City Living in a Dilemma
September 28, 2000
Boomtown with no room
By Andrew Lam/PNS
On a windblown hill overlooking the city, I said goodbye to a dear friend who was leaving for another state. We have been friends for over a decade and it was sad, to say the least, to see him go.
But as much as my friend, an artist, loved the city, the bay, its beautiful hills and blue sky, he felt it had somehow betrayed him.
“The city has become too expensive, too homogenized, too…I don’t know, dot-com,” he said. “Besides, I don’t want to be a renter for the rest of my life.”
This has become a common complaint. San Francisco-indeed, the whole Bay Area-is now facing an enormous dilemma: the economy is booming, but there’s no space left.
Housing nightmare stories are everywhere-like this one. A posh apartment with a view is available for $2,500 a month-a steal-and there are a dozen takers. The owner throws up her hands and says, “Well you’re all qualified, I don’t know what to do.”
One would-be renter immediately replies, “I’ll give you two roundtrip tickets first class to Paris.” The woman behind him, without missing a beat, offers, “I’ll do better. A cruise for two in the Mediterranean for two weeks.” Guess who got the apartment?
A caller to a local radio talk show recently said that though he was a technician with a decent job he is living in his van. “I can’t find anything affordable here,” he said. “I’m seriously thinking of quitting and going back to Kansas, where I can actually buy a house with money I saved.”
Simon, a friend from Hong Kong, is now renting out his walk-in closet for $500 to an acquaintance who asked him repeatedly. “I left Hong Kong for America but what I found is another Hong Kong,” Simon observes wryly. “Actually, my room in Hong Kong is at least twice the size of my closet.”
In my own apartment building, the landlord fixed up the basement storage room and rented it to a family. Three people are now living where a dozen bicycles were once kept.
The California Budget Project report shows rental cost tripling in the last four years in the Bay Area. In Silicon Valley, to the south, people have started to rent living rooms on a 12-hour basis.
Thus to live in the San Francisco Bay Area today, one must learn to give up the dream of home ownership, the idea of open space and the yard. One learns to live comfortably in small-even shared-space.
There’s a price to pay for being in the center of the information age. Despite gridlocked freeways, longer commute times, greater air pollution, loss of open space, and, of course, urban sprawl and overcrowding, the young and hopeful continue to flock here.
But is it worth it? One dot-com millionaire in his early thirties told me he is no longer sure. He owns a flat but he waits in line at his favorite restaurant like everyone else, since everyone else is a millionaire, too.
As a writer, my tenuous hold on the city is due to rent control. But I miss all the graffiti artists, musicians, friends who have left for some place where they can afford studio space to paint or perform. I miss, too, the poor working class families who, as if overnight, disappeared to wherever housing can still be had.
I miss, that is to say, the old San Francisco. When I came here 25 years ago, it was a generous city, diverse not only in terms of race but of class. These dot-com days, it belongs to the highest bidders and the dogged homeless who, as if taking revenge, crowd the sidewalks in every neighborhood.
Two young men on scooters glided past me on the sidewalk last week, one Asian, the other white, their arms and legs tattooed, wearing tank tops and baseball hats. As they neared, one said to the other, rather nonchalantly: “Have her resume sent to my secretary.”
I did a double take. So this was it, wasn’t it, I thought? These were the new inheritors of my City by the bay.
Andrew Lam, a commentator for National Public Radio, writes short stories and reports for New California Media, PNS’ ethnic media Web site at www.NCMonline.com.
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