SF' income inequality getting National media attention (San Francisco: condo, high crime)

[justmeinca]

Originally Posted by Dave Coe

How the fade of S.F.

Numbers Show a Vanishing Middle Class and Changing SF - Ch-ch-ch-changes - Curbed SF

Just because your (household) incoming happens to be in 'Middle Class' category does not earn you the right to live in the city. SF (and Bay Area) Middle Class is 200+k.

At end of day, have your $ss covered because no-one is going to do it for you.

[Logicist027]

In general I would ignore something like the inequality rise. It is due to the area's thriving tech industry. However since it is a political issue for leftists, it's just bad publicity. Quite sad and it is hypocritical for the politicians in the state and city (I'm looking at you Nancy Pelosi) to decry how terrible it is to have income inequality, then find out it is worst in their own backyard.

[Dean Trails]

Originally Posted by Dave Coe

Robert Stark interviews Bay Area Guy about the SF Bay Area & the Pitfalls of American Exceptionalism - The Stark Truth With Robert Stark

The Bay Area as a microcosm of American Society, and how it combines both the best and worst of what America has to offer
How the Bay Area represent’s American Capitalism at it’s fullest
How SF Is the Second Most Unequal Major City in America
Nancy Pelosi's Daughter Airing Documentary About The New SF On HBO: SFist
San Francisco Magazine | Modern Luxury | SF Is the Second Most Unequal Major City in America

It is pretty funny that Nancy Pelosi's daughter comes from a very wealthy family and her mom represents San Fran. Nancy's Napa Valley mansion and vineyard is very beautiful and just one of her valuable properties.

But, as to income inequality, I don't bemoan Nancy and her husband for becoming wealthy. I make more than twice as much as minimum wage but, i had to work hard to get to that point. Incomes are incomes and i suppose you get paid what you are worth or what someone is willing to pay you. That even goes for the self-employed. Someone likes what service or product you provide. What are you to do? Give more taxes to Big Government so they can pass around the money to folks who have less? Then we have socialism or communism!

[Lockdev]

Originally Posted by Dean Trails

Give more taxes to Big Government so they can pass around the money to folks who have less? Then we have socialism or communism!

Haha, you mean give more taxes to big government so they can pass around the money to themselves!

Even in socialist/communist countries, wealth is never redistributed. It only creates a much larger, more inefficient government with a lot more nepotism and cronyism. Just look at China. They're communist(well, kinda) and the amount of corruption is insane.

Governments like the ones in San Francisco(and hate to say it, California) love to tax people to death, not for the "poor", but for themselves.

[Ultrarunner]

I worked in a Union Shop after college and was surprised to learn money/wealth/pocessions were not the overriding factor for many... though not all.

Many of the employees with seniority would turn down overtime... said they had other interests like family and hobbies to come in on a Saturday or work and extra shift.

These guys all owned their homes, had family and had decent cars... nothing extravagant... just very comfortable and the leadman said the more I make the more I pay in taxes...

Where I work now... we have a senior manager that wanted to retire but was just to good at her job... she agreed to come in three days each week... is super productive and an asset...

She could easily about double her salary and said there is more to life than collecting paychecks... strange as it sounds... I am meeting more people like these like registered nurses that simply do not want to work a lot of hours...

It's almost like my European friends that say Americans are too focused on money and work...

[Dean Trails]

Originally Posted by LoriBee62

This is true. I don't get this idea that everyone is supposed to be entitled to live wherever they want even if they don't have the income to support it. I'd love to live in Malibu. You don't see me whining because I can't afford it.

Lori, i love Malibu and also Santa Barbara as well. I am starting to feel entitled to live in both places. I am sure we can start some time of low cost housing or no cost housing for people who identify with those lifestyles! After all, we now only have to feel we belong to be there!!! (Dean visualizes lying on a cashmere
beach towel bronzing his body in his new feel good location!)

[NewbieHere]

Originally Posted by Dave Coe

How the fade of S.F.

Numbers Show a Vanishing Middle Class and Changing SF - Ch-ch-ch-changes - Curbed SF

They continue to push for this because it keeps the Democrats in power.

[LunaticVillage]

SF's income inequality is often overlooked by the rest of the world. Most people simply assume everybody in SF is wealthy, rich or at least upper middle class. SF has less hopeless ghetto poverty per capita as say Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, DC, Philadelphia etc. Many people who know nothing about SF assume that the city doesn't even have real poor truly ghetto areas since the overall crime rate in SF is not as high as many other large cities. However, areas in SF like Sunnydale are just as poor and crime-ridden as anywhere in those formerly mentioned cities. The filthy rich people in San Francisco and the dirt poor skew the averages. You have Mark Zuckerburg living in a $10 million dollar house in the Mission District while people are paying $200 a month living in dilapidated New Deal-era projects in Sunnydale, Hunter's Point and Potrero Hill. And the middle class has gone the way of the Dodo bird in SF years ago. Real poverty and serious crime are easy to erase in SF because most of the poorest high crime areas are city-owned public housing projects that can be easily torn down and replaced with million dollar condos. With ghetto cities like Baltimore or Detroit, you'd have to take a nuke to erase the blight, ghettoization and poverty there.

[Dave Coe]

Originally Posted by NewbieHere

They continue to push for this because it keeps the Democrats in power.

That wouldn't surprise me. On a political level both Democrats and Republicans are controlled by Corporate special interest. However demographically the Republican base is mostly white middle class families while democrats are a coalition of the urban elites and immigrant underclass. There are many middle class Asians in the Bay Area however they are able to thrive because they are used to living in dense environments while middle class whites need more space.

[phantompilot]

So people are surprised that income inequality is similar to that in developing nations, after the government has imported tens of millions of people from developing nations over the last 40 years?