San Francisco, Silicon Valley and the Future of Cities

Social, cultural and technological change is all around us. We live in an era of upheaval, not unlike the movement from an agrarian to a manufacturing economy that took place 100+ years ago. At the time, many thought it was, to borrow a phrase, the end of history. Many spoke about the evils of cities. They thought that leaving the farm was anti-American, that it went against the Jeffersonian ideal of America.It produced anger, sometimes violence, labor strife, and in the end a whole new economy that some long for today. The current shift that is far from done. As AI, crypto, virtual reality and whole new ways of looking at the world change the landscape of just about everything.Arguably ground zero for this remarkable change is San Francisco and the Silicon Valley. Ground zero in a time of monumental change is never an easy or safe place to be. And certainly, it is having its impact on a City that once saw itself first as a bastion of manners and old wealth and then as the center of progressive cultural revolution. Today, it’s the center of another kind of inevitable and inexorable revolution that Cary McClelland details in Silicon City: San Francisco in the Long Shadow of the Valley.My conversation with Cary McClelland: Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe