The gentrification cycle is as old as time: Violence/marginalized demographic -> cheap rent -> creative types looking for cheap rent and space -> creative businesses/fun! -> first-to-the-party-ers -> more fun businesses -> more money that demands more safety/cleanliness -> rich people -> high rents

Then people decamp for the next neighborhood. Let’s all get over it.

You followed up Lyle’s wonderfully informed post with a heap of bullshit. Your comment about Prop 13 is absolutely false. Learn your legislation before you comment about things you obviously know nothing about.

1. The coffee is better now than 93.

There are more choices, yes. But in 93 you already had Muddy’s, Muddy Waters, and The Club. Tastes differ, but the archipelago of pintglass coffeehouses that already existed in the Mission in 93 was pretty top of the line.

2. We never say, ‘gee, I live in the golden age of prices.’.

That’s a good observation, but I remember going to taqueria San Jose #2 when it opened (just across the street from San Jose #1) and finding the 1/4 chicken plate meal: a 1/4 (small) chicken, five corn tortillas, beans, rice, cheese, and a baked potato plus condiments for $2.49 in the mid-90s.

I remember thinking something quite along the lines of “this really is the golden age of prices.”

And you could say the same for any of the standard burritos that were all under three bucks at the time.

And I was pretty pleased with myself for discovering King’s Bakery, which I’m sure rates negative stars among today’s discriminating Mission foodies, but which served (and probably still does) piping hot, loaf-sized sweet french rolls out of the oven for 50 or 75 cents per loaf. Take one of those and dunk chunks of it in your $1.25 large Muddy’s coffee, and again, those prices felt pretty golden at the time.

Lyle Lanley is one of the few renters who has managed to stay throughout all the waves of gentrification, and even he is one eviction away from being booted from SF.
The couch-surfing Lyle Lanleys of 2012 are taking one look at market rents in SF and saying “screw this overpriced pleasure cruise, I’m going somewhere saner.”

Anyway, it’ll probably take much longer than ten years before places like Cleveland and Detroit turn around, and it’ll probably never be to the extent of the Bay Area because there is a lot more land in those places and they also don’t have the pull factor of NYC or SF.

Portland, OR could be on a ten year plan though. It really does seem like all the artist-type people who bail on SF and the Bay Area are heading there. The show “Portlandia” is basically an infomercial for the place as the new bohemia.

A friend of mine shrewdly pointed out that most of the yuppies who came to SF with the dotcom boom were really only here for the jobs. They never liked the city and the city never liked them. When the jobs left, so did they.

This new crowd is different. They like the SF lifestyle just like the old bohemians did. The key difference is the Mission is a high-rent district now.

During weekdays, the Mission may actually be better than ever. But on weekends and nights, the crowds and the vibe are just too much sometimes.

If you like a local band and see them play in clubs, then five years later when that band gets big and you have to see them in crowded theatres for 3X the price, you’re always gonna remember the old days as better–even if the band now has a tighter set list, a slicker light show, and a better sound system.
That doesn’t mean that the people who started liking the band after they got big are having a diminished experience, but for you the new reality is always gonna be compromised.

I spent a lot of time hanging out at the Zeitgeist during the first dotcom era, and the Zeitgeist held off the onslaught pretty well. Then, around 2003 or 04, it finally became too yuppified. I shrugged and moved on, satisfied that I got my money’s worth when I could. The last time I went in the Zeitgeist it was only to use their bathroom and smoke a bowl on the patio.

You never really think about how cool it is that a neighborhood is largely undiscovered by outsiders until you see the first party bus pull up outside your favorite bar; only then do you realize what you have (or had).

Such is the Mission to me now. It still has its good qualities, but you also know that certain times and places are best avoided.

> Detroit, Cleveland, any of those formerly great
> cities that now have dead city centers. That’s the
> new frontier.

And in 10 years, when they’ve done their work well and made those new places fun and beautiful, and the folks with the jobs start moving in, we’ll think its the end of the world yet again?

For my part, I love the Mission so much that I find it amazing when someone fixates on the occasional Marina people or new condo. There’s still so much world class funky flavor that I feel like its just nit picking to obsess. And I always have to suspect that it’s a bit of that “it was better 10 years ago” phenomenon that exists pretty much everywhere.

But then again I’m a newbie. Only been here 15 years, and am lucky enough to be able to run my own business and be paid well for it, so maybe the Mission looks alot different to me than it would have when I got here and lived in my car.

BTW, last time I was in Bernal Heights, I saw not one, but two German-brand SUVs with ski-racks on top driven by fratboys who appeared to live there now. No biggie, but it made me do a double-take because it was so novel.

Even the East Bay isn’t particularly cheap, but it is a good place to run into anyone you knew from SF in the 90s. Most of the cool people seem to be going to Portland now. And the adventurous type who used to come to the Bay Area and live in converted warehouses now seem to be heading to places in the northeastern US: Detroit, Cleveland, any of those formerly great cities that now have dead city centers. That’s the new frontier.

Sure they are. But they’re coming to the Outer Mission. Which looks a lot like the Inner Mission did in the 80s.

And in 20 years, when the Outer Mission gets expensive, people will bemoan the world ending yet again, and the cycle will repeat itself.

See what I’m sayin?

No matter how hard you try to jam that square peg into that round hole, the Mission (even at 16th & Valencia) is absolutely nothing like the Marina or Noe Valley. But if the “lots of bars means Marina!” is really insurmountable for you, just stay on that 19 bus a few more stops and everyone will be happier for it.