LADDER YANKERS
Loose talk about who deserves a place in San Francisco is often more about privilege, not equity
Thanks to some angry people in Oakland, everyone now knows that the San Francisco Bay Area has an affordability crisis. But it’s really been going on for far longer. Historically, local government has lacked the political will to do anything about it.
San Francisco has now at least given lip service to tackling the problem. They’ve announced thousands of new housing units in the pipeline - but the reality is that only a fraction of these have so far been funded. Getting more funding will be difficult, and political opposition will also shrink the number considerably. We know this because it’s happened before.
By targeting (fellow?) workers, the protestors aren’t helping. Most are themselves privileged, motivated by self-selected ideologies appropriated much in the same way one might choose a brand of jeans. They may talk about economic justice, but what they’re really doing is pulling up the ladder.
They are hardly alone. Even those accused of being gentrifiers in past debates now revel in shitting on the porch. Take, for instance, the proprietors of the Beauty Bar:
But most of the loose talk about chopping off the rungs comes from local elites. A former San Francisco Supervisor has opined that "Maybe it's just time to say no" to new residents. Another “Progressive Thought Leader” has suggested the city enact what would basically be a Hukou system, all the while betraying his own privilege:
We could say that if you are a software engineer who makes $200,000 a year, you can’t move to San Francisco – unless you can find someone who wants to sell you his or her house, or you can find an apartment that has been voluntarily vacated. You want to come to the Bay Area at 24 years old with your big money? Find (sic) – live in Antioch, commute to your job, and get in line. After a few years, something in the Mission might open up for you.
Sorry, dude. This is my home, the place where my family lives, where my daughter and me spend days painting her bedroom to get it just exactly right, where we grow vegetables in the back yard and I can ride my bike everywhere I want to go.
… And all the while forgetting that it’s been a while since most working San Franciscans could afford their own back yard, let alone multiple bedrooms.
Many of the worst offenders are in the media. One cheerleader of the Ladder Yankers is the Chronicle’s Heather Knight. She specializes in writing political stories so facile and smarmy they read more like they belong on the society page. Recently, she blithely and breathlessly denounced certain Google bus riders who had the audacity to tweet about their apprehension at having their ride to work mobbed by angry, threatening people.
Less than a week later, those bus riders now have even more reason to feel nervous.
Most people in politics, regardless of level, enjoy reading about themselves or their pet issues in the papers. It’s likely that whomever thought it was a good idea to actually attack, rather than merely block, a Google bus, read Ms. Knight’s nasty little screed beforehand.
And that the Chronicle, San Francisco’s establishment paper, is willing to print such dreck, shows how difficult it will be to solve the underlying problem.
