The timing was wryly appropriate to be discussing gentrification in class – my home area has seen a marked recent uptick in publicity regarding the current class turf wars of San Francisco. From local social media communities cropping up to decry the wealth disparity to the private Google charter buses becoming a symbol of rapidly growing tensions, San Francisco is, and has historically been, a case study for the economic divisions wrought by a tech-driven town. NPR even has our own special series entitled “Income Inequality in The San Francisco Bay Area” – what a dubious honor, thanks NPR.
One of the most resonant articles I’ve read recently regarding this phenomenon is entitled “What Tech Hasn’t Learned From Urban Planning” by Allison Arieff of the New York Times. Now clearly, I’ve got a bit of personal bias in this one, but I found Arieff’s take to be a good primer that shifts the discourse from simply a matter of economics to the concerted lack of design and community integration on the part of wealthy tech companies. From craft beer on tap in company cafeterias to lavish open bar networking events, tech communities are embracing their own sense of fabricated “community” with aplomb.
Yet within the city proper, most of these companies are actually located in some of the historically poorer neighborhoods (notably Mid-Market next to the Tenderloin and South of Market area, now home to Twitter, Zendesk, etc…) that are marked by homelessness and disarray of public utilities. Indeed, in contrast to some other neighborhoods of San Francisco, these areas had lingered as sharp reminders of the very real issues of lower income life: some of the highest levels of violent crime and assault within the city, addiction, substance trade, ramshackle apartments, and even a reputation for being the former origin of a notorious Filipino gang of the 1970s.
Arieff puts it bluntly: “The tech sector’s embrace of urbanist lingua franca and its enthusiasm to engage with urban problems is awesome, and much welcomed. But these folks need to become better urbanists” Indeed, the construction boom meant to revitalize and pour resources into these areas have only served to hasten San Francisco evictions at an alarming rate. The building of “community” in effect is more akin to a self-indulgent isolation when throngs of homeless are literally at the doorstep.
I wish I was simply trying my hand at dramatism, but having grown up in the area and spending the last year working a few blocks from the new Twitter headquarters, it is abundantly clear that something alarming is happening to the urban fabric of San Francisco at the moment. Here’s my confession: technically, I did not grow up in San Francisco city proper, but rather in the sheltered suburbs south of the city. I later chose to go to high school in the city, and respectfully defer to those who grew up in the city and have intimate ties to the local businesses, whose childhoods were of San Francisco. Now I’m not saying that emigration is necessarily bad, however maybe because I worked hard to be respectful of my background to now somewhat be considered essentially a city local, the blissfully ignorant relationship between these new ultra-wealthy tech companies and the neighborhoods they are sapping is extra-disquieting to me.
I do not wish to solely play the blame game and I am certainly not trying to put myself on a pedestal – instead I sincerely wish that a greater sense of symbiotic conversation was occurring, that an acknowledgment of the deep divides that are being drawn was moving beyond the defensive recognition to a larger awareness and ultimately, responsibility. Maybe I’m an idealist, but community and urban preservation should be considered something akin to an intertwined, flexible system, not simply fragmented shards of uneven development.
Calling all urbanists and Jane Jacobs protégés – San Francisco needs you.
Earlier blog post version originally published December 19, 2013. Photo from: http://hayeswire.com/2013/12/anonymous-flyers-bemoan-loss-of-sfs-soul.html#more-9599
The Medford Pact 