Who Will Leave Their Hearts in San Francisco?
Historically, San Francisco has attracted many who came not for naked opportunity, but to create their home where America’s heart is.
This was true for me when I arrived from the East Coast in 1996. Coincidentally, it was just as the first dot com boom was peaking. Now, as another tech bubble is relentlessly inflating, I worry that the city I once called Utopian is hemorrhaging more than just money.
Is San Francisco’s heart no longer just bleeding, but failing?
As a first-generation trailblazer from an extended tribe of Turkish-Jewish immigrants, I related to, and longed for, the hedonistic freedom promised by San Francisco. The city’s tolerant spirit resonated with me much more than the religious freedom my parents sought when they emigrated to Washington, DC, from “the old country” in 1962.
It took a while for me to shake off my traditional upbringing and claim “San Francisco values” as my own, but I’ve never looked back. Only recently have I had discomfort looking forward to the future. I’m troubled that my concerns seem as dogmatic as the ones I worked so hard to disavow.
I find myself clinging to my perception of San Francisco’s traditions, as a new generation arrives to create its own set of values. I try to accept that the proliferating “social advances” of this current population spike are equally radical to these wide-eyed new arrivals, that they too are pioneers in their own way.
That San Francisco is now sought after because it implies high-end cachet for a high-tech home base has me unnerved. This time around, I hope I’m experienced enough to see the creative opportunity this status-consciousness presents.
Fortunately, I’m now possessed of the level of self-actualization that San Francisco cultivates so freely, as a hub for diversity and creativity. I wonder, though, if holding fast to the cultural line - with the same rigidity I once resisted from my American-dreaming parents - is really the best way to give back to my adopted home.
In my milder, more philosophical moments, I see that the arc of gentrification is not unlike the arc of innovation. At the beginning of the long tail are the revolutionaries, typically the people who have been marginalized by society because of their difference.
These outcasts and renegades self-segregate in search of “their” new home, where they can fully express what makes them unique. Whether a sense of otherness lies in their sexuality, their religion or their technological zeal, they fight to be seen, to preserve their dignity and independence.
Once these “others” are recognized as something “the rest of us” aspire to be, this difference gains attention, and the melting pot starts bubbling. By default, the stock that once felt so nourishing becomes diluted. The once-strong strange brew begins to lose its flavor and spice. It starts to taste weak and leaves the palate unsatisfied.
Theories of urban ecology identify relatable phases that I’ve now seen come full circle in San Francisco: contact (followed by competition), conflict, accommodation and assimilation. As one of the many in this city displaced by rent control and in conflict with the new cost of living, I wonder what forms my accommodation will take, and whether assimilation can ever be my goal.
My parents were born to a Jewish diaspora that fled the Spanish inquisition. I understand that this is why they clung so dearly to their sense of identity, even when they finally completed their manifest destiny, with a clean slate in the brave new world.
Now it’s my turn to decide what will be my deal breakers in defining and claiming a better life. I’m reminded of a defiant anthem from my rebellious youth:
“Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble, if I stay it will be double.”
Should I cool it or should I blow? I wish San Francisco would come on and let me know.