
The Loneliness of Being Black in San Francisco - andyraskin
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/us/black-exodus-from-san-francisco.html
======
Kinnard
As a black San Franciscan I can say it's palpable.

Remarkable article revealing that there was once Black History in San
Francisco, which you'd never know walking around.

~~~
eevilspock
It's remarkable that there was once Native American history in this country,
which you'd never know traveling around.

Gentrification is not integration... Integration would have bi-directional
flows of color between neighborhoods. This is far more akin to colonization.

------
elgabogringo
I live in the neighborhood that is profiled in the article. I am not surprised
that blacks are leaving. I want to leave myself.

~~~
Kalium
The Fillmore has a long history of changing ethnic hands. Once upon a time it
was a Japanese neighborhood. Once upon a time it was a Jewish neighborhood.

When people discuss the Fillmore and its history, that discussion tends to
start at roughly 1945-1950 when there's just suddenly a black neighborhood.
Like maybe it materialized out of the aether as a jazz center or something.

~~~
BurningFrog
Are you saying that was a result of the Japanese internment camps?

~~~
Kalium
The Fillmore became a black neighborhood directly after the Japanese
population was interned. I think it's reasonable to think there's a link
there.

~~~
Kinnard
I'd love to learn more.

~~~
Kalium
Wikipedia is actually a pretty good jumping-off point here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fillmore_District,_San_Francis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fillmore_District,_San_Francisco#History)

~~~
Kinnard
This country is like one crime after another . . .

But I guess the bright side is what a host to diversity a city can be.

~~~
Kalium
Sometimes. The changeover from a Jewish neighborhood to a Japanese one was
peaceful. The Fillmore has a more colorful history than many parts of SF.

~~~
Kinnard
Speaking of which, where'd the Jews move to? The SF jewish community feels a
little sparse today. Maybe that's because SF Jews are strongly secular?

~~~
Kalium
It moved a bit north into Pac Heights. There's still a significant community
center there. As Jewish acceptance increased, the Jewish community of SF has
dispersed.

------
spraak
While the articles that I've been seeing on HN lately aren't specifically
uplifting, I /am/ glad to be (seemingly) seeing more related to the black
experience.

------
Kinnard
I'm surprised there wasn't an influx after the Civil War. The article sort of
glosses over that period.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodusters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodusters)

~~~
peterwwillis
Most blacks who migrated to cities from the south after the war were met with
at the very least skepticism, though usually outright racism and violence.

Between the beginning of this general 'migration' to urban areas and the MLK
riots, white people became increasingly 'motivated' to move to the suburbs,
which led over time to the urban centers deteriorating until they were
completely unstable, usually necessitating rescue by the state [affordable
housing, food stamps, etc]. Eventually a trickle of white development/business
starts the reverse process of gentrification.

I am not aware of a single case of increase in urban development having a net
benefit to the black community, mainly because they are almost never the
target demographic for that development.

When people complain about shitty urban areas full of blight, homeless,
mentally unstable, crime, etc, they're basically complaining about the state
of the urban center which white people created when they moved out decades
ago.

~~~
lwhalen
Wait, explain to me slowly how it's white-people's fault that an area
deteriorates after they move out. Generally the absence of a person means they
relinquish responsibility for what goes on in a place that they aren't
occupying, at least in my fragile, tiny mind.

~~~
Kinnard
There's a lot more going on than that. If that's not obvious then I'd expect
its because you haven't investigated the issues. Black communities and
neighborhoods are specifically targeted for destruction and/or acquisition.
Black families and communities have born the brunt of the War on Drugs. A
community is not going to do well when a large swath of its fathers are
rounded up, caged, and permanently barred from living a life of dignity.

~~~
awt
Would you allow black people at least some moral agency? Certainly you'd say
that blacks who avoid crime and instead thrive in the legit economy are
responsible to at least some degree for their own success? Why would you not
then hold those who become criminals equally responsible for their failure?

~~~
Kinnard
The issue isn't moral agency.

Being a moral agent doesn't stop you from being unfairly accosted—or killed—by
law enforcement.

Being a moral agent doesn't mean you don't get death threats for trying to
enroll your children in better public schools.

Being a black moral agent is actually likely to get you in more trouble— not
less.

Blacks seeking there own betterment find roadblocks in every direction each
step of the way.

------
davidf18
This is not a black-white or other racist issue.

The issue is unaffordable housing and it is a problem in many cities such as
NYC where I live, not just SF.

The cause of the unaffordable housing is zoning restrictions that limit
housing density and overuse of historic landmark status through politically
induced scarcity. Using politics to induce scarcity creates an additional
"economic rent" or profits above for landowners (housing and apartment owners)
above what they could get in an efficient market.

This is a basic concept of microeconomics: the use of politics to induce
scarcity for receiving profits above what one would get in an efficient,
competitive market.

This "rent seeking" makes landowners like Donald Trump much wealthier than
they otherwise would be in an efficient market.

Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser has written extensively about this. NYTimes
columnist and Economics Nobelist Paul Krugmann has written about this in his
columns, and Financial Times columnist (with a masters in Economics Tim
Harford) has also written about this.

Another example of gaining "economic rent" or "rent-seeking" is in NYC there
had been a political limit of the number of taxi medallions to 13,000. The
result was a medallion market value of $1.2 million per medallion. Taxi
drivers that leased cabs had to pay for use of the medallion as well as the
cab, and gasoline. The result is much higher fares approved by the NYC Taxi
and Licensing Commission.

Then Uber/Lyft came along and the price of the medallions dropped from the
$1.2 million to less than $700,000.

The rent-seeking is very harmful to the economy and of course adds to the
income inequalities. It is in invisible "tax" that transfers wealth from the
less wealthy to the wealthy. Money that one could be spending on goods and
services in an efficient housing market is instead going towards paying
additional housing costs with that money ending up in the pockets of the
wealthy.

The race issue headline undoubtedly gets more page clicks than an article that
would state that billionaires such as Donald Trump owe much of their wealth to
inefficient markets resulting from the use of politics to create artificial
scarcity.

The solution is a simple one which is to get rid of the destructive laws that
create the artificial scarcity in land use.

It is upsetting to me that the NYTimes reporters appear not to understand
basic economics.

For more information see: Edward Glaeser: Build Big Bill (Mayor of NYC)
[http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-
article-1....](http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-
article-1.1913739)

An on-line article about "rent seeking" and the damage to the economy
(includes land use restrictions) [http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-
rent-seeking-is-too-...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-rent-seeking-
is-too-damn-high/)

This book is a very fun read: Tim Harford: The Undercover Economist
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199926514](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199926514)

~~~
tzs
> This is not a black-white or other racist issue.

> The issue is unaffordable housing and it is a problem in many cities such as
> NYC where I live, not just SF.

Yet NYC is 23% black. If the issue is unaffordable housing, why did it almost
eliminate black people from San Francisco but had had little effect on the
number of black people in NYC? (The black percentage of NYC has gone down a
little over the past 20 years, as has the white percentage, but this is
because of a large growth in the NYC asian population over that time and a
significant growth in the hispanic population).

~~~
davidf18
tl;dr : NYC is much larger than SF, and there are more affordable
neighborhoods.

"Bed-Stuy, Inwood, and Crown Heights bottom out the rankings, with prices per
square foot between $488 and $503. These more affordable neighborhoods of New
York bring up an important distinction between the two cities. While New York
does boast a high price per square foot in many neighborhoods, it still has
the benefit of density that San Francisco does not. San Francisco is simply a
less dense city, with less inventory, so its rapid price growth has more
effectively pulled many city neighborhoods into a relatively narrow, expensive
price range. "There aren't as many affordable neighborhoods there as there had
been," Valhouli says. "By comparison, New York City is a larger city with a
broader price range and still more opportunities at the more affordable end of
the market.""

[http://ny.curbed.com/2016/6/27/12040004/nyc-vs-san-
francisco...](http://ny.curbed.com/2016/6/27/12040004/nyc-vs-san-francisco-
housing-prices)

Blacks (and other low-income people) are being squeezed out of SF because the
politicians have made the zoning laws to squeeze them out.

To me and my friends, diversity, both racial and economic, is important. To
the politicians of SF, not so.

If this were important to citizens of SF, they'd elect politicians that fixed
the housing problem by removing the deliberate attempt to make housing more
expensive. It costs no money, just a vote to fix the zoning laws and the price
of housing will drop as supply increases (as the Edward Glaeser article
explains).

------
Snargorf
Wait wait. So:

1\. White people commit racism and violence against blacks

causes

2\. White people flee to the suburbs

causes

3\. Urban centers to deteriorate.

Let's examine:

1->2 So white people were fleeing... their own violence against blacks?

2->3 So when those violent people left, this cause the areas to get... worse?

Apparently you believe white people being present is a problem, and white
people leaving is a problem. Their presence hurts blacks, and when they leave
it hurts blacks too. So literally everything is the fault of white people,
whether they're coming or going, here or there.

Even more surreal - these blacks voluntarily moved towards the whites. Then
the whites moved to escape the blacks. And the bad guys here are... the
whites! The ones who blacks want to live around, and who are trying to flee
them.

It really is remarkable the rationalizations a mind is capable of.

~~~
Kinnard
Do you think any of this has to do with the fact that it was illegal to teach
Blacks to read and write.

Do you think any of this has to do with the mental trauma of enslavement.

Do you think the Emancipation Proclamation or the 13th Amendment make all the
bad things go away.

Ubiquitous discrimination grinds on the soul. Do you blame the oppressed for
being ground down?

~~~
douche
We're at least two or three generations away from any of this. Hell, slavery's
been abolished for five generations. Five generations ago, my family was poor-
as-a-churchmouse country bumpkins (still are, by and large). They didn't have
any education, and they got drafted to fight in a war they didn't give a
tinker's damn about to fight and die on Little Round Top and a dozen other
places in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and many of them died.

~~~
Kinnard
My Grandmother's Grandmother was a slave and my Grandparents fled the
segregated South where lynchings were common.

Ever see any of that horrifying Civil Rights Movement footage? A lot of those
people are still alive. The victims and the perpetrators. All those people
protesting the integration of schools, throwing things at harmless black
children? Still alive.

