Overview

The definitive and ""captivating"" (Marty Baron, author of Collision of Power) story of San Francisco's meteoric transformation into a global capital of technology, and how the same creative and political forces that gave rise to its boom nearly engineered its collapse.At the dawn of the 1990s, San Francisco was a beautiful if troubled mid-sized metropolis still reeling from the AIDS epidemic and the Lome Prieta earthquake, its economy stuck in a post-industrial slump. Once considered to be the capital of the American West, and later the beating heart of the global counterculture, the mythic, fog-shrouded city at the edge of the continent faced an uncertain future. But in that very moment, a band of free-thinking technologists, immersed in the creative zeitgeist of the city, were inventing the contemporary internet. San Francisco would undergo an epic political, social, and economic transformation as it claimed the title of tech capital of the world. Local politicians, including Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris, advanced to the national stage. An unlikely marriage of underground culture and technological optimism gave rise to the annual reverie known as Burning Man. This should be a happy story for San Francisco. But as the city's tech economy roared, a host of urban ills lurked in the shadows: homelessness, drug addiction, mental illness, and a crippling lack of new housing. The city's famous left-wing political establishment struggled to get its arms around the problems, becoming a punching bag for President Trump and the new right. When the pandemic arrived in 2020, it created new crises and laid old ones bare, shattering a ""City Family"" that had ruled political for more than thirty years and prompting a sharp rightward turn by the once liberal tech industry. Jonahtan Weber saw it all up close as a reporter and newsroom leader. He offers a sweeping history of a city that rose to dizzying heights, only to be undone by the heedlessness of a tech industry it did so much to spawn and politicians who had lost the plot. Drawing on two hundred interviews with mayors, CEOs, activists, investors, and artists, City on the Edge is more than a simple chronicle of a city. It's the story of a war waged for the heart of San Francisco--one that anticipated the culture wars raging around the world. Its outcome would have an impact far beyond the city's famed Golden Gates.

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9781668117224

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Jonathan Weber was named the Los Angeles Times's first-ever Silicon Valley reporter in 1990. He was later editor in chief of The Industry Standard, a chronicle of and bellwether for the first dot-com boom, and oversaw West Coast news and global technology coverage for Reuters. He was most recently the editor in chief of The San Francisco Standard. George Newbern is an Earphones Award-winning narrator and a television and film actor best known for his roles as Brian MacKenzie in Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II, as well as Danny in Friends. As a voice actor, he is notable for his role as Superman on the Cartoon Newtork series Static Shock, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited. He has guest starred on many television series, including Scandal, The Mentalist, Private Practice, CSI: Miami, and Numb3rs. He holds a BA in theater arts from Northwestern University.

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