can live on and raise a family with, and have a cute little house in the 'burbs that my family and I can live in forever. I don't care about making big bucks, I want to do what I love and make just enough to live on. Well, they can think that all they want but it probably isn't going to happen. Sorry, that old script isn't going to work anymore in the future. Increasingly in the United States, you will have two choices: get rich, or get poor. If you don't get rich, you aren't going to be middle class- that isn't going to be an available option anymore- if you don't get rich, you're probably going to end up in the poorer class and struggling to afford the basic things.

Why is the middle class disappearing and why isn't 'middle class' going to be an available option?

We all have our own explanations and know the real answer is complex and due to a variety of factors but the big one I can point out is that technology is basically changing the nature of work. Middle class jobs, that are easy to automate and computerize will disappear. The rest of the jobs have been and will likely continue to be outsourced, aided by technology, to cheaper wage countries. Middle class jobs are disappearing. Without a middle class job, how can one have a middle class sort of living?

You might have heard of this before but what will be left for jobs will generally fall into two categories: high touch or high tech. High touch are jobs that still require a human to do them- a robot or computer cannot simulate it well. Think hair dressers, waiters, dentists. High tech are jobs that require extensive education and training- think robotics engineer, environmental engineer, doctor (also a high touch job). Those jobs will more exclusively be in the realm of math, science, and healthcare. I truly feel sorry for the humanities loving folks.

Jobs in these two categories tend to be bifurcated into two pay grades: high paying and very low paying. There are a few small areas of exception, one of them I can see is if we start paying service jobs a higher wage. For example, the staff at Trader Joes being paid a living wage and receiving benefits rather than just simply minimum wage.

But aside from that you can count on the jobs of the future being in those two areas: high touch and high tech and low paying or high paying with not much between.

This is one of the many powerful forces shaping the US today and contributing to a disappearing middle class.

Along with it, people's values will have to change. We've heard of the saying "middle class values". Well, if we don't have a middle class, we aren't going to have middle class values.

In order to survive and cross the threshold like leaping salmon into the gilded threshold of the rich class and escape the struggles of the poor class, our children will increasingly have to subscribe to certain values. They will have to be ambitious, success oriented. They will have to be opportunistic. They will have to choose friends and contacts carefully. They will have to promote themselves and be their own salesman. Groom a certain sort of image.

This is what I see happening in SF lately. The sort of person you see around SF is increasingly becoming less the hippie, artist, bohemian, intellectual, and regular middle class folks. They're being priced out and disappearing. (But you still see the homeless and those on housing assistance- the rich and the poor and not much between). You see plenty of yuppies and in order to be a yuppy or by forces of association, they have to have a different set of values. You see a lot more of the aforementioned values going around these days. It's sad, because I always loved SF for its down to earth qualities and general lack of its "getting ahead" qualities.

As for the young adult being disrespectful to the elderly person on the bus- that is also how things are changing now too. Aside from a few remarkable kids, I don't see young folks being made of quite the same stuff these days as far as citizenship goes. It all goes back to parenting and how they were raised up by society. Parents don't raise their kids the same way these days, the media doesn't send healthy messages to our kids, and our schools aren't performing. What do you expect from all that? Combine that with less opportunities for real social interaction- gaming on a PC with your buddies all day and spending more time socializing on Facebook and Instagram- they end up with worse overall real-life social skills (yeah, they can take an awesome Instagram picture, write cool and witty status updates, design their FB page all cool looking, but how are they in real, visceral, face to face interaction?

Oh well, that is how things are and so it will be... just make sure you brace yourself. Change is and always has been inevitable.

[gone down south]

Originally Posted by ilkhd2

, but downtown is about as expensive as Silicon Valley (> 1200 for 1br).

If by "as expensive" you mean "half as expensive" then your point stands.