Space to Place Podcast: Gentrification in SF
In October, I sat down with Cade Underwood from North Carolina, for his Space to Place podcast, which is a cross-country project and dialogue about places where people live, how they feel, and how they would reshape those places. For Cade’s Bay Area stop of his tour, I invited him to the Bayanihan Community Center for our conversation, where we talked about gentrification and displacement in San Francisco. Cade and his co-host Cole also took time outside of the interview to research and provided a lot of great context in the beginning about the I-Hotel and Manilatown, which becomes a backbone for this episode. We dove into a little bit of everything, including my background in community and cultural organizing; stories from providing direct services in SoMa; growing up in San Francisco and watching its changes; the destruction and erasure of Manilatown and how that serves as a lesson for us in the present day struggle for affordable housing; art spaces, bboys in San Francisco and the loss of Cellspace; and politics and policy in San Francisco. Cade and Cole also provide insight on research regarding racial segregation of neighborhoods, and lack of economic and social power. We even touched on allyship and sharing platforms at the end.
Listen to the episode:
SPACE TO PLACE: GENTRIFICATION & PLACE-KEEPING
I name-dropped a lot of organizations that are doing amazing work but it may have gotten edited out. Sorry I also butchered my explanation of SoMa Pilipinas Cultural Heritage District! Here are some of the orgs in San Francisco at the forefront of the struggle for cultural preservation and affordable housing:
Manilatown Heritage Foundation
South of Market Community Action Network
Senior Disability Action
Causa Justa
Bayanihan Equity Center
SoMa Pilipinas | UNDSCVRD
Bill Sorro Housing Program (BiSHoP)