10 Dec #2 Techies

Every morning I walk from Dolores Park to take the M Muni to university. Walking through Castro Street is in itself quite an intersting morning walk before having your first coffee (dressed up drunk men who are going to a party at Monday morning or homeless people performing a show for you), but what I believe is even more intruiging are those big grey buses that come by to pick up their techie employees.

While San Francisco citizens commute by public transportation, techies think they are privileged to take their own, of course very well managed and high technical, transportation to Silicon Valley, 1,5 hours south of the city. The windows of the buses are blinded, only the lights of the iPhone screens and MacBook Pro’s are visible while passing by the mega buses. One day I stopped to see the whole procedure. Eight people were waiting for the bus to come, all staring at their smartphones. Nothing wrong with that, where in the city are people not staring at their smartphone screen while waiting. The fact that there were just eight people waiting was a little bit more strange to me; is that big bus seriously picking up just eight people? Probably not, the bus is (hopefully) stopping at more places to pick up more employees. It is probably not only me who thinks it’s a waste to just pick up a few people with such a big bus.

But what I found the most interesting thing, was that the people that were waiting for the bus all looked quite awkward. They did not seem to be able to positition theirselves, standing there at the corner of Castro street and 18th. Maybe I am seeing things that are not there, maybe they were still sleepy and grumpy to go to work again. But as I started looking at those people every morning while walking through Castro street, I started noticing that those people didn’t feel confident, standing in one of the most liberal progressive street where once many protests for freedom and equality were being manifested, waiting for their privilidge; their big grey bus that was going to bring them to their techland again.

Are those people really as bad as I am portraying them right now? Are those people not the avant garde of the 21st century, creating the future? Is the war between the native San Franciscans (which in the Mission are mainly the Latinos that have been living there for decades and now get evicted due to gentrification) and the Sillicon Valley employees that consume all the benefits of the Mission without giving any culture or without trying to integrate, legitimate?

I am not sure what to answer on this question: urban development is a normal dynamic and there are many pro’s and con’s to this current wave of change in San Francisco. But what I do want to conclude from this phenomenom going on at my street corner at Castro street, is that neither the inhabitants of Castro, nor the Google employees waiting for their bus, seem to feel comfortable. As long as waves go fluently, with understandig and appreciation for others, as long as it feels natural to everyone, change is not that bad. But a big, grey bus, I am not sure how fluent that is..