{"id":65565,"date":"2017-10-16T16:05:33","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T14:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/?p=65565"},"modified":"2023-04-12T16:27:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-12T14:27:00","slug":"san-francisco-soma-silicon-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/en\/san-francisco-soma-silicon-valley","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco: SoMa, Silicon Valley in the city centre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Report and photos <\/span>Florian Guillemin.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half a century after the Summer of Love<\/strong>a whiff of freedom still wafts through the streets of Paris. San Francisco<\/strong><\/a>. And it's not just because California legalised recreational marijuana in 2016... The bobos-geeks have replaced the hippies, rock concerts have given way to \"keynotes<\/strong> business, but the excitement is still there. The high-tech sector, once confined to the Silicon Valley<\/strong><\/a>The web giants are aiming to attract young talent by offering them a livelier living environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One district is the epitome of this trend: SoMa<\/strong>which stands for South of Market Street<\/strong>In recent years, the area has undergone a veritable renaissance. Long marginalised - or even left to decay - this area of warehouses populated by the homeless is now emerging as San Francisco's up-and-coming district. Visit start-up<\/strong> are flourishing in the shadow of the headquarters inaugurated by all the web giants. Gentrification may be underway, but it is not yet complete. So the atmosphere is a mixed bag. Depending on the street and the time of day, you quickly go from \"bobo\" to \"hobo\", the nickname given to the many homeless people you come across in San Francisco. Eventually, the food trucks<\/strong> and spaces coworking<\/a><\/strong> are set to replace the areas left fallow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once uninviting, the SoMa is now unaffordable...<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The district's boom has not been without collateral damage. Traffic has reached saturation point, rents for homes and offices have soared, and Frisco has even overtaken Manhattan as the most expensive place in the US to set up a business. Once uninhabitable, SoMa is now unaffordable... To keep up with demand, the district is expanding northwards, nibbling away at the Financial District. Underground, the metro project called Central Subway<\/strong> is designed to improve connectivity and relieve traffic congestion. On the surface, skyscrapers are rising to increase the number of homes and offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a symbol, the city's tallest building - 326 metres - will be inaugurated in a few months' time in SoMa: the Salesforce Tour<\/strong>. To the glory of a key player in the digital age, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SoMa, the new high-tech epicentre<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Today, the SoMa is perhaps the best place on earth to get close to a herd of \"unicorns<\/strong>These are companies whose value has reached the symbolic billion-dollar mark. Over the last few years, these companies have gathered in San Francisco's new business district. From west to east, there is a succession of offices of Twitter, Yahoo, Uber, Slack and Google<\/strong>. Facebook will soon join this list, which is starting to look like a Hollywood Boulevard 2.0<\/strong>. In particular, its managers would like to relocate the employees of Instagram, the famous photography application acquired in 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n

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But the real icon of the neighbourhood is Airbnb<\/strong>. The collaborative hosting giant has just moved to 999 Brannan Street, right in the heart of SoMa, adding almost 15,000 sq m to its neighbouring offices at number 888 on the same street. This is further proof of its loyalty to the neighbourhood in which it was born. It was here that the site's founders rented out their first airbed, launching the concept of collaborative accommodation and, more generally, the sharing economy... While the idea has spread across the planet, Airbnb's address remains - almost - unchanged.<\/span><\/p>\n

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