I have no idea what this article was about. Let's see. Somehow this individual drives from San Francisco to San Mateo and considers everything in between poor? Perhaps he should venture a little bit more ? How about driving around 280, Hillsborough, Burlingame, Milbrae up in the hills ? All of these are beautiful neighborhoods with houses > $2mn. Not sure what he is talking about. Somehow, he thinks the "stuff on water" is in San Mateo. It is actually Foster City.<p>Then he drives south from San Mateo down south and until he reaches Palo Alto, he thinks everything is working class poor. Interesting, because between San Mateo and Palo Alto you have Belmont, Redwood City, San Carlos, Atherton, and Menlo Park. Anybody who believes only working class poor lives in these cities, not sure how to take them seriously.<p>Then this person believes whole of San Jose is a slum. Obviously never been to Evergreen or the myriad of other neighborhoods in San Jose. Then he thinks Fremont has "promise". I actually live in Fremont and not sure if there is a working class neighborhood in Fremont. Fremont has beautiful parks and lakes and great schools.<p>Ok, Hayward and Oakland are bit rundown. But even Hayward Hills and Oakland Hills are amazing places to live.<p>My guess - this person drove down El Camino real in the Peninsula and concluded everything by driving down one street.<p>He also makes an incredible claim - only 2-3% have salaries that let them live comfortably. Others are working on 2-3 jobs. I guess people are working on 2-3 jobs and paying millions for their houses.<p>What a terrible article.
I think Jamie Dimon said it best, it's almost embarrassing to be an American these days. Homeless people everywhere, mentally insane people screaming on the streets, rude classless people (in the ghetto), failing infrastructure, a narcissistic demagogue trust fund kid as president. Every single major city in America has a ghetto not unlike a third world country - NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, etc. I've never understood why we tolerate this poverty in our own backyards.<p>There was a period when we were the model nation for the world, and that period is long gone. As long as America is ruled by the mindset of "everyone for themselves" and free market fundamentalism, nothing is going to improve - and in fact things are only going to get worse as the job market tightens due to technological automation.
The parts I'm familiar with are painted a little more gloomy than reality.<p>Fremont has top rated schools and a median income above 80k. Combine income with college grad percentage and it's in the 81st percentile on the "superzip" metric.<p>Hayward has some run down areas but the median income is $54k. One the income/college grad metric it's 49th percentile. Basically average for the country. (When average is seen as a dominion of "sadness", that says something -- whether about the commentator, the state of the country, or both is up to you)<p>The problem, as is beaten to death yet still not enough, is housing costs. In "average" Hayward, a barely adequate home for a family will run you north of $600k. What you'd expect in most places as a middle class home closer to $750k+
This article reminds me of my coworkers who think San Mateo is sketchy "On the other side of the tracks".<p>I've lived 90th and International in Oakland and have a pretty good idea of what "red" looks like. Speaking from personal experience, San Leandro and Hayward are nice places to live in, and the crime maps match my experience with the area [1]. I understand the article was talking about poverty and not crime, but poverty and crime are correlated [2], so a crime map is a valid proxy.<p>I agree that some areas are a bit run down, but overall I think its the opposite, pockets of "red" surrounded by "green".<p>[1] <a href="https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Oakland-California/crime/" rel="nofollow">https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Oakland-California/crime/</a>
[2] <a href="https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5137" rel="nofollow">https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5137</a>
This article shows the danger of going by surface appearances and statistics in areas that you don't know.<p>There are a lot of places that don't look like much (for someone used to rich areas) but are decent, stable communities. That run-down looking restaurant might be a stable business that serves great food.
There's always the pat answers of "housing is the government's job", "this situation was created by public policy" but at this point shouldn't those in tech, the most lucrative and largest industry in the region, at least allot a little thought to the problem of inequality? In discussions defending Silicon Valley, "the press never covers the startups working on hard problems like human longevity or heart disease, but REAL companies that aren't frivolous apps exist" always gets trotted out. Well, how about companies that work on problems that directly impact the Bay Area?<p>At the very least, earmark higher budgets for corporate philanthropy and community outreach.
Saying that construction is a 'basic job skill' is kind of an amazing way to say you don't understand what is going on there at all. Or that somehow it's just magic to you. Most jobs have a depth to them, and most people have to learn quite a bit to do them successfully.
This is fairly accurate, in my experience. I live on the border between Sunnyvale and Mountain View, and within a couple blocks is a gated street (closed to vehicular traffic) where a bunch of skateboarding teens hang out. On the Sunnyvale side of the gate are a bunch of small somewhat run-down apartment buildings, usually 4- or 8-plexes, and you can never find parking because each unit often has 3-4 working adults in it. On one side of the Mountain View street are 60s duplexes; on the other are 90s duplexes; and at the end of the street is a beautiful neighborhood with $3M homes.<p>The one caveat, as skybrian mentions, is that you can't really judge a family's financial status from where they live. A large number of residents in the run-down areas are immigrant bargain-hunters, often with tech jobs; even the run-down areas in Silicon Valley are better than many other countries, and so they'd rather save money than flash their social status. Oftentimes it turns out that they own 3 houses and are collecting serious rent money from young American techies who think they're top of the hill in Silicon Valley.<p>I'm curious whether this is different from other cities. When I lived in Boston, it wasn't all that different; you'd have gorgeous restored brownstones in the South End that were a few blocks away from homicides and drug deals in Dorchester and Roxbury.
Highly recommend watching:
Ellen Dunham-Jones: Retrofitting suburbia
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_uTsrxfYWQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_uTsrxfYWQ</a><p>Basically what the author (Daniel Miessler) is seeing is this suburban sprawl being selectively re-invented. Originally the Peninsula was sprawl for San Francisco in the 1940-70s. Then the housing stock slowly aged and the rich people moved on to Pleasanton, etc.<p>At some point Oracle, Google and the dot-com bubble and associated traffic jams on 880/101 made it make sense to re-examine and subsequently re-invent/re-invest in infill locations like San Mateo and Mountain View respectively. Usually the leading indicator for re-development is the school district.<p>Mountain View when I was growing up was were you went for well priced non-Italian/French restaurants. In fact there are some original still there on Castro street still hanging on if you look closely. It was most definitely not high end baked French goods (i.e. Alexander's Patisserie).<p>I would say with the arrival of Box in Redwood City, it's starting to happen there too.<p>I'd also add that in places that are not physically constrained (like in Texas or even Southern California), you just have more sprawl. It looks different but it doesn't seem any better (or any worse).
I moved to the city for a few months a week ago and the poverty described in the article is apparent. Everyone you speak to is struggling to pay rent and afford more than subsistence. Perhaps it's fairer to equate San Francisco with London: most of the realestate is owned by the rich whereas everyone else is struggling to pay for inflated housing prices.<p>A separate note: I did enjoy San Jose. It's not wealthy but it's a quaint type of lifestyle that I did not dislike. To say that it's comfortable living, however, would be a stretch.
If government had just a little more money, and controlled prices just a little more, this wouldn't be a problem anymore. . .<p>. . .said every public office-holder in this area for the last fifty years.
From the article:<p>"Heading north from Fremont is basically sadness. Hayward, Oakland, San Leandro, Richmond, Vallejo. They’re all poverty stricken and broken. The only green zones I see out in that area are maybe in Dublin, Pleasanton, Moraga, etc., but I honestly don’t know much about those areas because I seldom get out there."<p>Oh no, what happened to Piedmont, Berkeley, Kensington and all the other lovely East Bay towns? Perhaps the author is only seeing poverty because that's what he's looking for.<p>To me, the suggestion that living in Dublin is preferable to living in Oakland sounds bizarre. A lot of people in these "broken" cities would rather be there than anywhere else, so they must have something going for them.