About

Don’t call it a comeback.

San Francisco’s black population continues to decline, hovering north of just 5 percent of the city’s total residents. And to think that there was once a time when that number was close to 15 percent.

But don’t blame it solely on gentrification, either.

Yes, Bayview-Hunters Point is now one of the hottest markets in San Francisco. This historic neighborhood was for a time one of the few enclaves of the city where working-class Blacks could own and purchase a home.

Today, realtors, home-buyers and investors know this area as a neighborhood where you can expect an 18.3 percent compound annual appreciation—a metric that helps forecast the average of how much an investment will return annually. In 2011, the median price for a home was around $300,000. Now, it’s three times that amount.

For so many reasons, most of the people buying up these homes are neither black nor working class. The financial and market pressures that long-term residents face can be a daunting one—is there really a price that makes it worth leaving your home?

Many have already answered yes and moved to California’s outer-burbs, where the cost of living is relatively low. But for the remaining few, reckoning with that question can be troubling when you factor in the lengths this city will go to develop new homes and attract newer kinds of residents.

Whereas Part One looks into the origin of San Francisco’s F-word, and Part Two looks at the buildup and fallout of urban renewal in neighborhoods like Bayview-Hunters Point, Part Three looks at a far more sinister force and questions just how liberal and progressive this city really is.

Spoiler alert: it’s not as progressive you’re led to believe.