The Battle for the Soul of San Francisco

As a rule these articles about gentrification almost always irritate the hell out of me (likely because I live in a gentrifying neighborhood in Chicago and honestly just don't feel all that bad about it), but this is a rare exception. I think this article is well worth the long read.

A lot of what makes the "news" in Chicago are plays on the old "this was my neighborhood/new people are allowed to live here too" tropes. All that seems to do is to get both sides to dig in, and I've never seen any useful dialogue come from it. Telling me that I'm an asshole because I came in and bought a house for more than it was worth 20 years ago and I should be ashamed of myself doesn't do any more good than me telling someone that I know their rent goes up as the neighborhood gets more expensive, but they don't get to tell me where I can buy my house and by the way, my neighbors houses are worth more now too.

This article changes the conversation in a way that I hope isn't specific to SF by acknowledging that gentrifiers come into contact with new people with real problems. Appealing to someone's humanity to help their neighbor is a much more effective strategy than verbal class warfare. It also helps inspire people to think of ways to get concretely involved in small and meaningful ways, rather than complaining about problems when there are very few realistic alternatives.

oh no! property values are going up!

this is always bad, except when it's good.

Oh no! Gas prices are going up! This is always bad, except when it's good.

This article is a bunch of nonsense. Prices are prices, and the demographics of neighborhoods change over time.

The loudest whinging about gentrification always comes from the first wave of gentrifiers. The poor people who lived in these 'bad' neighborhoods for 30 years and sold their house at 20x to a couple of yuppies are not the complainers...