It's hard to ignore the impact that Internet
entrepreneurship has made on San Francisco. The skyline is peppered
with billboards for dot.com-everything-under-the-sun. The
twentysomething crowd cruises around town in sportscars, chatting
on their cell phones. And hot topics of conversation have moved
away from local politics and free love and toward stock options and
retirement at age 40.
As the rest of the nation is just starting to see the effects of
the tech climate on city cultures, everyone's keeping a close
eye on the Bay area-for good reason. Perhaps nowhere else has the
impact of the Internet been demonstrated so clearly, and so
quickly. South of Market (SOMA) and Mission districts, once light
industrial and manufacturing centers, now contain a slew of new Web
start-ups, including LookSmart, USWeb/CKS and Spinner.
"Multimedia Gulch" is filled with warehouses converted
into trendy offices outfitted with high-speed Net access and steel
beams. Pricey restaurants are popping up, lunch lines are long and
the cyberprofessional crowd has arrived, seemingly overnight. In
many ways, it's a brand new day for the city by the Bay.
"It's an interesting phenomenon," observes Mark
Quinn, district director of the San Francisco SBA and a San
Francisco resident of 15 years. "Up until a few years ago, you
didn't notice much of an impact on San Francisco from high-tech
ventures. But the Multimedia Gulch phenomenon has really changed
parts of the city."
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Exactly how much the Internet has affected the city's
characteristic charms is unclear. However, there's no denying
that the preponderance of Internet companies has clearly influenced
new housing developments, traffic patterns and property values,
making the gentrification of San Francisco by the "Internet
people" a topic of much-heated conversation. It also has many
local residents worried about their city's future.
Historically, San Francisco's banking community and large
industries have made long-term investments in the city and its
neighborhoods. However, people don't expect that kind of
behavior from Internet start-ups, which have a reputation for a
get-rich-quick mentality.
"It has made sense for [traditional San Francisco]
businesses to work hand-in-hand with the community," says
Quinn. "Now many wonder whether small start-up Internet
businesses have the same level of invest-ment in the
community."
Not everyone is comfortable with the bad rap that
cyberprofessionals are getting, though. "It's not
easy" to be an Internet entrepreneur, says Soon-Chart Yu, the
34-year-old CEO of Gazoontite.com, an online
health-product store based in SOMA. "I'm acutely aware of
the issues we face socially and politically as well as in
business."
Yu, a resident of San Francisco for 12 years, insists that he
and his business are here to stay. "I visit all the local
restaurants, and live in the neighborhood so I have a real interest
in the community," he says. "I'm not only concerned
for a few months to ride this great wave, but [I want] to run my
business on a long-term basis. I want to stay in San
Francisco."
Yu believes open communication is the only way to resolve issues
like congestion and parking availability that stem from such rapid
growth. "There has to be an attitude that people will work
with us," says Yu, "so [residents] can protect the
integrity of [their communities], while we can still allow for
proactive growth."
This past year, Yu helped form the Information Tech-nology
Coalition, a San Francisco organization dedi-cated to bringing
high-tech businesses and the community together. "We have some
of the most creative people in the Internet sector," he says,
"and we can work together to resolve some of these
issues."
Quinn agrees that there's a solution. But rather than
viewing the wave of Internet businesses moving in as something new,
Quinn prefers to look at it as part of an evolution, pointing out
that the Internet is attracting a lot of talented people to the
city. "Historically, San Francisco has always embraced new
kinds of people moving into its city, whether it was the beatniks
in the '50s or hippies in the '60s," he says.
"The energy and talent that come from creative people in this
city is one reason why San Francisco has always been successfully
ahead of trends, and that's the case here, too."
Heather Alter, former Entrepreneur technology editor
currently lives in the Bay area.
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