It's a city I both adore and hate
It's a city where apparently dreams are made.
Tech companies thrive, and if you simply walk around the main shopping areas, you'll see flags sticking outside of logos, signaling a startup's headquarters in a shoddy old building.
But even with the wealth that is evident within the city, it's also apparent that there's a huge discrepancy in it. For someone visiting the city for the first time, you'll get both a nice working vibe but also the homelessness and honestly wretched smell of the city.
They both juxtapose each other to create both a love and hate relationship for me in the city.
Tech companies are leaning less towards the valley
COVID-19 was a terrible pandemic that halted industries and caused the deaths of many. It did, however, start a momentum that nothing else would have. It gave a reality check to startups within the San Francisco Bay area that talent was hiding elsewhere outside and in other states and countries.
No longer did you need to pay exorbitant salaries to hire talent when you can hire someone interstate for half the pay. Surprisingly, it took companies this long to realize this, but something needed to happen.
Companies like Facebook have already announced plans around it and also stated that workers working interstate remotely would be paid accordingly to that state. In my opinion, it's a change that's necessary to kickstart the city once again.
After all, simply buying and renting in the area is extremely pricey and honestly silly. However, with COVID-19, rent has fallen by almost 24%, which is a great sign, hopefully, this will shift the wealth disparity and balance things out over time.
The numbers overall tell a troubling story about inequality. Although the pandemic didn't help in the short term for many workers, in my opinion, the long term will see a balance out in the city. After all, the whole reason the inequality started in the first place was the rise of tech workers within the whole area.
I know many who have left but hopefully, we'll see a good change
I know many who have left the valley to return back to other states or even travel interstate.
Hopefully, in the next decade, we will see a better change so we can start to love the city once again for its history and culture and not its inequality and imbalance of wealth.