San Francisco Embraces Gentrification

Columnist C.W. Nevius examines why San Francisco's current building boom is happening "with surprisingly little grumbling.

Gentrification, he explains, became a dirty word during the "Manhattanization" of the city in the 1970s and 80s. "The difference this time is that the push is coming from the bottom up," he contends. "Rather than fat-cat developers promoting ugly skyscrapers, the demand is coming from young techies who work here or in the Silicon Valley and want to preserve the feel of unique neighborhoods. Their presence is being felt not only in the Mission, where Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg now has a home, also in areas that were once considered downtrodden."

"This boom has its share of concerned activists," says Nevius, "but we have yet to see the stop-any-kind-of-development movement we saw in the '80s."