Can the High Rises and the Historic Neighboods of San Francisco Co-Exist Peacefully Together?
Part of the charm of San Francisco is the history you can literally feel exuding from every pore of the city. The old buildings, the great neighborhoods, the Bay; it all comes together in such a way that San Francisco is one of a kind, with no comparison anywhere else in the US. But is all of that about to change?
Back in 1986, residents of this charming city voted yes on Proposition M, which backed the building of high rise developments, as long as they stayed south of Market Street. The idea was to avoid having these high rises turn neighborhoods like North Beach, Nob Hill, Russian Hill, and the Castro into just another set of suburban, upper class neighborhoods full of young, rich professionals with homes and property tax rates nobody else could afford.
While the idea wasn’t bad, it has produced real estate and financial fall-outs across the city, despite the “line in the sand” that is Market Street. As so often happens in real estate, when one or two neighbors start building big, fancy homes, it drives up the real estate value of the neighborhood. Which is good for the older couples who already own their homes and can now cash in and retire, but not so good for the middle-class families who now can’t afford to buy a home in the neighborhood.
The high rise development on Fourth and King Street is playing the part of the rich neighbors who are remodeling. But in this case the consequences are much bigger than gentrifying a small neighborhood in a small town. In this case, the consequences are the increasingly outrageous real estate market, increasingly high property tax rates, the terrifyingly fast loss of middle-class families and jobs, and worst of all, the possibility of losing what makes San Francisco so unique and special – it’s history.
It’s too bad that hindsight is 20/20, and San Franciscans can’t turn back the clock and vote no on proposition m. But since you can’t go back in time, it’s going to be up to the current lawmakers and residents of San Francisco to decide how to make the new downtown and the historical neighborhoods coincide peacefully together. And with any luck, retain the heart and soul of this beautiful city.
In the end, what is going to happen to the landscape of San Francisco in the wake of proposition m, and what has come from that decision? Only time will tell.
References
http://www.spur.org/publications/library/article/propositionM
http://www.sfbg.com/40/03/news_condo_attack.html
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=24868
http://www.highrises.com/san-francisco/the-san-francisco-skyline-in-2020/
About the Author:
Gabrielle Dahms is real estate investor and a real estate agent with 10 years’ experience, who loves the San Francisco/Bay Area. You may visit her blog on http://dahmsrealestate.wordpress.com or http://www.statewiderealestateauctions.com/
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