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Don Barrett (aka DBs travels)

Don Barrett (aka DBs travels) club

Posted: 02 Oct 2014

Taken: 26 Jul 2014

1 favorite     2 comments    212 visits

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development •
California •
San Francisco •
SF0714 •

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SF Rincon Hill mixed signals (0482)

SF Rincon Hill mixed signals (0482)
There are just too many mixed signals in this photograph.... 1) the building is on Rincon Hill where buildings of this size are being torn down and replaced with complexes of luxury apartments/condos, 2) open windows??? in an area of gigantic high rises with complete ventilation systems?, 3) a sign for a fashion shoe store that is right in the middle of the Haight, an area that was once druggies and dropouts where no respectable downtown businessman would go, and 4) shoes pictured as if they were dangling from a utility wire, which is widely recognized to be an indicator of an area to buy drugs?

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Comments
 Clint
Clint
The question of what San Francisco is to become is always interesting to me, as the place seems to embody the extreme of gentrification debates. It is a place that has become well-loved because of a particular atmosphere and sense of character, so everybody wants to live there. It's geographically very small with no option for growth, though, meaning that in order to accommodate the people who come there for the atmosphere, you have to build more density. This means bulldozing a lot of what created the atmosphere. I see only two options for the place: 1. Go ahead and build that increased density until people stop coming and some sense of balance is achieved. 2. Limit growth, with the consequence that one of the nation's most expensive places to live becomes increasingly more so with the passage of time. It seems to me that San Francisco can either be a mass of high rise condos, or it can be an enclave of nothing but millionaires.

Is there another option? What is your preferred solution?
9 years ago.
 Don Barrett (aka DBs travels)
Don Barrett (aka DBs… club
One problem with the increased density is that a portion is by those who simply want to invest in the city and don't have any intention to live there. I've not seen anything indicating how extensive this is, but it is consistently reported that many are bought by wealthy foreign nationals who see U.S. real estate as an investment that they may simply hold. Putting that aside, there is another factor entering the process that is also uncontrollable. At one point the simple geographical limits made living in SF difficult since getting in-and-out of the relatively isolated north peninsula was a problem, thus South Bay (Silicon Valley) workers didn't used to live in the city. Now, with the ease of telecommuting and/or working on dedicated buses, co-locating residence and work are not as necessary and SF is far more interesting than San Jose as a place to live.

It is disheartening to see culture homogenized through growth, but there doesn't seem to be any solution to it. The riots in Hong Kong are closely linked to the same phenomenon going on there,I moved out of LA because of it happening there, we see and hear of it in NYC and your hometown. The only saving grace is knowing that the next economic collapse will make room for another shift.
9 years ago.

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