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This is by far the most comprehensive overview of the Bay Area's messed up development priorities I've seen in one place. Kim-Mai Cutler does a great job stringing all the threads of the housing crisis together.

I don't think San Francisco can build its way out of outrageous rents alone. The other cities in the Bay Area need to step up and provide the type of urban housing close to transit that people want. No more surface parking lots next to train stations.

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Agreed -- an amazingly good piece. I doubt that many will actually read all of it, but if you're curious about why San Francisco is in the state it's in, Kim-Mai Cutler gives you no excuses for not educating yourself.

Also, for those that believe there is no alternative: the East Bay remains the best kept secret in San Francisco. When we moved here from the City for schools, we were braced for a let-down -- but having been here for six years, we know now that we will never return to the City, even when the kids are grown and gone...

Sssh. The last thing we need is the SV army marching over here and ruining our half-priced rent, real cultural/economic diversity, better food/weather/everything, etc. Sssh.

Crap -- you're right; sorry. Never mind, everyone! It's terrible over here -- crime is even worse than they say (I'm writing this while being carjacked), the cities can't function (two Occupy protestors have been camped on my front lawn since last year, and 911 redirects me to a recording), and the commutes are horrific (I have started working the graveyard shift just to avoid traffic). So save yourselves -- stay in the West Bay!

Too late you selfish bastards. I'll see you in January!

>two Occupy protestors have been camped on my front lawn since last year

Oh, brilliant, I'll be right over! WE ARE THE 99%! ARISE YE WORKERS FROM YOUR SLUMBER!

How SV army could ruin the weather?

I thought the riots & protests were specifically about Googlers moving to the East Bay.

That would be limited to west oakland which has always been extremely politically insular (tied up in racism and racial politics from last century). The east bay at large, especially the suburbs, is quite welcoming to tech and success.

Please don't capitalize "city" when referring to SF. To smaller cities it looks pompous, and to bigger cities, laughable.

That goes way back - I understand that Istanbul is a corruption of 'to the city'. SO once upon a time road signs in Turkey just said 'to the city'.

And yet the residents of Istanbul (and New York, London, Tokyo, Paris...) don't go around thumping their chests with superfluous capitalization of the word "city".

The City of London is such a place.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London

Referring to Manhattan as 'the city' is very common: http://gothamist.com/2012/05/21/do_you_refer_to_manhattan_as... Whether it's capitalized is just a matter of taste, as seen in the comments.

Uh, said road signs? That was them, calling Constantinople 'the City'.

Having only lived in the SF Bay Area for a few years now, everyone I know that lives in the SF Bay Area refers to San Francisco simply as "the city". They say things like "I went to the city this weekend", etc. So while I agree with the silly capitalisation, I also think it's a losing battle.

It's also not a behaviour unique to the SF Bay Area; when I lived in a fairly rural area (pop. < 10K spread over quite a few miles), the largest city nearby was often referred to as "the city" by everyone that lived outside the largest nearby city (which was Kansas City where I lived).

I have no objection to "I went into the city today."

It's "I went into The City" that I will not abide.

Oh, brother. I -- like everyone else in the Bay Area -- also say "the East Bay", "the Peninsula", "the North Bay", "the South Bay" and "the Central Valley" -- even though all of these things are just nouns with minimal adjectives that aren't unique to the Bay Area. (Hell, even "Bay Area" isn't unique to the Bay Area.) So yes, I (again, like everyone around here) say "the City" -- and I know that New Yorkers and Londoners and many others say the same when they're talking about their burg. But this story wasn't a story about New York or London or whatever -- it was about San Francisco, which to me is the City. And if you can find it within yourself to abide my my use of the City in this context, I'll return the favor when we're talking about where you live by letting you refer to it as you do!

I grew up in New York, spent about a decade in Manhattan itself, and have never once seen anyone capitalize either as "The City".

In fact, I've never seen anyone refer to any city that way except a minority of people in and around SF.

This is why South Park characterized residents of the city as "in love with the smell of their own farts."

I was all set to argue, but apparently the Internet's grammar nazis agree with you:

http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/17423-Rule-for-cap...

Geographic regions should be capitalized when they refer unambiguously to only one place. A capitalized "the City" implies that "the City" only refers to San Francisco, which is pretty pompous to many other people around the Globe.

If this were a Bay Area-only forum, however, it would be justified, as "the City" is pretty unambiguously SF within the Bay Area.

It's weird; I grew up in a San Jose suburb and never once heard of San Francisco referred to as "the city" or "The City". I heard "Frisco", of all things, and "SF", but never "the city".

I have no idea what changed.

When did you grow up there? I've heard those terms used extremely commonly from 2002 onwards

I was born in 1984 and left in 2005. So I guess I missed the start of it. I wonder what happened in 2002.

I was born in 81 in the north bay, then and now we always said "the city". Possibly geographic?

Ah. I was South Bay. That might actually explain it.

"pompous"

Agreed - great reporting. Well researched, objective articles like this are very rare even on subjects as fascinating as this. Surprised to see it in Techcrunch - seems more like something you'd find in the New Yorker.

Yeah, best article I've ever seen on TechCrunch by a mile.

The solution won't come from the region (i.e., more Bart station apartments in Dublin will not solve The SF problem). Now Oakland...that's a different story since the Bart ride between the two downtowns is a mere 12 mins or so. Now if only Oakland can solve its historic racism and negative perception problems and, therefore, get projects funded by the banks [pause for bankers' cough]. Not to get (more) political...but prop 13 makes all that NIMYBYism possible (and economically feasible when they sue to hold up projects). Oh and it encourages people to keep their homes even when they don't live there and rent them out because rents are rising faster than the property taxes. Just saying

BART apartments in Dublin aren't replacements for apartments in San Francisco, but they would help workers get to work quicker, blunting displacement issues (Imagine riding the bus three hours a day for a $10/hour job.)

However, a vibrant downtown Mountain View with transit-oriented development at the Caltrain stop would be a good replacement for at least some of the tech industry people who commute down from SF now. But that train station is a parking lot.

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