Hacker News Reader

Comment by Tade0 | Hacker News Reader

> This was simply how cities worked: the elite in the centre, the poor on the outskirts.

That checks out today as well - at least in Europe. Difference being that we have mass transit now, so everything close to stops is also more expensive.

View on HN

What you may be missing is that in the US starting around 1950s, suburbanization inverted this millennia-old globally-generalized pattern. It was called "white flight" [1] at the time, because richer mostly white workers moved their tax revenues out of the city limits. Because so much infrastructure and social structure (like schools) was funded largely or even entirely from the local tax revenue, it hollowed out the "inner cities" and the feedback loops were devastating. That's why New York City became the murder capital of the world in the 1970s. Colloquially, in the US, "inner city" [2] came to mean a low-income and mostly minority neighborhood full of crime, not anything specific to its geographic location.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_city

it's also worth noting that one big contributor to white flight was the desegregation of schools.

Big city school systems would now have to integrate people of color with white children. There were plenty of people who did not want this, and unscrupulous realtors would use blockbusting to generate huge profits, where they basically scared white people into fire selling by telling them minorities would come into their neighborhoods and integrate their neighborhoods, and then turning around and selling to minorities at inflated prices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting

Suburbs were effectively havens for white people since most minorities could not afford to move into suburbs, and their separate school systems became effectively all-white as a result.

Definitely (I’m an African American who grew up in “inner-city” Sacramento). There’s been a reversal of this trend during the 2010s, where the inner city has seen an influx of higher-income residents seeking lower home prices and shorter commutes. Places in San Francisco like the Mission District and Hunter’s Point have undergone significant gentrification. However, low-income renters in the inner city have been unable to keep up with rent increases, which has resulted in an exodus to exurbia or to entirely different metro. I have relatives who moved from Sacramento to Bakersfield for a lower cost of living. There has been a “reverse Great Migration” of African Americans from the inner cities of the North and California to large Southern metro areas such as Atlanta. Some of my relatives have “returned” to the South after three generations in California, albeit not to the same Southern communities or states their grandparents lived.

The situation in the San Francisco Bay Area is similar. While there are still low-income communities in and near the urban centers (e.g., East Oakland, Richmond, Bay View/Hunter’s Point in San Francisco), there are many low-income and middle-class people who endure 4-6 hour round-trip commutes via car from places like Stockton, Modesto, Los Banos, and Salinas. I find my 45-minute commute from San Ramon to Fremont difficult (sadly I can’t afford to move to Fremont on my current salary without downgrading my apartment); I can’t imagine having to drive five days a week from Stockton to Fremont, but thousands of commuters do this.

There is a rail line that goes from Sacramento into the South Bay (ACE Rail) which is what you'd probably try to use if you could. Still takes 2.5hr one-way (which doesn't include last-mile parts), but at least you don't drive.

I used to take it going from Pleasanton to Santa Clara, and I remember there was lots of revelry on the way back home.

I haven’t ridden the ACE train before, but this can be a major benefit for those commuting from the Outer East Bay and San Joaquin County. Plus, I heard the seats are like Caltrain’s, which means it’s possible for commuters to get work done on the train.

There’s also the Amtrak Capitol Corridor for those living annd working along the 880 and 80 corridors. I’ve taken this a few times before during my college years, and it’s a nice, comfortable ride.

ACE hasn't been extended to Sacramento yet but there is the Capitol Corridor right now from Sacramento to the Bay.

Hello! Stocktonian here! I currently commute from Stockton on the ACE train instead of driving. Many students, tech workers, and other kinds of workers also commute on it.

I would definitely find my commute unbearable if I had to drive every day instead.

While there are lots of commuters from Stockton to the Bay, I think it's better attributed to Tracy and Mountain House and Lathrop+Manteca a bit less, since those are more like bedroom communities.

Out of curiosity I checked some of those locations and it turns out I used to have a commute of roughly the same length as you have now. Bearable, but on the very edge of tolerance.

Meanwhile travelling on a daily basis from places like Stockton or Modesto is, to me, just extreme. I knew a doctor who travelled this far three times a week and he was already perpetually exhausted.

Sometimes I can't help but think that all those RTO policies were enacted only so that we would keep renting all those overpriced, cramped apartments.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com