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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

If you check out a lot of neighborhoods in SF you can really see this. The more middle class neighborhoods have lots of small businesses that you'd use - mechanics, bakeries, restaurants, coffee shops, etc.

Take a walk through an upper class neighborhood (Noe Valley is a good example) and it's either really expensive versions of the same ($7 for a cupcake? sure!) or weird niche stores that only the wealthy can afford (skin care clinics, high-end clothing, etc).

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I lived in Noe Valley for 14 years in a rent controlled apartment that quadrupled in value during that time. I was eventually evicted with an owner move-in but during that period I saw all of the useful local businesses close and be replaced with ... 1. Doctor/Dentist offices 2. Real-estate agencies 3. Banking and financial institutions 3. Doomed boutiques riding off the areas old reputation - these always closed within 6 months. 4. Expensive date restaurants or bars serving just enough food to count as a restaurant.

Off the top of my head, we lost the newspaper/magazine shop, hardware store, a few cheap restaurants, the glass blowing shop, the running store, a bunch of nice boutiques, the local butcher and most (but not all) of the businesses that made someone want to live in Noe in the first place. We gained a ton of financial and real-estate frontage (useless for day-to-day life) a couple of nice but expensive upgrades like a Whole Foods. All this money and no-one seems to actually spend it on local business, so nothing stays open for long.

A friend moved to Noe Valley about 15 years ago. Said it was working class at the time (still well off by SF standards).

Now it’s like a playground for the rich with a standard 1,500 sq ft home nearing $2.5M.

I used to live right by 24th street right before the whole foods moved in, and I can visualize all of those shops as I walked down the street to Holey Bagel (still going strong!). The little weird boutiques! The running store! But even then I would never go into any of those places. I am fully on board lamenting the fact that numerous one-of-a-kind stores no longer exist in SF because it is not economical for them to do so (RIP Macbeath hardwood), but a lot of those little shops on 24th street were put out of business by Amazon and the internet, not by SF.

This is quite possibly just a manifestation of a national trend by landlords (all ten of them) to raise rent so high that sure things like 7/11 or KFC quit. The only tenants that seem to be able to afford the rent are $COFFEE and The Habit. I've seen this in my home town (San Diego), Spokane, and Manhattan. I've probably seen it in other towns but it stops being noticeable.

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