158 lines
7.7 KiB
Markdown
158 lines
7.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2015-08-16T20:11:01.000Z'
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title: Changing San Francisco is foreseen as a haven for wealthy and childless (1981)
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url: http://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/09/us/changing-san-francisco-is-foreseen-as-a-haven-for-wealthy-and-childless.html?l=0
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author: raldi
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points: 70
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story_text: ''
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 96
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1439755861
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_raldi
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- story_10070103
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objectID: '10070103'
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---
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**SAN FRANCISCO, June 8—** Soaring housing costs, urban violence,
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shifting ethnic patterns and an increase in childless adults living
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together may be turning San Francisco, which the Chamber of Commerce
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likes to call ''everybody's favorite city,'' into a haven for the young,
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the old, the wealthy and the childless.
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That is the conclusion of demographers, real estate people and others
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who monitor urban trends here, underscored by preliminary statistics
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from the 1980 census.
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Over the decade of the 1970's, the city lost 5 percent of its
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population, declining to 678,974 in 1980 from 715,674 in 1970. But more
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important than the population loss itself, demographers and planners
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here say, is the continued, and in this census, dramatic, alteration in
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the population mix. Whites and blacks are being replaced by persons of
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Asian and Hispanic origin, the middle class by the affluent and families
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with children by singles and childless.
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A City for the Elite Seen
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''At this rate we could become a place only the elite can afford,'' said
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Dr. Kenneth T. Rosen, chairman of the Center for Real Estate and Urban
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Economics in the graduate school of business at the University of
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California at Berkeley.
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''Ten years from now,'' he predicted, ''unless we adopt some sort of
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policy to insure income integration, we will crowd out all the
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middle-income people. I think San Francisco is going to become a very
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rich living area, a lot of single and retired people who have money,
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executives who work down in the financial district. It's going to be
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very difficult for a nonwealthy person to live here.''
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The largest population loss in the last decade was among whites, whose
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number declined nearly 23 percent, from 511,186 in 1970 to 395,082 in
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1980. The drop in white population was not unusual for a mature urban
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area of the North and West. But San Francisco did have an unusual loss
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of black population, from 96,414 to 86,078, a decline of 10 percent. Big
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Increase From Asia
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At the same time the number of Asian-Americans living here increased by
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more than 50 percent, from 97,379 in 1970 to 147,426 at the end of the
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decade, according to an interolation of census data by the senior San
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Francisco city planner, Peter Groat.
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Although the figures for the Hispanic American population in San
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Francisco indicated a decline over the decade, from 101,090 in 1970 to
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83,273 in 1980, Mr. Groat said that the method of enumerating Hispanic
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Americans probably skewed the figures significantly, and it it was
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generally thought that the Hispanic American population actually
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increased here. The reason is that in 1970 the number of Hispanics was
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arrived at by a computer model that listed everyone with a Spanish
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surname as Hispanic. In 1980, census respondents were allowed to choose
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their own ethnic category. As a result some who would have been listed
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as Hispanic in 1970 described themselves in 1980 as white, black or
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''other.'' In 1980, 46,504 people listed themselves as ''other'' in San
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Francisco.
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The displacement of blacks in San Francisco, according to Mr. Groat and
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others, appears to result in large measure from the lack of reasonably
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priced housing, but also from the easing of racial barriers in the
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suburbs.
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''One of the hypotheses,'' said Mr. Groat, ''would be that affluent
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blacks have left San Francisco as the real estate market in the suburbs
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has opened up.'' Reasons for White Flight
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Housing expenses, problems in the schools and a rising rate of violent
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crime in the city - the rate of reported rape in San Francisco in 1980
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was nearly three times that of Chicago, and the robbery rate almost
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equal to Detroit - are all cited as contributors to white flight.
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The data from the 1980 census have not been analyzed completely. But
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preliminary theories are that the major population loss has been among
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the middle class, particularly children.
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''What is happening is that San Francisco is losing people, but it is
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gaining households,'' observed William Witte, deputy director for
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housing in the city's Office of Community Development. ''It's a net loss
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of people, a net gain in households, so there is more pressure on the
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housing market and more pressure on the people who can least afford it.
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The nationwide trend is to smaller households, and more households per
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capita, and that is exaggerated here, greater than the national trend.
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According to the latest figures, the size of the household decreased in
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the past decade from about 2.7 persons per household to 2.1, something
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like that. And the incomes went up.'' Exodus Linked to Housing Costs
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A major reason for the exodus of the middle class from San Francisco,
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demographers say, is the high cost of housing, the highest in the
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mainland United States. Last month, the median cost of a dwelling in the
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San Francisco Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area was $129,000,
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according to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in Washington, D.C. The
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comparable figure for New York, Newark and Jersey City was $90,400, and
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for Los Angeles, the second most expensive city, $118,400.
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''This city dwarfs anything I've ever seen in terms of housing prices,''
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said Mr. Witte. Among factors contributing to high housing cost,
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according to Mr. Witte and others, is its relative scarcity, since the
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number of housing units has not grown significantly in a decade; the
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influx of Asians, whose first priority is usually to buy a home; the
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high incidence of adults with good incomes and no children, particularly
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homosexuals who pool their incomes to buy homes, and the desirability of
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San Francisco as a place to live.
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''What you have is a sharp drop in the birth rate, and what we've really
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lost is children under 15,'' said Dr. Rosen. ''We can't demonstrate it
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without the numbers, which we'll get in six months to a year, but it has
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happened in many cities. It's not people moving out of the cities. The
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number of households has gone up so the number of adults has gone up.
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People are not having kids, and there is the nontraditional life style.
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Traditional families are not being formed, people are not getting
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married and having children.'' More 'Nontraditional' People
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''These are people who are nontraditional,'' he continued, ''people who
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are turning age 30 in the l980's, and San Francisco has more of them, a
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city where nontraditional life style is very accepted, not only not
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getting married, but also forming gay households. Gay or nongay, there
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are a lot of single people living together.''
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Estimates of the city's homosexual population range from 10 to 20
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percent of the total, and it is generally believed that homosexual
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households are a significant factor in the trend toward small
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households.
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''We are the center of what we call life-style changes,'' said Mr.
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Groate. ''But it is very difficult to assess all the impact of the
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life-style changes. But housing pressures do reflect, for instance, the
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influx of the gay population, which will not be accounted for in the
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census figures. I'm sure that will have an impact, a severe impact, on
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the housing situation.''
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Demographers like Mr. Groat say that they not surprised at the shifts.
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''We've always had a transient situation,'' he said. ''From the time of
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the gold rush on, this has not been a normal, stable population.''
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Illustrations: photo of Victorian townhouses in Alamo Square, San
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Francisco photo of moving van and San Francisco houses
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