Gentrification

Jeff Cleary spotted this wonderfully rich, the-gentrification-jokes-practically-write-themselves tag on 16th and Guerrero, noting "at least it's a step up from pussyjuice."

Wait, what?  We're down on pussyjuice now?

[Thanks Jeff! Get a job!]

Previously on Uptown Almanac

• New Trend for 2012: Representing the Rich

If you've read anything on the subject on urban cycling lately, the answer is a resounding yes. A Chronicle columnist recently suggested (jokingly, of course) pepper spraying "hipster cyclists" ("Oh right, like you've never been driving along all calm and happy, when suddenly a skinny hipster whips in front of you and flips you off with one hand while toking on his American Spirit with the other, even as he chugs his Four Barrel triple latte with his giant beard before pedaling his fixie all the way to the Piercing Emporium to punch holes in your unsuspecting kids.") SFist brands 'em as a "unusually sensitive group" whom "tend to base their personality on a chosen mode of transportation."  Mission Local frets over cyclists soft pedaling along The Mission's wide sidewalks while 'concerned citizens' at community meetings demand more police crackdowns of reckless environmentalists on their 25-pound Taiwanese death machines.  And when a cyclist killed a pedestrian along the Embarcadero over the summer, it made international headlines and spurred the DA into filing criminal charges against the cyclist (despite living in a city in which 800+ pedestrians are hit by cars every year).

Well, Salon recently took up the cause of defending the so-called "transportation bourgeoisie," looking into the preceived smugness of America's two-wheeled demographic:

Urban bicyclists have an image problem. They’ve become stereotyped as pretentious, aloof jackasses, and a lot of this has to do with the changes taking place in cities right now. During the last decade, dozens of urban cores were inundated by young, well-educated newcomers. Places like Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and Washington added tens of thousands of these new residents. And one thing’s for sure: These kids really like bikes. An analysis by Atlantic Cities showed that bicycle ridership in these cities soared during this period. In some cases, it more than doubled.

The rise in bicycling compelled cities to make themselves more friendly to bicyclists, and the friendlier they became, the more people starting riding. But as miles of bike lanes were striped and bike-share systems were installed, some of those cities’ residents started to criticize what they saw as major changes being made for a few new arrivals. “It got associated with young people and newcomers, and so people see cycling as something that’s accompanied by gentrification,” says Ben Fried, editor in chief of the online magazine Streetsblog. Bicycles and bike lanes became the most visible, most concrete representation of the demographic shifts transforming cities — and all the tensions and growing pains such a transformation entails.

The bicyclists-as-gentrifiers trope turns out to be more perception than reality, though. Over the last decade, the share of white bicyclists fell in proportion to riders of color. And ridership is remarkably equal across income groups. Part of the reason we don’t see it this way is because all too often, bike infrastructure gets concentrated in tony areas. Look at a map of a city’s bike lanes and bike-share stations and you’ll have a perfect guide to the “good” neighborhoods. In many cities, writes Dave Feucht, editor of the bicycling blog Portlandize, “being able to get around by bicycle is seen as elitist because you have to have money in order to live in a part of the city where it’s even possible to ride a bicycle.”

It's worth mentioning that while the bulk of SF's bike lanes are in the eastern half of the city, SF Bike Coalition's Connecting the City campaign is, in no small part, aimed at providing safe bike routes from the western half of the city to considerably less-foggy downtown area.

But the point rings true: as long as cyclists continue focusing their infrastructure efforts on the Mission's already bike-friendly streets, cranky newspaper columnists will ignore the demographics and paint the bicycle as a vehicle of pretentiousness.

[Photo by Steev Hise]

Despite this piece about the Mission in San Francisco Magazine being riddled with inaccuracies, such as saying Mission Loc@l is a "more fun" New York Times, it still has to be one of the more balanced pieces of Mission gentrification I've read:

The last time the Mission was booming, things were very different. “The dot-com era felt like living in a Latin Amer ican country, with things changing so quickly,” says Lydia Chávez, a 13-year resident who oversees Mission Local, the university-funded bilingual news site that kicks the San Francisco Chronicle’s ass. Tea recalls, “I was throwing eggs out my window at people attending web parties across the street. There was an insane, frantic, greedy energy, where one day, you had your neighborhood, and the next, it was full of speculators.” Back then, the idea of people working together in any way, or even just trading composting tips while wolfing down pupusas at the farmers market, seemed not only ridiculous but wrong, like giving up or selling out or consorting with the enemy. But that’s the difference between a boom in a bubble and a boom in a bust.

“Maybe they had a lot of money and kicked you out of your rent-control unit—now they are baristas and struggling to make it as well,” says Eric Quezada, a self-described “housing justice advocate” who is now the executive director of Dolores Street Community Services. “Instead of anger, folks want to find ways of building alliances that weren’t as obvious in the past.”

The article goes on to present the yuppie tech worker gentrification of the hood as a positive thing, despite rising rents, "The people who aren’t artists can be curators or patrons. Every artist needs a benefactor, as does every food cart, tutoring center, and cultural experiment."

Perhaps dragging all the venture capital money to the city and spending it on food carts, burritos, PBR and expensive jeans is a good thing. A rising tide lifts all boats.  But the segregated dot-com money-fest is still here.  The Summit is the most obvious example; a cafe whose lavishness even makes it inaccessible to most Missionites.  And unlike most of Valencia, where businesses feel welcoming to all walks of life, The Summit yells that it caters to a very limited, affluent clientele.

So even with all the wonderful things money brings--farmer's markets, sidewalk curry, art galleries and a wallet with $83 in it I found on 19th--is this boom for the best?  The article concludes with a hopeful tone.  To paraphrase, "The economic change is here, and everyone is doing their part to make the best of it."  But, at the end of the day, it comes down to the cost of living.  As commenter Andrew O.  Dugas said, "People have been talking about the gentrification of the Mission since the 1980s (earlier?) but done is done. Now it's too expensive for the hipsters who made it cool. Where are they all moving? Why, to the new Mission, of course, aka The Tenderloin. See you at Cafe Royale!"

(link)

Are historically all-black bars turning into hipster dives a sign that Oakland is 'fucking over'?

The good olde days of 1999 are long gone, Chris Daly's war on Mission gentrification is over--"La Mission" lost and the gentrifying forces of decades past are moving back--and the neighborhood's transition towards Noe Valley is cemented (hell, realtors are already carving up the neighborhood).  With rising rents, a fleeing art scene and neighborhood concerns shifting towards public drinking, the same types of bleed-edge cool that made the Mission accessible in the late-80s/early-90s are packing up their bags and settling in all parts of Oakland (this very blog has lost two contributors to Oakland in recent months).  Well, according to THE OAKBOOK, Oakland is now experiencing the same gentrification woes that the Mission experienced during the dot-com boom:

[Moving into West Oakland is] a trend that started earlier in parts of North Oakland - young white families or singles moving into neighborhoods that had been predominately black or Latino. Gentrification is usually derided by people who are concerned the old residents are being pushed out of their neighborhoods. The fact that parts of West Oakland are being transformed is particularly striking because the area has been the heart and soul of Oakland’s African American community, historically and culturally.

It also speaks to a citywide trend - the dramatically decreasing African American population. From its peak as 47 percent of the population in 1980, the proportion has dropped to 29.8 percent, according to the U.S. Census American Community Survey in 2006 -08. Between 2000 and 2008, 34,000 African Americans left the city, the largest exodus in Oakland’s history. It would seem that Oakland’s days as a predominately black city, with the attendant influence on politics and culture, are numbered.

That's right, young white people, in search of cheaper rents, better street art and music (I mean, Third Eye Blind vs. E-40 COMEON), are throwing their hands up in the air and moving across the Bay.  What does this mean for Oakland and it's African-American population?  Well, OAKBOOK is putting together a multi-part series on exactly that, but you're going to have to wait for it (hint: it doesn't look good).  In the meantime, what's happening to the Mission?  With the cost of living in the Mission going up and the quality of weekends in the neighborhood plummeting (remember the days, like, in 2008, when the bars were not fucking packed all the time?), it's no surprise that there are more fixies in the Richmond and more rocking house parties in West Oakland.  Is the Mission a sinking ship (with Dolores Park being our life raft)?

(photo of the Heart and Dagger Saloon beer garden by Paula Wirth)