Yeah, don't you just hate it when outsiders comes to your territory and bring their own culture and dress differently, probably talk different as well. Wouldn't be surprised if they mostly keep to their "own people" also. They should adapt to the local customes or go back to where they come from. Or at least away from you, right?

Being upset is reasonable. I don't like it when things turn out the way I'd like them too. I would have preferred if my football team won their last game.

Thinking you should actually, or have the right to actually, do something about it is complete asshattery. I'm not about to try and file a petition to overturn the 9ers win on Sunday just because it made me unhappy. Especially when you get into **** as nebulous as "adding something to the culture".

I'm not taking the bitchy SF'ers side, but for decades it has been ground zero for counter-culture. I can easily see how the mass-produced urban McCulture of the 21st century turns them off and why they'd lash out at what they view as its primary source in their city.

In B4 my first 7 words get ignored and I'm accused of taking their side.

Whatever, hippie

Hate Google all you want, but it's hard to see it as a bastion of mass-produced conformity.

I mean, you can try to hide the fact that you really want to take the dirty hippies side but WE KNOW MMMMKAAAY?

lol

When the company name becomes a verb that my 85 Year old grandmother uses, I think it's pretty damn easy.

Lol I do this all the time but it's generally not in -10 degree wind chill like today.

The problem there is a total misunderstanding/abandonment of what counter culture actually is/means.

When being accepting of people being different just turns into an expectation that people be different just like you, and misses the point that maybe the guy who works at google is just as weird as you, that's basically just failing.

well put

I don't think that's what they're lashing out against. I mean, maybe. I drove through SF once and I only stopped for traffic signals, so I'm kinda pulling this out of my ass. But... I did live in Austin, both well before and long after the "Keep Austin Weird" campaign. I'm assuming the motivations are similar.

Basically it's fear of gentrification and normalcy. Fear that as the money comes in, many of the things that made the place unique and interesting will get driven out, and it will eventually become indistinguishable from anywhere else.

This fear is usually overblown, but it is not without merit. Gentrification is a hella powerful force, and it will inevitably kill at least some of whatever it is that makes a place ripe for gentrification in the first place.

Is it dumb to blame the changing face of SF on Google workers? Yes, absolutely. But it seems pretty damn reasonable for long time residents who loved the city for what it was to believe a part of that is dying before their eyes. It's very rare for wealthy communities to be culturally interesting ones.

Strongly doubt one of the most expensive areas to live in has much to fear from gentrification.

idk, it's getting way more expensive lately. I seriously question who can even afford to move in to apartments in my neighborhood anymore when a normal ass 1br is like 3k/month. It's driving lots of people over to Oakland which is experiencing its own change as a result.

Also, gentrification is a good thing for a ton of towns. New Orleans needs it like crazy (and is getting a lot more developed too). There's a lot of poorly used capital down here that could be used for much better purposes.

Money and gentrification don't have to kill weird. If that bothers people the correct response is not something that further divides people. Work to find a happy medium.

All these clowns are doing is making it easier for people to marginalize them as they demonstrate they would rather throw a fit than be adults.

I mean, if you want artists and ****, someone has to pay them. You need rich people for that.

Also- as somebody who has seen the way his honest to goodness draft avoiding pot smoking worked in liberal media fits so many of the stereotypes hippy father has responded and embraced the modern world I have little time for these new jacks who have to strain to find actual causes to rally behind. Dad wanted to not kill people- that's why he was counter-culture. Not because he was worried he might have to buy coffee from Starbucks.

My wife's trust fund baby unemployed friend has a rent controlled 2 br in a great location in the heart of SF for like $2200/mo. She rents it out for triple that while she travels the world. LOL rent control.

lol that's hilarious. My place's value right now is prob ~60% over what I'm paying.

I think rent control is pretty defensible though, lest we just economically kick people out of their neighborhoods once it becomes a desirable place for more wealthy people to live.

Sure it does. It doesn't need to start as a ghetto for the effects to keep compounding. Eventually you end up with downtown Vancouver: tasteful, trendy, and completely devoid of anything approaching real culture. Just a vast morass of upper middle class people in their gleaming condos, buying their latte from the artfully contrived shabby-chic corner cafe and sampling tapas from the hottest neighborhood bistro since the last one.

The truly great artists starve, ldo.

What's wrong about "economically kick people out? If you owned the property, I bet you wish you could charge 60% more for it.

The combination of restrictive zoning and rent control is like the one part of the law where the conservative stereotype of well meaning but overbearing and naive nanny state liberals is 100% true. In like the 1800s or whatever we had some first level thinkers who put literally zero seconds into solving a problem, and now... well, ****, changing stuff is hard.

There's a ton of subjective judgement here that may speak more to bias than anything else. Tapas from a bistro isn't "real" culture?

"Real" is a terrible way to define "that culture that I like". Make your argument using meaningful, concrete terms. (And then see if it's anything more than "richnew bad oldpoor good".