Are Great Cities Polarizing?
I was napping on a hill called Bernal Heights one afternoon. I was woken up to a buzzing sound over my head. I opened my eyes and there was a drone hovering above me. I looked around and a woman with a controller and joystick was operating it. I approached her, and asked her about it. She was doing a journalism side project, documenting life in SF from an aerial view. I don’t think this kind of encounter happens outside the Bay Area.
I moved to San Francisco last September on a gut feeling. I’ve since met other people who have done the same. The second week I got here, I was looking for a good cafe to work from. I found Temo cafe in the Mission District. I work there regularly. I’ve noticed that there is a pigeon that flies into the cafe at around 3pm every day. It cleans the floor by picking off any food dropped. The owners expect it, and have named him “Charlie”. Below is a sketch I made of it.
For technology and finance professionals the city generates tremendous wealth because of its startup ecosystem. I’ve gotten pitched two business opportunities. People have a portfolio approach to their career. It seems as if people have their main gig, and then they are limited partners in other funds or investing in someone’s startup. This provides them with optionality. Being a limited partner in a fund that invests in Airbnb might make you more money than your regular 9–5 job. Investing in an interesting startup could provide a financial returns and also a potential job. Relationships drive business: your network is the source of a good startup or fund deal. In addition, people are open to helping each other out and meeting strangers for coffee. I’ve also found a thirst for learning here. There are a host of personal development workshops and organizations that seek to push human potential.
Paul Graham notes, “ In a hundred subtle ways, [a] city sends you a message: you could do more; you should try harder. It’s in fields like the arts or writing or technology that … it helps most to be in a great city: you need the encouragement of feeling that people around you care about the kind of work you do, and since you have to find peers for yourself, you need the much larger intake mechanism of a great city.”
In a different essay he states that “The inhabitants of fifteenth century Florence included Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico, Verrocchio, Botticelli, Leonardo, and Michelangelo. Milan at the time was as big as Florence. How many fifteenth century Milanese artists can you name?
Something was happening in Florence in the fifteenth century.”
Similarly I think the concentration of talent in the Bay Area will lead to something very special in the 21st century. Part of that change is already happening.
People generally don’t believe in scarcity and have an optimistic view of human nature. At the same time, there is also human deprivation. Walk downtown and there will be homeless people hugging the sidewalks. Even for someone who has grown up in a city in the developing world, the homeless population is staggering. The city is gentrifying. Rent increase in SF is double compared to the US Median over the past three years.
On Christmas Eve I took an Uber home to my place in SF and my driver was probably in his early fifties. He was Caucasian with white hair. Uber drivers range from blue collar professionals to artists. We started chatting. He spoke to me formally. He asked me if he was dropping me home and I said yes. I asked him if he lived around here and he said, “Sir, people like ME don’t live around here.” It wasn’t said in a tone of resentment. He had simply resigned to his fate in dignity. Left unsaid: the American dream is not accessible to me, even though I’ve worked hard all my life.
Questions for you to ponder:
What is the subtle message your city is giving you?
Does your city have any polarities?
What do you see when you peak into windows of homes as you take a walk in your city?
What kind of chance encounters do you have?
P.S. When I was a teenager in Karachi my first impression of SF was this song:
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