The Worst Silicon Valley Renovation Trends
Five examples that prove money can’t buy taste
In 1906, the city of San Francisco saw the destruction of 28,000 buildings, first from the 7.9 earthquake that hit at 5:12 am, and then, more significantly, from the fires that followed. These fires, responsible for 98% of the city’s total damage, essentially razed the burgeoning outlaw oasis to the ground. What arose from the ashes was something both far worse and far better than what its residents, both permanent and passing through, had been working to build before.
Today, San Francisco’s houses face another existential crisis: rich techies.
I’m being hyperbolic, obviously (and what was truly tragic about the 1906 earthquake were the 3,000 lives lost and 225,000 left homeless). But as a former San Franciscan who made the dubious choice of leaving several years ago, it’s been agonizing to witness beautiful old homes, some of which did in fact miraculously survive multiple earthquakes, ensuing fires, and gentrification trend travesties, succumb to the dismal taste of the west’s Nouveau Riche.
Perhaps this wouldn’t feel so bad if California weren’t in the midst of a decades-long, escalating housing crisis. If beautiful old Victorians were being gutted and turned into affordable apartments, or even torn down altogether…
