Vancouverites aren't the
only West Coasters to find themselves
pushed farther and farther outside the
urban core by high real estate prices. San
Francisco is also feeling the heat of hyper
real estate values. But while the extreme
wealth that has descended on the Van-
couver market is mostly foreign, in the
city by the bay, the demographic fuelling
the fire is homegrown tech workers.
Almost every major tech corporation
and startup of note in the last decade—
Twitter, Google, Facebook, Uber, Airbnb,
plus dozens of more low-profile compa-
nies—has come out of the Bay Area: a new
generation of wealth that's putting new
demands on great swaths of the region's
urban core. These are workers who are
young and want a walkable, urban life-
style—and not just in Lululemon-wearing
neighbourhoods like Cow Hollow (San
Francisco's answer to Kitsilano). Once-
bohemian neighbourhoods like The
Mission—where Mark Zuckerberg report-
edly paid in the order of $10 million for a
home—are also being transformed, with
long-time locals, no longer able to afford
their city, driven out.
peTer dasilva March 2015 BCBusiness 39
The Affordability
Debate:
PART TWO
unlike vancouver, the local
incomes in san Francisco
are soaring–and it's
changing the very fabric
of the city by Kerry Gold
Real
Estate
2015
SAVING SAN FRANCISCO
Mike Buhler, executive
director of San Francisco
Heritage, warns the city's
character is at risk.
