Large, Bay-Area-wide changes are afoot regarding where people live; where companies are located; and where, and what kinds of, things are being built.
Here are a few currently observable phenomena:
- People are relocating from San Francisco to Oakland and other parts of the East Bay, making Alameda & Santa Clara counties the fastest growing counties in California in 2013. (See Brooklyn-ization)
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People are moving into San Francisco.
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The trend is that wealthier people are moving to the city, in some instances even bidding up rents on already-expensive rentals.
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Also those who already lived in the city are becoming wealthier (ex, Twitter IPO)
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San Francisco is experiencing hypergentrification and Oakland is experiencing gentrification.
- Private shuttles move large numbers of people every day from their residences in San Francisco to jobs at tech company offices in the South Bay.
- In both San Francisco and the East Bay, many lower-income people are being evicted and having their rents increased to unaffordable levels. These folks are moving farther and farther out (i.e. beyond San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties)
- Increasing numbers of (mainly historically South Bay-associated, especially tech) companies are relocating their offices to San Francisco.
- New building projects are increasing in both San Francisco & in Oakland. Many of these cater to the needs of, and are mostly only affordable by, wealthier people.
- In San Francisco, affordable housing is acutely needed. San Francisco’s government is not currently making the necessary changes to ensure enough affordable housing for its residents.
- The campaign of San Francisco mayor, Ed Lee, was largely financed by tech companies.
- The governments of San Francisco (and, increasingly, Oakland) offer incentives to tech companies to locate in their cities.
- Some of the new, planned building projects are financed in part (or wholly) by companies based in China (ex: Brooklyn Basin).
- Foreclosures continue to rise in Oakland (there has been a foreclosure crisis in Oakland since the financial crash in 2007).
- Several anti-gentrification protests took place in 2013. In late 2013, some of these protests took the form of protests against private tech shuttles.
- Increasing numbers of people across the Bay Area are struggling to meet basic needs, including getting enough food to eat.
- Much work is increasingly part-time, contracted, and with the growth of the “sharing economy,” gig-based.
