Their Presence Isn't Welcome

Google commuter bus in San Francisco (TechCrunch photo)

In the latest instance of blue-on-blue disputes, Salon.com founder David Talbot says the influx of Silicon Valley tech workers into San Francisco is ruining the City. This time evil Republicans aren't to blame but Stanford University and Silicon Valley, both of which have overwhelmingly supported the liberal agenda:

Not long ago, Bernal Heights was a funky mix of blue-collar workers, lesbian starter-families, counterculture artists, community organizers and Latina grandmothers. But Bernal Heights had the misfortune of being blessed with affordable housing, verdant backyards and parks – and being conveniently located next to the hipster-infused Mission, and even worse, to Highway 101 – the Google bus route to Silicon Valley.

Suddenly, this unusually mixed San Francisco neighborhood was transformed into what one real estate web site recently crowned the hottest zip code in the country. Now, if you stand at the corner of Precita and Alabama – the main checkpoint for the neighborhood — instead of seeing battered Subaru Outbacks and Hondas, you see a steady stream of new-model Teslas, BMWs and Uber limousines. A rapid, seamless flow of gleaming, luxurious metal that never slows down – not even for the children and dogs who come spilling into the street from the nearby park. These Silicon Valley movers and shakers can’t afford to slow down – time is money.

Stanford is the target of his anger because it is the birthplace of Silicon Valley [bold added]:

For many years, Stanford was the country-club university where millionaires of the West sent their children – the bright and the not-so-bright offspring of privilege. But in the 1930s and ‘40s. things began to change around here. Stanford grads William Hewlett and David Packard began tinkering in their legendary garage. And, after World War II, William Shockley moved west to work on his transistors. Pumped full of Pentagon money, this sun-dappled campus and the green fields and orchards surrounding it suddenly blossomed into Silicon Valley. Engineers and entrepreneurs were the new gods – not farm owners and railroad barons.

Much of the wealth in this new boom was blood money. The shiny new instruments of technology that bloomed here sprang from the Defense Department’s need to identify the enemy, track the enemy and destroy as many of them as possible. Even vaporize entire civilian populations if necessary.

I've never heard "Stanford" spoken of so pejoratively, not even by Cal loyalists (Mr. Talbot went to UC-Santa Cruz):

The ones who proudly wear their Ivy League hoodies as they jog and hydrate around Precita Park or line up for artisanal chocolate tastings on Valencia Street, forking over enough cash to feed an entire family in the Mission for two or three days. “Stanford dicks.” That’s what my sons call them. Or Stanford douchebags, or Stanford tools. The term “Stanford assholes” has even made it into “Looking,” the HBO show set in gay San Francisco – and it’s not meant to be flattering.

It's easy to make fun of David Talbot's rant--he tries hard to inflame the reader by using terms of military violence and listing the frivolous indulgences of the nouveau riche--but his anger stems from a common phenomenon, the transformation of the places we once loved into something cold and unfamiliar.

I once knew every street in Honolulu, but now I get lost in, and don't care for, many parts of new Oahu. During the 1980's many Americans resented the Japanese development of U.S. real estate, including the purchase of trophy properties like Rockefeller Center and Pebble Beach. And for half a century people in the other Western states have deplored how the out-migration of Los Angelenos was "Californicating" their bucolic communities.

Sorry, David, you sound like a grumpy conservative who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop! Just make sure you get out of the way of those driverless cars.

(NY Times graphic)