A city at war: Why we can’t all just get along

[KamaAina]

http://48hills.org/2015/04/01/a-city-at-war-why-we-cant-all-just-get-along/

I am getting really sick of the San Francisco narrative that I keep hearing, mostly recently in something called UpOut. It’s a radically naïve analysis of what’s going on in the city, and it goes like this:

Gee, we aren’t enemies here. Some of us are richer and just got here, and some of us are part of its “traditions and unique culture,” and if we just stopped with the name calling and all held hands in a love circle, we could work this out. Really, we could. Please? Over a bottomless mimosa? Or a flat white?...

What is going on in San Francisco today is a microcosm of the battle for the future of urban America. It’s a class struggle, writ large: For the current residents to survive, for the city to maintain a middle class and a working class, the interests of the landlords and the speculators must be acknowledged, confronted, and defeated.

I don’t know how else to say it to the newcomers: You have moved into a city at war. People who have lived here a long time are in a constant state of intense stress over the possible, sometimes very real, loss of their homes – and it’s not a bit surprising when that stress boils over into anger.

[GeorgeGist]

1. You'd think cyber geniuses could work any where .

[KamaAina]

2. That's the point.

They all want to be in The City, but by piling in there en masse, they're crowding out the people who make it work: the musicians, baristas, even chefs.

[daredtowork]

3. YES!

That sort of condescending "messaging" gets on my last nerve - especially when it's packed with the implication that I have some "attitude problem" (or worse - a "mental problem&quot because I can't accept the current unfairnessness of the situation.

It's just as bad in Berkeley.

We might have a thin layer of media hogs trying to insert themselves as official filters of the problem. I'm not sure - still scoping out what the the situation is. One thing is for certain - a lot more energy is expended on preventing problems from being heard than solving them.

[Auggie]

4. Long-time resident here. I'm glad I'm out.

Besides, this will be moot when the Big One hits. That will be the day you'll regret ever settling in San Francisco.

[Adsos Letter]

5. No kidding.

Every time I drive through the Financial District I think to myself "I don't want to be sitting here when the Big One hits... ."

[daredtowork]

6. Is there a list of tenant resources

for their self-defense options when their landlord sells out for the hyper-inflation windfall profits now on offer in the Bay Area?

[KamaAina]

7. Probably.

I'll look into it.

[daredtowork]

8. I just found out

That the city of Berkeley gets to reassess property taxes every time a property is flipped. So if the property inflates over a million dollar valuation, as many small places have, the taxes are huge! The purchaser would not be able to charge affordable rents even if he or she wanted to!

Furthermore, the property taxes go into the General Fund (discretionary use by Mayor/City) while all the needs of the city have been farmed out to additional "parcel taxes" the citizens vote on each year. Therefore it's in the mayor's interest to keep people flipping properties so he or she can pay off their cronies in the local government establishment. Total corruption is total.

[mackerel]

9. I loved living in SF so much! Made it there ten years but affordable

housing as I started my family sent me looking to the East Bay. I still visit at least once a month.