Contents under pressure: San Francisco’s boom

By Michael Howerton : sfexaminer -excerpt

Here in the land of bubbles — the tech bubble, the real estate bubble, the blue state California liberal bubble — a good deal of anxiety is spent wondering when things are going to burst and come crashing down. Is San Francisco at its breaking point?

As if to confirm such fears, the City Controller’s Office last week reported that our maxed-out office space, extreme housing crunch and jam-packed transportation system are stifling further opportunities for growth. There is no more give in the trousers without loosening a button — or popping the balloon…

While these are indeed boom times for The City as whole, the benefits have been, as is usually the case, unevenly distributed. For the most part, this means the poor, the renters, the homeless and semi-homeless, the disabled, and many from other countries, documented and not, are feeling a disproportionate share of the squeeze such growth brings. Issues of gentrification and economic equality have been a decades-long struggle, and a worsening topic, in this quickly changing city… (more)