Gentrification Evacuation?

Hardly, but in an effort to at least keep the Mission District from becoming too mainstream, the (VALENCIA) community voiced their opposition in a planning meeting last week, and **POOF**, American Apparel will not be moving into the gentrified/ing hood.

What is so unsettling about this situation is the fact that people who opposed American Apparel, most likely wear the brand themselves. This is a classic NIMBY issue: Not In My Back Yard, and is a common civic tool used in urban planning.

It is a bittersweet tool, because while civic outcry might prevent something from moving into one area, it is placed in another area without as much protest. One popular example of this would be the SF Freeway Revolts of the 1970's. As the automobile began to gain popularity, freeway infrastructure began to spread across the nation. When proposals to construct freeways through neighborhoods like the Sunset, the Richmond, and Pacific Heights, these communities spoke up. However, they were NOT opposed to having a freeway in/through SF, but not in their back yard. Case in point: a freeway leg went up in the Bayview without much debate, sperating the Bayview neighborhood with Visitation Valley, two of the last neighborhoods with a high density of ethnic and lower income residents. This is not to say that the NIMBY tool hasn't yeilded some beneficial tool, as it was the catalyst for many environmental fights in the Bay Area during the 1970's as well.

To bring it back to American Apparel in the Mission, the community might oppose an AA from moving into their hood, but not anywhere else. It just another case of the elitest antics that run rampid in SF. However, everyone (including me) knew, that if an AA opened in the Mission, the gentrification infestation would become more of a disease.

Here's the note that AA posted in the window of the proposed Mission location: