ALTO

pandemic limited Harris’s access to physical sources, it allowed him the time to indulge himself in research for hours on end.

“I would get a big stack of books and take it to the park and read a stack of books all day,” Harris said. “I had a complicated system for annotating them so I could find my notes later when I was writing particular sections.”

Research

Using his notes from these physical sources as well as archive.org, Google Books and other online resources, including periodicals from the ‘70s and ‘80s, Harris continued until he finished his final draft.

“I researched a little bit, wrote the proposal, researched more, wrote an outline and then researched more as I continued to actually start writing,” he said. “But I was still researching down to the final days, [and] still pulling in new information.”

Because of the influx of new information, the book ended up longer than originally pitched.

“When I sold the book, it wasn’t supposed to be this long,” Harris said. “I had to convince my editor that ‘Hey, this is going to be 700 pages,’ which I was able to do. It was lucky [and] I’m still sort of surprised.”

Community reactions

Harris’s blame on Palo Alto is disagreed with by some Palo Altans, including Ariane Erickson, whose family has been living in the city for 50 years.

“I’ve had a very positive perspective of what it’s like to grow up in Palo Alto and to raise kids in Palo Alto and to pursue a career in Palo Alto,” Erickson said. “It

Art by PALINA KUZMINA

Issue

has its problems but overall I feel as though it’s really one of the best places in the world to live.”

Although Erickson agrees that capitalism is not perfect, she says Harris overlooks the well-intended businesses in Silicon Valley that seek to provide solutions to problems such as climate change and unemployment.

“Clean tech in particular is something that I’m very thankful for that has been very powerful and strong here in Palo Alto and in Silicon Valley that really truly is creating solutions to climate change and also other non-environmental problems as well,” Erickson said. “So there’s a lot of good that’s happening from the franchise that lives here.”

Erickson acknowledged the dark history of eugenics and redlining, but said she believes Harris overemphasizes problems caused by only a small percentage of the city’s population.

“We didn’t escape the mistakes that people made in the past,” Erickson said. “But I think that the people who live and work in and for the city now are very liberal-minded and are willing and interested in creating a more equitable future for Palo Alto.” v