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by scottshapiro 4788 days ago
Given the volume of Peninsula-shuttled tech workers living within a mile of 16th and 24th st bart stations, I'm surprised to see those so low. Garbage in, garbage out from census data for transient, high-rental areas like the Mission, Noe, Castro, Bernal, Potrero. Indexing to rental rates in these areas is likely more reflective of wealth (via affordance as a proxy) http://sfist.com/2013/03/07/map_average_rent_for_1br_in_san_.... Awesome visualization though.
1 comments
azernik 4788 days ago
Within a mile doesn't matter - the OP is measuring by census tracts, which are quite small. For example, if you zoom in on this [http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/map], you'll see that the Mission BARTs' census tracts (201 and 209) extend to only within a couple of blocks from the stations, which seem from my daily commute to be the poorest and most run-down parts of that area. (The tracts are even small enough that there's a separate tract - 208 - for the stretch of Mission between the two BARTs.) While some of the tech workers I know do indeed live between Van Ness, Valencia, Cesar Chavez, and Market, a lot live a few blocks east or west of that line, e.g. on the west side of Valencia, or in the area between Folsom and Potrero.

A side question, though - is there a specific year when the shift of tech workers to SF picked up steam? I'm finding a wave of articles complaining about the Google shuttles in 2012-13 (about when I moved out to SF), but I don't have a good feel for how far along the process was at that point.

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scottshapiro 4788 days ago
Fascinating.

Based on rapidly increasing rents over the past 2 years in these neighborhoods, tech worker density has increased a lot. Anyone living in these areas in 2009-2010 will tell you that they'll never break their lease because market rents are 50-150% more than what they're paying due to strict rent controls.

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tomkarlo 4788 days ago
People have been complaining about tech workers in SF for at least 15 years now (since the first boom). It's a standard (if not especially factually supported) gripe at this point.

It's possible that the proliferation of private busing has made it more visible to residents, however. It used to just be everyone drove.

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