When I was a child I lived in Manhattan and in Berkeley. My father’s closest friends were artists and professors and fools. I never knew that the “mixed race” lesbian couple we saw often were exotic or different. I wasn’t taught to care about that.
The point is that children don’t really care about these things until they’re told to. San Francisco, and now my beloved New York, are entirely captured by identity politics, and it’s no accident. I used to go to the Mission, and to North Beach, sometimes catch a beer with Carol Doda at the old Cafe Tosca. No one told us what color people to like or what kind of sex to have. Lots of things are better now, for women, for gays, for everyone who likes a toke. But caring too much about race and gender and sexuality just puts walls between us. And that’s no accident either. People are people, all the same in essence. That’s really inconvenient for those who want to be in control.
It's a "great" way to divide people and movements. This Hernandez character comes across as an opportunist. Perhaps it would be instructive to compare how he's doing with how the district is doing.
The dissolution of communities driven by leftist nihilistic drivel such as DEI and the consequential fracturing of the left is staggering, but certainly expected.
As usual , brilliant reporting by Lee Fang who is always on top of the essentials. Thank you Lee
One thing that has always confused me about the racist excuse is that if white people move in, it's gentrification. If they move out, it's white flight. There is no pleasing people who want to be offended. And, here in reality, there is no such thing as building nice things and getting to have your life all planned out and paid for by others. Someone has to pay rent. The no evictions thing? Are you kidding me? If person X and person Y both need a place to stay and Person X pays to live somewhere, why would Person Y get to keep that place or live there for free? I don't understand how these people think (by these people, I mean everyone who thinks rules and responsibilities apply to others and not them) Can anyone imagine what would happen if a Scots-Irish community said these things? This man would rather let the community do without than allow conveniences for his own friends and neighbors while living In a country that is multicultural (like it or not) while lecturing other races and screaming diversity is our strength. This is no different than some trailer parks in the deep south who will intimidate anyone who isn't comfortable with the old rebel flag flying in every window. I'm tired of racism being just fine for everyone but a couple of unfavored groups. If I want the things Someone has, I try to find out what they did and do that. I don't just sit back and think maybe they will give me what they have while I live how I want. That's fantasy land.
Paradoxically people appear to be more rigid about their identities than I've ever experienced as a native San Franciscan. We all rejoiced (for the most part) in our differences. Our communities and schools were ethnically diverse and I had many friends from different cultures. I'd celebrate Chinese New Year with a Thousand Year Egg eaten with my Chinese American neighbors. I doubt that the Russian community in Little Russia has ever gotten their knickers in a twist about the changing demographics around them.
The Mission would be a great neighborhood for thoughtful buildouts. But, people need to get real about low income housing. Low income housing tends to look cheap and nasty over the years and doesn't hold up to the test of time. SROs need to be maintained otherwise they turn into the Roach Motel -- there is no free lunch. As a landlord I've been astonished at how either willfully stupid or just stubborn people are about the responsibility of property owners. My neighbor has a Section 8 rental and it's coming close to looking like a homeless camp. Roberto Hernandez would replace Hillary Ronan who was as close to being certifiably mental as a public official could be. She espoused Marxist values and completely alienated certain parts of the district. I know there is a legacy of Marxists in working class neighborhoods in San Francisco, but they have to go.
If gentrification didn’t have a track record of evicting the poors, I might believe that “white” people are only chomping at the bit to invest and improve these dangerous conditions you mention with one guy blocking their way. I hear a call for the very same improvement in conditions you want, public safety, reopening the 60 businesses shuttered by the pandemic, and yes, housing that people can afford. This isn’t a racist battle, it’s about an economic configuration that leaves workers in life-threatening conditions, and the well off in a cornucopia of plenty. By the numbers, a winning strategy.
Thank you. I was feeling lonely reading Lee’s perspective. Lee isn’t interested in knitting together the colorfulness of migration and the joy of mobility (you know, the rich historical pageant of The American City and its waves of mostly penniless immigrants moving into and out of the usually undesirable parts), with the economic challenges San Francisco presents for its not-rich residents today. This way it is easier for Lee to reduce the issues to racism and to chide those who resist the relentlessness of gentrification with it.
Ditto on the thanks. This makes me think of especially Hawaii and popular cities in the contiguous US where 'development' has driven out locals who, unable to pay taxes and high prices, are forced from family homes to distances from which they have to commute to unaffordable service jobs for the wealthy who drove them out.
The most expensive places in the country are places that highly restrict housing development — Hawaii, Marin County, SF, Newport Beach, etc. Building brings down costs. It’s just an economic reality.
“It’s just economic reality.” I see your point, Lee. Please don’t take this the wrong way. I spend an outrageous amount of money on the alternative media model, without complaint because I understand that we are in a transitioning economic reality when it comes to news and real journalists are caught in the crossfire. But something has to give. It’s just economic reality. And I have standards. You are a good journalist and I hope you don’t end up in a photo carrying a sign in someone else’s report on Substack. Be well.
I think too it's more about class than race. And power retained by locals with ownership investment against newcomers with different values, lifestyles, and that unspoken condescension in wanting to 'make things better' with the sometimes spoken 'because we know what's right.'
A big part of the US problem with the rest of the world? We know best, we only want to do good. For ourselves foremost. But I don't know SF and I do see a lot of Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff.
Another analogy just popped into mind, local co-ops v. multinational chains.
One of my go-to resources, Strong Towns. Does this entry relate? What resonates with me is especially that last paragraph,
"Strong Towns advocates can combat this by working for a development approach that lowers the bar to incremental development by many hands. Neighborhood change should occur through many small efforts instead of a few large ones, and no neighborhood should be allowed to exempt itself completely from change (through zoning or other exclusionary means). A Strong Towns approach will mean that change is more steady and responsive to bottom-up feedback, and will thus open new opportunities for those who already live in a neighborhood to play a greater role in shaping its future."
I may not be understanding you. But aren't economic realities mostly made by the rich and powerful - not handed from the sky on stone tablets? When locals alone lived there (thinking of Hawaii) prices were affordable and conditions livable. There was a social and cultural environment that in part at least attracted all that wealth that pushed them out. That article Maenad linked to made me think this seems a similar situation.
There may be more to it. Prof Condon of UBC has noted that condo and other developments' land acquisition costs are proportionately 'bid up' based on their zoning, which leaves no savings to pass along. This article summarizes his view nicely:
San Francisco's population has grown about 10% since 2000, with quite a lot of building happening in that time in Mission Bay and elsewhere. It's not the case that SF refuses to build; Prof. Condon's book provides one explanation as to why building more may not help.
"I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired" was a quote from a Black women from NYC at the RNC convention this summer in Milwaukee because her son was murdered and put blame on people like DA Alvin Bragg letting crime get out of control. The GOP has been in a civil war with the Chamber of Commerce types vs. America First and the racist Cheney's and Romney's are out and the tent door is open for all now. Is it perfect, no, but this story from Lee about SF is a microcosm of a national trend of people like Trump (like him or hate him) Vivek, JD, Elon, RFK Jr., and Bill Ackman coming out of their foxholes and saying enough is enough and questioning what are national identity is, and like MLK of the past, can we look past our race, gender, and ethnicity for a country for the people by the people. The election may be over in a few weeks but the real civil discourse is just beginning and I think this Republic is worth hanging onto.
Lee thanks for all your hard work. The saying here about living outside of Madison WI, the Berkeley of the Midwest, is "77 square miles surrounded by reality" Peace Out
Thanks Lee, would be fun to discuss with you some time...it was always this way in California, not just in SF, also going back to the Spanish Lords. Even the environmental regulations there have racist NIMBY roots. There is no better place in the USA to uncover the true underpinnings of the modern liberal order...keep digging, there is much pay dirt, in the spirit of '49!
Lee, it’s not so simple. As far back as the 90s, speculation in real estate and the destruction of public housing pushed all but the well-to-do out of the city; the artists, musicians, artists, teachers, nurses, workers were all priced out of SF by those same ‘centrist’ (neo) liberals you seem to believe haven’t always been in charge of that city. Moreover, the SRO hotels and shelters kept people off the streets were torn down or privatized or defunded (on the hideous ‘don’t feed the pigeons and they’ll all go away’ ideas of the NIMBY classes.)
One guy is fighting back after a 30 plus year speculation frenzy where public and affordable housing was purposefully torn down and destroyed - and this guy is the problem? Come on.
Well, the anti-gentrification forces have largely won. There is way less investment, very little housing built, and as a result, housing prices are high and crime is rampant. It’s always a trade off.
Yeah… not so sure about that. I lived in SF from @1980 - 2004. When I left in 2004, my rent was 3200/mo. The rent on that same apt now is around 8 - 10k. Hayes valley used to be the neighborhood of the poor and working class. You can’t touch a walk up studio there for under 5k. SF gentrified itself to the point of collapse 20 years ago.
Right, we haven’t built any housing so prices are expensive. We block new businesses so tax base has collapsed. It’s a downward spiral with less investment and higher costs.
it’s 49 sq. miles of city in an earthquake zone. Can’t build up, and can’t really build out. While I too detest identity politics, I especially hate it because it provides cover for neoliberal bullshit… I hate what has become of my hometown, and it breaks my heart - but I think, Lee, that you are punching down or maybe sideways when you really need to be looking up at those who are actually profiting from the destruction of the city; the rentier class and the hedge funds have despoiled the city. It’s not some barrio activist that’s responsible; Feinstein, Boxer,Pelosi, Getty etc did this to SF many years ago … the issue in SF is class, not race, and always has been.
Looked at through the lens of identity politics Lee's essay reveals an understandably offensive trend. Looked at through the lens of class, however, it opens us up to an entirely different conclusion. I am glad to see gentrification being resisted.
I recognize a difference in organic migration, for striving, and something more nefarious and manipulated, but the political and ideologically skewed reporting is hard to sift through.(Not a criticism of Lee, and thanks for jumping back in.)
It's not out of the question that Hernandez is running some kind of skimming racket because it doesn't make sense to be pro-blight and pro-crime in his own neighborhood. We've seen all kinds of contortion of goodwill towards the poor and homeless such that anything is possible.
However, I will fight anyone who may be looking to drive out neighborhood restaurants like Cheung Hing in the Sunset.
Why are the shops closed though? You don't go into that. That's the real question that you totally ignore. My family was Irish and Polish and our parents were all born in the Mission. I think maybe you're missing the point by overemphasizing the identity politics. That's easy to do but honestly it's a cheap trick.
I agree with Hernandez. Fuck the tech workers, fuck the ideology and foreign genocidal investors like Saudi Arabia and Israel making San Francisco into a mediocre cyberpunk nightmare with pseudo-self-driving cars for yuppies and drone police. San Francisco has turned into a nightmare and putting the onus on populist folks like Hernandez as the cause because he's resisting gentrification as the last strand toward turning San Francisco into the next hipster yuppie mall is a complete mistake.
So, Lee, do you like Mission Bay?
You talk about how the Mission "is now" XYZ, like break-ins or hawked markets. Dude, have you ever been to San Francisco? The Mission has been like this for at least 30 years. And it was already gentrified, my friend. Why do you think my family no longer lives there? And keeps getting more gentrified, you yourself point this out by "leftist nativists". Most of those are white people.
This article is so naive and uninformed to the actual living culture. Why don't you take the risk of interviewing Hernandez instead of doing a cheap, one-sided hit piece? Have the courage to introduce some nuance. Advocating for the next generation of yuppies-to-be ("post-dot-com" arrival LOL) to whitewash San Francisco culture is not something I am going to support. It's not "nativism" to want to have community control over your neighborhood. It's just common sense.
The real problem are the policy-makers in SF, just like everyone else, who refuse to hold profit interests accountable, instead greenlighting all kinds of policies because they are desperate for that tech $. SF gov't is totally sold out by Newsom, Breed, etc. The political class are and always have been the problem (as symbolically emphasized by now "Nancy Pelosi Drive" in GG Park, what a fucking mouthfull of vomit -- next to MLK??), for decades, and this article does nothing but serve them by putting the emphasis in the wrong direction. Neighborhoods in SF have always defined themselves in part by ethnicity, and it's just basic politics to mobilize folks based on their identity. So you've made a big whoop out of nothing. Congrats.
I lived in a barrio for several years after I was first married, & I couldn't wait to get out of it. Listening to gunshots every weekend & on all major holidays never made up for the tasty food places nearby.
While reading this, my mind wandered to the premise for a third and final Escape From movie. In this one, Marine One goes down in San Francisco with President Harris aboard. President Harris is being held in the Mission. Snake Plissken is called upon to rescue the captive president, but is too old to mount a rescue. Like the Biden administration before, the Harris administration proceeds merrily along while she is held captive. No one seems to notice or care.
When I was a child I lived in Manhattan and in Berkeley. My father’s closest friends were artists and professors and fools. I never knew that the “mixed race” lesbian couple we saw often were exotic or different. I wasn’t taught to care about that.
The point is that children don’t really care about these things until they’re told to. San Francisco, and now my beloved New York, are entirely captured by identity politics, and it’s no accident. I used to go to the Mission, and to North Beach, sometimes catch a beer with Carol Doda at the old Cafe Tosca. No one told us what color people to like or what kind of sex to have. Lots of things are better now, for women, for gays, for everyone who likes a toke. But caring too much about race and gender and sexuality just puts walls between us. And that’s no accident either. People are people, all the same in essence. That’s really inconvenient for those who want to be in control.
It's a "great" way to divide people and movements. This Hernandez character comes across as an opportunist. Perhaps it would be instructive to compare how he's doing with how the district is doing.
The dissolution of communities driven by leftist nihilistic drivel such as DEI and the consequential fracturing of the left is staggering, but certainly expected.
As usual , brilliant reporting by Lee Fang who is always on top of the essentials. Thank you Lee
One thing that has always confused me about the racist excuse is that if white people move in, it's gentrification. If they move out, it's white flight. There is no pleasing people who want to be offended. And, here in reality, there is no such thing as building nice things and getting to have your life all planned out and paid for by others. Someone has to pay rent. The no evictions thing? Are you kidding me? If person X and person Y both need a place to stay and Person X pays to live somewhere, why would Person Y get to keep that place or live there for free? I don't understand how these people think (by these people, I mean everyone who thinks rules and responsibilities apply to others and not them) Can anyone imagine what would happen if a Scots-Irish community said these things? This man would rather let the community do without than allow conveniences for his own friends and neighbors while living In a country that is multicultural (like it or not) while lecturing other races and screaming diversity is our strength. This is no different than some trailer parks in the deep south who will intimidate anyone who isn't comfortable with the old rebel flag flying in every window. I'm tired of racism being just fine for everyone but a couple of unfavored groups. If I want the things Someone has, I try to find out what they did and do that. I don't just sit back and think maybe they will give me what they have while I live how I want. That's fantasy land.
Paradoxically people appear to be more rigid about their identities than I've ever experienced as a native San Franciscan. We all rejoiced (for the most part) in our differences. Our communities and schools were ethnically diverse and I had many friends from different cultures. I'd celebrate Chinese New Year with a Thousand Year Egg eaten with my Chinese American neighbors. I doubt that the Russian community in Little Russia has ever gotten their knickers in a twist about the changing demographics around them.
The Mission would be a great neighborhood for thoughtful buildouts. But, people need to get real about low income housing. Low income housing tends to look cheap and nasty over the years and doesn't hold up to the test of time. SROs need to be maintained otherwise they turn into the Roach Motel -- there is no free lunch. As a landlord I've been astonished at how either willfully stupid or just stubborn people are about the responsibility of property owners. My neighbor has a Section 8 rental and it's coming close to looking like a homeless camp. Roberto Hernandez would replace Hillary Ronan who was as close to being certifiably mental as a public official could be. She espoused Marxist values and completely alienated certain parts of the district. I know there is a legacy of Marxists in working class neighborhoods in San Francisco, but they have to go.
If gentrification didn’t have a track record of evicting the poors, I might believe that “white” people are only chomping at the bit to invest and improve these dangerous conditions you mention with one guy blocking their way. I hear a call for the very same improvement in conditions you want, public safety, reopening the 60 businesses shuttered by the pandemic, and yes, housing that people can afford. This isn’t a racist battle, it’s about an economic configuration that leaves workers in life-threatening conditions, and the well off in a cornucopia of plenty. By the numbers, a winning strategy.
https://missionlocal.org/2024/04/hernandez-mannys-and-d9-candidate/
Thank you. I was feeling lonely reading Lee’s perspective. Lee isn’t interested in knitting together the colorfulness of migration and the joy of mobility (you know, the rich historical pageant of The American City and its waves of mostly penniless immigrants moving into and out of the usually undesirable parts), with the economic challenges San Francisco presents for its not-rich residents today. This way it is easier for Lee to reduce the issues to racism and to chide those who resist the relentlessness of gentrification with it.
And thanks for the link to that article - it paints a more familiar perspective I can relate to.
Ditto on the thanks. This makes me think of especially Hawaii and popular cities in the contiguous US where 'development' has driven out locals who, unable to pay taxes and high prices, are forced from family homes to distances from which they have to commute to unaffordable service jobs for the wealthy who drove them out.
The most expensive places in the country are places that highly restrict housing development — Hawaii, Marin County, SF, Newport Beach, etc. Building brings down costs. It’s just an economic reality.
“It’s just economic reality.” I see your point, Lee. Please don’t take this the wrong way. I spend an outrageous amount of money on the alternative media model, without complaint because I understand that we are in a transitioning economic reality when it comes to news and real journalists are caught in the crossfire. But something has to give. It’s just economic reality. And I have standards. You are a good journalist and I hope you don’t end up in a photo carrying a sign in someone else’s report on Substack. Be well.
I think too it's more about class than race. And power retained by locals with ownership investment against newcomers with different values, lifestyles, and that unspoken condescension in wanting to 'make things better' with the sometimes spoken 'because we know what's right.'
A big part of the US problem with the rest of the world? We know best, we only want to do good. For ourselves foremost. But I don't know SF and I do see a lot of Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff.
Another analogy just popped into mind, local co-ops v. multinational chains.
Thanks for making me think.
One of my go-to resources, Strong Towns. Does this entry relate? What resonates with me is especially that last paragraph,
"Strong Towns advocates can combat this by working for a development approach that lowers the bar to incremental development by many hands. Neighborhood change should occur through many small efforts instead of a few large ones, and no neighborhood should be allowed to exempt itself completely from change (through zoning or other exclusionary means). A Strong Towns approach will mean that change is more steady and responsive to bottom-up feedback, and will thus open new opportunities for those who already live in a neighborhood to play a greater role in shaping its future."
https://actionlab.strongtowns.org/hc/en-us/articles/4402033906068-Gentrification-Core-Insights
And 2 more articles here,
https://actionlab.strongtowns.org/hc/en-us/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&category=11667537587604&query=gentrification
I may not be understanding you. But aren't economic realities mostly made by the rich and powerful - not handed from the sky on stone tablets? When locals alone lived there (thinking of Hawaii) prices were affordable and conditions livable. There was a social and cultural environment that in part at least attracted all that wealth that pushed them out. That article Maenad linked to made me think this seems a similar situation.
There may be more to it. Prof Condon of UBC has noted that condo and other developments' land acquisition costs are proportionately 'bid up' based on their zoning, which leaves no savings to pass along. This article summarizes his view nicely:
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/housing/why-a-vancouver-housing-expert-is-winning-over-some-in-sf/article_f1360c06-82a2-11ef-8c70-d70e8a6728c7.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter_sfexaminer
San Francisco's population has grown about 10% since 2000, with quite a lot of building happening in that time in Mission Bay and elsewhere. It's not the case that SF refuses to build; Prof. Condon's book provides one explanation as to why building more may not help.
"ugly xenophobia" has been cropping up everywhere by everyone for a long time. There are no party lines.
"I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired" was a quote from a Black women from NYC at the RNC convention this summer in Milwaukee because her son was murdered and put blame on people like DA Alvin Bragg letting crime get out of control. The GOP has been in a civil war with the Chamber of Commerce types vs. America First and the racist Cheney's and Romney's are out and the tent door is open for all now. Is it perfect, no, but this story from Lee about SF is a microcosm of a national trend of people like Trump (like him or hate him) Vivek, JD, Elon, RFK Jr., and Bill Ackman coming out of their foxholes and saying enough is enough and questioning what are national identity is, and like MLK of the past, can we look past our race, gender, and ethnicity for a country for the people by the people. The election may be over in a few weeks but the real civil discourse is just beginning and I think this Republic is worth hanging onto.
Lee thanks for all your hard work. The saying here about living outside of Madison WI, the Berkeley of the Midwest, is "77 square miles surrounded by reality" Peace Out
Thanks Lee, would be fun to discuss with you some time...it was always this way in California, not just in SF, also going back to the Spanish Lords. Even the environmental regulations there have racist NIMBY roots. There is no better place in the USA to uncover the true underpinnings of the modern liberal order...keep digging, there is much pay dirt, in the spirit of '49!
Lee, it’s not so simple. As far back as the 90s, speculation in real estate and the destruction of public housing pushed all but the well-to-do out of the city; the artists, musicians, artists, teachers, nurses, workers were all priced out of SF by those same ‘centrist’ (neo) liberals you seem to believe haven’t always been in charge of that city. Moreover, the SRO hotels and shelters kept people off the streets were torn down or privatized or defunded (on the hideous ‘don’t feed the pigeons and they’ll all go away’ ideas of the NIMBY classes.)
One guy is fighting back after a 30 plus year speculation frenzy where public and affordable housing was purposefully torn down and destroyed - and this guy is the problem? Come on.
Well, the anti-gentrification forces have largely won. There is way less investment, very little housing built, and as a result, housing prices are high and crime is rampant. It’s always a trade off.
Yeah… not so sure about that. I lived in SF from @1980 - 2004. When I left in 2004, my rent was 3200/mo. The rent on that same apt now is around 8 - 10k. Hayes valley used to be the neighborhood of the poor and working class. You can’t touch a walk up studio there for under 5k. SF gentrified itself to the point of collapse 20 years ago.
Right, we haven’t built any housing so prices are expensive. We block new businesses so tax base has collapsed. It’s a downward spiral with less investment and higher costs.
it’s 49 sq. miles of city in an earthquake zone. Can’t build up, and can’t really build out. While I too detest identity politics, I especially hate it because it provides cover for neoliberal bullshit… I hate what has become of my hometown, and it breaks my heart - but I think, Lee, that you are punching down or maybe sideways when you really need to be looking up at those who are actually profiting from the destruction of the city; the rentier class and the hedge funds have despoiled the city. It’s not some barrio activist that’s responsible; Feinstein, Boxer,Pelosi, Getty etc did this to SF many years ago … the issue in SF is class, not race, and always has been.
The anti-gentrification forces block thousands of housing units on empty lots and blighted city blocks with nothing else there. It’s Malthusianism.
This. 100%
Looked at through the lens of identity politics Lee's essay reveals an understandably offensive trend. Looked at through the lens of class, however, it opens us up to an entirely different conclusion. I am glad to see gentrification being resisted.
What do you say about a city where a family income of 80k means you are living in poverty?
Gentrification will only worsen this trend.
I recognize a difference in organic migration, for striving, and something more nefarious and manipulated, but the political and ideologically skewed reporting is hard to sift through.(Not a criticism of Lee, and thanks for jumping back in.)
I think Teddy Roosevelt was right, when he said, in essence, if you start to segregate America by ethnicity, you lose America.
It's not out of the question that Hernandez is running some kind of skimming racket because it doesn't make sense to be pro-blight and pro-crime in his own neighborhood. We've seen all kinds of contortion of goodwill towards the poor and homeless such that anything is possible.
However, I will fight anyone who may be looking to drive out neighborhood restaurants like Cheung Hing in the Sunset.
Why are the shops closed though? You don't go into that. That's the real question that you totally ignore. My family was Irish and Polish and our parents were all born in the Mission. I think maybe you're missing the point by overemphasizing the identity politics. That's easy to do but honestly it's a cheap trick.
I agree with Hernandez. Fuck the tech workers, fuck the ideology and foreign genocidal investors like Saudi Arabia and Israel making San Francisco into a mediocre cyberpunk nightmare with pseudo-self-driving cars for yuppies and drone police. San Francisco has turned into a nightmare and putting the onus on populist folks like Hernandez as the cause because he's resisting gentrification as the last strand toward turning San Francisco into the next hipster yuppie mall is a complete mistake.
So, Lee, do you like Mission Bay?
You talk about how the Mission "is now" XYZ, like break-ins or hawked markets. Dude, have you ever been to San Francisco? The Mission has been like this for at least 30 years. And it was already gentrified, my friend. Why do you think my family no longer lives there? And keeps getting more gentrified, you yourself point this out by "leftist nativists". Most of those are white people.
This article is so naive and uninformed to the actual living culture. Why don't you take the risk of interviewing Hernandez instead of doing a cheap, one-sided hit piece? Have the courage to introduce some nuance. Advocating for the next generation of yuppies-to-be ("post-dot-com" arrival LOL) to whitewash San Francisco culture is not something I am going to support. It's not "nativism" to want to have community control over your neighborhood. It's just common sense.
The real problem are the policy-makers in SF, just like everyone else, who refuse to hold profit interests accountable, instead greenlighting all kinds of policies because they are desperate for that tech $. SF gov't is totally sold out by Newsom, Breed, etc. The political class are and always have been the problem (as symbolically emphasized by now "Nancy Pelosi Drive" in GG Park, what a fucking mouthfull of vomit -- next to MLK??), for decades, and this article does nothing but serve them by putting the emphasis in the wrong direction. Neighborhoods in SF have always defined themselves in part by ethnicity, and it's just basic politics to mobilize folks based on their identity. So you've made a big whoop out of nothing. Congrats.
Interesting article!
I lived in a barrio for several years after I was first married, & I couldn't wait to get out of it. Listening to gunshots every weekend & on all major holidays never made up for the tasty food places nearby.
While reading this, my mind wandered to the premise for a third and final Escape From movie. In this one, Marine One goes down in San Francisco with President Harris aboard. President Harris is being held in the Mission. Snake Plissken is called upon to rescue the captive president, but is too old to mount a rescue. Like the Biden administration before, the Harris administration proceeds merrily along while she is held captive. No one seems to notice or care.
Mexican Cartels control California and Arizona politics.
Texas is next. Believe it or not, Ted Cruz is about to lose his Senate seat.
The Banksters run the whole show, and the Cartels are their symbiotes.
SF Chronicle endorsed Roberto because he is collaborative and will be a bridge builder between the progressive/moderate divide?
This guy should not get more power in the city… it’s a shame.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/district-9-roberto-hernandez-19772080.php