Can San Francisco survive itself?

Every city is defined to some extent by its reputation. When you hear about Los Angeles, you probably imagine the smog-darkened vistas, movie stars, traffic jams, and warm beaches that make the “City of Angels” more than just a place, but an idea. When you hear the name Detroit you are probably imagining the auto industry and its ultimate collapse, which in turn collapsed the city of Detroit itself.

But what about San Francisco? Everyone seems to have a different definition of City by the Bay, and frankly that’s understandable because one of the real defining features of San Francisco – more than the fog, hills, or cable cars – is its dynamism.

San Francisco is a city that is shaped by change.

If New York is the city that never sleeps, San Francisco is the city that never settles. In the 1950s, beat poets revolved around City Lights in North Beach. The 1960s brought the hippies to the Haight with an emphasis on progressive politics, uninhibited personal expression, and free love. The accepting atmosphere cultivated in the city in the 1960s made San Francisco a natural capital for the LGBT community, who helped shape the city in the 1970s, led by gay rights icon and activist Harvey Milk. This pattern of reinvention continues in San Francisco to this day.

But not all changes are created equal.

San Francisco is attractive for its ability to change, and depending on who you speak to, you will witness people reminisce, contemplate, and long for a San Francisco of yesterday – a San Francisco that roams through the world The city’s inability to stagnate has been wiped out. Every San Franciscan seems to have his very own San Francisco, safe from constant change, lives and develops perfectly in his head. But reality can undermine our ambitions for a perfect life in a perfect city created by an interpretation of history shaped in our own idealized self-image.

The technicians are no different in this regard. They came to San Francisco to write their own piece of San Francisco History, but their era is different from the others that preceded it. The main difference is that City Hall welcomed the technology explosion, where the social movements and migrations that had occurred before were more organic and had much less collateral damage.

As the new wave of tech companies began to show interest in San Francisco, then-Mayor Ed Lee seemed to be concentrating all of the city’s resources on helping the arrival of these companies and, by extension, their workers. All other aspects of life in San Francisco seemed inferior to the tech giants who decided to make San Francisco an extension of the tech core that already existed in the suburbs of South Bay, better known as Silicon Valley Meaning. This, coupled with San Francisco’s notoriously tough building policy, resulted in a spike in home prices that resulted in a massive crowding out of both the working class and the weirdos that made San Francisco what it was.

The tech workers who settled in San Francisco did not find the advanced tech utopia they had hoped for. Instead, they found an extreme disparity between the haves and the haves that affected every San Franciscan, no matter what tax bracket they belonged to. The argument people make for gentrification is that it makes neighborhoods better by making them safer and cleaner. Many argue that the price increase is a result of the increased attractiveness as an area appreciates, but this was not the case in San Francisco. As more technicians came, the apartments got more expensive and the situation on the street got worse. Almost every flyover became a homeless camp. People begged for change on the streets, property crimes skyrocketed, and national news programs about dystopia on the streets of San Francisco were broadcast almost daily when one-bedroom apartments in former working-class neighborhoods like the Mission District cost about $ 3,500 a month .

This trend did not stop in San Francisco either. It spreads its tentacles across the entire Bay Area. Cities like Oakland, once considered an affordable alternative to San Francisco, have been hit just as hard, if not harder, by gentrification. Working class suburbs like Concord, Vallejo, Hayward, Richmond, and Antioch all saw average house prices soar above $ 500,000.

So why stay

Many Bay Area residents have grappled with this question their entire lives. But for me and many others, it’s because the Bay Area is home. I was born in Walnut Creek and have lived in Daly City, Oakland, Martinez, Vallejo, and Concord. I’ve never spent much time in a city more than 30 miles from San Francisco – it’s my mother’s hometown. It’s where my father lived when he came to California from Texas. My mom still proudly tells people about her Mission District roots. And you can’t get my uncle to shut up about his party days at the Excelsior. So much of my life is connected to San Francisco, and much of my identity comes from San Francisco and the cities that surround it.

So how do we keep San Francisco and the Bay Area a place for everyone?

Everyone seems to have an opinion on this question, so I can only share mine. Superficial mantras of support will only get us this far – we need legislative action. A brave move would be to tax landlords on vacant properties. Any property that is vacant for more than 90 days has to face a litany of fines. We should also encourage landlords to offer long term leases at affordable monthly rates with things like tax credits. Inequality, not just in terms of income but also education, is another factor that is rapidly changing the Bay Area. The local economy will likely continue to be dominated by the tech industry, but it doesn’t have to be that bad. If local governments work with private companies to provide technical education to Bay Area locals who may not have a college degree and put them in a position where they can compete economically with the average tech brother, then it may not so tense. While these ideas are not among my most radical, I think they are the most realistic. And in these dire times, realistic progress is a good thing. Just blaming tech people didn’t work … and, in a way, they’re victims, too.

Tech workers, many of whom just wanted a good job in a great city, became Public Enemy No. 1. Many of these techies were between 22 and 35 years old and came to the Bay Area with good intentions. Despite these good intentions and high-paying tech jobs, their quality of life was much lower than one would expect from a person earning a six-figure salary. Tech workers paid the highest dollar for their car broken into in a city that made it very clear that they hated them. But they stayed because San Francisco had positioned itself as the IT hub of the universe, and it seemed like nothing about that would change anything. But typical of San Francisco, if it looks like nothing’s going to change, then it does.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit and the viability of office work has been called into question. Many tech workers started working from home, and that enabled tech companies to move beyond the dysfunction of modern day San Francisco. This change put San Francisco in a precarious position, unlike the previous changes. When a city neglects its poor, sacrificing its artists entirely for an industry that began to flee at the first sign of trouble, one must ask what will San Francisco leave behind? Will someone want to live in a city that has effectively alienated everyone?

There is no question that San Francisco can and will survive the pandemic and is likely to recover better than most American cities. Even though many tech workers have left, there will still be a tech base in town for the foreseeable future. Even artists will still jump blindly into the fog and, unfortunately, be chewed up and spat out by a city that seems indifferent to their existence. And as long as cars need oil changes, lawn mowing and food served, the working class will continue to fight.

But after all that has happened to gentrification, technology, inequality, and now a global pandemic, can San Francisco survive on its reputation alone? Can a place that denies everyone’s needs be a place for everyone?

Can San Francisco Survive Itself?

Abraham Woodliff is an Oakland-based writer and founder of the popular Bay Area Memes account on Facebook and Instagram.