San Francisco Gentrification System

Issue:
Within the last decade, San Francisco has dramatically changed. San Francisco’s working class people and poor neighborhoods underwent drastic economic and racial changes from the 1990s to mid 2000s, resulting in the undeniable gentrification of the districts. San Francisco’s gentrification has reached a ridiculous new extreme, making it the most expensive city in the country, outstripping even Manhattan. The beginning of the issue was right after the dotcom and Tech industries started drastically moving to the Bay Area. In 2005, new technology companies like Google, Facebook, and Cisco began attracting thousands of high-paid employees to the bay. The companies moved to the South Bay but the city attracted many of these young techies.

Soon there will be no home for minorities and lower income in San Francisco. The districts of San Francisco soon will lose all its original dwellers to the high demands of the Bay Area. The new, “improved” population is overtaking a district such as the Mission that historically has been home to Central and South American immigrants. As you stroll down Valencia Street, once home to taquerias, bakeries, bars and auto mechanic shops, one can instantly see the difference. The addition of organic ice cream shops, chain restaurants, luxury condominiums, and cafes serving beignets and soy lattes are steadily replacing the 99-cent stores, sex shops, thrift stores, and local markets of the city’s original working-class Latino neighborhood. As San Francisco has become one of the hottest living destinations for the new techies that have moved to the Silicon Valley, the Mission has become one of the liveliest locations in the city. After Mark Zuckerberg’s purchase of an apartment in the mission, it was a must live area for young yuppies and techies. The center of the city has historically been home to Mexican and Central American immigrants whose large families live in small apartments in narrow Victorians and older buildings. Even though the local flavor is still here, the housing prices

While providing significant positive environmental effects, the idea of the large tech companies bussing their employees creates some negative externalities. The idea of bussing has become problematic in the Bay Area. Many of the employees want to live in the city and work in the bay. So the companies offer free buses to transport employers from the city to the Bay. The buses can be extremely loud and travel on roads/have stops serviced by San Francisco’s Muni buses. The noise and inconvenience of these buses on narrow residential streets have caused inconveniences for citizens. Another negative externality the tech companies are creating is the effect of driving up rental prices within a walking distance of their company city bus stops. Lower-income people should not bear the brunt of the negative externalities of economic