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On the SF peninsula, yes. The TechShop bankruptcy, which was totally botched, left many people angry. (I was a member, but didn't prepay, so I didn't lose anything.) TheShop.build closed their San Francisco location recently, and at one point had an eviction notice on the door of their San Jose location. (I dropped my membership last month.) Maker Nexus in Sunnyvale is struggling to get enough members to survive. Today's email says they have 80 and need 200. (I pay for a membership there.)

Other cities are doing better. Usually because of government support. "We need to retrain workers" arguments play well in industrial cities.

The original Menlo Park TechShop had skilled people doing hard stuff. People making things for the X-prize. People from Stanford who needed more machine tools than Stanford had. People from startups. Gradually that declined. Stanford and Google got their own in-house shops. Then there was the "Etsy crap" era - people using CNC laser cutters to make "hand made" stuff to sell on Etsy. At peak, TechShop SF had eight laser cutters going almost constantly. That died when Etsy removed the requirement that you make it yourself.

Today, maker spaces seem to be mostly learning centers for teenagers. The "STEM" or "STEAM" thing. That's fine, but it's a branch of the college prep industry.



>Other cities are doing better. Usually because of government support. "We need to retrain workers" arguments play well in industrial cities.

NYC has two larger places I know of that basically follow this model. One is subsidized by a community college and is aimed more at professionals (companies, artists, etc.). The other opened a new location (took over afaik the techshop location that lasted a whole week) in a heavily government subsidized building.


TBH, I think there's a missing use case for maker spaces to aim lower on the tech tree.

Especially in cities with mostly apartments, traditional wood and metalworking hobbies are infeasbile due to the size of the tools. It's also inefficient to own them individually if you're using them 3 hours a week.

Make sure the maker space has everything your high school shop class did, market it that way, and you draw in an entirely new demographic to keep the site vibrant and fiscally healthy. There's plenty of opportunity for cross-pollination-- I could imagine someone coming in to use conventional power tools being apprenticed into using CNC equipment or 3D printing to achieve the same objectives, or the electronics enthusiasts pairing up with the metalworkers for custom panels and cases.


Where are Maker spaces in the bay? Only one I remotely know of that still exists is Hackerdojo.


Noisebridge is in SF https://www.noisebridge.net/

Farther out but an awesome space and a bit less intimidating is Hacker Lab in Sacramento https://hackerlab.org/


Disclaimer: CTO of Hacker Lab but speaking for myself here:

We've had more than a few Tech Shop refugees over the past few months/years. Noisebridge is great, and both of our spaces definitely have unique feels and great communities built around them.

I wandered into the space some 5 years ago and what stood out to me echos what above commenters have said - there is a definite air of don't-buy-what-you-can-build or repair within the maker sphere that spoke to me.

While there are plenty of edu institutions and private industry shops out there that have all the equipment we do and more, the community here of folks from different experience levels, background, etc. really makes makerspaces unique.

When Hacker Lab showed up there were only a small handful of coworking spaces in the area. 7 years later, I can't throw a stick without hitting one. I feel part of our survival has been going for breadth - coworking, hackathons, and makeing can all benefit from eachother.

That said, I'm as anxious and unknowing to see where this maker thing goes as the next person.





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