Silicon City

A Stanford University Three Books Selection for 2019Essential. A conflicted and complex portrait of a city starving for solutions. Brandon Yu, San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco is changing at warp speed. Famously home to artists and activists, and known as the birthplace of the Beats, the Black Panthers, and the LGBTQ movement, the Bay Area has been reshaped by Silicon Valley. The richer the region gets, the more unequal and less diverse it becomes, and cracks in the citys facaderapid gentrification, an epidemic of evictions, rising crime, atrophied public institutionsare growing wider. Inspired by Studs Terkels classic works of oral history, Cary McClelland spent years interviewing people at the epicenter of recent change, from venture capitalists and coders to politicians and protesters, capturing San Francisco as never before.