Death of Culture in SF

By Johnny Fuery ⋅ November 17, 2005 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

From the SF Chronicle, earlier this year:

The ephemeral city
San Francisco has lost its middle class, become a ‘theme park for restaurants,’ and is the playground of the nomadic rich and restless leeches living off them

“The biggest question is what lies ahead. Can San Francisco or any other city thrive as primarily a marketer of urban experiences, art and culture? I have my doubts. When I first lived in the Bay Area 30 years ago, San Francisco still had a working class and a thriving corporate economy as well as places for artists to live affordably. The country looked to it as a center for music, new ideas, and fashion.

Today — albeit from my vantage point in detested Los Angeles — San Francisco seems little more than a distant, overpriced urban amusement park. Its last great economic surge rode on the coattails of Silicon Valley’s last big boom. Since then, the city has fallen off the national map as a center for the arts, culture or business.

This may be because great artistic centers usually arise not from conscious promotion of bohemianism but as the result of a vibrant commercial culture and an invigorated middle class.”

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In other words, just because lots of people think it’s cool doesn’t mean that it IS. Or, put another way, “culture” is a lot more about finding Nirvana in a dive bar in 1988 and a lot less about really expensive tickets to really expensive events displaying mass-market goods. (Think Phantom of the Opera, the Love Parade, and Green Day at SBC Park. Or, come to think of it, anything at SBC Park, including the Giants.)

Personally, I’d rather go to Disneyland. At least there, I know I’m in Fantasyland. And you can forgive the people that believe the hype because they’re all toddlers.