The Internet gold-rush, that burst of high-tech tulipomania that hit in the
second half of the 1990s, has had a devastating impact on San Francisco.
What was once a laid-back, creative city has become ground zero of
insane hypercapitalism. The steep rise in rents has driven out virtually all
the artists, musicians and bohemians who made the city's atmosphere so
unique, and they have been replaced with dot-commers, often packed several to
a small apartment. There is very little in the way of slack in the new
San Francisco.
Among the holdouts of the vanishing SF, there is
little sympathy for the dot-commers:
"This is a live/work space intended for artists and academics only. People
who work in digital media are OK but no .coms. I'm trusting you know the
difference," read one ad on Craigslist.