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Comment by 3seashells | Hacker News Reader

It's never over as long as there is a industrial ruin, a speaker and a glowstick. The rest is just the clubs that ate the raves. Nothing of value was lost.

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It'll never be over--it's just Berlin will no longer be the capital of it. Actually would not be terribly surprised if the party moves to San Francisco next.

This type of cultural movements require some deep genuine ethos.

Rich kids on Adderall who dream of startups and VC rounds do not qualify, no matter how much they pretend not to be finance jerk-offs in shorts and sandals, reality is not on the side of SF being the center of anything like this.

Any Rustbelt city has 100% more chances than SF and California in general.

See comments below. You are talking about SF in the past ten years: I am talking about the next ten.

I know but there isn't enough time in 10 years for this type of changes. SF is still fundamentally the same as it was 10 years ago. Only a cataclysmic collapse similar to Detroit would change SF in a way that people with money had left and only the ones the had to stay had enough hardship but also education to make something at the scale of what happened in Berlin, which in that case was an almost complete annihilation and 40 years of brutal communism clashed with an economic boom and freedom a few meters away. ( plus many other things )

I guess we'll see. East Berlin was unique, but then again, every set of historical circumstances is unique.

I'd also argue that, by missing the boat (pun intended) on containerization and allowing the Port of Oakland to poach most of the shipping traffic, the city's original main economic engine shut down, and that the dotcom booms aside, SF's default mode for the past 60-70 years is "wretched hive of scum and villainy". The Summer of Love, the first counterculture to be called by that name, arose in Haight-Ashbury because the Haight was a slum at the time and a group of broke hippies could often band together to afford the rent on a house there.

It goes were cheap space exists. So SF not, rust belt yes, eastern Europe yes..the gentrified poker chip stack cities of the investors can not host vibrant nightlife..

I'm talking about if current trends continue--specifically, capital continuing to flee SF.

Indeed. The whole of SV has crazy empty commercial space, and it will only get worse.

And SF is in way worse shape.

Come to think of it, I've personally seen what SF looks like after the money goes away--and this time it seems to be going a lot faster and to a much bigger degree.

When are you referring to?

Presumably the Dot Com bust

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble

As you say.

Buffalo

Ah yes, the place where Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo.

This would assume housing in SF becomes reasonable ala dotcom crash era? Nimbys finally get their due? I remain incredibly skeptical that is going to happen but we’ll see.

Seems to me if the housing market continues to drop there, NIMBYs will get what they want: less demand for housing means less reason to build in their backyards.

Or I guess maybe you were referring to the value of their houses drop, in which case, probably, and I personally wouldn't be very troubled if I saw that.

Nimbys want less people certainly, but most want that by watching their investment continue to skyrocket.

San Francisco is the least party city imaginable. There is probably a better dance scene in Moscow, Idaho then there is in SF.

Today, yes. But see my reply to commenter above.

This is very naïve. Berlin had the perfect storm required for this to work: a strong counter culture, post-wall joy, and a lot of cheap old abandoned buildings. It really isn't just something that can happen anywhere, hence why it hasn't...

Many places have abundant abandoned buildings and a strong counter culture. Very few have a Berlin Wall, I'll grant you, but the spark to set this off could come from elsewhere.

It could, but it also could not. Don't take it for granted, it might not happen again

I guess it depends on what we mean by "it". If you mean an exact repeat of Berlin 1989 to today-ish, no. But if we're talking a vibrant counterculture in general, then favorable conditions for that are far more common. History, as they say, doesn't repeat, but it sometimes rhymes.

Also if you look at my exact wording: I don't say it's going to happen, I say I would not be surprised to see it happen.

Detroit techno scene rises up again! Or the Chicago house scene.

I for one would not complain.

Or cholo house in Anaheim

Wow, a group of mostly privileged and well-off people squatting in a space that used to deliver prosperity and advancement across class lines, and appropriating it as a venue for narcissism and drug-taking.

Clearly a culture worth preserving!

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