The elephant in the room is the fact that tech companies and startups have been setting up shop in the very parts of the city where homelessness, crime and the behavior described have long been problems.
That doesn't mean that these issues shouldn't be addressed, but I cannot for the life of me understand why "techies" have been flocking to areas of San Francisco where the average person would likely not feel safe the minute the sun goes down.
As an example: I once went to an event at a venture-backed startup that chose to locate itself in an unsightly part of town in what was previously an auto body shop. It was literally right next door to an adult entertainment shop. Who in their right mind does this and doesn't expect to encounter unseemly behavior?
> I cannot for the life of me understand why "techies" have been flocking to areas of San Francisco where the average person would likely not feel safe the minute the sun goes down
Because the rent's cheap there! -- in a city where office space averages $500 per square foot per month [1], renting an ex-body-shop next to a porn store's going to be a lot easier on the ol' shoestring, don't you think?
Eh, In Philly I used to do my grocery shopping at a Trader Joes, located directly underneath an upscale apartment building, and directly across the street from two porno theaters and a salvation army.
I don't think that it is fair to frame the situation as a problem of people not respecting some sort of informal 'urban decay quarantines'. That seems uncomfortably close to victim blaming to me (yes, the situation is not that simple as clearly the more impoverished are victims, but the well-off are nevertheless also victimized by criminal portion of the impoverished population. This is a difficult topic to discuss without appearing to lack compassion or be tone deaf)
As an employer, I have a moral obligation to do my best to ensure that my employees can get to and from work safely and without fear of harassment, assault, etc. As it relates to the topic at hand, this is the only reasonable consideration for management. Period.
If doing what I can to protect the physical and mental well-being of my employees requires that I make a judgement call to avoid certain areas of a city, I would make that judgement call every single time because it's simply the right thing to do.
I do not disagree, but I also do not think that is relevant to this discussion. Employers should be doing or not doing lots of different things, but this discussion is not about them.
If you are certain that location of employment is essential to this discussion, consider that not everybody who commutes through dangerous or vandalized neighborhoods works in those sort of neighborhoods. Some of them instead live in those neighborhoods. A company may choose to locate itself in a clean and affluent neighborhood, but that does not resolve the problems their employees may face.
The elephant in the room is the fact that tech companies and startups have been setting up shop in the very parts of the city where homelessness, crime and the behavior described have long been problems.
That doesn't mean that these issues shouldn't be addressed, but I cannot for the life of me understand why "techies" have been flocking to areas of San Francisco where the average person would likely not feel safe the minute the sun goes down.
As an example: I once went to an event at a venture-backed startup that chose to locate itself in an unsightly part of town in what was previously an auto body shop. It was literally right next door to an adult entertainment shop. Who in their right mind does this and doesn't expect to encounter unseemly behavior?