How the Internet Ruined San Francisco (1999)

http://www.salon.com/1999/10/28/internet_2/

by triplesec • 13 years ago

51 56 13 years ago

salon.com

tptacek• 13 years ago

A better-written counterpoint, also Salon, also 1999:

http://www.salon.com/1999/11/03/sf/

triplesec• 13 years ago

Thank you! It just seems with all this talk of the new boom that there's a bit of plus ca change, plus que c'est le meme chose. Look forward to any other historical articles out there too.

pikachu_is_cool11• 13 years ago

I grew up in the Silicon Valley. One of the riches places in the world. The tech hub. Engineers. Soccer moms. Workaholic dads. The sound of leafblowers 24/7. No parties, no night life. Work work work. Money money money. Get a 2400 on your SAT. Get straight A's and go to UC Berkeley, and if you don't go there you're a failure. Go to the gym every day at 7AM. Eat healthy organic fruits. Everything you could ever possibly want to do can be accomplished with computers. Go to hackathons. Work until you die.

I feel like I was deprived of a childhood.

blhack• 13 years ago

Go have one now.

steele3• 13 years ago

Everything except for the last part sounds nice.

pikachu_is_cool11• 13 years ago

Then you can take my place.

rdtsc• 13 years ago

Sounds like the Trainspotting quote -- "Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. [...] Choose rotting away at the end of it all, [...] more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life." I guess if Trainspotting took place in the Valley it would have all the things you listed.

bane• 13 years ago

I always liked this version of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K-V8ZWyNMs

walshemj3• 13 years ago

Yeah but much much more passively aggressive when compared to schemies from Edinburgh.

WalterSear• 13 years ago

Silicon valley almost killed me. Moving north to San Francisco was one of the big turning points in my life.

pikachu_is_cool11• 13 years ago

Same here, I moved to Reno myself, and although it's kind of a shithole here, it's far better than living in the Valley.

colin_mccabe3• 13 years ago

I live in Silicon Valley, and we have both parties and night life. It depends on who your friends are. I also knew a lot of people back in Cleveland who were living the workaholic life, trying to get into the best colleges, and so forth. So that they could leave Cleveland behind. It's a state of mind, not a place.

I realize this may not be a popular point of view among San Franciscans, but I think the east bay and south bay are actually better if you don't want to be a workaholic. In SF, unless you bought property in the 1970s, you'll be paying somewhere north of $3500 a month for housing. That kind of money requires you to have a high-end job it sounds like you're not that interested in. There are benefits to living in SF, but they come with costs.

A lot of artists and creatives live in Oakland these days. It has good access to San Francisco and other places via BART, and the housing costs are still reasonable.

On the other hand, the most laid-back place in the bay area is definitely Santa Cruz. It always brings a smile to my face to go down to the beach there.

pikachu_is_cool11• 13 years ago

Cupertino (which is what I was referring to) is also ridiculously expensive, too. The apartment that I moved out of 2 years ago now costs $4,000 a month.

Also, I'm not talking about the rich adult night life. I'm talking about stuff you can do while you're growing up there. All of the kids my age were obsessed with getting straight A's, hardly any of them went out. The ones who were able to either were always in SF/Santa Cruz or were ridiculously rich.

Edit: I think we may be talking about different parts of the Valley. San Jose, Santa Cruz, and SF are nice, but I'm referring to the heart. i.e. Cupertino, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale.

brianchu• 13 years ago

It's a matter of perspective. The grass is always greener on the other side, and I think it's unrealistic to pine for an idealistic childhood.

I was born and raised in Palo Alto and I go to UC Berkeley now. I spend a lot of time in SF. A lot of what you said relates to my childhood. But a lot of what happened was the result of my choices. I love technology and I love the culture here. One thing that helped me before going to college was taking a year off to work, which really helped me figure out what was important to focus on and what isn't important (not important = grades. important = meeting people). Now that I'm in college, I could easily choose to party all the time and slack off. But that's just not me. Plus, I've had fun at parties/kickbacks in SF before.

As a side note. I use "Silicon Valley" to refer to the SF Bay Area (SF + East Bay + geographic SV). To me, Silicon Valley is a term for the entire technology region, much like "LA" describes the metropolitan LA area, and "Wall Street" describes NY finance in general.

pikachu_is_cool11• 13 years ago

It worked out for you because you fit the mold (perfectly, if I might add). Most other kids don't fit that mold. And for those kids it can be a living hell, look at the Gunn suicides.

Edit: I should have mentioned I'm referring to Cupertino/Mountain View/Sunnyvale area. I don't really have anything to say about SF and Santa Cruz, they sound like nice places to live.

throwaway_93315• 13 years ago

I grew up in an abusive household with alcoholic parents. I was so scared of violence I couldn't sleep for years without my shoes on in case I had to jump out of the window and run for my life. I remember having to clean my mothers' blood up off the walls of our living room because her crackhead boyfriend took a hammer to her head, and the taste of government cheese (surprisingly tasty), and being so emotionally withdrawn that people assumed I was a mute.

Please stop complaining.

kyro2• 13 years ago

And there are severely starved and malnourished African children with bloated bellies whose rotting corpses will serve as feeding grounds for the vultures that watched and patiently waited.

Your problems do not invalidate his.

kyro2• 13 years ago

Hey, I can relate. I'm betting you grew up under really traditional foreign parents who raised you in a very high-pressure, high-stress environment that only offered support if you followed the rules and fulfilled the expectations. I did. And I totally agree with your last sentence.

My advice is to start figuring out what it is you want to do and sketch a plan to get to that place. If your parents/community are anything like mine, you'll get a lot of hate and no support, but pushing through it is worth it. Find what you enjoy now because you don't want to find yourself 10 years from now deeply regretting the fact that you followed the mold and did what everyone expected of you.

You won't be a failure if you pursue a different path. Don't believe that because it'll paralyze you. And if you don't get a 2400 and don't get into UC Berkeley, what's the worst that'll happen? Chances are you won't become homeless.

raldi• 13 years ago

I grew up 3,000 miles from Silicon Valley, and my childhood was pretty much the same as yours, except with less organic fruit.

eruditely• 13 years ago

I grew up there too and will live there in a yr or two again. I partied, raved, did drugs, made unforgettable friendships, went hiking, water rafting, and much more. Iunno man. Might want to hit one of the local boys or girls up. Many people are unaware of how many different types of lifestyles are very close. Their lives just self select for similar populations.

pikachu_is_cool11• 13 years ago

Where in the Silicon Valley did you grow up?

stretchwithme3• 13 years ago

Living in a desirable place has always been popular. And its popularity fluctuates. Those who rent rather than buy are most exposed to those fluctuations. Those who buy are most likely to profit.

That's how it works. Nothing new about it and there's no way to change it, except perhaps stopping the Federal Reserve from creating bubbles with cheap money.

walshemj3• 13 years ago

Strikes me that a lot of renters want the advantages of property ownership but none of the responsibilities.

fleshweasel• 13 years ago

Maybe most of them couldn't dream of actually owning property.

tinbad• 13 years ago

Am I the only one who gets a 403 Forbidden when clicking on the link?

eelsen• 13 years ago

technotony• 13 years ago

"Median rent for a two bedroom apartment is $2,000 per month." Oh how I yearn for the good old days!

seivan• 13 years ago

Not much different from Stockholm....

hydralist• 13 years ago

coming here to work for a startup has been awesome but i couldn't imagine growing up around here or even settling down here. i am here for the experience and then im outta here

smoyer• 13 years ago

I don't want to sound callous but ... market forces shape and reshape cities all the time. When the facets of city-life in San Francisco that initially drew people fade away, people will flock somewhere else and the rents will stagnate or reverse. And if San Francisco is losing its allure as an artist's hub, perhaps other places (such as downtown Detroit) are compensating?

I live in a reasonably affluent smaller city and the problem of affordable housing for the "working poor" is about the same here ... but I still haven't seen what I think is a viable solution (developers were compensated for building low-income housing and maintaining low rent for 10 years, but now the rent for those houses exceeds my monthly mortgage).

Naritai4• 13 years ago

What seems ridiculous to me is that the city that's absorbing the 'artists' is... Oakland! 20-minutes, or one BART stop away! That sounds fine to me. As SF gets bigger, let people overflow into Oakland. I don't see what's so bad about that.

The only people who are really concerned about this are the ones to insist that SF and Oakland are totally different cities. Come on guys, they've been the same economic region for 100+ years, it's time to admit that they're the same city.

tachyonbeam• 13 years ago

Yeah, let's pave over that lake and call it a deal.

erikpukinskis2• 13 years ago

I still haven't seen what I think is a viable solution

What about cooperative ownership? When an asset is communally owned, it reduces the temptation for people to destroy it for a payout.

Naritai4• 13 years ago

My biggest concern about communal ownership (ignoring tragedy of the commons) is that such an arrangement is simply undesirable for most people. There is something fundamentally unappealing about buying into a communal arrangement, and I can see why - I can easily think of a few past roommates to whom I'm very glad I was not financially bound in a long-term arrangement.

For example, TICs are declining in numbers in SF, not increasing. If communal ownership were a viable option, we should see the number of TICs increasing.

bmmayer1• 13 years ago

Didn't Stalin try this?

How the Internet Ruined San Francisco (1999)

Related Stories