Comment by dmode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dmode | Hacker News Reader

I have no idea what this article was about. Let's see. Somehow this individual drives from San Francisco to San Mateo and considers everything in between poor? Perhaps he should venture a little bit more ? How about driving around 280, Hillsborough, Burlingame, Milbrae up in the hills ? All of these are beautiful neighborhoods with houses > $2mn. Not sure what he is talking about. Somehow, he thinks the "stuff on water" is in San Mateo. It is actually Foster City.

Then he drives south from San Mateo down south and until he reaches Palo Alto, he thinks everything is working class poor. Interesting, because between San Mateo and Palo Alto you have Belmont, Redwood City, San Carlos, Atherton, and Menlo Park. Anybody who believes only working class poor lives in these cities, not sure how to take them seriously.

Then this person believes whole of San Jose is a slum. Obviously never been to Evergreen or the myriad of other neighborhoods in San Jose. Then he thinks Fremont has "promise". I actually live in Fremont and not sure if there is a working class neighborhood in Fremont. Fremont has beautiful parks and lakes and great schools.

Ok, Hayward and Oakland are bit rundown. But even Hayward Hills and Oakland Hills are amazing places to live.

My guess - this person drove down El Camino real in the Peninsula and concluded everything by driving down one street.

He also makes an incredible claim - only 2-3% have salaries that let them live comfortably. Others are working on 2-3 jobs. I guess people are working on 2-3 jobs and paying millions for their houses.

What a terrible article.

You're describing small pockets of wealth that are scattered all over, surrounded by poverty.

Look at the surface area and the percentages of the population. That's what the article is about.

It's pretty clear that it's hard to live on even 100K as a family in the Bay Area, and if you look at the median incomes for most of the cities around the Bay Area they're nowhere near that.

I don't see how you counter that by naming off a few more rich microclimates.

--

Also, I wrote the article, and I'm born and raised here. I didn't drive down a street and come up with this. I've been here for four decades, watching it change, and this is what I'm seeing. Sorry you didn't like it. :)

When you make statements like

"The more I pay attention in the Bay Area the more I’m noticing that it’s a place of absolute poverty."

"Much of the East Bay is extremely poor."

You really need to quantify absolute poverty and extremely poor. Without some numbers to back it up the article comes off as out of touch.

Also with you living in San Francisco when you write all these things about large areas of the Bay Area as being extremely poor the article feels a little like you are looking down your nose at the "rest of the people". Sorry but that's what it comes across as.

I mentioned I grew up in Newark, i.e., Fremont. That's my real hometown.

But I see your point.

:) It is not about me liking it, but data just doesn't back it up. Here's data from US Census for San Mateo County

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanmateocountyc...

Key facts: Median Household income is $93,000 and Poverty Rate is 8.4%

Based on this, I would say your observation should be reversed. Extreme wealth surrounding pockets of poverty (which is rapidly being gentrified, eg. EPA)

Hayward Hills is indeed nice. If you're in the 1% of millenial earners you can stretch and pay close to a million dollars to live in a 2200 sq ft home within spitting distance of the most dangerous fault in America. Or cross 880 to the west and save a little money, but you're in a liquefaction zone now.

Sorry this is a bit off topic & earthquake risk is everywhere in the bay. But this morning I'm a salty house-hunter.

As another salty house-hunter looking around Hayward for the last couple months, you have my sympathies.

What are you looking at for liquefaction risk? I'm not seeing much on this map:

http://gis.abag.ca.gov/website/Hazards/?hlyr=liqSusceptibili...

some parts of the two brown splotches south of the Oakland airport are in Hayward. Basically the area around highway 92 / San Mateo bridge, west of 880

Assuming I'm looking at the same thing, it seems like the part relevant to house hunting would be a small area roughly between Grant Ave and Lewelling, which is technically a bit north of Hayward, split between San Lorenzo and San Leandro.

There is also the park/bird sanctuary/landfill near Winton, but that's not residential.

Trust me it is. Source: the builder of a new construction house I'm looking at.

Agreed. I grew up in the Walnut Creek/Alamo/Danville corridor, and this article feels way off the mark.

> Heading north from Fremont is basically sadness. Hayward, Oakland, San Leandro, Richmond, Vallejo. They’re all poverty stricken and broken.

If you're driving along the freeway looking out the window, I could see how you might think this. Surprise - people that have any amount of money don't want to live within hearing distance of a freeway. Most of the spaces slightly further away are fine. I have friends in the Oakland Hills along 13; perfectly respectable area. Those friends have parents out near Richmond - lots of typical older middle class housing from the 50s.

> The only green zones I see out in that area are maybe in Dublin, Pleasanton, Moraga, etc., but I honestly don’t know much about those areas because I seldom get out there.

I do get out there, and most of Alameda county away from the edge of the bay is comfortably upper-middle class (Dublin/Pleasanton/Fremont/Livermore; Hayward/Castro Valley/San Leandro feel more middle class with upper-middle surroundings + urban gentrification starting to take hold). I have friends out in Stockton; they have a comfortably middle-class house, as do their parents (though on the whole I've seen less of Stockton than I have of the Bay).

I could go on (grandparents in Orinda, an uncle in Fremont, friends scattered through SF, SJ, etc.) but my main point is that most of the Bay is suburbs on suburbs, most of them are at least middle class, and our ridiculous zoning/prop 13/NIMBY problems trap people wherever they are and discourage new construction, which contributes to the crappy old look of a lot of places.

Completely agree with you. I grew up in the East Bay and to say much of the East Bay is extremely poor is rediculous. Sure Oakland and Richmond are struggling but there are numerous cities that are not (Walnut Creek, Orinda, Danville, Pleasanton, etc).

The whole article sounded like "Oh, my god, you don't have a brand new Tesla parked in the driveway of your beautiful single-family home in the middle of Palo Alto? I'm so sorry for how poor you are!! No high end bookstores and artisanal coffee shops? My word, how dreadful!" In reality, most of the places he described as "red zone" are far, far better than a great deal of the rest of the country. Go visit some run-down Rust Belt cities and tell me you still think San Jose is dilapidated.

Most of the country is not a part of the absolute boom and resulting cornucopia of wealth that tech is experiencing. When you go out to the smaller cities and away from the high powered tech areas you really do see the massive disparity of opportunity that exists currently. You aren't seeing a bad area you are seeing the normal state of most of the country and I know personally I have become accustomed to my environment so I really do feel upset or sad seeing areas where people just plain do not have access to the same things we do. Not sure how to fix it, if you look at it from a financial perspective if you take the majority of the wealth from the upper middle and upper class and distribute it wouldn't make any difference.

My guess is the views from both BART and CalTrain, if you focus only on the graffiti and stream garbage along some of the corridor, can give you that impression.

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