This whole post is very self-aggrandizing and naive, to the point of amusement.
"Far from the expected glass towers of a technological utopia, what I found was a surprisingly run down city that reminded me of traveling in Eastern Europe."
Why would you expect that? A cursory bit of online research would have informed you otherwise. For such a self-professed online junkie, this strikes me as odd.
"I was told not to discuss religion and politics, which is really all we talk about in Sweden, and I was confused by the sheer amount of narcissistic Ayn Rand followers."
What?! Told by who? SF is and has historically been one of the most politically vocal places in the US! Ayn Rand followers? What? I'm sorry but this is just laughable. What is an Ayn Rand follower? Really, was Market St filled with people clutching well-worn copies of "The Fountainhead." Total nonsense.
"Beijing was dirty, gritty, and wild .."
Beijing is actually one of the most orderly cities I've ever been to. One of the safest as well. The only grit is the air pollution.
"Beijing was an insane mix of history and futurism"
Beijing is actually pretty intent on systematically erasing its architectural history. There are very few hutongs(traditional neighborhoods) left in Beijing. Most of them were destroyed prior to the Olympics. Also for every one Rem Koolhaus designed glass towers there are 10K nondescript glum tower tower blocks, spreading outward from the ciy to the hinterland.
Beijing has some of the worst air pollution on the planet, people regularly wear respirators outside on bad days, it also has some of the worst traffic on the planet, these go hand in hand of course. The future is in moving away from that model of everyone should own a car despite their being viable alternatives(Beijing has a fantastic subway system.)
"I fell in love with Beijing before I had even stepped out of the taxi from the airport."
I don't even understand how this would be possible, that drive recently(2 months ago) took me an hour and 45 minutes to get from the airport to the ring road and there is nothing interesting along that route. The drive from SFO into the city is actually far more interesting by comparison.
Silicon Valley is viewed from the outside -- especially outside the US -- as a mecca for technology, talent, opportunity (and it is, IMO). People tend to assume that also extends to the society in which it exists. That such huge wealth would mean clean streets, social services, public transport and a sense of community around it. That a rising tide floats all boats. Think oil money in Norway. If it's something you've looked to as your goal it's easy to ignore some negative things that you may find about SF online. And whether a quick Google search would have informed you or not that doesn't change the reality on the ground.
Re: Ayn Rand. I took that to mean companies are being built today not because they want to work towards a better world, a better future for everyone, but rather for money alone. There's a lot of people in the bay area (elsewhere too) build businesses to make money and not because there's something they truly want to see in the world. In SF (and SV) on the one hand the messaging to the world has always been "LETS CHANGE THE WORLD" -- though many times it's followed up with "BY BUILDING A SOCIAL NETWORK FOR CATS WHO NEED PIZZA IMMEDIATELY." That can be very disillusioning for someone who moves in.
Re: China: My take was that he was trying to illustrate a different mentality. SF is dead set of maintaining the present. On the one hand it complains about the lack of affordable housing and on the other, it won't allow new (tall) buildings. Compare to the 60s. Could you imagine Sutro Tower being approved under today's midset? (You want to build a 1000' TV tower visible from all over town?! LOL). It's barely possible to get cell towers approved. How many years do you think a proposal to build that crazy awesome Chinese elevated bus would take? I mean -- BART doesn't even go to San Jose. High speed rail?
I think his point was that Beijing has its gaze set on the future where SF has it set on the present, and that sounds like a lot of your complaints too (not paying as much attention as you'd like the past and present in the process -- I can't judge the validity as I've not been yet). The article felt like his positive take on Beijing was that there, they want to build the future, and in SF, they want to keep the present as long as they can possibly hold onto it regardless of cost.
Hope that helps!
IMO: Your response feels like you're just trying to win an argument for the sake of winning an argument, without trying to understand what's being said.
I'm not trying to win anything. The author's observations are wildly inaccurate and this matters because he using these observations to illustrate a contrast.
He likes it "dirty and gritty." Edit: "dirty and gritty" being a typically Eurocentric way of referring to, I'm assuming, things like (as you mention) pollution, traffic, destruction of architectural history, etc. Arable land for colonization.
"Far from the expected glass towers of a technological utopia, what I found was a surprisingly run down city that reminded me of traveling in Eastern Europe."
Why would you expect that? A cursory bit of online research would have informed you otherwise. For such a self-professed online junkie, this strikes me as odd.
"I was told not to discuss religion and politics, which is really all we talk about in Sweden, and I was confused by the sheer amount of narcissistic Ayn Rand followers."
What?! Told by who? SF is and has historically been one of the most politically vocal places in the US! Ayn Rand followers? What? I'm sorry but this is just laughable. What is an Ayn Rand follower? Really, was Market St filled with people clutching well-worn copies of "The Fountainhead." Total nonsense.
"Beijing was dirty, gritty, and wild .."
Beijing is actually one of the most orderly cities I've ever been to. One of the safest as well. The only grit is the air pollution.
"Beijing was an insane mix of history and futurism"
Beijing is actually pretty intent on systematically erasing its architectural history. There are very few hutongs(traditional neighborhoods) left in Beijing. Most of them were destroyed prior to the Olympics. Also for every one Rem Koolhaus designed glass towers there are 10K nondescript glum tower tower blocks, spreading outward from the ciy to the hinterland.
Beijing has some of the worst air pollution on the planet, people regularly wear respirators outside on bad days, it also has some of the worst traffic on the planet, these go hand in hand of course. The future is in moving away from that model of everyone should own a car despite their being viable alternatives(Beijing has a fantastic subway system.)
"I fell in love with Beijing before I had even stepped out of the taxi from the airport."
I don't even understand how this would be possible, that drive recently(2 months ago) took me an hour and 45 minutes to get from the airport to the ring road and there is nothing interesting along that route. The drive from SFO into the city is actually far more interesting by comparison.