Rising tides haven’t lifted all boats
Pondering my growing anxiety about living in the Bay Area
Truth is, I’m scared.
As San Francisco continues to change and rents continue to rise, I’ve no longer felt welcome in the city that I once loved. It’s a feeling that I can’t ignore.
When I first moved to San Francisco just four and a half years ago, my neighbors in the Mission were Mexican families and hipsters. Now, my neighbors are white families with Mercedes, BMWs, and Teslas in their driveway. At any given time, there’s a house for sale within a block of me in every direction, typically selling for $1 million to $1.5m over the price that the owner bought it for just 10-15 years ago.
I have a hard time not pulling my hair out when I hear people talking about $2300 a month 1-Bedroom apartments as “cheap” or “not bad”. Good luck finding any 1BR apartment in the entire San Francisco Bay Area that is under or at $1500 a month. To put it simply, if you’re not working in tech or your spouse/SO doesn’t work in tech, you’re totally screwed.
But it’s not that simple. As a non-technical employee (non-programmer), I’m paid roughly $40,000 to $140,000 less than most of my coworkers. And since most technology startups have more programmers than they do other types of workers, there’s usually 10-30 people at a <40 person company that are making that kind of money. It’s much worse at Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc- where hundreds and thousands of programmers work every day and make $150-200k a year and have hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in stock options.
No wonder rents and housing prices are going up.
I’m scared because I feel like the San Francisco Bay Area no longer welcomes anyone who isn’t a programmer. This means the artists, like my girlfriend, who make less than $30k a year (sometimes way less), are going to have to leave. It means all of the people that deliver your food, work at your favorite restaurants, drive your Uber’s and busses…all of those people will not be able to live here. And soon I worry that your non-technical coworkers, like the community, marketing, HR and administrative teams; they too will not be able to live in the Bay Area.
In San Francisco and in the broader media, I get the sense that people seem to be under the impression that everyone is doing well. But they’re not (at least not THAT well). Wages have stagnated while rents have increased 40-100% in some areas. New housing projects continue to be shutdown in cities across the Bay and public transit initiatives struggle to gain funding. The tension in this city is palpable, leading to vandalism and the infamous Google Bus Protests.
Soon something will have to give. Unfortunately I think it will soon be me.
