“San Francisco is always transforming,” says Sarah, a 40-year-old friend of mine with soft eyes, a frowsy mullet and one of the last rent-controlled apartments on Guerrero Street, in the heart of the once-Latino Mission District. “My neighborhood has been gentrifying for the last 50 years, but still there are crappy little bars and plenty of places to eat that give you diarrhea.” Such equanimity and broadmindedness eluded one of the Bay Area’s storied writers, Jack London, during a similarly dark period in the city’s past. “San Francisco is gone,” he groused in 1906. “Nothing remains of it but memories.” He was wrong. Granted, as London wrote those words, an earthquake and fire had just left 3,000 dead, hundreds of thousands homeless and 80 percent of the city destroyed. But houses and people are physical things and when cut down tend to grow back, like mown grass. What’s at stake now is something by contrast irreplaceable: the soul of the city, in other words, a kind of brand. We can save it, America, but that means shoulders to the wheel, and not tomorrow but today. Pete Kane Ryan Chowder methinks youll appreciate this piece.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 13:39:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015