[terravion]

This seems like the NY times continuing anti-SV coverage. For example, while Santa Clara has some number of super-fund sites supposed the most in the country, would we expect this based on historical manufacturing GDP? Is it out of line?

There seems to be a suggestion of something sinister about Silicon Valley with mentions of the work culture--as though it was monolithic--and calling it toxic. Commenting on the clothes people wear--to what end? can't trust a guy who wears a hoodie?

I'm not sure social media is so much worse if this is journalism.

[geofft]

> This seems like the NY times continuing anti-SV coverage. For example, while Santa Clara has some number of super-fund sites supposed the most in the country, would we expect this based on historical manufacturing GDP? Is it out of line?

Silicon Valley is what it is today specifically because of the semiconductor fabrication industry. That's why the area is named after the metal used in transistor manufacture, and not anything about software. The same manufacturing process resulted in the Superfund sites.

So, whether or not it's quantitatively different, it's certainly qualitatively different - in general, a manufacturing history in other parts of the country is only related to current industries by virtue of generic economic growth. Silicon Valley today is essentially the same industry as it was in the 1950s.

Etsy, for instance, is at the same address in Brooklyn where Robert Gair first mass-produced cardboard boxes in 1879. But that area of town isn't called "Gairville" any more.

[rossdavidh]

Missing the point of your comment entirely, I'm going to point out that "Silicon" is not a metal, it's a semiconductor.

[geofft]

Thanks, and honestly, a software person not remembering what silicon even is is not too far from my point :)

[gowld]

SV is unique in the USA in that it's a major industrial area that evolved into a huge urban center, not a small rural town. So the impact of each bit of pollution is much larger.

[terravion]

I went to school in Pittsburgh, PA where they are building condos and bars on slag piles from 19th century blast furnaces. I don't think industry in cities is unique. For a few more examples: Philadelphia has an oil refinery practically downtown. Even without leaving the Bay Area Oakland and Richmond have heavy industry in close proximity to people's homes inside the cities.

[reaperducer]

> SV is unique in the USA in that it's a major industrial area that evolved into a huge urban center

Not unique at all. That's how most large urban areas in America got started. They became urbanized because people lived close to their jobs in the days before highways.

Chicago, New York, Baltimore, and pretty much any east coast city became urban because of heavy industry. Factories located there because of the ports which brought in raw materials. Those ports then spawned more heavy industries (railroads, shipyards, etc...)

[mcguire]

Also, the electronics industry is usually viewed as ecologically friendly, although I'm not sure why.

[LifeLiverTransp]

Eco-friendlyness and general kharma in the public eyes is usually dependant on how many vendor-layers you are away from the horrifyng layers of reality.

Chicken-Stable-Cleaner - horrifying.

Egg-Delivery-Truck-Driver - acceptable.

Hotel-Breakfast-Cook - never met a nicer person.

If the horror is additional well distributed, and humanity is secretly addicted to your product and wont imagine live without it- you get a free ride on the kharma slide.

>>Coltan from african warlords mined by enslaved children in every cellphone! Will humanity give up cellphones to save the innocent? Click here - to find out.<<

It would be a interesting project to find out the actual kharma-cost of a product though. Imagine the inheritance, if the industry relies on a lot of kharmatic lower services- or propells other low-kharma activitys onwards.

Though it could end up, showing that the it- is actually a net-positiv to humanitys kharma, after all i drastically reduces what humanity would have usually done with its spare time.

[galdosdi]

> It would be a interesting project to find out the actual kharma-cost of a product though

I'm having trouble finding it and would love if someone else found it, but a couple years ago someone did an academic paper doing just that for the iphone, tallying up all externalities (abuse of workers and the environment for example) involved in manufacturing the product and coming up with a "real" cost of making it. I recall they concluded an iphone would cost $1000 to $2000 if the true costs were included.

I seem to remember the phrase "dark value" but it hasn't been helpful in googling for the paper.

[cr0sh]

> Hotel-Breakfast-Cook

...if you only knew what I know, that wouldn't be item #3.

/then again, food handling in general is sausage making at its finest I suppose...

[rm_-rf_slash]

Not super unique I think. Rochester NY got rich with optics manufacturing (Bausch&Lomb, Eastman Kodak), and is now a world leader in optics research. Less manufacturing than there used to be but the talent never really left.

[galdosdi]

FWIW, the greater NYC/NJ area is also one of, if not the most polluted region of the USA, because it was so powerful and economically strong when the industrial revolution happened and the earliest industrial chemical shenanigans occurred.

For example: Newtown Creek between Queens and Brooklyn and/or the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn were industrial supercenters in the 19th century ans were known to contain some weird and nasty crap at the bottom that was referred to as "black mayonnaise" as early as 1900. They're not much better now. Both are major superfund sites, and you would be well advised to not touch the water.

Also, in the 70s/80s, it got to the point where the East River, which separates Manhattan from Long Island, sometimes actually visibly caught fire. Really.

North Jersey, eg greater Paterson, Elizabeth, etc, is infested with superfund sites. Chemical companies up the wazoo were operating with impunity for decades.

[knowaveragejoe]

This is in the "Lens" section, for what it's worth. The point is the photography, not so much the article.

[Aloha]

I think you're reading more into this article than is there to read.

[paulie_a]

Maybe SV just sucks? Unless I was paid at least half a million a year I wouldn't even consider living there.

[seanp2k2]

If you play your cards right, half a million after benefits and stocks are consider is within reach for engineers. Director level and up and it’s very attainable. The Bay Area isn’t perfect, but it has a lot to offer for many, especially if you’re in the top 10% or so of earners out here. If you make minimum wage out here it’s probably awful aside from the weather and how nice and relaxed people generally are compared to the rest of the US, though I’ve seen that slipping in the past 5 years, especially on the road — it seems like there are a lot more angry drivers now than even a few years ago.