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Cary McClelland

Silicon City: San Francisco in the Long Shadow of the Valley Hardcover – October 9, 2018

by Cary McClelland (Author)

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A Stanford University Three Books Selection for 2019

An intimate, eye-opening portrait of San Francisco transformed by the tech boom.

San 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, in recent decades the Bay Area has been reshaped by Silicon Valley, the engine of the new American economy. The richer the region gets, the more unequal and less diverse it becomes, and cracks in the city’s facade―rapid gentrification, an epidemic of evictions, rising crime, atrophied public institutions―have started to show.

Inspired by Studs Terkel’s classic works of oral history, writer and filmmaker Cary McClelland spent several years interviewing people at the epicenter of the recent change, from venture capitalists and coders to politicians and protesters, from native sons and daughters to the city’s newest arrivals. The crisp and vivid stories of Silicon City’s diverse cast capture San Francisco as never before.

The book opens with a longtime tour guide recounting the history of the original Gold Rush and observing how little the people of his city pay attention to its history; it ends on Fisherman’s Wharf, with the proprietor of an arcade game museum reminding us that even today’s technology will become relics of the past. In between we hear from people who have passed through Apple, Google, eBay, Intel, and the other big tech companies of our time. And we meet those who are experiencing the changes at the grassroots level: a homeless advocate in Haight-Ashbury, an Oakland rapper, a pawnbroker in the Mission, a man who helped dismantle and rebuild the Bay Bridge, and a woman who runs a tattoo parlor in the Castro.

Silicon City masterfully weaves together a candid conversation across a divided community to create a dynamic portrait of a beloved city―and a cautionary tale for the entire country.

Print length

272 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

October 9, 2018
Dimensions

6.4 x 1 x 9.6 inches
ISBN-10

0393608794
ISBN-13

978-0393608793
See all details

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Essential…A conflicted and complex portrait of a city starving for solutions."
― Brandon Yu, San Francisco Chronicle

"McClelland weaves together a narrative of a region under siege by the economic forces of tech, gentrification, and inequality…A refreshing perspective."
― Oakland Magazine

"With dazzling omniscience, Silicon City delivers the voices of the people, each one sharing their own understanding of the city, like an oral history of the present…An almost poetic picture of San Francisco that proves the world isn’t as simple―or as discouraging―as it’s often made out to be."
― David Cassel, The New Stack

"Tales of the city for the boom time."
― Stephen Philips, San Francisco Chronicle

"Silicon City should be San Francisco’s next big city-wide read. Short of that, it should be required reading for every employee of Twitter and Salesforce.com. Google and Facebook employees should climb aboard their comfy buses bound for Silicon Valley one fine sunny morning and find a copy on their seats. At the very least, McClelland should send a copy to each of the 11 members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors."
― Katie Hafner, Fast Company

"McClelland has undertaken a herculean feat of sociological cataloguing, and offers an ambitious, thorough look at a city that seems to be ripping at the seams."
― Luisa Rollenhagen, Bookforum

"Silicon City is firmly in the Studs Terkel tradition of first-person-based explorations of working-class life…Students of inequality and demographics will find powerful anecdotal evidence for how the changing cityscape brings both harm and good."
― Kirkus Reviews

"Thought-provoking…McClelland captures personal snapshots of the changes wrought on San Francisco by the tech industry."
― Booklist

About the Author

Cary McClelland is a writer, filmmaker, lawyer, and rights advocate whose work has taken him around the world. He met his wife in San Francisco, where they settled down and built their first home. They now live in Brooklyn with their son.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (October 9, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393608794
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393608793
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.04 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.4 x 1 x 9.6 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,134,077 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,196 in Sociology of Urban Areas
- #1,347 in Human Geography (Books)
- #23,914 in U.S. State & Local History

Customer Reviews:
37 ratings

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Cary McClelland

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Cary McClelland is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, lawyer, and human rights advocate whose work has taken him around the world to document and bring to life stories of people persisting in turbulent times. He has trained former child soldiers to be journalists in the Democratic Republic of Congo, engaged in conflict transformation programs in liberated East Timor, worked alongside opposition activists in Zimbabwe, and collaborated on advocacy campaigns in Egypt, Syria and Myanmar. His award-winning film, Without Shepherds, documented the lives of six people fighting against extremism in Pakistan, and his innovative new media work with WITNESS and Google was nominated for a Webby award. In his newly released book, Silicon City: San Francisco in the Long Shadow of the Valley published by W.W. Norton, Cary turns his lens back home to create a portrait of a city transformed by the tech industry, through the stories of its citizens, past and present. The book explores the challenges posed by the new american economy, serves as a clarion call for action on behalf of those underserved and displaced, and is perhaps a story of hope that so many are working to address their common challenges. A practicing attorney, Cary represents journalists and artists in defense of the First Amendment, and his pro bono work focuses on immigration policy, political engagement and representing congressional candidates. He is a frequently invited speaker on topics of media, technology, democracy, rule of law and story-telling. Cary holds a B.A. from Harvard University, a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. He, and his wife, currently live in Brooklyn with their son.

Customer reviews

5 star		63%
4 star		22%
3 star		6%
2 star		7%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Sara Riese

More than a story of the profound changes roiling the Bay Area

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 28, 2018

Verified Purchase

This book is a stellar read. In the grand American (and classical) tradition of oral histories, Silicon City draws on voices from all sides of the conversation affected by the "long shadow of the valley". Yet it is more than a story of the profound changes roiling San Francisco and the Bay Area. It’s a book about place and belonging, about the yawning inequalities tearing apart a region's social fabric and sense of identity, and about the failure of -- and potential for -- policymakers and citizens to keep pace with (and soften the blow from) rapid social and technological change.

Part elegy, part allegory, and part forward-looking effort to "merge the two worlds", the book offers fresh ways to think about how we arrived here and what can be done to move to a better equilibrium -- with lessons that will resonate for cities across the globe. McClelland's intellect, empathy, and masterful orchestration and prose shine throughout. Highly recommended.

8 people found this helpful

Helpful

Fruity Flexer

Change :/

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 18, 2019

Verified Purchase

Captures the true essence of Silicon Valley and the evolution of SF!

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kathleen

Beautiful cross-section of triumphs and challenges of a growing city

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 27, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is an incredible compendium of humanity - a beautifully written and curated collection of stories from all walks of life across SF.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Ravi Rajagopalan

Good stories

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 4, 2019

Verified Purchase

Good interview with a veruety of people. I am an engineer and got perspectives I never had.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

David Egan

What would a city say if it could speak?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 24, 2018

This is a book of voices. McClelland himself speaks seldom--just a few introductory sketches that nimbly and astutely provide some context for his interviews--and allows his interviewees to present the city as it's meaningful to them. But there's a quiet mastery in the way that he selects, edits, and links these interviews together. The way the voices sometimes chime and sometimes clash with one another gives a multi-faceted portrait of a city that's rich in its history and diversity and is currently undergoing transformations that have repercussions around the world.

I don't know San Francisco all that well but reading this book made me feel a strong sense of connection to the place. There's a helpful map after the table of contents and I found myself constantly flipping back to it as the various voices in the book mentioned a neighborhood or a street or some feature of the surrounding area. It felt like I was being given a walking tour of the city by the people who knew it most intimately. And by such a range of people, from a former longeshoreman to a venture capitalist to a former drug dealer. The city itself comes across as the true hero of this book: the strange, twisted, and profoundly inspiring place that's shaped the voices and the perspectives of all the people who speak about it.

This book will be a valuable historical record for anyone who wants to understand San Francisco as it was in the second decade of the 21st century. But it's also an urgently timely book. The transformations wrought by Silicon Valley are felt more keenly in the Bay area but they reverberate all over the world. And San Francisco epitomizes so many of the challenges facing 21st century cities, from rampant inequality to the displacement caused by "disruptive" new technologies. It's an engaging read, but also an important one.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

3ee.info

History of America, Technology and geniuses

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 13, 2018

Silicon City, or Silicon Valley, Technology, American Economy, Geniuses, Inventors, Investors, etc it's what poped-up in my mind when I first read the title (eye-catching), Well I read it and I'll be more than happy to share my review with all of you here on 3ee.info a great book review source in the US Book Market as well as on social media.
Silicon City: San Francisco in the Long Shadow of the Valley, is written in the Story-Telling Technique of writing about the technology, the US history, Americans, Immigrants, and Giant companies in the different industry such as Apple, Facebook or Intel and etc. Cary McClelland the author of the book, successfully written this story, by using his talent in filmmaking and writing provided an interesting book.

After the great recession in 2008 San Francisco and San Jose became the two wealthiest cities in the nation, while they attract more educated and investors from all around the world, many believe the region is the engine of the new American economy and the problem is that The richer the cities get, the more unequal they get.

So now you know what this book is all about, and maybe you think the bottom line is predictable, but the Author very professionally explained his point of view and described the situation which Silicon Valley is in. this book is not just about a specific area but about the American history as well, about many emigrants who came to this country and faced a lot of problems to study to become a part of this nation's economy.

I absolutely give a pure 5-star review to this awesome book not just because I loved the title but I believe the older this book gets the more valuable it becomes.

I highly recommend it to whoever is enthusiastic about: America's History, Economy, Technology, Innovation, etc.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Erica Hernandez

Interviewing San Francisco Bay Area

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 4, 2019

Decent quick read interviewing diverse populations of the Bay Area. As a native of the region there were portions of the book that were obvious to me, and wished that those who should read this are people who migrated here from other parts of the states and world. Yet, definitely helped me to understand other perspectives that I was resistant to learning about.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

J. Colligan

Valuable Perspectives - No More, No Less

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 16, 2020

McClelland doesn't set out to solve San Francisco's significant and growing issues in Silicon City. It is not an in-depth historical analysis on the state of the city and how it arrived there.

Silicon City is a compendium of raw, honest interviews with a wide swath of SF and Bay Area residents on the city and tech / venture capital's influence on it. And herein lies the book's value: it presents perspectives from many vital voices to establish a foundation for anyone who wants to appreciate San Francisco's issues and effect change.

One person found this helpful

Helpful