"If you view San Francisco as a place that's fun and hip, where you can make some fast money in software or real estate and then move on when all the excitement and loose cash dries up, then you are just the latest in a long line of rapists and plunderers who have come very close to destroying one of the greatest places on earth."
-- Tim Redmond, San Francisco Bay Guardian
The first topic on the tongues of any two San Franciscans who meet is the problem of gentrification. The Silicon Valley boom of the 90s has left our city with a housing crunch unparalleled in its history.
Many locals have been priced right out of town, clearing the way for a new breed of educated, overpaid rednecks--Reagan's evil spawn to be be sure. And as S.F. has morphed from an industrial shipping center to a Disney-like tourist trap, its charm, diversity and history are being erased in front of our eyes.
As a resident of the Haight-Ashbury, I have my choice of 2,000 styles of shoes and 500 blends of coffee, yet I can't get a prescription filled and I can't do business with a bank teller. Geez, I can't even make a doggone Xerox copy.
S.F. newbies predictably counter such gripes with, "Wull, the same thing's happening everywhere." That's the easy way out, you apathetic shit. Sweatshops exist, too, thanks to that prevailing attitude. The fact of globalization doesn't make it right--and it's still worth fighting!
The editors of the increasingly reactionary rag, the SF Weekly have played up the controversy by printing readers' missives from both sides of the tracks. Most entertaining are the rants of one Nestor Makhno, a spirited local militant who borrowed his name from an old-school anarchist. Unfurling a concept called the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project, "Makhno" called for the vandalization of sports/utility vehicles parked in the Mission District. Predictably, yuppies with an implicit might-is-right ethic cried discrimination in the city of gentle Saint Francis.
I jumped into the fray and sent a letter signed with my own bogus moniker--lest I be blamed for any ensuing property damage. Let it be known that the only vandalism I ever commit is the occasional egg drop onto SUVs parked on the sidewalk below my apartment.
Here, now, is my letter as published in the October 14, 1998, edition of the SF Weekly.
Non-violent Vandalism
Dear Editor:
Before we all shed a tear over the oppression of rich, white folk ("Evil Yuppies at Bruno’s II," Letters, Sept. 30), let us realize that thousands of self-interested "yuppies" represent neither a culture nor a community. And they certainly don’t improve a neighborhood.
As the SF Weekly reported months back, the newcomers to the Marina District have allowed over 30 chain stores to take over a five-block strip of Chestnut Street ["Chains 'R' Us," Oct. 22, 1997]. As a native, I can tell you that the unique charm of that neighborhood has been obliterated in a few short years. The streets have become a permanent car rally as SUVs race up and down, their drivers running stops while gabbing on the cell phone and using the sidewalk as a turnout. I witness the spectacle year-round as I work in the ‘hood. Don’t get me started.
Defenders of gentrification might see the Mission District as a drug and crime zone but real locals know better. A spirit of community unites the artists, activists and working families struggling to overcome some very real obstacles in Clinton’s post-NAFTA/GATT years.
Traditionally, vandalism has been one of the few, essentially non-violent recourses of the poor in class warfare (of which these conflicts are surely an example, hello?) So I say TRASH THOSE SUVs and Beemers, Missionites! That’s what insurance premiums are for! Don’t let them turn your neighborhood into just another upscale shopping district.
Sincerely,
John Goett
(Upper Haight)
In all seriousness (moi?) fighting gentrification and monoculturism is easier than you think! Attend a city or neighborhood council meeting and you'll most likely find kindred spirits already on top of the issue. Gather your thoughts about a looming local construction project and testify at permit hearings. Oh, they'll scream in defense of a "free market," but remember that a lot of evil shit goes down in the name of a free market. And they'll wail about a housing shortage without admitting that low-income families don't stand a chance of becoming their tenants.
In 1998 San Franciscans successfully blocked the construction of high-priced yuppie lofts in the Mission, as well as the conversion of a landmark Victorian into a Burger King in the Western Addition. And North Beach residents gave the boot to a horrific Rite-Aid drugstore project. As Ken Nordine said, how are things in your town?
SUGGESTED READING
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Changing Places: Rebuilding Community in the Age of Sprawl by Richard Moe and Carter Wilkie. (Henry Holt & Company, Inc.: 1997).
Cities Back From the Edge by Roberta Brandes Gratz and Norman Mintz. (John Wiley & Sons: 1998).
City of Quartz by Mike Davis. (Vintage Books: 1992).
Farewell, Promised Land: Waking from the California Dream by Robert Dawson and Gray Brechin. (University of California Press: 1999).
Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin by Gray Brechin. (University of California Press: 1999).
Real Places: An Unconventional Guide to America's Generic Landscape by Grady Clay. (University of Chicago Press: 1998).
Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture edited by James Brook, Chris Carlsson and Nancy J. Peters. (City Lights Books: 1998).
Selling the Lower East Side: Culture, Real Estate, and Resistance in New York City by Christopher Mele (University of Minnesota Press: 2000).
PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL INDEPENDENT BOOK STORES!
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