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Comment by tempsy | Hacker News Reader

Such a bad take. The actual "elite" in urban centers are the ones walking around with strollers.

Have a kid in the big city is the ultimate flex. No one else has kids because they can barely afford to live there themselves, let alone support a kid in it.

Edit: Also, it's not as if the author failed to mention that it's expensive to raise families in the city. It's that he says "yes it's really expensive to raise kids in the big city" but then goes off on a completely different tangent to say that everyone living in NYC and SF are "affluent childless" singles who just want to turn the city into their own childless entertainment machine, which completely negates his earlier comment on cost of living as the primary reason why there are so few young families in the city (plus something about fewer people enjoying sex).

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“violent downtowns typified by the ‘mean streets’ of the 1970s became clean and safe in the 1990s”

While I’m not trying to be overly critical, he is also off base with his violent crime statistics as the nineties had the highest aggregate number of murders up until the end of the decade.

20 years after Roe vs Wade.

And, simultaneously, the removal of lead from gasoline

I don't know if this has ever been hypothesized, but HIV infection rates, and AIDS mortality among IV drug users in the 90's before the advent of medications?

Are you claiming that being infected with HIV makes a person more likely to commit crimes?

I think he's claiming that drug users are more likely to commit crimes, and (injectable) drug users caught HIV from sharing needles.

Perhaps in another 20 years we will find out if it really was Roe V. Wade.

The more charitable reading is "became safe over the course of the 90s". The huge decline was late-90s, although as you say the peak was early-90s.

The comment about "affluent childless" singles supports his earlier comment about cost of living.

The cost is high because those "affluent childless" singles are willing and able to pay more.

Never confuse correlation with causation.

If a city has high-paying jobs but doesn’t build enough housing for all the people working those jobs or the economy supporting those jobs, only those with lots of money to spend can afford housing, food, &c.

Presto, you get a high proportion of “DINKs” (double-income, no kids.)

Either explanation may drive the presence of high costs and density of DINKs. Or both: Perhaps the two things create a cycle of costs spiralling up combined with a change in demographic.

Well, good point, but you should be more precise: strollers with HUMAN KIDS in them. I swear that at least one in two, perhaps even more, of these strollers today tend to have dogs in them. At least in San Francisco.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've seen anyone on HN say, and I've seen people defending rapists.

I lived in San Francisco for 20 years and never, ever saw that. I'm not some boring techie who never leaves SOMA or the Mission, I've walked every street in san francisco (according to my Garmin), I've had a drink in every bar, I've made music in almost every park.

Have you ever even been to San Francisco?

There's a few images on Google which makes it sound like it happens.

I don't know if it's ever going to be anywhere near 1:2.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=san+francisco+stroller+wit...

People come to San Francisco, and just lie about what they see. They don't really observe anything, they just repeat the myths and paranoid lies that they read on reddit and HN!

The city that I know, have supported, run companies, run punk venues, run hacker houses, and taught children to program does not bear any resemblance to the views of recent techie imports.

Dose that city still exist? Would love that experience...

It exists if you want to find it. Hint: It doesn't exist inside of a startup's office space. I've been to 60 countries, and there's nowhere in the world that has SF's diversity of music, art, food, cultures, peoples, points of view, businesses, and climates. The underground warehouse scene is still alive and well, as is the underground/aboveground bdsm/sex scene, the world music scene, hip-hop, bluegrass, techno (ugh).

If you know who to talk to, you can go to an illegal, underground restaurant where guest chefs like Michael Minna cook. The are no less than 5 hacker warehouses focused solely on robotics development. Two of the old goth warehouses are still available. Sure, and there are bars/night clubs, hundreds of music venues. The closeness to natural beauty combined with all of this is almost unfair. 45% of the city is public parkland.

That's just San Francisco, not mentioning the rest of the bay area. If you can't find a niche in the bay, you would be happier living somewhere that you can find a niche. Why be unhappy just for money?

Nowhere in the world is even close. Maybe Berlin, but I'm not a big fan of Germany.

Considering how expensive underground warehouses are getting (to the point where only techies can afford those warehouse loft apartments, even the illegal ones), I find it hard to believe that the culture is thriving. Just look at what happened to Burning Man for an example. Now the art projects aren't built in SF by attendees and driven over they are purchased and imported.

The culture still thrives, but not how it was, for sure. The older guard of the tech community keeps it alive, but for the most part, the brogrammer wave we got hit with in 2007, when everybody "did social", definitely sucked the life out of the area.

One side effect is that you are a lot less likely to find out. Spaces I used to attend which were generally "if you can find it, you can come" now have guest lists and sometimes vouch lists with the intent of keeping the bros out.

Hey, despite your virulent reaction to my comment - which I think was exaggerate - I would like to hear more about this.

To give you context: I live in SF since 2012, and I try to bring my own experience and observations, rather than "stuff I read on Reddit". But of course I'm not perfect, and I am certainly biased in some ways.

You sound like someone who knows much more than me. Share it with us. That's what HN is for. Not for flame wars.

I have lived in Toronto most of my life, and I’ve seen plenty of people with dogs in strollers. But before we climb up on stage like a smug comic and bond with the audience by ridiculing people we don’t understand, let’s ask ourselves this:

What do we do if our canine companion has mobility issues? How do we take them shopping with us so that they aren’t left at home, lonely? How do we take them to the park so they can lay down under a tree with us while we read a book?

Many people choose very small dogs. I don’t know if it’s fashion, or if it’s the best choice for living in a very small apartment/condo, but perhaps very small dogs aren’t able to keep up for long outings, and a stroller lets them accompany their human.

I stop far short of ridiculing things without looking past my biases and knee-jerk impulse to criticize things I don’t understand.

I believe you, but can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN, like you did here and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20478609 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20478704? It's not a good way to share information with others, and it makes the threads degenerate in a way we're hoping to avoid.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If you leave those few neighborhoods that techies never leave? The Sunsets, West Portal, Portala, Hayes Valley, the Outer Richmond, Noe, Glen Park, the Excelsior, the Outer Mission, Bayview / Hunter's point? The areas where brogrammers don't venture are filled with screaming children, obnoxiously so.

Seriously? Is there some actual sane reason, ie protecting dog from scorching sun, or people are just bonkers?

I've seen one person do it in my neighborhood (a suburb outside of Chicago) and I believe it's because it was an older dog. I am guessing it either had trouble walking, or because of the heat.

i guess if you have a stroller laying around, and your dog can't walk so well anymore, why not?

On reddit's frontpage, the word choices people use for posting/commenting about pets is worthy of some sort of proper study.

They've started to co-opt words typically reserved for human children at a rate that is difficult to believe is some sort of bias on my part. It's bizarre. Pets are surrogate children.

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