“San Francisco’s Black Exodus” and other links…
Jamilah King: “As in other cities across the country, San Francisco’s Black communities became the focus of massive urban renewal programs spanning from the late 1940s through the 1970s. In the city’s predominantly Black Fillmore district, a total of 4,729 businesses, 2,500 households and 883 Victorian homes were demolished to make room for government-owned housing and commercial businesses. …Some displaced residents moved to other parts of San Francisco, while others relocated to more affordable cities like Oakland and East Palo Alto. In total, more than 5,000 families were displaced. …Ironically, since the end of the urban renewal programs in the ’70s, San Francisco city officials have commissioned several studies investigating why Black residents are leaving and how to get them back.”
“Is Technology Evil?”
I, Cringely: “Goldman Sachs isn’t evil, just stupid. And that stupidity comes in the form of their witless abuse of technology. …Jim’s sports analogies are misplaced because while sporting events must inevitably have winners and losers economies don’t. TRADING has winners and losers but Goldman is an INVESTMENT bank (worse still, they are now a bank holding company) pretending to be on the side of economic growth. Trading relies on finding and exploiting inefficiencies in the system while investing grows the economy. Trading is a parasite on investing. I’m not saying to ban it, I AM saying that technology has enabled outfits like Goldman to be such efficient parasites that they threaten the survival of their hosts.”
“S.F. moves to stem African American exodus …Critics say effort to reverse longtime trend may be too late”
Leslie Fulbright: “San Francisco officials are now calling the thousands of black people who have moved away ‘the African American diaspora,’ and the mayor’s office is putting together a task force to figure out what can be done to preserve the remaining black population and cultivate new residents. …San Francisco’s black population has dropped from 96,000—or 13.4 percent of the city—in 1970 to an estimated 47,000 in 2005, about 6.5 percent of city residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. African Americans make up about 12.1 percent of the nation’s population overall.”