It might seem that it happened decades ago, but there was a time when San Francisco Bay Area newspapers were deeply in love with the grand idea of gentrification. During this bizarre phase, the issue boiled up from the underground of independent weeklies like a river of hot black mud, smearing itself across page A3 of the Hearst owned voices of the mainstream. Gentrification is the contrairian notion that an influx of wealthy people into a neighborhood is a very bad thing. Words like, "charm", "local color", and "independent book stores", were usually involved. Oddly enough, one almost never heard the words, "crime rate", "homeless guys", and "urine smell" enter into the debate at all. And quotes from the local "artistic community" were rampant.

It's helpful to recall the context of this discussion: People were flocking to the area due to the so called "dot-com boom". They were all wealthy, and a lot of them had ever set foot in San Francisco prior to scoring a gig in the tech industry. The arrival of suddenly-moneyied folks, from places as provincial as Sacramento, was a shock to the existing population. Who then began sporting an attitude usually reserved for bitter ex-boyfriends. They lived in the Bay Area because they truly loved it, while these uncreative, yuppie interlopers obviously had some ulterior motive.

San Francisco has always had it's fair share of rampant nativism (as far as that term can be applied to people who moved there from somewhere else, at some point during their adulthood). But arguments about the "gentrification" of a city can seem somewhat irrelevant; of all of the problems associated with urban living, gentrification is the low on the list of things you should be worried about.

In spite of this, cities, like people, have a certain amount of pride about themselves (however misguided). The hue and cry against gentrification was a backlash against corporate squares moving into areas that were traditionally occupied by artsy types. The inevitable encroachment of Starbucks and other service franchises that accompanied the dot-com boom only aggravated the situation. After all, real artists hate Starbucks.

Sure, corporations are evil, but people make deals with the devil all the time. Those deals become more attractive when they seem to offer the most highly prized commodity of the modern age: convenience. Stepping over homeless people while walking six blocks from the nearest parking garage to go to your favorite independent coffee shop suddenly becomes less appealing when a new one opens up in a nicer/closer part of town, with better parking, regardless of who owns it.

But if the process that we are seeing in urban areas is an evolutionary one, then the process is amoral; that is to say, it has no concern for the concepts of "good" or "bad. It is what it is. We can control how it operates in our urban areas to a degree, but the law of unintended consequences lurks around every corner. Zoning laws, and other legislatively oriented tactics used to protect the arts community can lead to an inhospitable environment for the business who's taxes keep the buses running. As it happens large corporate franchises are better equipped to whether this type of situation than small businesses are.

Artists are supposed to be creative types, right? What about all of those post-war American expatriates who dropped everything and moved to Paris and London? For whatever reason, they left where they were to start anew someplace else. And while a lot of them moved to places that had already established an arts community long before they arrived, a few moved to places that weren't really know for being all that "artist friendly". There was a time before San Francisco and Chicago and New York were considered Meccas for bohemians.

Decrying any change in an urban environment, because those changes don't seem to meet one's ideal of the perfect urban locale, seems a bit reactionary. Perhaps cities should concentrate on doing what's best for the people who live and work there, than for a single group of dilettantes who can't seem to do what millions of other working class stiff have to: move someplace else where your prospects are better.

-B. C. Silvia