“I’m committed to ... preserving the Tenderloin as SF's most economically diverse neighborhood.”
Re Tenderloin: I understand it’s part of District 6 and her campaign website needs to say something, but that sounds like an anti-gentrification line, which in SF is usually used as an argument against new homes. Is Sonja anti-development in the Tenderloin?
The area is rife with homeless and drug use. It feels to me like an area that would greatly benefit from some gentrification. (I.e. add some rich techies demanding cleaner streets and more policing, and the existing low income residents gain.) Yet I’ve heard more than once that to change the planning rules there is politically “untouchable”. Can anyone explain why?
The city "pushes" a large part of the homeless population into the Tenderloin. They seem to be quite happy with this set up and don't want to have the homeless spread out throughout the city. It may be altruistic in that it is easier to help them out when you know where they live or a cynical approach to a problem but there isn't much interest in changing the status quo
The Tenderloin is already made of medium to high density affordable housing; to convert it to luxury housing or “clean it up” would be the opposite of what YIMBYism is about. The people living there have nowhere else to go, so it’d also be pretty cruel.
We want currently exclusive low-rise areas to become mid-to-high-rise and less exclusive.
Gentrification does not benefit lower income earners and native residents in any long term / meaningful way. You can argue that building new high rises in the tenderloin will help meet market demand, but nobody can seriously argue that it's going to help the local homeless / underemployed population.
If this were true, San Francisco would be a shiny utopia at this point, but income disparity and hyper inflated cost of living have made it just miserable for most people except whatever CTO of the day is moving in.
Re Tenderloin: I understand it’s part of District 6 and her campaign website needs to say something, but that sounds like an anti-gentrification line, which in SF is usually used as an argument against new homes. Is Sonja anti-development in the Tenderloin?
The area is rife with homeless and drug use. It feels to me like an area that would greatly benefit from some gentrification. (I.e. add some rich techies demanding cleaner streets and more policing, and the existing low income residents gain.) Yet I’ve heard more than once that to change the planning rules there is politically “untouchable”. Can anyone explain why?