A week or so ago I posted a link to a thesis that someone had written about gentrification in Dogpatch*. I’m a busy guy (and the only person writing this blog), so I posted it with little commentary.

From Lodging in Public:

Via the Dogpatch Howler, here’s a San Francisco State geography thesis on gentrification in Dogpatch that doesn’t mention the role of police harassment against poor people in changing the atmosphere of the place. This strikes me as a substantial omission.

This is a substantial omission from a public discourse about how a neighborhood changes. I’d say that it even deserves a second thesis of its own. I would read, excerpt, and link to such a thing. Really, I’d do the same for anything that talks about the neighborhood, whether praising it or damning it.

Also from Lodging in Public:

Look, for your sake a whole population of people living in cars and RVs and trucks and tents was kicked out of one of the last San Francisco places where you could still feel a little breath of continuity with the Gold Rush.

It is the rare individual who can sound wistful about days of homeless camps, but this is still a very good point. As this neighborhood changed, and as it continues to change, persons who had called it home have been and will be forced out. I know people who are getting priced out, but Bridegam is reminding us that the counts on the census forms are more than just numbers, they are human beings — and not every one of those human beings makes it to the census.

I’m a little stymied as to how to feel. I have to work someplace and I have to live someplace. This is the best place I have ever lived, but living here makes me part of changes with repercussions. I’ve met neighbors who are getting priced out, and the whole thing leaves me feeling defeated. What good is my modest success if my neighbor cannot have it as well?

I’ve been trying to dig up more information on the neighborhood after 1912 and before 1990, with a special emphasis on the post-war period, but it’s slow going. I guess that I will have to add in research into Dogpatch homeless to my stack of topics, which is a fairly nebulous topic. Please keep sending me links, and I’ll keep posting things.

Hopefully I can get back to my normal snarky and silly posts, too.