For those who haven’t been through The Mission district of San Francisco in a while, things there have been changing, and not necessarily for the better.
While it can be argued by many that the changes occurring in The Mission are for the good of the area, there seems to be one minor issue that is being overlooked: There are people living in that area who can’t afford to continue living there. Why? Because of gentrification.

Gentrification can be defined as a shift in the lifestyle of a community as property values rise along with the presence of wealthy residences and businesses. The simpler definition would be that, as more rich business and homeowners move in, it becomes harder for working class renters to afford to stay in the area. In the case of The Mission, an area often associated with the working class, the shift comes in the form of high priced coffee houses and designer clothing outlets. As the presence of such establishments increases it draws in a less blue collar crowd, seeing as how working class men and women don’t tend to frequent such places to spend their hard earned paychecks. Along with the opening of trendy shops we start to see a growing number of designer condominiums, with price tags well above what the average San Francisco resident can comfortably afford. So, who is buying up these fancy new digs? The white collared lemmings running to fill the void of trendiness in a former working class area, that’s who.

This diaspora of the wealthy has not been without some blow back, as hopeful Mission residents are butting heads with those born and raised in the area. A video making the rounds of YouTube shows a group of kids, predominantly teenagers, playing soccer on a public field. A group of men, referred to as “tech workers” by a Mission resident, walks onto the field claiming that they reserved it and the children would have to leave. As such outside influences muddy the proverbial waters we will continue to see altercations and arguments by those who seem to think that they are more important than those around them, as in the case of the argument that transpired at a public field in The Mission.

Is gentrification a bad thing? There are numerous men and women who would say that it is not; that it is akin to progress, or an antiquated concept such as Manifest Destiny, etc. But for those who are truly on the receiving end of this shift, those who are being pushed out of their homes to make room for high end additions such as clothing stores or trendy barbershops, they will say that there is nothing progressive about the situation. Progress is not, in any way, shape or form, connected to families losing their homes to make room for high priced establishments of any sort.