To the extent that this means the freedom of poor people to get out of the way of rich people, you can see how some would not be excited. SF's black population has fallen by half in recent decades, for example.
Honestly, the geographic narrowness of the tech boom has always been weird. At the same time we've been selling the limitless power of the Internet to connect people, we've also been working for companies whose structures didn't demonstrate that, and in a financing ecosystem where physical proximity to VCs was a major advantage. So San Francisco got turned into a bedroom community for South Bay companies in areas that refused to build adequate housing for their workers.
Thanks to the pandemic, that is evaporating. We'll see what happens in 6-12 months, when everybody's vaccinated. But the people I'm talking to are unable to remember why commuting every day was ever a thing, and they're very reluctant to go back to it. In which case, we'll write SF's housing issues off as just another bubble.
You're totally right that SF has forced poor people to get out of the way of richer people. They've done this by downzoning the city, refusing to build anything more. This means that only the wealthy get to live there. Prime example is Haight-Ashbury downzonings.
When there isn't enough room for everybody, the rich get served first. So everytime somebody protests a new housing development which adds to the supply, they are advocating for the rich to stay, and to kick out the same number of people that would otherwise occupy those units.
In the 20th century, we declared housing a human right. But in San Francisco, we have declared that only the wealthy should be able to afford housing, and that the everybody else should leave.
It's important to note that jurisdictions in the South Bay refuse to build more housing. Both Google and Facebook tried to but were blocked by the government.
It means government authorities don’t have the authority to restrict people from moving in if they are US Citizens or otherwise in the country legally certainly not on the basis of whether they were born, grew up in the City or based on the type of job they have and its location.
An HOA might, I’m not too familiar with them, but as I understand it even they have legal limits on the restrictions they can place on people moving in, so maybe not. Someone else would have to chime in on that one.
I understand what the words nominally mean, thanks. But based on America's long, long history of de jure and de facto segregation by race, class, and income level, it's reasonable for people on the sharp end of that to not take "freedom of movement" very seriously as some sort of American core principle.
It reminds me of this classic line: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread.” -- Anatole France
To the extent that this means the freedom of poor people to get out of the way of rich people, you can see how some would not be excited. SF's black population has fallen by half in recent decades, for example.
Honestly, the geographic narrowness of the tech boom has always been weird. At the same time we've been selling the limitless power of the Internet to connect people, we've also been working for companies whose structures didn't demonstrate that, and in a financing ecosystem where physical proximity to VCs was a major advantage. So San Francisco got turned into a bedroom community for South Bay companies in areas that refused to build adequate housing for their workers.
Thanks to the pandemic, that is evaporating. We'll see what happens in 6-12 months, when everybody's vaccinated. But the people I'm talking to are unable to remember why commuting every day was ever a thing, and they're very reluctant to go back to it. In which case, we'll write SF's housing issues off as just another bubble.