[throwanem]

Huh. I could've sworn that at some point in this thread I had mentioned I live in Baltimore, but apparently this is not the case; no wonder we've been talking past one another. I have no idea what problems the Bay Area has, but it sounds like they're not closely similar to anything I describe.

In a prior comment in this thread, I mentioned a verge about which I later had more to say: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14666944 - tl;dr: the plot went for a song, the developer's going to make a killing, and neither the city nor its populace is going to see any meaningful part of that killing - but, this being the city it is, I'm sure whoever sold the developer a sweetheart deal will get a tidy little kickback out of it.