Summary of Conor Dougherty's Golden Gates

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Sample Book Insights:

#1 The Planning Commission in San Francisco was bombarded with comments from an angry young woman named Sonja Trauss who supported every project under consideration, as well as more housing in general.

#2 Sonja Trauss, a high school math teacher, spoke at a city meeting in favor of housing, claiming to be just a member of the public. She was actually a grad school dropout who had moved to the Bay Area because she was too embarrassed to go back home and explain why she didn’t have a PhD.

#3 Sonja had never had a stable career, having graduated from law school and then dropping out. She’d been a bike messenger, a window washer, and a legal aide. She’d spent a year organizing friends and sewing spandex costumes as part of the founding of a thirty-person comedy troupe.

#4 In San Francisco, Sonja lived in a house with cheap artist and musician roommates, who turned the place into a subcultural melting pot. The Bay Area’s tech boom in the 1990s was defined by political activism and the struggle of just being there.