MAKING THINGS BETTER

The mayor’s alcohol rehab is sfgate-described. The non-programmatic, special treatment, sort of belies the theme that he’s down there at Delancey with the regular folks.

His townhall meeting in SF’s poorest, most dangerous district is sfgate-described.

The difference is that the mayor might get better

I’m a middle class middle age white guy and I’m afraid to go to or even through Bayview Hunters Point Sunnydale in broad daylight.

This has not changed in my liftetime. I felt the same way forty-five years ago.

The map below (wikilink) shows the distribution of black people in San Francisco. Red and maroon are denser and densest.

My mom talked about her commute to work during World War II, changing streetcars in the middle of LA’s southcentral negro ghetto. She said she felt perfectly safe. Because of the war, everyone who wanted a job had one, and people were busy.

The problems faced by the mostly black residents of southeastern SF will not go away, but the residents will, through gentrification. It would already have happened except the home ownership rate is so high. The land will have to get even more valuable before it’s worth the eminent domain fight.

Meanwhile, nothing changes.

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