Jonathan Weber: City on the Edge, the Fight for the Soul of San Francisco
About this episode
Jonathan Weber discusses the transformation of San Francisco from a troubled city to a tech capital and the subsequent urban challenges it faces.
From boom to collapse? Veteran San Francisco journalist Jonathan Weber joins us for a deep-dive into San Francisco’s meteoric transformation into a global capital of technology—and how the same forces that gave rise to its boom nearly engineered its end.In the early 1990s, San Francisco was a beautiful if somewhat troubled mid-sized metropolis, still reeling from the AIDS epidemic and the Loma Prieta earthquake; its economy was stuck in a post-industrial torpor. The city that had once been considered the capital of the American West and later a home of counterculture, the city by the bay faced an uncertain future. But at that same time, a new wave of technology entrepreneurs were busy inventing the next stage of the internet, and the city would soon undergo an epic political, social and economic transformation into the tech capital of the world. Local politicians, including Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris, became rising stars in the Democratic Party nationally.So, crisis averted? No. A host of urban ills were waiting to grab the limelight: homelessness, drug addiction, mental illness, and a crippling lack of new housing. The city’s famous left-wing political establishment…
People in this episode
Guest: Jonathan Weber
Topics covered
- San Francisco
- technology
- urban issues
- political transformation
- homelessness
- drug addiction
- mental illness
Keywords
- San Francisco
- technology boom
- urban crisis
- political change
- homelessness
- drug addiction
- mental health
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Democratic Party, President Trump
Places: San Francisco
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