Comments on: Gentrification, Livable Streets and Community Stability

By: MJ

MJ — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:45:05 +0000

Great article.

Like most arguments the optimum would of course usually be somewhere in the middle ground. Small interventions here and there without deliberately driving people out of communities can only be a good thing.

By: Stefan

Stefan — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 01:44:20 +0000

I used to be part of the “don’t clean it up – it just encourages the yuppies” radicals that Chris mentions – but now I work with a lot of poor elderly and/or disabled people and realize that this viewpoint is very flawed, as “huh” says above.

Sadly it’s not the gentrifiers or artists or small business people around 9th and Mission who suffer the most, it’s the folks that are easiest to exploit, including many of the homeless people just looking for a safe place to be, and the elderly and disabled living in the many SROs and other ‘affordable’ housing in the area.

I don’t think we do anyone any favors by not making neighbourhoods safer, more usable, and more pleasant for the most vulnerable neighbors. Some of the questions in my mind are, can we improve those neighborhoods for the existing residents without leading to the gentrification cycle that Byrne talks about? Or if that cycle is somewhat inevitable, how to we make it less painful for the most vulnerable?

By: jason

jason — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:49:22 +0000

I want to like this article. But unfortunately you rely on too many narrow stereotypes to make your argument. The world is more complicated than just two types of people: capitalist property owners and downtrodden renters/homeless. Many people who have contributed to the ongoing gentrification of the Mission have taken on significant personal risk. Lots of them bought significantly overpriced real estate in the last few years and, like you, must deal with the crime and the grime. Why castigate them? Do they not deserve some credit for their commitment to the area? Why lump them in with the evil landlords of the world? You claim that to own property is to achieve stability in San Francisco and–although I completely disagree, given the ridiculous renter rights laws here–you vilify those that seek stability through property ownership. Why?

At the end of the day, we all live where we live and “residents” have to band together to achieve collective improvement. When I organize in my neighborhood, I don’t bother to ask whether or not someone owns or rents. It shouldn’t matter. If we both live in a place and want things to be better, that should be the motivation.

By: Pat

Pat — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:33:23 +0000

This is not a one issue problem. It is not just “the market” that keeps neighborhoods seedy or prevents local residents from benefiting from new development. Bad neighborhood design and illogical drug laws are both just as responsible for the continued dilapidated state of your area as renter’s insecurity. For one thing, the overly long blocks in the mission prevent any spark of community from developing. Nothing is built on a human scale. The high speed, expansive stretch of road between each side of the block makes it uncomfortable to be outside and gives a very visceral implication that the sidewalk is there for travel, not for conversation or relaxation. It feels like you are walking on the side of a freeway and you want to get off asap. The neighborhood is not broken up at all visually, very few of the buildings have significant storefronts. A neighborhood can not really be made with this sort of design.
This sort of design is perfect for drug sales and use though. There are no eyes of a community in the street watching you, no storefronts that will push you out of their area of business and no family homes to take care of their yard and neighbors. The economic and cultural activities do not exist there to attract people 16-18 hours of the day so criminal activity takes over. Drug laws prevent people from having a legitimate place to slowly kill themselves, so it forces the practice into areas like these and compounds the problems immensely.
People either do not want to leave an area like this or those that want to improve it do not have the lease security to know that they will be there long enough to improve it or that they will benefit from improvements. Basically, go read “Death and Life of Great American Cities” if you have not, it gives examples in Chicago and Boston of how neighborhoods have improved themselves without gentrification. Check out Robert Neuwirth’s work on what needs to be done to improve squatter communities as well. I know these aren’t squatter communities but it applies.

By: Aaron B.

Aaron B. — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:02:27 +0000

Good to see some real discourse on this issue.

By: huh

huh — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:33:36 +0000

I’m glad Chris points out the hypocrisy and absolute disgusting nihilist (and plain ineffective) attitude that maintains that keeping a neighborhood covered in shit and needles with broken sidewalks and dominated by cars and asphalt is an acceptable strategy for keeping an area affordable and diverse. If that is your strategy, you are mentally and morally bankrupt. In fact, that strategy in and of itself is fundamentally racist and classist, because it presumes that people of color and people of limited means prefer and should be relegated to decrepit environments. Everyone deserves a nice place to live, a place that is green and healthy. And changes to the physical environment that improve conditions for walking, bicycling, and taking transit by and large improve the interests of those less well off, while de-paving and automobile-reduction schemes mostly tend to “displace” those for whom automobility is premier — the wealthier classes who want to maintain their suburban-tinged and self-entitled grip on the landscape.

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:32:45 +0000

“Isn’t there a missing social mechanism that checks the self-aggrandizing property owners from taking all the gains at the expense of the tenants and those too poor even to rent?”

For tenants, this mechanism is called rent control.

By: soylatte

soylatte — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:49:09 +0000

Hmm.. not sure what to make of this piece. Just as you are right to point out that many low-income / minority / homeless people need to be protected and not driven away, it should also be pointed out that some people are just undesirable. So sometimes calling the police does not mean that you are being a NIMBY. Your unwillingness to do that on your block is one of the reasons why it’s in more squalor than ever. Despite investing in planters and such.