San Francisco: the fourth epoch of development

In his article Urban Development and Redevelopment in San Francisco, Brian Godfrey discusses the three roughly 25 year periods of development that have shaped the city and its eclectic architectural styles:

- first between 1849-1875 following the California Gold Rush,
- then between 1906-1930 after the earthquake and fire that razed the city in 1906,
- and finally 1960-1985, the era that gave birth to the modern high-rise city.

Early Victorian Row House

The modern high-rises of Downtown San Francisco

Writing in 1997, Godfrey also theorised that the city was entering a fourth stage of development. This would be characterised by rising property prices and a shift in demographics as the countercultural, contrarian and famously gay population that previously defined the city (itself the product of an earlier wave of gentrification) gets replaced by the young new wave of wealthy employees from the nearby budding tech companies. 

Last weekend I visited San Francisco, keeping an eye out to see if Godfrey’s premonitions had come to fruition. And, as we came in over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, we were met with countless billboards advertising jobs to the numerous industry workers who have now come to occupy the city. While this influx of software developers is no big news, another of Godfrey’s predictions appears to have more subtly come true: there does appear to be a decline in the visibility of the gay community. 

Having never previously visited San Francisco I am obviously unable to make such comparative inferences based purely on what I see and, as a visitor, I cannot deduce what is going on behind the scenes. However, data produced by UCLA think-tank the Williams Institute (Gates 2006) and analytics company Gallop (Newport and Gates 2015) show that the LGB community in San Francisco has indeed declined by 2% between 2006 and 2014, now comprising around 6.4% of the city’s population.

While some traditional gay neighbourhoods are still visible around San Francisco, Castro Street being perhaps the most prevalent, the culture seems less authentic and more commodified for tourists like myself. Overpriced restaurants and bars like The Sausage Factory and QBar seem to appeal less to locals and more to outsiders who are visiting the city to consume its famous culture. 

Brunch menu at the famous Red Door Cafe, now a tourist spot known for its gay themed menu

The squeezing out of San Francisco’s gay community appears to have been caused by another of Godfrey’s predictions coming true: gentrification and the consequent rapid rise in property prices as outlined in an article by Adam Hudson (2015). In the past 40 years the value of real estate in San Francisco has risen far faster than state or national averages (Dpaul Brown 2014). This has had a powerful impact on the demographics of local neighbourhoods. For example Potrero Hill, once a hotbed for the LGBT community, now appears to be dominated by upmarket restaurants and shops baring little resemblance to their previous incarnations. Furthermore, the local patrons of these establishments, most accompanied with their families, appeared to be middle-class and heterosexual.

Median home sales price by year in San Francisco, California and the United States (Dpaul Brown 2014)

View of San Francisco from the now gentrified Potrero Hill

I absolutely loved San Francisco. It seemed to be everything Los Angeles is not: a self-contained, pedestrianised city with good public transport networks and (at least in my opinion) a great climate. However, being a city of only 49 square miles, San Francisco is susceptible to widespread changes in very short periods as proven by Godfrey. I hope that the ‘bourgeois consolidation’ that has come to distinguish the current epoch of change does not entirely displace San Francisco’s characteristic ‘nontraditional social identities’ (Godfrey 1997: 310).

References

Dpaul Brown (2014) ‘Mid-Year Review Statistics’ (WWW), San Francisco: Dpaul Brown (http://dpaulsf.com/2014/08/04/mid-year-review-statistics/; 15 October 2015).

Gates, G.J. (2006) ‘Same-sex Couples and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Population: New Estimates from the American Community Survey’ (WWW), Los Angeles: The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy (http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Gates-Same-Sex-Couples-GLB-Pop-ACS-Oct-2006.pdf; 15 October 2015).

Godfrey, B.J. (1997) ‘Urban Development and Redevelopment in San Francisco’, The Geographical Review, 87, 3, 309-333.

Hudson, A. (2015) ‘With Soaring Rents and a Vanishing Middle Class, San Francisco Becomes a City for the Rich’ (WWW), Sacramento: Truth-Out (http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34031-with-soaring-rents-and-a-vanishing-middle-class-san-francisco-becomes-a-city-for-the-rich; 15 October 2015).

Newport, F. and G.J. Gates (2015) ‘San Francisco Metro Area Ranks Highest in LGBT Percentage’  (WWW), Los Angeles: Gallup (http://www.gallup.com/poll/182051/san-francisco-metro-area-ranks-highest-lgbt-percentage.aspx; 15 October 2015).

Here are some more photos from my trip:

The Golden Gate Bridge

Alleyway in Telegraph Hill 

Muir Woods National Monument

Indian style floating house in Sausalito Yacht Harbour