San Francisco’s Detroit Moment

Like Detroit in 1960, the wages are too damn high in San Francisco at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Economic convergence of Innovation Economy.

Subject Article: "How Silicon Valley’s most celebrated CEOs conspired to drive down 100,000 tech engineers’ wages."

Other Links: 1. "LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: SOME CITIES DEVELOP MORE THAN OTHERS: SPECIALIZATION, HUMAN CAPITAL, AND INSTITUTIONS."
2. "WHY I’M MOVING MY BUSINESS FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO ST. LOUIS."
3. "Silicon Valley 2014 economic forecast: Talent crunch, M&A uptick, development sprawl."
4. "Guerrilla Geographies of Artisanal Toast."
5. "The AOL Of China To Build A Suburban Tech Campus In The Sky."

Postscript: Evidence of the decline of the Innovation Economy starts with talent arbitrage. Where can a tech firm find cheaper workers? Clear to me now that we are on the other side of that inflection point:

Jennifer Kelly used to take refuge in her $1,750-a-month, two-bedroom downtown Campbell home.

The former tech sales manager, who made up to $180,000 a year working at startups during the last decade, had a routine of working out on her home Stairmaster or taking joy rides in her sports car to relax after 14-hour workdays.

Now Kelly, who didn’t want her real name used in this story, is stringing together short-term contract work and sleeping in an aging SUV that she parks on a rotating slate of dead-end streets in Silicon Valley.

“Professionally, I’m at director level,” she said. “I had a safety net.”

Two neurosurgeries and a layoff, exacerbated by rising housing costs, have made Kelly, 51, a personification of Silicon Valley’s affordable housing crisis. The region’s high cost of housing affects residents at all pay grades with varying degrees of severity. It also hamstrings employers looking to lure talent to one of the country’s most expensive real estate markets.

Silicon Valley's regional economy is imploding, collapsing under the weight of its own success. Detroit suffered the same fate, but during a different economic epoch. I honestly don't think the Detroit comparison is hyperbole.