A Tale of Two Weddings

I recently experienced the pleasure and pain of planning not one but two weddings across two continents. 

One was a secular American affair at a classy museum with round tables and a catered dinner amongst Rodin statues, the other a three day long affair with folk traditions and only 20 guests, all staying at the familial estate of some friends in the countryside of Cognac in the West of France:

                                          

San Francisco Wedding

                        

Cognac, France Wedding

Both weddings were awesome, but in many ways represented opposite approaches to the wedding conundrum. So many people struggle with the question of how to make this important event more meaningful, that many fall into the trap of spending a lot more money than they initially planned in order to achieve some sort of vague target of wedding perfection.

From my unique experience, since it is not every day that one couple has two weddings on two continents, I have a few recommendations to couples out there who are struggling to figure out how to make their own weddings feel more meaningful without spending more money. The good news is: it's definitely possible!

The American Wedding Experience

Before I get to the good news, I have to talk about a few of the challenges that we faced while planning our American wedding, because they are quite common and I hope that every bright-eyed young couple can learn from our mistakes. 

For our California affair, the primary objective was to host an event for friends, family and co-workers who wouldn't be able to come to France. It was important to me to have a father-daughter dance and food that wasn't terrible, but beyond that, I was relatively flexible. "That should make this easy and cheap," I thought. Ha! So naive...

First, there were the logistical challenges... 

We naively chose a museum as the venue because it had a relatively low venue rental fee and we thought, "there's beautiful art, therefore we won't have to decorate and that will make it so easy!" True, we didn't have to decorate it too much compared to say, a barn, but FYI to anyone considering a museum as a wedding venue: it's not worth it. 

They had an unbelievable number of unpredictable policies, many of which were not specified in the written contract at all and were instead only communicated verbally just days before the wedding by the rude rep who was proudly demonstrating her position of power in her third week on the job. To name a few: no live plants, no open flames (meaning no food warming devices even though the museum itself had a cafe), all vendors had to be approved (including photographers, florists, cake deliverers, etc.), invitations had to be approved by the museum, insurance had to list the museum's board along with a long list of other related organizations (too many characters for the major insurance company's form to accommodate so they had to get an actual underwriter on the phone to make an exception), despite the ceremony start time of 6:30, a bastille-esque spiked metal gate was closed until exactly 6:30 to prevent on-time guests from "sitting early," and last but certainly not least, handicapped guests needed to be escorted by a security guard to the bathroom. 

Our caterer, one of the very few who was allowed to cater at the venue at all, laughed when we told her that we thought a museum would be easy. "It's hard to find a venue that's harder to work with than a museum," she stated nonchalantly as she charged us almost twice as much as average because her company had to set up an entire external kitchen outside by the dumpsters thanks to that museum regulation that banned open flames in the building. 

Museum wedding: A beautiful space, but not worth the pain

A couple key takeaways here: 

#1) Don't have a wedding at a museum or anywhere else that considers your wedding a nuisance to their core business. 

#2) Before choosing any venue or vendor, talk directly to clients and vendors who have recently worked with them on a wedding - they will tell you what is not surfaced by online reviews. Despite good yelp reviews, we had to fire our wedding planner a week before the wedding because her presence was detrimental (communicating our requirements incorrectly, not forwarding contracts, etc). Afterwards we realized that her online reviews were padded with reviews from her friends and other vendors. Don't let this happen to you! Ask probing questions, talk to other customers, and expect that the sales rep for the venue or vendor will not give you honest answers.  

Then there were the creative challenges....

In addition to the logistical issues, we also struggled to figure out how to make our wedding ceremony itself meaningful enough to represent how we felt about each other. We discovered early in the process that despite weddings in movies, pretty much all American wedding scripts on the internet are religious in one way or another. After sifting through script after script, we ended up writing the ceremony ourselves and then sharing the script with our officiant, one of my music professors from college, who also added a few details of his own to the ceremony. We agonized over who we should have officiate, due to our secular beliefs, and ended up choosing a professor because in lieu of being attached to a religious institution, we felt like music and academia were more meaningful to our lives. 

In the end we pulled from random traditions that we thought sounded nice and chose our own readings from Neil Degrasse Tyson, Einstein, and Shakespeare. The difficult museum regulations and the resulting increased cost led us to personalize other aspects of the event by making our own paper crane decorations instead of using flowers, ordering "special event cakes" not a "wedding cake," and hiring my mom's friend as our photographer (who did a pretty amazing job) instead of a pretentious San Francisco artist. 

By starting early and working with a photographer who was a family friend, we had time to play with non-traditional pictures... 

"Special event cakes," each customized to represent a place we've traveled together. This cost less than half of the same type of cake as a "wedding cake" from the same bakery and was infinitely more personal.

 The space did meet one of my primary objectives- an awesome father daughter dance. Having enough space to dance can be a difficult constraint when finding a venue because it eliminates many restaurants and smaller spaces from the list. Be sure to ask any venue about hidden costs, and ask for references to former customers who can corroborate whatever info the rep gives you. 

A bouquet of white roses, white calla lilies and purple thistle, created by my wonderful bridesmaid, Shirley. 
Dress by Marchesa

 We did a "first look" before the ceremony in a public area near the museum so that we could have all pictures done before the guests arrived, allowing us to make the most of our 5 hour American wedding sprint. 

We snuck this pic in at the end of the night while everyone was leaving. 

Overall, it worked out and fulfilled the criteria that I originally set out to meet, albeit with higher stress and more money than we had planned. That said, the one takeaway that I cannot ignore is that at the end of the day, I hardly remember the event at all!  

Despite the amazing pics, from the beginning of the ceremony until the end of the reception was exactly 5 hours which absolutely flew by. My husband didn't eat any of his excruciatingly expensive meal, and the thirty minutes of dancing passed by in a blur. 

And so, in contrast, I present exhibit B - the French wedding.

The French Wedding Experience

(And what you can use from it to make your own wedding awesome!)

For the French wedding, our friends and family from California, Europe and Asia converged on a beautiful old farm (400 years old to be precise, and built on the ruins of a Roman villa that is over 2,000 years old). We spent the entire weekend together imbibing and enjoying each other's company and it was awesome. My memories from this weekend are vivid, deep and wonderful.

While we were extremely privileged to have such a wonderful family and home hosting us, there were many elements that can be applied to any wedding, anywhere in the world. And, if you want to have a French castle wedding, that too is possible. My husband and I actually know another American couple who rented a castle in France for their wedding, and they had a very similar story, extolling the virtues of getting everyone to a beautiful place where they can spend ample time together enjoying each other's company and the amazing food of the French countryside.

And so, finally, here are some ideas and borrowed cultural traditions that made my French wedding awesome, that you can easily (and cheaply) do yourself!

1) Tying the knot (literally)

Our French wedding was officiated by my friend whose family hosted the event. He flew from his current residence in Singapore back to France for the occasion and did an amazing job! In about 10 minutes, about one hour before the ceremony, we created the entire program together. 

He had recently been to a South Indian wedding, in which it is a tradition for the bride and groom to be bound together by ribbon throughout the length of the ceremony. This creates a very clear and meaningful visual representation of the joining together of people, and it only requires some string or ribbon. When rings are exchanged the rings take on the symbolism of the "tied knots," bringing additional lasting meaning to the rings. 

2) Seven Vows by the Fire

Another South Indian tradition that we included was the Agni fire ceremony. In this ceremony the fire is the "witness" to your vows (as are your friends and family who are watching you), which even to my agnostic self, made them feel more significant. The couple (while still tied together), walks around a fire seven times, each time stopping to make a vow to each other. 

Since we hadn't pre-written our vows, we had to come up with them on the spot and our friends and family got to be a part of the process, which made it very personal and fun. Seven vows is a lot, so it also allows you to cover a spectrum of big things and small things. Since it's awkward to walk around while tied up (especially in a wedding dress!), you already have to support each other, which adds to the symbolism.

We used a candle in a moroccan lantern to reduce the risk of setting my wedding dress on fire :). 

3) The Dance-Off

Another fun Indian tradition that we incorporated was the dance-off. The men escorted the groom to the altar in dance, and the women escorted the bride. Together we reached the altar in a big Indian dance-off (in our case to music performed by a local French folk band from the local region of Charente) and the ceremony started with a lot of excitement and fun energy. 

At the end of the ceremony we finished the dance-off, with everyone dancing together from the ceremony to the reception (which was about 30 feet away). Even people who were not normally comfortable dancing in public had an awesome time, and the ice was broken for an entire day of dancing.

4) Pièce montée

Europeans have a lot of fun local folk traditions that add color and meaning to any wedding, and the French are no exception. One of my favorites was this local French tradition, in which the bride and groom serve sweet puffs of dough held together by caramel (displayed in a tower called a Pièce montée) to each person at the reception. As they work their way around the room, the bride and groom personally thank each person for participating in the wedding. Because the puffs are sticky, it is funny to watch the bride and groom attempt to give out the pieces, requiring them to display teamwork :). 

5) Wheelbarrow race

This is definitely one of the best. It was a local tradition for the groom to push the bride from the place where they originally met to the location of the wedding...in a wheelbarrow. This made sense logistically back in the days when people married other people within their tiny villages, but the tradition symbolically lives on, even for people like us who met across the world. 

The French family created a "bridal wheelbarrow" with white pillows and streamers and my new husband pushed me around the farmyard on an obstacle course with people wearing hats (buckets, technically) that listed different places that we'd traveled together. This was a very difficult task for my new husband to achieve and he succeeded fantastically. At the end though, the tables were turned and I had to push him! I hardly got a few inches...

This tradition was hilarious and wildly entertaining for all involved.

6) Teach everyone how to do a local dance

The local charenteuse band taught everyone a traditional folk dance. The folk music was fantastic and very easy to dance to, and when they showed everyone the moves, it was another way to include people who otherwise would not be comfortable dancing. This was a great way to bring people together with a new shared experience. 

7) Interactive entertainment

Because our reception space was relatively small (in the area where the estate had formerly made its wine), we had the band sit at our banquet table with us! This actually made it very personal and fun, and they ended up singing folk songs and teaching the group the words. They even did the blues and many people at the banquet participated with their own verses. It was another way to make everyone feel like they were a part of the action, which was a huge benefit of having such a small group.

8) Everyone gives a speech!

This one was another one of my favorites. Because there were only twenty guests and we had lots and lots of time, everyone gave a speech! This made the entire experience really personal and it helped break the ice between people who didn't know each other outside of the context of the wedding. This would obviously not work with a large number of guests, but for twenty people it was perfect and made the event much more personal and meaningful.

9) The Slipper kick

Everyone's heard of the bouquet toss, but I present to you the...slipper kick. Another local French tradition, it's pretty much exactly how it sounds. Each guest has an opportunity to kick a slipper as far as they can. The symbolism has something to do with the man's...slippers (something scandalous that wasn't fully explained because the winner's 7-year old daughter was present...). This was another way to get all of the guests involved in a funny activity that would make them feel comfortable just doing fun, relaxing activities together. 

10) Last but not least - spending lots of time together! 

Our French wedding lasted from Friday night until Monday morning. It started with a welcome reception and dinner on Friday night. The actual ceremony happened on Saturday afternoon, followed by the fun events described above. Sunday, with all of our guests, we went to the beautiful medieval town of St. Emilion, a grand cru wine region in Bordeaux, followed by another final dinner together on Sunday night.

Having so much time together really allowed us to enjoy every moment, without the crazy stress of pushing through a tight wedding schedule. When it rained on our wedding day, we just waited until it stopped. When we wanted to decorate the arch the morning of the wedding, my groom and I went to the local flower shop and bought beautiful flowers that we then also used for the bouquet and boutonniere. People from three continents had time to get to know each other, build friendships, and relax enough to have a fantastic time, and the funny local folk traditions really helped create the open atmosphere that enabled everyone to feel like a part of something special.

If you don't want to incorporate any of these fun traditions, I would say that my one key takeaway is that no matter what you choose to do, give yourself enough time with your guests to enjoy it and to remember it. 

And for that, you don't need a crazy budget, you just need to find the right place and the right people, and allow yourselves to enjoy being together!

Have questions or comments? Leave them in the comments section and I will answer them!

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A San Francisco Techie's Rebuttal to The Gentrification Mudslinging

Yesterday the meagre 21% of San Franciscans who voted in the city's small off-year election rejected a proposed housing development on the Embarcadero (8 Washington) and now everyone is in a tizzy about the long-existing San Francisco housing crisis.

Perhaps because San Francisco is one of the only remaining boom towns in our struggling global economy, we have had an increasing amount of attention focused on the issues surrounding development and gentrification, so much so that even Al Jazeera is talking about it (and these guys too: Reuters, SF Chron, LA Times).

The blame for this housing crisis is consistently lobbed straight at the evil gentrification enacted by the soulless and faceless "tech millionaires" that we keep hearing so much about. Someone is so sure that tech millionaires are at the root of San Francisco's problem that there is an anti-gentrification protest scheduled for the Twitter IPO day and of course, there was that pinata of the Google bus that angry hipster residents of the Mission beat up publicly last May.

After sitting silently, listening to news commentators, politicians, and "activist citizens" share their opinions about the unquestioned source of this crisis - the "tech boom" - I have had enough.

As a native Californian, a democratic, creative and analytical music major who went to college on a scholarship and has been employed by the "tech boom" for basically my entire career, I need to clear the air and put some apparently unknown facts on the table because until we can move on from this finger-pointing, scapegoating argument that has insinuated itself into our city's dialogue, we are not going to be able to create a solution.

So, without further ado, here are my top three considerations from the point of view of a "techie" to put before the citizenry of my fine city, particularly the ones who are unhappy with the fact that I live here:

1) Who we actually are - apparently not who you think we are!

Firstly we are not evil millionaires who swim in pools of money in our penthouses. In fact, the vast majority of us are not millionaires at all (see point number 2). But the tone of the anti-tech argument isn't just about the money, it is about certain assumptions of who tech people are and what they mean for the larger San Francisco community. 

One statement in particular drives me absolutely nuts: "Techies are taking away from the city's diversity." (There is a quote at the end of this New York Times article that makes me steaming mad). In the quote the person is saying, "we don't want 'that kind of diversity'." Which begs the question, is one form of diversity better than another?

Clearly there are varying definitions of diversity, so let's talk about a few common ones and this incorrect, misguided assertion that tech-employed people are not diverse.

      1) Racial & Ethnic - most of the people I know in the tech industry are not white guys. There are people of a very wide range of races and ethnicities, certainly leaning more heavily on the East and South Asian side of the globe than average, but still encompassing great global diversity. I saw more diversity walking around the Google campus than I see walking down Market Street today, so clearly there is not a 1:1 relationship between tech jobs and a lack of diversity. Therefore, there must be some disconnect about the definition of diversity. Are we going to start to argue that some kinds of diversity are better than others, that the diverse people from India (where more than 1,000 languages are spoken) and China, don't count as much as other groups towards our mental image of what diversity means? Is it that because tech employees are highly educated, somehow their diversity doesn't count as much as someone who has less education? When we go down that path, we start to sound dangerously similar to the same judgements that have always plagued America, ever since its beginnings, in which we decide arbitrarily that one group is better than another, "those Irish are a real problem, but let in the Scandinavians..." and I don't like it one bit. The nation's educational crisis that has resulted in few Americans of any race or ethnicity being qualified for the most complicated tech jobs is another issue, and hating on the tech industry for providing white-collar employment that doesn't involve crashing the global financial system is counter-productive on so many levels.

        2) Diversity of interest and creativity - there seems to be some assumption that people who make their livings in the tech industry are somehow one-dimensionally focused on engineering or some other mysterious officey, non-artistic endeavor...An assumption that by having too many techies, there won't be enough room for the bohemian artists and musicians in the city. I have news for you - the tech industry is what allows us to live in the city. I have a music degree. I would love to make my living as a performer but that isn't a realistic career path for most, and it has nothing to do with the tech boom. The fact that classical music is drying up as a genre and that opera singers no longer wear mink stoles and cater to adoring millions has absolutely nothing to do with the tech industry's location in San Francisco. It is a reality of the modern world. Another reality is that many thousands of talented, artistic, creative people go work for tech companies (and many other professional jobs) because their skills provide unique value within the tech world - they understand teamwork, push themselves to create things that are valuable and beautiful at the same time, and they know from experience that if they don't hit a performance deadline, the failure will public and unpleasant -> all skills very useful across a wide range of professions, especially in the tech industry. I host a monthly music salon at my house where engineers, lawyers, teachers, journalists, bohemians and all sorts of other professionals come together and play music. Just because we make our living doing something else does not mean that we are less diverse, that our interests don't matter as much, and that our music isn't as meaningful. 

        3) Economic diversity - the pie isn't finite. When new shops and restaurants go in on Valencia, new jobs are made. Chefs can achieve their non-tech-industry creative dreams, sous chefs and dishwashers can get employment, and every resident of the city benefits from increased choices and decreased crime rates. Are some of the restaurants on Valencia overpriced? Absolutely. But the ecosystem that was fanned by the economic development from the tech boom has created a renaissance of new choices across price ranges and across industries. At Limon Rotisserie on Valencia and South Van Ness you can have a delicious, filling, fancy dinner for two for $20, you can't even say that in cheaper Sacramento. Economic development brings diversity and supports creative endeavors. Does this mean that some people won't be lost in the shuffle? Of course not, but think of all the people who have evolved and blossomed in this new economy, lots and lots of people who do not directly work for the tech industry. It is a common misconception that because someone makes $1 that somehow $1 is removed from the system somewhere else - that's not how it works. It's not a finite pie, but from the dialogue you would certainly believe it. Innovation and growth make the pie bigger and everyone wins. Turning the conversation into an "us versus them" mentality is detrimental to all, because it takes the focus away from the real opportunity that exists for everyone to benefit. 

2) We aren't all that rich.

I have to address this primary misconception.

Yes, there are the Sheryl Sandbergs, Mark Zuckerbergs and Marissa Mayers of the world. There always have been and there always will be. The only difference between them and their predecessors is that they manage internet companies instead of car factories, newspapers or steel manufacturing. Through some combination of luck and skill they made themselves a ton of money. But guess what, there aren't that many people in this boat!

I worked at Google and I have tons of friends who work at Facebook and Twitter and I can report, without a doubt, that most people who work for these companies are not millionaires. They can't afford to pay $3,500 to rent a one bedroom any more than any other average professional in the city can.

People seem to think that anyone who works for a tech company has tons of stock and therefore becomes a lottery-esque millionaire the moment of the IPO. The truth is, unless you're senior in a core department and/or started very early on in the company's history, then you're not going to be getting a huge piece of that action. The news loves the stories about the random Google chef who made millions, but this is news because it is the exception, not the rule. 

I know people who were pre-IPO at Google in the sales organization who hardly made more than a few months extra salary from their options. Had they kept their stock until it hit the $1,000 mark, they probably would have done better, but most people don't. They have to cash it in before it hits its prime to pay for housing...average housing...that same unreasonably high average housing that hurts everyone who is trying to live in the city on a modest <$100k salary. Lots and lots of people who work for tech companies make less than $100k. Many make less than $50k, especially young people who are not engineers, many of whom are using their Humanities, Social Sciences, Culinary and Art School degrees to build careers in the vast non-engineering sides of these companies. Those people you see waiting for the Google bus? They are taking a bus for a reason, and it's generally not because they have a Porsche parked in their garage at home. 

In order for the Twitter IPO to make instant millionaires of its employees, the employees will have to have lots of stock and will then have to sell it to acquire the money to buy an expensive condo. In most cases, people don't get money, until they sell their stock. So while there are some big winners in these IPOs, especially the senior people, the very original employees, and the bankers and lawyers who process it, the average tech employee is often not any better off, and in many cases is actually worse off than their investment banking/lawyering/nursing and similar other professional counterparts who no one seems to be blaming for this mess. Not to mention that many, many tech companies go bust all the time. Tech employees live with an uncertainty that is very uncommon amongst other similarly educated professions like law and medicine. But, they do have ping pong tables, so their lives must be amazing...

Let's do a little math about this Twitter IPO, since people are so upset about it. They currently have a total of 2,300 employees. They grew quickly leading up to the IPO, which means that many people squeaked in right before the bell, and therefore, likely did not get huge amounts of stock. The "average" employee stats, btw, are obviously misleading, because the few people at the top are swaying that stat, median would clearly be a better measure. But even if half of the employees became instant millionaires, the sum of the unit stock in these new "gentrified" buildings still exceeds the number of potential customers. One Rincon Hill alone has over 700 units. The rejected Washington 8 was to have 134 units, Linea on Market has 115 units, and so on. So, who are the tech millionaires who are going to buy these condos or pay these astronomical rents?

Why do the numerous high-end condo and apartment complexes popping up in SOMA, the Embarcadero and Upper Market, which are serving as beacons of resentment in the anti-gentrification argument, seem to think that they have an endless supply of people who can and will pay $5,000-$8,000 per month or $2-$5 million (+ high HOAs) for a two bedroom apartment? I certainly can't and the few people I know who can still wouldn't.

Of the people I know who can afford that price range, none of whom made their money in the tech industry, btw, all would rather buy awesome houses in Pacific Heights, Eureka Valley or Ashbury Heights with that money. You can still buy a massive, modern, fantastic-view, walkable, free-standing house in a prime neighborhood for $2 million (check out this current 3,000 sq foot monster in Eureka Valley on the market right now for $1.95 million). So why would anyone spend that kind of money to buy a generic condo next to the Market Safeway drug-dealing centrale? Maybe someone with unique taste would, but hundreds of people? Because that's how many condo units are going up with these expectations - hundreds. It doesn't make sense - there is an assumption about customer-base and price that is off.

So, if there aren't actually enough tech millionaires to buy all of the speculated luxury condos at the insanely high prices used by the developers to woo the city officials into their camps based on projected tax revenue, then it sounds a lot like there is some serious real estate development speculation going on... and if we're not careful, the bottom is going to come falling out of that before a major earthquake shakes it out, and that will be good for no one.

3) If we're going to talk about "haves" and "have nots" we must talk about rent control.

I recently went to a house-party of a friend who works in the tech industry. He lives in a small one-bedroom apartment where he pays over $2,000 in rent, a very large percent of his personal income. During the party, his neighbors, who have lived in their rent-controlled unit since the early 1980's invited us over to view their art collection. Inside their tiny unit was a treasure trove straight out of the Arabian nights filled with art, museum pieces and enormous sparkling geodes (I'm not making this up). At some point, they had bought out an art gallery that was going out of business. These artists had so much disposable income, due to their extremely low rent-controlled rent, that they could afford to buy the entire stock of an art gallery. The art they owned was so valuable that they were in talks with a major museum to sell the collection. This, on the income of two bohemian artists, but with the help of one important detail - rent control. When they sell the collection and become the official millionaires that by tech definitions they already are (since anyone who works for Twitter and holds stock "must be a millionaire"...), they will continue to pay their significantly discounted rent...until the building collapses or they die.

This type of disposable income is completely foreign to practically any person who has tried to move to the city in the last decade, including the vast majority of tech people, and it represents an important side to the argument that conveniently gets brushed over as news of increased evictions outrages the democratic citizenry. Do I think that these nice people should be evicted? Of course not. If I had a rent-controlled apartment in SF, I'd do almost anything to keep it too (especially vote...), and I'd be outraged at the idea that someone could take it away from me. But if we are going to start talking about fairness and unanticipated economic consequences, the extreme market conditions that rent control has created in San Francisco have to be addressed.

It is not sustainable for massive numbers of tenants to pay a small percent of market rate for their apartments, and in my humble opinion, it is not fair. (For some imagery, check out this Bold Italic article profiling certain rent controlled apartments and prices).

Is it fair for a landlord to jack up the price of your rent by huge percentages each year? Absolutely not. But there is a middle ground here that everyone seems to be ignoring.

It is also not sustainable for anyone in the ecosystem - new tenants, old tenants and landlords - for a significant % of the city's residents to be paying vastly below the market rate.

Unsustainable for new tenants, aka anyone who doesn't have an old rent-controlled apartment, including people who work for tech companies:

Why should any person who wants to move to the city, just as people have since it was founded, have to pay 3-5x the amount (or more) for the same exact apartment layout as their neighbors? Most new residents end up spending an unsustainable % of their income (many of them over 35% of it) on housing, while their neighbors collect art with the very high % of their personal income that they get to keep thanks to their severely below-market-value housing. There is an added long term problem here, as these young professionals struggle to save anything against their high housing costs while not getting access to a pension or other reasonable retirement portfolio like many of their elder neighbors also enjoy. It's a tough, tough world for the non-rent-controlled person, whether they work for a tech company or not. But they don't have a choice, they, like everybody else, have to figure out how to live in the city on a salary that cannot actually afford it.

Unsustainable for landlords, including the ones who aren't innately evil:

To take the side of the evil landlord for a moment - what exactly are they supposed to do when the rent that they are paid, based on the currency and market value in 1978 (+ a miniscule % increase per year), isn't even enough to cover the expenses of keeping the building up? Should they act like a charity and dump money into improving a building that they will never see the return on investment on because it is illegal for them to kick out the residents? Landlords can't even sell certain apartment buildings because rent control makes it so unprofitable to maintain them that no one wants to buy them.

In order to manage this situation, and make a sustainable business, they do several important things that are bad for tenants and for the city in general:

            1) They keep empty housing stock. In 2011, there were over 30,000 empty housing units in San Francisco. I have seen estimates that now it could be as high as 50,000. Rent control is so unsustainable, that landlords believe it is an appropriate business strategy to keep vacated units empty, sometimes for years, until all of the legacy rent-controlled residents move out or die so that they can finally update and re-rent the units at "market rates." This creates a false lack of supply that pushes the "market prices" higher than they should be.

            2) They charge really high new rents to plan for the future. For any building built before 1978, they know that they can't raise a tenant's rent more than a tiny % every year, so they set a price for an open unit that they believe will be sustainable in the event that someone lives there, basking in rent control, for the next 20 years. This means that while thousands of apartments sit empty and thousands of others sit full with significantly below market value rents, the rest of the stock is expected to balance the books by contributing enough revenue to cover those losses. Non rent-controlled renters in San Francisco are therefore basically paying to cover the entire cost of the city's rent-controlled revenue loss. No wonder "market rates" are so damn expensive.

            3) They let buildings become unsafe and generally crappy. Why would they pay to improve the units when they can't even break even? And so, like any reasonable business, they do not. They squeak by with the absolute minimum allowed by law, in some cases letting buildings crumble to the point that they need to be completely razed, because there is absolutely no way to regain the money that they invest. It's not mean, they just don't have the money. Would you pay for random people to improve their homes when you don't get anything in return?

           4) They evict people. It's sad, sometimes it's mean, but when they can, they evict people. There are very strict laws about who can be evicted, how, and how much they have to be compensated. So, when landlords have the opportunity, say, when a 10-unit building is empty except for one last remaining renter and they can finally update it, they take the opportunity. Maybe it's unfair. But was it really fair for that person to spend in one year what their neighbor spent in one month? It is this inequality and economic mess that has created a situation in which evictions are positive for landlords. Think about it - they have to hire lawyers, do all sorts of paperwork, jump through hoops. They don't do it because they're mean - they do it because they need to make their business work.

Unsustainable for the people who enjoy rent control:

Evictions suck. Living in collapsing buildings with 30-year old appliances suck. And, when they are forced out of their rent-controlled haven or decide to consider another neighborhood, they are faced with the same inflated market prices as the rest of us. No wonder housing is totally unaffordable for lower and middle income people - the market is unsustainable. But before you go and blame scores of tech millionaires who don't exist, you must understand that this market situation is bad for everyone, and that rent control plays a huge role in that unsustainability - tech boom or not.

To be clear, I'm not actually advocating that we eliminate rent control completely. Personally, I suggest we reduce its presence in the market over time by:

1) Instituting updated restrictions to all buildings, including those built after 1978 that address the primary issue that was a problem in 1978 and still is - that landlords can't arbitrarily raise rents by astronomical amounts all the time. This should, however, be a sustainable, balanced and forward-thinking set of restrictions, not the mess that we started in 1978 and that only applies to a % of the population.

2) Reducing the burden of the existing rent control population by phasing it out through attrition - as people move out of rent-controlled apartments, they become subject to the new rules, not the 1978 rules, and transferring rent control legacies is eliminated.

Now, whether our city could actually institute an idea like this without it degenerating into a special-interest flooded extravaganza of corruption is another issue, but in my theoretical world, I believe that this would work. 

Conclusions:

I'd like to bring this back to the hot topic of the day, the debacle of 8 Washington.

Yesterday, San Francisco voters said no to a luxury housing development that had been "in the works" for 7 years, that had somehow managed to gain an exemption from the city to allow it to exceed height restrictions for its 134 condos, and that supposedly expected prices of up to $5 million per unit. The city was drooling over the $350 million in projected tax revenue and the $11 million "donation" to the affordable housing fund, so much so that Mayor Ed Lee participated actively in campaigning for it.

The campaign against the development, "No wall on the waterfront," proposed an apocalyptic vision of Miami-Beach-esque condos blocking the waterfront, creating a physical separation between the "rich" and "everyone else" that struck an emotional and symbolic nerve in many people's stewing discomfort with this larger housing crisis.

But anytime you want truth, follow the money, and when you look at the facts of even this small example, this "us versus them" argument turns out to be a smokescreen for a development battle amongst a small percent of the 1% who skillfully manipulated the public's emotions about this very complicated, very difficult-to-fix issue.

It turns out that the vast majority of the money that paid for the "No Wall on the Waterfront" campaign came primarily from the rich developers and residents in adjacent buildings who didn't want their views to be blocked or their private tennis club demolished (Source: LA Times).

So what it really comes down to is that Simon Snellgrove, the illustrious developer who is clearly a Slytherin based on his name, shouldn't have asked for that height exemption. What was he thinking? Was it a hubristic belief that he could sneak through the back door until it was too late? Could he not have kept his request within the law and avoided this mess? Could he not have offered more of a public good with his proposal that would have made voters feel like the "public" services in the proposal were valuable and sufficient instead of a slap in the face? 

Someone needs to ask Simon and Mayor Lee, what else was going on that made them believe that the project must have this illegal height - was it the financial models that assumed 100 Twitter millionaire owners in order to make the investment profitable? 

Somewhere, within the truth of what happened in this debacle is the truth of what's behind the real San Francisco housing crisis, and the sooner we can move forward from scapegoating our tech-industry neighbors, the sooner we can fix it, and we'd better. It might already be too late.

Amish Farming Fun and Martin Van Buren Mutton-Chops

I am once again in a position that my 12-year-old self would be very, very proud of: I have traveled so much and been to so many places that I can hardly begin a blog post without an avalanche of stories pummeling my time-restricted self.

Second to the actual experiences, swimming in recent memories is one of my favorite states of being, despite the fact that it stands in the way of the perfect fusion of Ira Glass and Paul Theroux that characterizes my blog in my head.

Yet after six countries, hundreds of stories across two months and many rural European villages, I find that before I can continue, I must finish a story which I have already begun, that of spending time in the German-speaking yet uniquely American culture of the Amish.

Photo taken on an average road in Holmes County, Ohio

To rewind a bit: Because I needed to attend my sister's college graduation, I decided to have the most cultural experience I could achieve in Ohio beyond eating a dozen White Castle sliders...Amish Country.

The Amish are fun to have around. You may not expect such a statement, given their strict religious opposition to alcohol and their belief that dancing is the work of the Devil. Yet, with their Little House on the Prairie outfits, super-cute buggies, and Martin Van Buren mutton-chops, they make any place feel like you've traveled back in time.

Martin Van Buren, the 8th president of the US of A

Amish man driving a buggy in Holmes County

The Amish countryside reminded me of Europe, especially France and Romania, and for a while I couldn't put my finger on why. It was some of the most beautiful I've seen in America and I realized after a few days that what was unusual was the prolific presence of old-world pasture grazing and subsistence farms, which give the rolling hills soft contrast and depth rather than destroying the landscape with industrial farming.

 Very old-world Amish farming

The delicate countryside produced without industrial farming

Over the years I've done quite a bit of research on the Amish, including finding a set of BBC semi-reality shows called "meet the amish" that follow Amish teenagers on their Rumspringe - the period of their lives when they are sent to the evil outside world to decide if they want to live in sin or come back and have babies on a farm without electricity. Most choose to come back, which makes them a much more interesting group of people to me. People who choose to live differently are people who I want to know.

I went to this research effort because the Amish often come up under the "weird american religions" discussion that periodically occurs in my life late at night while drinking local spirits and chatting with friends in foreign countries. Fascinatingly, Europeans often confuse the Amish with Mormons. In these comparison conversations, often the Amish come out with the more seemingly logical doctrine than the Mormons, but that is a topic that will certainly distract from the matter at hand...

Where I stayed, Holmes County Ohio, is actually governed with Amish-culture based laws, including the continued prohibition of alcohol. How could the Amish have so much influence? How many Amish could there possibly be? Get ready for this one - there are over 165,000 practicing old-order Amish in the US. Bringing back in the Mormon comparison, that's about the same population as Salt Lake City (189k in the 2012 census).

A buggy plods along the busy road behind a Semi-truck - a very common scene

Buggy crossing

In Holmes county at about 7pm, most restaurants have parking lots full of buggies and most houses have kerosine lamps flickering in the windows. Wooden phone booths stick up by the side of the road even on very rural paths because some Amish are allowed to use the phone...just not inside the house. Moderating the rules of what is and isn't acceptable from modern life are a group of elders, who also interpret the old german language bibles that they use as their doctrine. Recently, young Amish have begun reading the King James bible, and you know what happened the last time that people started reading the bible for themselves instead of having it interpreted from an archaic language by church-elders...uh oh, reformation may be coming...

The hosts at my quaint B&B in "Amish Door, Ohio" were Mennonites, a group somewhat related to Amish that doesn't have the same level of technology and dress restrictions but still adheres to strict and similar fundamentalist religious concepts. They also tend to act more evangelical. While they were very cordial and surprised that San Franciscans would visit them, they kept saying, "we'll pray for you" and "God bless you." I couldn't help but feel a strong subtext in their polite religious offerings, as if they were saying, "and boy do YOU need it."

It's quite a fascinating concept to my agnostic self that any religion in the 21st century can continue to advocate a point of view that there is specifically one correct interpretation of how the universe works and that their specific interpretation is the right one. I did find, however, that the Amish with whom I interacted, unlike the evangelical Mennonite christians I stayed with, seemed far more content to go about their lives with their interpretation without needing to convert outsiders. It was refreshing. And after several days of prayer on my behalf, came a victory for the Amish rather than the evangelicals - a couple of San Franciscans came to appreciate that their logic - the value and pride of work, spending time with their families, living what they were preaching instead of beating it over the heads of infidels - seemed far more christian than anything I've seen on conservative television, pretty much...ever.

It is not a life that I would choose, but like so many other places I've traveled, I like that others choose it, because like their subsistence farmed fields, they add depth and color to an otherwise increasingly standardized world, and I for one, am glad to live in a country where they are free to do so... as long as they don't start legislating that I join them ;).

 An Amish farm, not in good condition. 

Normally, the Amish community will help those in need. It's possible that this family is one of the many who has left the Amish for the proselytizing evangelical communities in the area, who offer much less social and financial support. 

The proselytizing controversy has caused extensive strife in Amish areas.

Amish women work in the fields and manage the household. Despite the religious view on gender roles, everyone in the family does hard manual work. Many Amish women say that they feel equally valued in society, although they are quick to point out that the man is still the final decision maker, "As the Bible says."

Note: The Amish do not believe in having their photos taken because it is immodest. After a long internal debate about whether to use photos at all, I have chosen for the sake of the story to use photos in which their faces are not clear.