Here I am back in San Francisco again, this time for the weekend, to visit my brother (who's doing reasonably well, by the way). One thing I really noticed this trip, having been gone for a while, is this interesting irony: despite being the hub for the digital revolution in the United States (and arguably the world), SF is a stubbornly old-world kind of place. On a concrete level, many technologies I've come to take for granted in suburban Southern California simply don't exist up here. The 24 Hour Fitness doesn't have a machine to dry your swimsuit. The McDonald's doesn't have the displays to order food. Starbucks doesn't have power outlets, and the table I'm sitting at, while it has the "powermat" wireless chargers, doesn't have them plugged in. BART tickets still come on paper. Many smaller stores take cash only. Etc., etc. It's a strange mix of very forward thinking and stubbornly rooted in the past. Much of SF is still a melange of different ethnic areas, such as Japantown, near where I'm staying, which is very, very old school. As more and more younger people flee the city because of the high price of housing, I wonder whether this trend will accelerate even more. Many of the ethnic enclaves have, for various reasons, been resistant to the price increases. Partly they work together as a community to keep rent and costs low. Partly, the people there have nowhere else to go, so they suffer the increases. But for those who are mobile and have no roots here, there's no reason not to leave, and take their technology with them; and so they are. Even my brother is considering moving. I don't know what that means for SF, but it will be curious to watch.
