Business Insider
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Tech companies have taken over the Bay Area.
- The Bay Area is saturated with tech companies like Twitter and DropBox, but it wasn't always that way.
- The inclusive San Francisco was once home to an eclectic group of dreamers, unconventionals, and creatives.
- But in the last two decades, tech companies have taken over, diminishing the rich culture and causing Bay Area real estate prices to soar.
- Here's how tech companies are ruining the Bay Area.
When I moved to San Francisco in 1987, the inclusive City by the Bay was home to artists, dreamers, queers, and weirdos. I made friends, got a job, and learned never to call the city "Frisco." In San Francisco, the unconventional fit in. I felt right at home.
A little more than a decade later, my Bay Area home started to change. Tech companies and their employees began to run roughshod over San Francisco and the East Bay. Real estate prices soared, and the eclectic Bay Area culture that I love started to disappear.
Poets and revolutionaries have been pushed to the margins while tech companies turn the Bay Area from a magnet for all types of creative thinkers into a mecca for just one thing: tech. Here's how tech companies are ruining San Francisco.
This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.