| What can I say about this article? I recently moved here, like many other people in tech. I didn't come for the draw of nature--which I love--but for a higher paying job and a chance to escape a poor, decaying, east coast city that increasingly felt like an urban hell. The whole undertaking was supposed to be a leg up, moving to that next level of adulthood (whatever that means in 2015). I am a well-paid, well-educated engineer in my early 30's. I am not a founder, nor do I intend to be, at least around these parts. California was a promised land, and I was glad to buy a one-way ticket there. Now that I am here and a "resident," I faced with an ugly truth: the utter impossibility for me to ever buy any kind of property in the city, however modest or dilapidated, even if my salary somehow doubled overnight. The very thought of what it takes to "make it" here borders on the obscene. I'm lucky to pay $1,300 (which is cheap) for a one-bedroom in the city with 3 other people; outside, the prospects aren't much better. The SF (and sadly the bay area in general) of now is a place where boomers made the rules. I can't help but feel impotent when thinking about the long-term political changes that will need to be effected in order to benefit newcomers and the working classes that are trying to make a home here. The old guard has such a stranglehold on the political machinations of this place and the chips are overwhelmingly stacked in their favor. I'm registered to vote--and I plan on it--but I know deep down, nothing will truly change until the Daniel Duane's of the city finally flush down the bowl and don't resurface. People like him had the great luck to be born during an era where places like this weren't fully exploited yet. I can't fault people like him for taking advantage of the opportunity to buy when housing was cheap and relatively plentiful. Anyone with aspirations to own a home and have a family would do the same without a second thought. The NIMBYism and political blockading of the old guard is unconscionable. The housing crisis plaguing not only SF, but the peninsula as well, is directly related to their shortsighted, self-serving political ends. It's as if they--"they" in this case are my generational bogeyman--never even considered how their children would live. Short of inheriting a property, "tough shit" is the answer to the housing question. My choices now are to stay, make some money, and take it back with me to somewhere cheaper, or hope for a simultaneous bubble-burst and earthquake which will depress home prices and maybe scare some alte kakas to leave. I want to stay here, but it's really damn near impossible. So let the Daniel Duane's lament about their California dream of the past. I only know about what we've been left by the legacy of his ilk, and it ain't good. |