Urban Decline and Fall

From a Chronicle analysis of San Francisco out-migration

In a survey of demographic trends--specifically the exodus from cities--San Francisco is again number one:

For sheer lunacy, it is impossible to beat San Francisco, the pri­mary breeding ground for well-financed digital start-ups. The city continually places new taxes and burdens on tech firms, rejecting even their charity. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently voted ten to one to officially condemn Mark Zuckerberg for donating $75 million to a hospital. As observer Michael Solana suggests, activists now blame Zuckerberg and other oligarchs for having somehow “ex­tracted” their wealth from the terroir of San Francisco, and they deserve to be “demonized, scapegoated, and punitively targeted.” Of course, some tech firms are oligarchical and often socially insensitive, but scores of other communities, in Texas or elsewhere, are happy to welcome similar wealth “extraction.”

The old standard: people who didn't express gratitude had bad manners. The new standard: "condemn" gifts from the rich.

Hey, oligarchs, I know plenty of cities and people--including me--who will be happy to send you a thank-you note for amounts much less than $75 million.