Fill in the blank, and you'll complete the oft-used catchphrase in this town, such as a Tale of Two Missions, or a Tale of Two San Franciscos.
Or in this case, it's the Tale of Two Housing movements.
Just last week, some 300 protesters descended on a town hall meeting like an angry mob, sans pitchforks. Their hosts, Maximus Real Estate Partners, wanted to present a new plan on expanding affordable housing at its proposed 16th and Mission development. Angry Mission neighbors dubbed the enormous project the "Monster in the Mission."
"Hit the road, Maximus, and don't you come back no more!" they sang. The whole night was tit for tat: Maximus representatives spoke for 20 seconds, then protesters would drown them out with shouts.
It's easy to see why. With nearly 40 projects in the pipeline in the Mission District, and rents flying sky-high, the neighborhood is swiftly gentrifying. Of course, longtime Missionites are going to push back on developers trying to make a buck.
You're likely to see this same kind of housing outrage spur the Mission neighborhood every week. What you won't see is similar outrage on the west side of the city, at the edge of the Outer Sunset district.
On that side of town, a large housing complex is being erected by Ocean Beach, with nary a peep of protest.
Sloat-Parkside Properties will demolish three commercial buildings on Sloat Boulevard near the beach. The San Francisco Examiner notes that construction starts Sept. 1, and the current building will be replaced with a five-story, 56-unit housing development.
Yes, some neighbors complained, but the opposition hasn't been nearly as voracious as that against the "Monster in the Mission." That's surprising in a city where anti-development forces are growing tired of these wealthy newcomers.
Not on the west side. Or, at least, the opposition isn't loud enough to stop the project from going forward. Peter Cohen, co-director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations, an affordable housing group, has a few theories as to why that is.
"I would guess one factor in there is the housing built in that area is not going to be so much different in terms of its price point against the housing that's there already," he tells SF Weekly.
"So there may not be as much of a fear that there's a gentrification effect happening." Plus, the west side has more homeowners, he says, who are less likely to feel threatened. Nobody is about to raise their rents, or evict them from their homes to rent to someone wealthier.
"I'm just postulating," Cohen says, but "the pushback in the Mission is much more about the gentrifying effect relative to affordable housing."
In short: Housing on the west side isn't as sky-high pricey as housing in the Mission. So where developers lack obscene profit, they also lack opposition.
If developers want to get in on the action, and if San Francisco is serious about building housing, The Tale of Two Developments has a clear moral: Build west.
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