Why read Pictures of a Gone City?

Book cover of Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area

Book description

The San Francisco Bay Area is currently the jewel in the crown of capitalism—the tech capital of the world and a gusher of wealth from the Silicon Gold Rush. It has been generating jobs, spawning new innovation, and spreading ideas that are changing lives everywhere. It boasts of being the…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Pictures of a Gone City as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Chris Carlsson

Author

Debunking the Horatio Alger promotional blather of self-flattering tech moguls, the real Bay Area comes into view, based on nurses and teachers, drivers and clerks, homeless and the desperate. Real estate bubbles have given way to tech bubbles which have given way to housing bubbles and now have given way to a chimerical prosperity that is as fragile as any of the prior ones. Dick Walker pierces the veils of capitalist self-promotion to reveal the bleak consequences of the “technology booms” that have repeatedly crashed over the San Francisco Bay Area. Whether unpacking the real causes of our ongoing housing…

From Chris' list on how San Francisco turned out like it did.