The article highlights some silver linings, but the net effect is profoundly negative.<p>The refusal of 3 American cities to grow has made us all substantially poorer (New York, San Jose, and San Francisco): <a href="https://www.econlib.org/a-correction-on-housing-regulation/" rel="nofollow">https://www.econlib.org/a-correction-on-housing-regulation/</a><p>> revitalize the American heartland while moving America toward a greener, high-tech future<p>Every time someone moves from the suburbs to a transit connected apartment building in SF their carbon emissions are cut in half.
I believe SF will thrive in the next wave. SF has decades of progressive exploration to continue, from the 1960's music scene, through hippies and psychonauts and LGBTQ+ culture, to the rise of open source and software, SF keeps thriving on new kinds of ideas. Then mix in the California outdoors, the ongoing health and wellness movements, and top research labs at Berkeley and Stanford.<p>My hope is we'll start seeing the next wave soon-- I'm seeing a lot of potential SFBA groundwork relating to CRISPR and genetics, neural links with AR+AI, and biopharma coupled with human potential advancements.
Locals were hating on "techies". I still remember signs on the street from people blaming everything on the tech boom. Careful what you wish for.
As a tourist or a person new to the city, you can have a good time in San Francisco. There are a lot of things to do.<p>Living in SF is a different thing.<p>The traffic really sucks and the public transportation is inadequate.<p>During major conferences the city gets completely saturated with people and transportation sucks even more.<p>Commuting from outside the city is a via crucis that will destroy your spirit.<p>Public works take fucking forever to complete, blocking streets for years.<p>Air quality is nice, except during wildfire season. You will need to seal your windows, doors, AC, buy air filters and masks. It sucks.<p>The cost of living is fucking absurd. The will keep raising your rent every goddamn year.<p>The homelessness situation is pretty bad, and since the city has not installed public bathrooms, they have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars removing poop from the streets.<p>And needles. Fucking used needles everywhere.
I feel like this analysis is missing the forest for the trees a little bit. The main premise is that exodus of tech brain to smaller hubs like Austin, Denver and Miami will help them grow. But if the assessment of the downsides to SF is merely that "cities don't die, they languish", that ignores the dynamic aspect of an economy, namely that it is the centralization aspect that made places like SF and NY the powerhouses in their respective flagship industries in the first place.<p>I saw a video recently about the Ogallala Aquifer (a large body of water that feeds the agricultural belt in central US). It argued that because state lines were drawn in a nearly arbitrary fashion, states are incentivized to compete against each other to develop/maintain their agricultural industries, even if that means draining the water unsustainably. It argues that a hypothetical megastate whose area encompasses the entirety of the aquifer would see that it's in its own interest to manage the aquifer efficiently and sustainably, rather than fight against neighbouring states in a tragedy of the commons.<p>`s/water/VC money + talent/` and I think you can see where we're going with this. Could the next Apple be born in Denver? Could the next Google be born in Miami? You could arguably look at Toronto, Canada as an example of what sort of level of innovation one could reasonably expect from a local growing hub. But if hypothetically, the SF tech scene were to actually die (or be irreparably crippled by the tech exodus), I'd think the US as a whole would lose a major economic/technological edge, especially compared to places like China.<p>Is that "good for the US"? Perhaps so for the folks that can ride the growth in the local hubs. Perhaps their locals will also come to loathe techies. But alas, perhaps it won't be so good after all, if it means the existing tech giants will never again see worthy competition/disruption, and if it means that the US starts seeing technological advances originating from other countries while no longer able to sprout them at the scale that today's tech giants have been able to in the past.
There will always be a cohort which values living in the metropolis as opposed to just working for a company that has an address there, but clearly the growth in remote work is allowing workers in all sorts of industries to spread out somewhat and live where they would like to live. I can't help but think this will be a huge boon for smaller communities.
Looks like the piece forgot Los Angeles. There's a huge technical pool down here working at the likes of Disney, Hulu, Space X, to JPL.<p>Has its homeless and high tax issues as well, but at least there is lots of room and nimby's have lost their tight grip preventing development.
Crime and housing cost are not new. Most people fleeing California do that over tax uncertainty and general business unfriendliness. Stuff like retroactive income tax increase or exit tax.
It appears “good for America” is shorthand for “good for anyone leaving SF or already owning property in one of the cities experiencing an influx of new tech employees”
I don't think so, you still have some of the top schools in the nation around the Bay Area. Big tech, startups, and opportunities will still be here.