My Other Obsession, Part 2

Proust by Alex Segal

Since the mysterious forces of tech cut me off before finishing what all needs to be said about artists’ housing in San Francisco, and I didn’t even realize the last paragraphs were missing for days, this post picks up the thread. I’m starting with a Proust portrait by the artist who has most inspired me in my life to convince America that artists are a tremendous—and foolishly undervalued— asset.

San Francisco has allowed the expulsion of artists from the social fabric by permitting landlords and developers to rent only to people who can produce pay stubs proving they make three times the rent. This says that the only recognized value in San Francisco is money, which of course can buy art, a totally commodified product. The people who create it, who harness imagination to give us the music that soothes our souls, the beauty that raises spirits, the books that we love, and the therapeutic experiences that heal us, aren’t worth housing in a place their work made beautiful.

Instead, city leaders encourage highly profitable industries that do the opposite. The tech industry moved in and drove the creative community out, then left because the cost of living was no longer viable. Now the city is courting AI, the industry that will further alienate, complicate, deprive people of jobs, spread misinformation, increase laziness, and make lots and lots of money. Companies that use AI extensively, after all, won’t need to pay so many people. The executives at AI firms will make billions, while driving huge swaths of humanity into utter poverty and abandoning truth to profitability. This is what our delusional civic leaders think provides better tenants than the people who give us things we love and enjoy, things that spark imaginations and emotions. This is what Allen Ginsberg invoked, when he pointed a finger at the Financial District and called it Moloch.

The city’s salivation over AI’s tax dollars underscores a pathetic lack of critical thinking, ignorance of the city’s history, inhumane values, and an inability to realize that they are wasting a valuable asset. They pay lip service to the importance of the arts while denying those who provide them of a place of their own to live, unless they are at the pinnacle of their careers and making three times the rent, with pay stubs to prove it.

Why this is a waste of a valuable asset is the subject of My Other Obsession, Part 3, coming soon.