Although we lean more to the the SFB Guardian side on this issue, we found some memorable quotes on today’s column by CW Nevius about Twitter’s move to mid-Market. This one in particular:
The idea that there is virtue in keeping the Tenderloin poor, grubby and under served has passed.
But it’s just too bad that he frames the debate around the benefits of gentrification, as the only possible alternative to the current stinky hot mess that is the Tenderloin. One commenter named jusher, though, echoes how many of us feel about the neighborhood (at least many of us who don’t live in the Lalaland of SF politics and nonprofits): that it’s possible, to clean up the TL without turning it into a place where the less fortunate cannot afford to live.
It would be great if Twitter moves there, but we need to make sure they can’t take the tax break and then bail when it expires. Of course, that is probably exactly what will happen.
Gentrification is just plain wrong. it is nothing more than people with lots of money abusing people with little or no money. The hatred of the poor that some have is appalling.
There are real problems in places like the Tenderloin. But they are not caused just by poverty. Instead of passing silly, and clearly hateful, laws like sit/lie, the police should be enforcing laws already on the books. Funny, but most drug dealers are not sitting or lying. They are walking around. The same is true for people looking to rob or mug.
Putting police on the streets, dealing with real crime, would make a big difference. It is entirely possible, and reasonable, to clear out the drugs and other bad behavior from places like the Tenderloin without turning them into places where the less fortunate cannot afford to live. Of course that is not how things work. By letting crime proliferate, you create an excuse for gentrification, and then the people who have been victims of crime become the victims of greed.
Why can’t we deal with bad behavior, like public drunkenness (including rich hipsters), public urination and defecation, etc.? Why do the only answers seem to be to actually come up with laws that target people for harmless behavior after years of ignoring actual problems?
For starters, how about more public toilets, less public drugs along with more and better cooperation between the police and the community?
23 Comments until now
I don’t see how cleaning up the Tenderloin can happen without increasing property values, and therefore rents as well. Aside from the seediness, this is an area that should be in very high demand because of its location. By ridding it of its seediness, we’d remove the major deterrent to living here, and then the usual supply and demand argument follows.
Well, hate to break it to you, rents have steadily been going up, gentrification or not.
Yeah, yeah, rents have been going up. And an apple is more expensive today than it was 10 years ago. The question is “Can the TL be cleaned up without gentrification?” It depends on what you mean by “clean up.”
Let’s assume you mean “make it more pleasant.” Yes, we can clean it up without gentrification. You think it takes white people working for Google and Genentech to pick up trash? I’m sure the people who make it their business to trash the TL would like to be happy people living in a beautiful place, but the problem is they don’t have the luxury of the choice. Of their grand list of priorities, of which things like something to eat and somewhere to sleep, are at the top. Somewhere nice to put my trash and somewhere to go to the bathroom’s probably towards the bottom. But, for the sake of the discussion let’s say for a moment the people trashing the TL suddenly want flowers and birds and shit and the TL is now clean – Guess what? People who didn’t want to live there before because it was a shit hole now think it’s awesome. And guess what some more? These people can pay more than the people presently living there. Is gentrification necessary to have a clean, safe and pleasant TL? No.
It seems to me the question you want to ask is, “Can the process of gentrification be kept from the TL?” The answer is, Of course! Just keep a bunch of homeless people down there and let them shit in between the cars, smash car windows and stab each other. And make sure you put two liquor stores on every block selling cheap, unhealthy food and have drug dealers stand out in the open selling prescription pills to junkies. Maybe a few thousand addicts stabbing and robbing other people.
“Is it possible to clean up the TL without gentrification?” Where did you come up with such a ridiculously naive question?
You tell them, Evarels, and your prescription to have the police actually enforce laws that exist while walking the streets is on the money, and of course too obviously sensible to ever happen. For my sake, however, try not to quote Nevius who really is repulsive.
I agree with SFMike: please leave the ever-repellent CW Nevius out of the equation, unless you choose to mock him.
I don’t see the connection betweeen Twitter moving to mid market and the closing of any of those SRO Hotels in the TL. Gentrification is not even close.
Enforcing laws on the books would require SFPD to get off their lazy asses and do their job. That will never happen. Much easier to just have rich crackers move in and gentrify the area.
SFPD (and its shitty crime lab) and our DA (and its super liberal attitudes) are the problems here. That and politically connected people *want* the TL to remain less than ideal because it is *profitable* for them.
But yeah it does roll back to SFPD being a lazy bunch of SOB’s.
When Gascon took over as top cop there was a huge increase of cops walking beats in the TL. It really felt like a change was underway as you walked down the streets. But it only took a couple of months until they all disappeared and the neighborhood went back to business as usual as the City’s largest open-air drug market and latrine.
Why?
Because there’s simply too much grant money available to the politicians, the police, City service departments, and the homeless advocacy industry whom all handsomely profit from the status quo, making them content to leave things as long as they can court votes and pull financial support from other areas of town.
As someone who owns a home in the TL (yes we DO exist and that makes me a stakeholder in the neighborhood), all this carping about rents going up is so much bullshit. Ulysses is right- what price isn’t going up? Well, the value of my place for one, but that’s another story.
Give Twitter their tax break. Find a company to move into the vacant Culinary Academy building for a similar deal. Get the Hibernia Bank project moving quicker, fine the Shorenstein Company into prompting them to clean up the Golden Gate Theater, which looks like a shithole from the outside (not that it’s much better on the inside), and bulldoze the flop house at Polk and Geary.
And here’s the last part to get you all screaming your heads off- let a good percentage of the SROs get turned into condos- say 20% or so- more would be even better. Is that seeking gentrification? No. That’s seeking to increase the amount of stakeholders (i.e. people who have a vested interest in the neighborhood’s success and quality of life issues) within a largely transient population. Will some unfortunate people be displaced in that kind of plan? Yes. Is life fair? Probably not- that’s why they live in those shitholes in the first place.
Where do we put them? For starters, how about in that 10 story building St. Anthony’s is building or in more Glide housing? Places much nicer than the horrible SROs yet still close to needed neighborhood services. In other words solutions do exist, but do politicians will the balls and rectitude to enact them? Not in this City, I’m afraid.
Have a lovely day- and watch where you’re stepping!
It happens everywhere, unfortuately there’s nothing we can do but support the business that we care about and hope for the best. After watching a woman sqat and pee between 2 racks in the goodwill on Geary a couple days ago I agree more toilets would help.
@sfmike @tobymarx Nevius serves a necessary purpose in this city: to spur debate. Which is why he was quoted here, and it seems to have worked pretty well…
If gentrification means moving in more hipsters, or art students, which is sort of inevitable in that context, then the cure is worse than the disease.
Any sort of improvements mean rents go up faster than they are now and the place will be less vibrant and more pretentious than it is now. I don’t know about everyone else but drug deals on the streets don’t bother me (unless I’m buying and getting ripped off), nor do drug dealers.
And John, everything you say is so self serving it’s laughable: “Give the Twats and anyone else who asks a tax break, roll out the condos, anything, please, anything to push up the value of my property. Oh, your rent is going up? Fuck you.” Yeah I used to own property in a seedy area which then rapidly gentrified. Sidewalks were full of needles, prostitutes, and the occasional dead homeless person. I sold out and nearly tripled my money. I moved not to cash in (though it was nice), but I because I couldn’t stand my new neighbours and their attendant shops, bars and attitudes.
The TL is fine as it is. It’s real life. Being a little on your guard and a little apprehensive when you’re on the street is how it should be, in the wild there were always predators. It’s natural thing.
@nutjob, Tolerance of drug dealers is how Mexico got out of control. Everything is “fine” when things are normal — then they start feuding and wars start. Then innocent people start getting killed. You can debate the merits and drawbacks to the illegality of drugs in the US, but the fact of the matter is that they’re currently illegal per federal law (CA law whatever, local law whatever — Feds trump all).
If you tolerate open-air drug dealing, it will eventually blow up in your face. People say the same thing about the mafia until a St. Valentine’s Day massacre comes along.
Even ignoring the drug problems of the TL, the police could get off their lazy asses and enforce the other dozens of “quality of life” laws that are violated every minute in the TL.
nutjob- I think you’re the self-serving, pretentious one and perhaps the only time you’re in the neighborhood is to buy your drugs?
Yes, it is real life and if I wasn’t okay with it I wouldn’t have chosen to live here. I went from renting in the neighborhood to buying a place in it not because I thought I would get rich, but because if you want to take advantage of living in SF and you’re not well-off, for people with interests like mine the TL is probably the best place to live- I don’t even have to get on a bus most days much less drive anywhere.
That doesn’t mean it can’t and shouldn’t be better for the majority of people who live here and just want to live their lives without dealing with a bunch of unnecessary bullshit.
There is nothing pretentious about the Tenderloin and anyone who thinks it can be “rapidly gentrified” (if indeed, ever) is just ignorant on a number of levels. The Tenderloin will probably NEVER be gentrified. That’s my point- so how do you mitigate the negative quality of life issues facing residents, largely brought in by outsiders (such as yourself in all likelihood) who view the place as their own little playground to misbehave in?
Did you know the TL has more children in it than any other neighborhood in SF? I’m not a parent, but I empathize with low-income families squashed into 350′ studios (rent-controlled) who have to walk their kids through “sidewalks… full of needles, prostitutes, and the occasional dead homeless person” everyday because peoeple like you think it’s cool.
You there, in the new “wild”- so tough and urban, sitting at your computer in the middle of the day, commenting on blogs. Poser.
@evarels: I didn’t read your post closely enough to realize that the majority of it was a quote from “jusher” at SFGate commenting on some piece of Nevius idiocy. So your point that the latter stimulates intelligent debate is technically true, though amusingly enough the legions of reactionary Nevius fans have given jusher’s intelligent remarks the literal thumbs-down in the SFGate voting system. YOU are the one spurring this debate by pulling out and highlighting jusher’s comment.
There are plenty of points of view that are diametrically opposite to mine that are perfectly valid, but I don’t put Nevius in that category. He’s a defender of the indefensible and a cynical propagandist for the powerful, and he’s not even that good at it. I peg him as the local, minor-league version of Beck and Limbaugh, who “spur debate” that’s no more than just a lot of spite and shouting.
John, I live in the Tenderloin at the corner of Leavenworth and Turk. You probably live somewhere a bit nicer than that corner. I choose to live here and so have the people with children, who are all around me here. If they thought that the drug deals, homeless people and “unnecessary bullshit” was a problem they wouldn’t live here, just as you say.
But fixing the “unnecessary bullshit” would drive out many of these young immigrant families (I’m a single recent immigrant) out of the neighbourhood due to increased rents. Wow, would they be grateful for that? Why don’t you just admit you, after getting in relatively cheaply, now want to turn the TL into your middle class dream neighbourhood, the one you wish you could afford. One way or another it’s all about property values to you. You want the families out wether you realise it or not.
And yeah, anyone who uses a computer in the TL is a poser. LOL. There’s a computer lab across the street at the Salvation Army, and another one at the employment resource centre a couple of doors down, but you wouldn’t know that.
You reply shows that you didn’t actually read my post very carefully or that you’re not capable of understanding what I’m talking about, but just let me say you’re so condescending I’d be offended if I hadn’t already written you off as a religious nutjob. Listen to yourself: “you own a computer, you’re fake”. There’s the good wholesome people like yourself and then there’s the great unwashed who are all poor drug dealers who don’t have computers or maybe they can’t even read. Everyone else is a poser. Anyone who defends themselves and their neighbourhood against your pettiness or otherwise disagrees with you is a poser. If only you had a valid argument beyond calling me names.
I love the TL and I love the feel of the place, warts and all. You want to destroy that. You want to “fix” the TL because you don’t belong here.
@scurvy: ok, so why haven’t the police cleaned up the drug dealing? It’s illegal, it’s out in the open and it’s rampant. Why are police “tolerating” it? It doesn’t bother me but no-one cares what I think about the subject and the law is clearly written, so why is it still there? Is it because it just can’t be stopped, only move from place to place? Demand and supply, in action. It’s not “laziness”. If the SFPD enforced the law the jails would be full of poor minorities (even more so, and at great cost to us taxpayers) and people would still deal drugs.
If drugs were legalised then you wouldn’t have drug dealing on the streets, they would be sold at Walmart. Personally I think drug use is a victimless crime, bar the user, and the government needs to get the fuck out of my personal life and people’s personal choices. But I’m in the minority on that one. Most people are rank hypocrites on this subject since they recoil at the though of such an idea yet the two deadliest drugs, alcohol and tobacco, are legal and already available at Walmart.
People, stick to the question: Can the TL be cleaned up without gentrification? Just bringing up the question points to the answer NO. Those living in the TL as it is are doing so for their own reasons. Reasons that have less to do with wanting better housing, safer streets, health care, good jobs, clean underwear. You people need to quit holding people to the measuring stick you use for your own lives. And don’t blame this on the cops looking the other way. If the cops start to arrest people or enforce the laws those people are breaking then those people will just spread out a little more, infecting other neighborhoods.
I vote for keeping the TL the shit hole it is. The irony of a gaggle of beardos dipping craft cocktails at KoKo’s and while the hip DJ plays soul music while all of you blog about this shit is fucking HILARIOUS.
Do any of you have degrees in Urban Planning or Civic Management? Which of you are Psychologists? Buncha self absorbed cranks on the interwebs. This ain’t Brooklyn, you jackasses.
You think Little Bird Cafe isn’t gentrification?
You think Koko’s “mixologists” selling $11 craft cocktails isn’t gentrification?
You think Hooker’s Sweet Treats isn’t gentrification?
You think Bamboo Bike Studio isn’t gentrification?
Go down to Eddy and Taylor and ask someone down there if they have seen the new Tenderblog page discussing the pros and cons of gentrification in their neighborhood. Come back and tell me what they say. I’m guessing it’ll be something, like, “Fuck you.” or they’ll just ask you for money.
I’d like to close out this entire discussion with the following:
MOTHERFUCKING BAMBOO BICYCLES.
YOU are the gentrification you hate so much. YOU.
@Ulyssescale: You’re one of those crazies who walk around the TL ranting at themselves, innit? LOL.
Oh – I forgo:
Going down to Brenda’s for an “Oyster flight” isn’t gentrification?
The base price for a Bamboo Bicycle is $932 fucking dollars. Oooh, and a $350 deposit.
Damn Ulyssescale, when nutjob is calling you out, that says a big giant pile of something.
You think grabbing a $18 bag of specialty coffee at Farm:Table isn’t gentrification?
(I love Verve Coffee. I love the ingenuity of the proprietors of Farm:Table. Fucking brilliant and effective.)
@nutjob here’s more evidence of your “keeping the hood shitty is fine for me” attitude. http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/03/joshua_mcclain_mint_plaza.php
That homicide is 100% drug related. Also, I said don’t go down the drug legality rathole. That’s outside the scope of this thread and the reality of turning the TL around.
The reason Bamboo bike’ are as much as they are, beyond that one builds them onsite by hand, literally a handcrafted bike and where they experiment to improve their models, is that they’re part of a project to build bamboo bikes in Ghana, Africa.
Donating to them is tax-deductable.
What was there before? A psychic which went out of business so the space was empty for months.
Bamboo Bike is not an example of gentrification.
Gentrification would bring in a lot of foot traffic of people, and the people in the neighborhood couldn’t afford one. But with the studio’s across the street at 1,100 & the one bedroom at over 1,400; this means some of these tenants are making 2-2.5 times that amount to qualify; so they can afford these bikes.
Since the gates are drawn during regular business hours, they’re not open for walk in traffic; they’re only open to those attending their seminars.
The reality is that with rent as high as it is, the poor who are here are, are here from the last decade. The efficiency’s in the same building are 700. 1,100 for a studio. That’s why the neighborhood is changing.
(Yes, CitiApartments threw hundreds of thousands into this building, yes, they typically did very poor work.)
Is it possible to clean up the neighborhood?
Absolutely. What would it take? Neighbors to stop thinking of themselves as isolated units, to get together, not just in their buildings, but block by block. Doesn’t take much, just the same thing it takes in any other neighborhood, and because of density, we have a lot more people. But I’m a tenant organizer,
I’m doing it, and it takes a lot of hours or something that draws everyone’s attention, to get people to stop isolating. People have lots of fears and they have to figure out how to deal with the crazy people in their building, as well as every other kind. To change the neighborhood, all it takes is people showing up, far fewer to do that,then knowing everyone in your building.