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Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

The more things change the more they say the same.

If there's one thing I've learned in life, is to never listen to people moaning about the "good old days" and how [insert group] has "ruined" [insert place], not like those [other group] that were great. The good old days were never actually that good, and [insert group] is neither worse nor better than [other group].

We're all way too young to be curmudgeons yet, so stop acting like it.

It's also amusing to see one wave of gentrifiers shake their fists angrily at the next wave of gentrifiers. I heard about the Yuppie Eradication Project - where people who invaded a traditionally Latino stronghold vowed to key the cars of people who later invaded that.

FWIW, they can fight for the Mission all they want. No matter how many rose-tinted pairs of glasses you put on, it's still the piss-filled, shit-littered, gun-happy, knife-stabby, gangbanger-filled shitpot we know and love.

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Yes, I will forever miss Carol Doda, the go-go "swing joints," the disco clubs, the Mitchell brothers, the Pavarotti operas where the star never showed up, the old SP trains with their smoking cars where you couldn't take a breath without choking, the no-growth mindset that caused the City to turns its collective nose up as the tech boom began and to wave to it as it passed by, the exodus of businesses that fled high taxes and silly regulations in favor of friendlier climes, and, of course, Playland, where you could ride bumper cars to your heart's content without having to consider anything more serious than how to find the sun amidst the continual fog that hung over the place. Having been afflicted already with such grievous losses, I imagine the City will survive an influx of talented young entrepreneurs who seek to build great new companies and maybe just to have a little fun to boot.

Having lived through all this, I can tell you, the City is what it has always been: an amazing collection of high life, low life, and tempered life of every kind imaginable. Today, it has lots of character, just as it always has. It is vain and fruitless to try to glamorize a pickled version of the things of a bygone era, as the author here does. We just need to appreciate it on its own terms.

A thousand times this. I moved away from San Francisco (not by choice) last year, and miss it terribly. This summarizes everything I love about SF.

Human-excrement-filled-escalators must be a metaphor for something...

"If there's one thing I've learned in life, is to never listen to people moaning about the 'good old days'"

You're just being a reverse curmudgeon. Creativity thrives in an environment of diversity, and San Francisco became a mecca for creative software people because it was already a mecca for artists, hippies and people of all races and creeds, not because it was packed to the gills with iPhone developers in ironic t-shirts. Maybe there's nothing that can be done about it, but I think there's definitely a loss when a place becomes homogenous due to gentrification.

I've only been here since 2008, but even on that limited timeframe it's been pretty damned annoying to see useful places (like hardware stores, markets, dry cleaners, etc.) shut down so that room can be made for yuppie bars and overpriced restaurants. So we replace shops with co-working spaces and bookstores with boutique dealers of objets d'art and we pretend that it's "progress", but we make the neighborhoods less attractive to the people who made the neighborhoods attractive.

In short: if you're giving me a choice, I'll take "stabby" neighborhoods over luxury condos. At least the former gives an artist or a musician a place to squat while earning nothing and doing something truly novel; the latter gives a software engineer a place to live while working for Zynga.

>Creativity thrives in an environment of diversity

I don't know how that assumption would correlate with SV. The Peninsula and the SR237 triangle aren't known for their creative diversity --they were orchards just a few decades back -but those valleys were the primary genesis for the information technology we have today. When the HPs, Fairchildren, NatSemis, Intels, etc. began all the Beatnicks were in SF. The valley was a kind of backwater --well, it was mostly orchards, from what I can tell. Despite that those companies were able to find bright people who brought forth progress and ideas which profoundly affect us today. So, I don't really see the correlation between creative types and the discoveries by the engineers. That's not to say engineers can't enjoy the creative arts as pleasure, but to say they are related directly seems a stretch, to me. It's not a detriment to have creatives, but not sure they were a necessary ingredient.

> I think there's definitely a loss when a place becomes homogenous due to gentrification.

I think the premise is an old canard. Post WWII Tokyo had a choice to make. Change rapidly and modermize and progress or remain chained to its old ways and remain a kind of defeated backwater. They chose the former, and while modern, Tokyo is not "boring" and homogenous. There are thousands of distinct neighborhoods with their own unique character, despite the fast pace of building and modernization.

"I don't know how that assumption would correlate with SV. The Peninsula and the SR237 triangle aren't known for their creative diversity"

It isn't an assumption. There's a lot of literature backing up the association (for a popularization, read Where Good Ideas Come From, by Stephen Pinker).

In any case, for many years the city was a bedroom community for Silicon Valley -- people worked in the valley, and lived in the city for the diversity and culture (which is part of the reason we have Caltrain). San Francisco has always been a draw.

Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a read when I have some time. Still, questions linger. Artis live up and down the coast from Santa Cruz down to LA. There are even art towns/communities -I don't see a lot of innovation coming from there. Sure, artwise they may be avant guarde, but proponents of progress (aside from social change) and drivers of innovation, I don't see that. If anything, they seem to tend towards conservatism when it comes to progress.

Now, engineers and scientists might enjoy and even admire artists for their literary imagination, expressiveness, showship, fame, etc. In popular culture, perhaps perpetuated via the products of these same artists, people tend to stereotype engineers as socially inadequate and dull. So that's a bit ironic. Personally, I think it's somewhat incidental. Engineers and scientists have some of the 'artist' in the old Renaissance sense of the word, but they are primarily innovators and not expressive artists.

No, that's not the right history. Caltrain is the remains of the old Southern Pacific commute lines; the SP brought people FROM the peninsula INTO San Francisco to work during the day, and back to their peninsula bedrooms in the evening. After WWII, San Francisco headed downward. By the 1960s and 1970s crime and disorder were so bad that only the very rich could live in San Francisco. Large employers moved their "back offices" to the suburbs, and in-commuting fell. Startups in the 1970s and 1980s had to be in Silicon Valley, because few decent engineers would have dreamed of living in the disgusting city, and they didn't want to commute to it either. Freeway traffic in the 1970s and 1980s was almost entirely INTO the city in the morning, back to the Peninsula in the evening; working in the Valley where one lived made that unnecessary. Only in the last few years has it become common to live in San Francisco and work in Silicon Valley, as San Francisco has recovered and become a vastly better place to live.

I've visited and/or spent significant time in San Francisco since considerably earlier than that.

I've visited and/or spent significant time and/or lived in numerous other communities, large and small, since considerably before that.

Here's a little secret: things change.

Hardware, drug, and book stores have been closing across the country and around the world with consolidation.

High-quality fresh/organic food markets, good cafes, restaurants, museums, and of course, restaurants, have largely increased in number over the same period. Even art-and-creativity friendly places such as the Crucible (in Oakland), Makerspace, and the like have popped up.

Do I miss some of the things that were and now are not? Sure. Do I appreciate some of the things which were not, and now are? You better believe it. Are there still fascinating reminders squirreled away in strange nooks and crannies that remind us of the old times? Yep.

The 1950s - 1970s creative boom occurred in large part because Northern California was an inexpensive place to be. Other parts of the country are now inexpensive (including such near-range locations as California's Central Valley, or even Alameda County -- no need to go back to Ohio, not that there's anything wrong with that). It's part of the dynamic. Art's still got to pay the rent, and if there's not much money in that, it needs to go where the rent is cheap.

And if you didn't think the Hippie culture was ironic, well, brother, do I have a grass bridge to sell you.

I have very mixed feelings about this.

It's easy to say 'too bad, you're a gentrifier complaining about further gentrification', and I agree with that to some extent.

On the other hand, I think what the sentiment of this article is getting at is the frustration that comes with watching culture and community being washed away at a large scale. Sure, enclaves of artists/musicians/hackers may set up shop in various neighborhoods throughout a city, but early on it's never enough to really remove the feeling of culture and community of where one is on a whole. But then at a certain point you hit some sort of inflection point where the flood gates open and the entire city feels foreign. This happened to Manhattan a while ago. Sure it's still uniquely New York, and it's still an amazing place that I love, but it's a borough for the wealthy now.

I encountered this feeling of resentment towards post-flood-gate gentrifiers recently on a subway ride on the Q train back into Brooklyn. If you've ever spent any significant time on the Q train you've probably experienced the emergency doors on one side of the train open, followed by a group of young guys entering the car exclaiming "It's show time!", followed by all sorts of acrobatic break dancing. It might not be all that amazing the 20th time, but it is what it is. A couple weeks ago this familiar act began happening and, at the risk of sounding prejudiced, a new-wave gentrifying girl yelled "Oh, no! Stop! I hate this!" while giving a stank face to everyone. My initial reaction: this is NYC, specifically Brooklyn, and it's for moments like this that we live here, so what are you doing here?

I had realized that Brooklyn had changed significantly, but for some reason this made me realize it's nearing the point of no return. You see people charging $2700 for 1 bedrooms in Bushwick and Bentleys cruising on Flatbush and realize the charm of the entire place is in danger of being lost.

I think about this in my own city (Seattle), where the quirky artists have been progressively priced out of several neighborhoods. And sure, something is lost when this happens, but I don't think anyone should be assured that their place in the world is theirs forever. So, you have to move from Fremont to Georgetown, and maybe then from Georgetown to South Park.

Sure, something is lost, but is it a real tragedy?

I think when you get to the point of gentrification in a place like NYC or SF, when it no longer is possible for the creative class to afford living there, you do risk losing the city, and that's tragic.

It's not only a question of these being expensive places to live, but if the entirety of the city is filled with bougie restaurants and bars, is that even attractive anymore? Do I really care to live in a place filled with $15 burger joints, art galleries that don't take risks because they are targeting wealthy buyers in order to pay their leases, and music venues that have to have 7 acts a night rotating through so the space can sell enough $7 beers to stay open?

I mean Bill and Hilarie Clinton even had an event at Roberta's in Bushwick (Brooklyn) this week. The Clintons hanging out in Bushwick?! At what point do people just start looking elsewhere?

These are all questions I don't have answers to. I do love New York, and every time I leave I can't wait to get back. It's a magical place. But sometimes I can't help but think nearly free rent and a blank canvas like Detroit sounds mighty appealing.

I can't help but think nearly free rent and a blank canvas like Detroit sounds mighty appealing.

I honestly hope that the nearly free rent and blank canvas does appeal to a lot of creative/artist/hacker types.

As shameful as it is to say, I've thought about buying property there (or somewhere similarly cheap) just so I could do cool stuff with it. My small residential lot doesn't have enough room (or a proper tree) to build a tree house with my kids, and I don't have nearly enough room in my shop to experiment with the crazy building stuff I want to do.

There are some interesting folks in Detroit, lured by the same attitude:

http://omnicorpdetroit.com/blog/

Thank you for sharing this, the Robocop reference makes me adore them even more than I otherwise would have.

I also have conflicting options about the issue. On the one hand, yes get out of the way and let things evolve. On the other, how sustainable is a city that only the wealthy can afford to live.

My husband and I loved living in SF, but left because event though we both have great, well paying jobs, we can't afford a place large enough to be comfortable, let alone have a kid. So we moved and many of those we know have done the same.

I share your concerns, though I'm optimistic it's not quite so bad. For one thing, I've noticed in some places that gentrification is not monotonically increasing, and is in fact cyclical.

I lived for some time in Belltown (Seattle), a former starving-artist neighborhood that then got hit by the gentrification bug really hard. At this point the artist population in that neighborhood hovers around zero, and has all been replaced by high-rises and expensive but mediocre bistros. From the long-timers (well, longer-timers) I've spoken to, Belltown is actually less expensive than at its peak, as the complete eradication of everything interesting about the place has caused it to lose a lot of the appeal - to the point where it may actually be cheap enough for art to exist again :P

The artists are alive and well - we're simply seeing a slow, decades-long process where different demographics ebb and flow in the different parts of a city. On a larger scale, we're also seeing a decades-long process where populations ebb and flow amongst different regions in response to economic pressure. Detroit has now established itself as perhaps the next "it" place in large part due to its affordability. I highly doubt America will ever run out of compelling environments for art to thrive.

FWIW, I'm a little skeptical about your Q train experience. I ride that train (and the F, more the F than the Q) regularly and have very, very rarely encountered that kind of attitude. IMO you're making a mountain out of a molehill - I would be very hesitant about guessing at demographics from it.

> "and realize the charm of the entire place is in danger of being lost."

Sure, and I'll agree with you - but my point also is that you weren't there first. Williamsburg was interesting and artsy before the new demographic moved in, but it was also completely different and interesting before the starving artists moved in. The existing charm you now miss was, in its time, an usurper of existing culture as well, and that turned out ok. I suspect this will also.

Yeah, I think we're for the most part in agreement here.

My main questions though are around what happens when the whole city becomes so expensive that it's impossible to live here on a budget. Sure, you can keep going further and further out, but at what point does it not make sense to even live here anymore, if you are an artist that wants to spend time creating and have no intention of trying to pull in 6 figure salaries? It's not like all of a sudden Chelsea got cheaper as Fort Greene got more expensive -- the entirety of Manhattan is out of reach, and now most of the western part of Brooklyn and Queens is as well.

I use the anecdote of the Q train not to make a generalization as to how the train is -- this was certainly an exception -- but to illustrate the fact that I'm finding myself unable to socially understand many of the current wave of people coming into the boroughs.

The charm I miss isn't really hipsters running around Williamsburg, in fact I don't miss that at all. It's more about the diversity of a place, both racially and economically. Seeing people drive down Union Street in Rolls Royces makes me second guess why I live here.

I moved to SF in the midst of the dot-com boom, looking for a job writing, only to soon find myself working at a dotcom. For those who didn't live it, it's hard to explain how much money was floating around and how arrogant many "dotcommers" were and how many oozed an entitlement to IPO riches. The crash was in some ways a relief for many, who then pursued careers they really wanted.

It was a complicated time, and we're in another one right now. I just hope the newest wave of dotcommers - who thankfully include way more programmers and fewer smarmy bizdev guys -- finds a way to avoid feeling entitled.

True. But there's also no way to have another business doing a great job on a corner for 100 years - without waiting 100 years. It IS significant when great, non-obsolete businesses are pushed around by economic upheaval (in the article's case, real estate prices and taxes).

Yeah, but he highlights a big reason for this. Nothing new gets built. All those good old days people constricted supply and then got pissed when the demand hiked prices and they could no longer afford it. You see this all over. Cool towns try to constrict supply through regulation to stop people from moving to their town, but ultimately just end up making their towns more expensive.

>Nothing new gets built. All those good old days people constricted supply and then got pissed when the demand hiked prices and they could no longer afford it.

Exactly. I wrote this comment yesterday:

>If employers offered significantly higher wages then plenty more supply would quickly appear to clear the market

This is really a housing supply question as Matt Yglesias makes clear here: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face... and as others have written (see, for example, Ryan Avent's The Gated City). Housing costs in Silicon Valley are insane, which prices out lower skill workers and forces companies to pay more for highly skilled workers. Allowing to higher building heights and reduce setback requirements alone would do a lot to improve the jobs situation.

Housing costs in Silicon Valley are insane, which prices out lower skill workers and forces companies to pay more for highly skilled workers.

It also reduces the quality of life for those who do live in Silicon Valley, because the salary rises almost never entirely make up for the rise in land prices.

(Yes, I've used salary calculators, particularly to compare the Bay Area's and Boston's software engineering salaries to places like Portland and Seattle that are cheaper but still have lots of tech.)

Because if you can't build much-to-any more housing in Silicon Valley, salary increases there just serve to bid up housing prices further, rather than motivating people to build more & better housing.

The Mission looks more like Noe Valley runoff than ever. Sure, some parts are still slightly scary but there are signs of it becoming more bourgeois all over the place.

Only if you stay strictly on/west of Valencia. The rest of the Mission is as fucked as ever. Let's not forget that the murder rate east of Valencia St is, at least in the last couple of months, working out to be 1 every 2 weeks.

It's cheating to define "the Mission" as "the part of the Mission that best supports my sweeping generalization".

I haven't redefined the Mission at all - quite the opposite in fact. Consult a map if you don't believe me.

If you look on a map you will find "the area west of Valencia" is a tiny sliver of the whole neighborhood - coincidentally the only part that is highly gentrified, this is the area GP was referring to.

"The rest of the Mission" as I called out, is in fact the vast majority of the neighborhood, but also one that is routinely ignored by wealthy San Franciscans. It is vastly larger than the gentrified little corner, and is still a crack-ridden hole.

From your resume, it looks like you've lived in the area circa a year. Is that your entire baseline for judging the Mission's gentrification?

I lived at 24th/Mission for a year, and as a photographer have been all over every nook and cranny of that neighborhood, the good and the bad - I don't think I'm unqualified to say that the area of the Mission west/on Valencia is an entirely separate universe from the rest of the Mission.

I haven't made any claims on the Mission, say, in early 00s, because I obviously wasn't around then. The main thrust here is that the Mission is not the gentrified yuppie paradise that the media (particularly outside of SF) consistently makes it out to be - that would be the Marina. Only the tiniest sliver of it has seen "colonized" by the hipster/dotcom/yuppie contingent.

In any case, my original comment re: gentrification wasn't aimed at the Mission exclusively - I've lived in numerous other rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods (Belltown and Capitol Hill in Seattle in particular) filled with curmudgeony 20-somethings shaking their fists angrily at gentrifiers who followed their own gentrification.

Actually, the anti-gentrification sentiment in the Mission is substantially less intense than it is in Seattle. Up on Capitol Hill in Seattle, if you have money and live in one of the new housing developments you're practically a persona non grata.

Having lived in the Mission a dozen years, I think you are incredibly hasty in your judgments.

The last year has seen a spectacular boom all along Valencia, but the whole Mission has been getting shinier for 15 years at least. And certainly whiter; Latino population is down 22% between 2000 and 2010.

And yes, you did make claims outside your experience. You opened with "rest of the Mission is as fucked as ever". One year, forever: they're practically the same thing, so I can see how you confused them.

And in regards to your claim that "the rest of the Mission" is "still a crack-ridden hole": go fuck yourself. I especially love the "still". Gosh golly, you've waited a whole year! And nobody has gotten around to living up to your imported standards. How dare they!

Stick around for the next anti-gentrification wave. You'll see that, as with the last one, there is a lot of involvement from people with much deeper roots than the 20-somethings you mock.

Huh, I've never felt unsafe walking around east of Valencia in the mission. I travel out to SF from Brooklyn quite regularly and always find myself walking out around York. It's never even occurred to me to think of it as unsafe, but I guess I'm not a local and don't hear the stories.

The east side is by no means "as fucked as ever". 24th street has totally transformed and become another valencia street. Folsom/Harrison has been changing a lot. There are lots of fancy restaurants, cushy bars, theatres, climbing gym, nice cafes, etc etc. To think that this area is not changing is quite frankly delusional.

If "more bourgeois" means that I won't get stared down by junior gangbanger wannabe thugs every other block, then I can live with that tradeoff.

Even the Hispanics in the Mission are a relatively recent influx - the Mission was traditionally an Irish and Italian neighborhood.

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