Economic Divide of Fillmore and Pacific Heights (final)

Katie Jacobs walks through the door of The Coffee Bean on the corner of Fillmore and Sacramento streets in her high black boots, hip outfit, and wavy chestnut hair.  Four blocks away, Dominique Delanghe creates enchanting pasties of sorcerous proportions that bewitch the pedestrians of Lower Pacific Heights. Seven blocks from there, on Fillmore and Turk streets, a Muni substation will be rebuilt by the Redevelopment Agency causing aggressive concern in the Fillmore community about the future purpose of the station.

The Fillmore and Pacific Heights are connecting neighborhoods with people of different ethnicities, cultures, classes, and social perspectives.  The difference between lifestyles are staggeringly opposite yet the difference between streets are only footsteps apart.

“It’s almost like they’re separate countries,” said Jacobs. “I wonder how many of them can acknowledge that.”

The Fillmore district, where 18 percent of their neighborhood is under the poverty line, has long stood as a cultural focal point for the African-American community.  The Fillmore is made up of 51 percent African-American, 27 percent Caucasian, 14 percent Asian, and the rest is a mix. 

During World War II, many African-Americans located to the Fillmore after Japanese-Americans were made to go to internment camps. But because of urban decay, the Fillmore was designated for redevelopment and many residents were forced out, which created unrest among the inhabitants.  The plan was that they could come back but the redevelopment project took much longer than expected, which brewed resentment towards the agency.  Houses were replaced with the creation of subsidized units for low-income families. To this day, redevelopment is still a controversial topic in the Fillmore district.

Not too far way from there, are some of the city’s more comfortable dwellers. Of the 30,000 residents of Pacific Heights, according to a real estate demographic research, about 3,000 are blue-collar workers while roughly 18,000 are white collar workers.  About 15,500 of the residents have either their bachelor’s or graduate degrees.  And the average household income is $117,000. It is a highly desired neighborhood to live in and has won the nickname, “Specific Whites.”

The economic and the racial divide between two such adjacent neighborhoods are quite disheartening. A question for the masses could be whether one of these factors dictate the lives of the inhabitants more than the other.

“I definitely think that it’s more of a class thing than a race thing,” said Jacobs. “The black population is declining in our city, but I don’t think it’s because they’re black, but because they’re poor.”

San Francisco’s African-American population is steadily declining, more so than any other urban city in the nation, according to the North County Times, but some demographers claim that it is because they are migrating to the suburbs once they have enough money, like many other minority groups do.

“I think that eventually all the poor people will be pushed out of the Fillmore and the Tenderloin into the other poor districts in the outskirts of the city, like Bayview and the Excelsior,” said Mary Nguyen, 21, a resident of Lower Pacific Heights for three years.

Nguyen stands on the corner of Fillmore and Pine streets in her black knit beanie, skinny black jeans, and black wedged heels, smoking a Parliament cigarette. “Eventually, all the poor will be concentrated even more than it is now, and the rich will make their way completely on the inside of the city,” said Nguyen. The smoke streamed out of her mouth the way an engine exits steam, consistent and gray.

One cannot help but feel that society is changing in subtle ways. Instead of ostracizing a group of people based on their race the way history has shown us was one of the most insurmountable obstacles our country has gone through, things have regressed to medieval times where class and social standing defined everything. It does not matter what ethnicity you are in modern days, just how many commas you have in your bank statement.

“This definitely catches my attention,” said Jacobs, “but I also see it the way it is. It’s the way history goes.” Jacobs pulls back her wavy brown hair, sips her warm coffee, and takes short strides to the restroom with her arms crossed like a disgruntled mother.

It is undeniable that things are changing, now more than ever. And perhaps it is not enough to acknowledge the problem anymore. In past years, getting people to just see the problem was the most adverse feat, but now it’s getting people to do something about it. There is a social battle going on in this city, not just the Fillmore and Pacific Heights, but throughout every vein and alleyway of San Francisco.

A city can often be viewed as a kingdom, painted with beautiful buildings and utterly boisterous streets filled with people and purposes. In 2010, it is the same social classes that exist now as it did then; the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting more poor. The gap grows wider than the ocean. Although most of us can see this gap, it is essential to bridge the two before a modern-day city becomes nothing more than a storybook kingdom of social rank and endless complacency. The Fillmore and Pacific Height are a perfect example of this economic divide.