
The Battle for the Soul of San Francisco - dvdhnt
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/san_francisco_gentrification_tenderloin_glide/
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davidmr
As a rule these articles about gentrification almost always irritate the hell
out of me (likely because I live in a gentrifying neighborhood in Chicago and
honestly just don't feel all that bad about it), but this is a rare exception.
I think this article is well worth the long read.

A lot of what makes the "news" in Chicago are plays on the old "this was my
neighborhood/new people are allowed to live here too" tropes. All that seems
to do is to get both sides to dig in, and I've never seen any useful dialogue
come from it. Telling me that I'm an asshole because I came in and bought a
house for more than it was worth 20 years ago and I should be ashamed of
myself doesn't do any more good than me telling someone that I know their rent
goes up as the neighborhood gets more expensive, but they don't get to tell me
where I can buy my house and by the way, my neighbors houses are worth more
now too.

This article changes the conversation in a way that I hope isn't specific to
SF by acknowledging that gentrifiers come into contact with new people with
real problems. Appealing to someone's humanity to help their neighbor is a
much more effective strategy than verbal class warfare. It also helps inspire
people to think of ways to get concretely involved in small and meaningful
ways, rather than complaining about problems when there are very few realistic
alternatives.

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joeblow9999
oh no! property values are going up!

this is always bad, except when it's good.

Oh no! Gas prices are going up! This is always bad, except when it's good.

This article is a bunch of nonsense. Prices are prices, and the demographics
of neighborhoods change over time.

The loudest whinging about gentrification always comes from the first wave of
gentrifiers. The poor people who lived in these 'bad' neighborhoods for 30
years and sold their house at 20x to a couple of yuppies are not the
complainers...

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davidmr
Try actually reading the article. That's not really what it's about.

