But the goal is to eliminate the bourgeoisie. There should be lords living up on the hill, and peasants laboring in the fields. A class in the middle is undesirable. San Francisco represents a Liberal utopia.
“Sometimes I don’t understand this town.”
LOL! You can’t make sense of that which is inherently insane.
Easily explained. A Category 9 earthquake utterly destroyed SF, and what you see in Star Trek are the replacement buildings.
Now why Starfleet would choose to build its headquarters in a location proven to be so vulnerable IS an interesting question...
Perhaps forcefields and other modern technology make buildings immune to earthquakes.
Not I!
The free market breaks down, in some sense, in very small areas where living is highly desirable. Housing quickly gets priced out of the reach of all but the wealthy.
The only two actual cities in US where this applies, AFAIK, are the island of Manhattan and San Fran. Many more people would like to live there than can. This results in an auction bidding up rental and housing prices beyond all measure.
In fact, I suspect all of Manhattan would eventually become an enclave inhabited only by the truly wealthy were it not for “rent control,” which greatly slows the sorting action of the free market.
Read an article recently about some of the “housing” on Manhattan. One guy lives in an “apartment” about 150 SF. Doesn’t even have its own bathroom. But it was cheap. From his POV all he does is sleep there, so what more does he need? Wouldn’t work for a family, of course, but for a single person, why not?
There are other places where all but the rich have been utterly priced out. Aspen and Nantucket spring to mind, but of course these aren’t really cities.
On looking back at the first sentence of this post, I can see I was wrong. Such sorting is exactly what the free market is supposed to do, and if not for government intervention it would be much farther along. The question of whether it constitutes “market failure” boils down to whether one thinks a NYC and SF inhabited only by the truly wealthy is or is not desirable.
Once you have the matter replicator and virtually unlimited power through the matter/antimatter reactor and a way to get to another planet, then liberalism can finally work.
Liberals and Progressives are EVIL. Almost everything they do DESTROYS something - be it Property, Family, Ideals, Religion etc.
“In the “Star Trek” movies, San Francisco serves as headquarters of Starfleet Command.”
And apparently no new Star Trek movie would be complete without crashing/dropping something huge and destructive in San Fran Bay near the bridge, whether it’s the renegade Romulan’s drill or the dreadnought class warship that Khan the terrorist stole-coupled with this Kirk acting like Shatner, giving a stiff middle finger to that stupid prime directive and getting a good result, I think it is a very nice future view of San Fran...
Gay Mr. Zulu made it happen.
I would disagree with this statement. Movers and shakers encouraged the poor and middle class to come to SF since the gold rush days in the 1850s. SF was a very affordable city until recent decades. It was also a longtime Republican city, long stretch of only Republican mayors until the mid-1960s. Only after an influx of liberals in the mid-1960s did a change occur in the politics, but this is not what is impacting housing.
Homes were cheap after WWII. My parents bought a home in the Mission District for $6000 in the early 1950s, complete with furnishings and a view of downtown and both bridges. Very affordable for a soldier, with only $100 down. In the 1970s, these homes were still affordable in the low $20G range. The tech boom in the 1980s changed all that and caused a rise in home pricing. Same homes now are about $1M (most have been remodeled and upgraded by recent owners).
Right now, my wife and I are remodeling my mother-in-law's home in SF for possible sale. Homes for sale in the neighborhood have appreciated 10 percent a year annually in the last few years. A new tech boom is going on, attracting asian buyers with deep pockets. A home on the same street about 5 homes up is for sale at $2.5M, crazy prices. A lot of this has nothing to do with liberal politics. It's about the tech sector and availability to high paid jobs. People are attracted to coming here not for teacher jobs and other low-end jobs; they're coming for the ability to make a fortune. If you're smart, it's easy to get a six-figure salary.
Me neither.
But it and Seattle are two prettiest cities in America.
Why would I want to live in a hostile communist foreign country?
Must of been gratitude after Starfleet discovered the cure for AIDS or something.