It's remarkable that there was once Native American history in this country, which you'd never know traveling around.
Gentrification is not integration... Integration would have bi-directional flows of color between neighborhoods. This is far more akin to colonization.
The Fillmore has a long history of changing ethnic hands. Once upon a time it was a Japanese neighborhood. Once upon a time it was a Jewish neighborhood.
When people discuss the Fillmore and its history, that discussion tends to start at roughly 1945-1950 when there's just suddenly a black neighborhood. Like maybe it materialized out of the aether as a jazz center or something.
While the articles that I've been seeing on HN lately aren't specifically uplifting, I /am/ glad to be (seemingly) seeing more related to the black experience.
Most blacks who migrated to cities from the south after the war were met with at the very least skepticism, though usually outright racism and violence.
Between the beginning of this general 'migration' to urban areas and the MLK riots, white people became increasingly 'motivated' to move to the suburbs, which led over time to the urban centers deteriorating until they were completely unstable, usually necessitating rescue by the state [affordable housing, food stamps, etc]. Eventually a trickle of white development/business starts the reverse process of gentrification.
I am not aware of a single case of increase in urban development having a net benefit to the black community, mainly because they are almost never the target demographic for that development.
When people complain about shitty urban areas full of blight, homeless, mentally unstable, crime, etc, they're basically complaining about the state of the urban center which white people created when they moved out decades ago.
The railroad didn't get finished until a few years after the Civil War. Prior to that, going west would involve considerable capital expenses (if you've played Oregon Trail, you know you need oxen/horses, a wagon, parts, food, etc, etc). Kind of hard for freedmen in the wake of the Civil War, in devastated Southern territory, 40 acres and a mules notwithstanding, to scrape up that initial investment.
The issue is unaffordable housing and it is a problem in many cities such as NYC where I live, not just SF.
The cause of the unaffordable housing is zoning restrictions that limit housing density and overuse of historic landmark status through politically induced scarcity. Using politics to induce scarcity creates an additional "economic rent" or profits above for landowners (housing and apartment owners) above what they could get in an efficient market.
This is a basic concept of microeconomics: the use of politics to induce scarcity for receiving profits above what one would get in an efficient, competitive market.
This "rent seeking" makes landowners like Donald Trump much wealthier than they otherwise would be in an efficient market.
Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser has written extensively about this. NYTimes columnist and Economics Nobelist Paul Krugmann has written about this in his columns, and Financial Times columnist (with a masters in Economics Tim Harford) has also written about this.
Another example of gaining "economic rent" or "rent-seeking" is in NYC there had been a political limit of the number of taxi medallions to 13,000. The result was a medallion market value of $1.2 million per medallion. Taxi drivers that leased cabs had to pay for use of the medallion as well as the cab, and gasoline. The result is much higher fares approved by the NYC Taxi and Licensing Commission.
Then Uber/Lyft came along and the price of the medallions dropped from the $1.2 million to less than $700,000.
The rent-seeking is very harmful to the economy and of course adds to the income inequalities. It is in invisible "tax" that transfers wealth from the less wealthy to the wealthy. Money that one could be spending on goods and services in an efficient housing market is instead going towards paying additional housing costs with that money ending up in the pockets of the wealthy.
The race issue headline undoubtedly gets more page clicks than an article that would state that billionaires such as Donald Trump owe much of their wealth to inefficient markets resulting from the use of politics to create artificial scarcity.
The solution is a simple one which is to get rid of the destructive laws that create the artificial scarcity in land use.
It is upsetting to me that the NYTimes reporters appear not to understand basic economics.
> This is not a black-white or other racist issue.
> The issue is unaffordable housing and it is a problem in many cities such as NYC where I live, not just SF.
Yet NYC is 23% black. If the issue is unaffordable housing, why did it almost eliminate black people from San Francisco but had had little effect on the number of black people in NYC? (The black percentage of NYC has gone down a little over the past 20 years, as has the white percentage, but this is because of a large growth in the NYC asian population over that time and a significant growth in the hispanic population).
1. White people commit racism and violence against blacks
causes
2. White people flee to the suburbs
causes
3. Urban centers to deteriorate.
Let's examine:
1->2 So white people were fleeing... their own violence against blacks?
2->3 So when those violent people left, this cause the areas to get... worse?
Apparently you believe white people being present is a problem, and white people leaving is a problem. Their presence hurts blacks, and when they leave it hurts blacks too. So literally everything is the fault of white people, whether they're coming or going, here or there.
Even more surreal - these blacks voluntarily moved towards the whites. Then the whites moved to escape the blacks. And the bad guys here are... the whites! The ones who blacks want to live around, and who are trying to flee them.
It really is remarkable the rationalizations a mind is capable of.
You've been using HN exclusively to fight political battles. That's an abuse of this site. We asked you repeatedly to stop, but you've continued doing exactly the same thing, so I'm banning your account.
This community has a single guiding value: intellectual curiosity. That is profoundly incompatible with single-purpose ideological participation. If HN is to survive in its intended form, we need to get clearer about differentiating these two. I'm sure there are other internet communities where people can fight their wars-by-other-means.
> It really is remarkable the rationalizations a mind is capable of.
This kind of incivility is particularly unwelcome here.
However, some historians have challenged the phrase "white flight" as a misnomer whose use should be reconsidered. In her study of Chicago's West Side during the post-war era, historian Amanda Seligman argues that the phrase misleadingly suggests that whites immediately departed when blacks moved into the neighborhood, when in fact, many whites defended their space with violence, intimidation, or legal tactics.
The business practices of redlining, mortgage discrimination, and racially restrictive covenants contributed to the overcrowding and physical deterioration of areas where minorities chose to congregate. Such conditions are considered to have contributed to the emigration of other populations. The limited facilities for banking and insurance, due to a perceived lack of profitability, and other social services, and extra fees meant to hedge against perceived profit issues increased their cost to residents in predominantly non-white suburbs and city neighborhoods. According to the environmental geographer Laura Pulido, the historical processes of suburbanization and urban decentralization contribute to contemporary environmental racism.
A quick thing that can be easily dispelled: minority groups didn't voluntarily move anywhere from '34 to '68 [1], because the FHA policy of redlining prevented them from getting a mortgage in predominately white neighborhoods. Shockingly or not, the higher quality property was reserved for whites.
'68 was the end of formal, legal requirements to disapprove of mortgages in heterogeneous communities (for lack of a better term). There's plenty of evidence that the practice continues even to this day, informally. [2]
[+] [-] Kinnard|9 years ago|reply
Remarkable article revealing that there was once Black History in San Francisco, which you'd never know walking around.
[+] [-] eevilspock|9 years ago|reply
Gentrification is not integration... Integration would have bi-directional flows of color between neighborhoods. This is far more akin to colonization.
[+] [-] elgabogringo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kalium|9 years ago|reply
When people discuss the Fillmore and its history, that discussion tends to start at roughly 1945-1950 when there's just suddenly a black neighborhood. Like maybe it materialized out of the aether as a jazz center or something.
[+] [-] Kinnard|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spraak|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kinnard|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterwwillis|9 years ago|reply
Between the beginning of this general 'migration' to urban areas and the MLK riots, white people became increasingly 'motivated' to move to the suburbs, which led over time to the urban centers deteriorating until they were completely unstable, usually necessitating rescue by the state [affordable housing, food stamps, etc]. Eventually a trickle of white development/business starts the reverse process of gentrification.
I am not aware of a single case of increase in urban development having a net benefit to the black community, mainly because they are almost never the target demographic for that development.
When people complain about shitty urban areas full of blight, homeless, mentally unstable, crime, etc, they're basically complaining about the state of the urban center which white people created when they moved out decades ago.
[+] [-] douche|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] davidf18|9 years ago|reply
The issue is unaffordable housing and it is a problem in many cities such as NYC where I live, not just SF.
The cause of the unaffordable housing is zoning restrictions that limit housing density and overuse of historic landmark status through politically induced scarcity. Using politics to induce scarcity creates an additional "economic rent" or profits above for landowners (housing and apartment owners) above what they could get in an efficient market.
This is a basic concept of microeconomics: the use of politics to induce scarcity for receiving profits above what one would get in an efficient, competitive market.
This "rent seeking" makes landowners like Donald Trump much wealthier than they otherwise would be in an efficient market.
Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser has written extensively about this. NYTimes columnist and Economics Nobelist Paul Krugmann has written about this in his columns, and Financial Times columnist (with a masters in Economics Tim Harford) has also written about this.
Another example of gaining "economic rent" or "rent-seeking" is in NYC there had been a political limit of the number of taxi medallions to 13,000. The result was a medallion market value of $1.2 million per medallion. Taxi drivers that leased cabs had to pay for use of the medallion as well as the cab, and gasoline. The result is much higher fares approved by the NYC Taxi and Licensing Commission.
Then Uber/Lyft came along and the price of the medallions dropped from the $1.2 million to less than $700,000.
The rent-seeking is very harmful to the economy and of course adds to the income inequalities. It is in invisible "tax" that transfers wealth from the less wealthy to the wealthy. Money that one could be spending on goods and services in an efficient housing market is instead going towards paying additional housing costs with that money ending up in the pockets of the wealthy.
The race issue headline undoubtedly gets more page clicks than an article that would state that billionaires such as Donald Trump owe much of their wealth to inefficient markets resulting from the use of politics to create artificial scarcity.
The solution is a simple one which is to get rid of the destructive laws that create the artificial scarcity in land use.
It is upsetting to me that the NYTimes reporters appear not to understand basic economics.
For more information see: Edward Glaeser: Build Big Bill (Mayor of NYC) http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1....
An on-line article about "rent seeking" and the damage to the economy (includes land use restrictions) http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-rent-seeking-is-too-...
This book is a very fun read: Tim Harford: The Undercover Economist https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199926514
[+] [-] tzs|9 years ago|reply
> The issue is unaffordable housing and it is a problem in many cities such as NYC where I live, not just SF.
Yet NYC is 23% black. If the issue is unaffordable housing, why did it almost eliminate black people from San Francisco but had had little effect on the number of black people in NYC? (The black percentage of NYC has gone down a little over the past 20 years, as has the white percentage, but this is because of a large growth in the NYC asian population over that time and a significant growth in the hispanic population).
[+] [-] Snargorf|9 years ago|reply
1. White people commit racism and violence against blacks
causes
2. White people flee to the suburbs
causes
3. Urban centers to deteriorate.
Let's examine:
1->2 So white people were fleeing... their own violence against blacks?
2->3 So when those violent people left, this cause the areas to get... worse?
Apparently you believe white people being present is a problem, and white people leaving is a problem. Their presence hurts blacks, and when they leave it hurts blacks too. So literally everything is the fault of white people, whether they're coming or going, here or there.
Even more surreal - these blacks voluntarily moved towards the whites. Then the whites moved to escape the blacks. And the bad guys here are... the whites! The ones who blacks want to live around, and who are trying to flee them.
It really is remarkable the rationalizations a mind is capable of.
[+] [-] dang|9 years ago|reply
This community has a single guiding value: intellectual curiosity. That is profoundly incompatible with single-purpose ideological participation. If HN is to survive in its intended form, we need to get clearer about differentiating these two. I'm sure there are other internet communities where people can fight their wars-by-other-means.
> It really is remarkable the rationalizations a mind is capable of.
This kind of incivility is particularly unwelcome here.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12134673 and marked it off-topic.
[+] [-] lkrubner|9 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight
Excerpt:
However, some historians have challenged the phrase "white flight" as a misnomer whose use should be reconsidered. In her study of Chicago's West Side during the post-war era, historian Amanda Seligman argues that the phrase misleadingly suggests that whites immediately departed when blacks moved into the neighborhood, when in fact, many whites defended their space with violence, intimidation, or legal tactics. The business practices of redlining, mortgage discrimination, and racially restrictive covenants contributed to the overcrowding and physical deterioration of areas where minorities chose to congregate. Such conditions are considered to have contributed to the emigration of other populations. The limited facilities for banking and insurance, due to a perceived lack of profitability, and other social services, and extra fees meant to hedge against perceived profit issues increased their cost to residents in predominantly non-white suburbs and city neighborhoods. According to the environmental geographer Laura Pulido, the historical processes of suburbanization and urban decentralization contribute to contemporary environmental racism.
[+] [-] thebooktocome|9 years ago|reply
'68 was the end of formal, legal requirements to disapprove of mortgages in heterogeneous communities (for lack of a better term). There's plenty of evidence that the practice continues even to this day, informally. [2]
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/the-raci...
[2] http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/fai...
[+] [-] Kinnard|9 years ago|reply
Do you think any of this has to do with the mental trauma of enslavement.
Do you think the Emancipation Proclamation or the 13th Amendment make all the bad things go away.
Ubiquitous discrimination grinds on the soul. Do you blame the oppressed for being ground down?
[+] [-] lwhalen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterwwillis|9 years ago|reply
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/white-fl...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight#United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Migration_(Africa...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_African-Americ...
Read them or don't, I don't really care, but if you want to be less ignorant of how this developed these are useful starting points.
[+] [-] Kidney|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]