Limo buses and culture clashes
 |
| Photo: Defend the Bay Area |
A letter in the July 21 edition of the New Yorker in response to a story about San Francisco, California Screaming, in a previous issue:
The squabbling about limo buses and culture clash misses the point about the civic irresponsibility of Silicon Valley business interests. Advocating intensive building to increase density in San Francisco will do nothing for Bay Area housing affordability. All this does is make developers rich. As soon as a unit in San Francisco becomes available, its price becomes exorbitant. The Bay Area has plenty of land for residential development: it’s in the South Bay. If the tech giants really cared, they would sponsor—or strong-arm—residential development near their sprawling, ever-growing campuses instead of busing their employees in from San Francisco. The assumption that San Francisco must adapt to being a bedroom community for Silicon Valley is erroneous. Better regional planning is necessary. New housing should not be the burden of San Francisco alone.
Adele Framer
San Francisco
The squabbling about limo buses and culture clash misses the point about the civic irresponsibility of Silicon Valley business interests. Advocating intensive building to increase density in San Francisco will do nothing for Bay Area housing affordability. All this does is make developers rich. As soon as a unit in San Francisco becomes available, its price becomes exorbitant. The Bay Area has plenty of land for residential development: it’s in the South Bay. If the tech giants really cared, they would sponsor—or strong-arm—residential development near their sprawling, ever-growing campuses instead of busing their employees in from San Francisco. The assumption that San Francisco must adapt to being a bedroom community for Silicon Valley is erroneous. Better regional planning is necessary. New housing should not be the burden of San Francisco alone.
Adele Framer
San Francisco
Labels: Highrise Development, Housing in the City, Smart Growth
posted by Rob Anderson @ 12:39 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
What drives me crazy about the hipster tech commuters is that they think they are "city people" living the San Francisco lifestyle when in fact they are having to sit on a bus and go over one hour each way down a freeway to their office. Since they now have a San Francisco address, they can force the rest of us to live the way they demand by redesigning our streets, removing parking for parklets, and lecturing the elderly for using cars to get to doctors instead of bikes.
Why don't they do the RIGHT thing for the planet and live close to their jobs instead of coming up here to pretend they know what is best for the city and its long time residents.
Alas, the techies come to San Francisco to join a city that is cool, quirky and queer but only find each other.
Not even the fog co-operates.
Post a Comment
<< Home