'Marshall Plan' for blacks ?

"San Francisco officials have a moral obligation to try and stop black residents from abandoning the city and should consider a local version of the Marshall Plan to help African Americans, the Rev. Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco NAACP, said Sunday."

Uh, can we talk about this? First, the highest rate of home ownership in San Francisco is Bayview, a black neighborhood. Most other folks in town rent. Anywhere else, I'd be upper middle class and own a house, but here I rent. Why do the Bayview folks own houses? Because during WWII, they were building ships at Hunters Point, and lots of blacks came from the South and elsewhere for jobs in the industry. For awhile, there was a nice middle class existence from those jobs. Though nearly all those jobs went away, lots of people managed to hold onto their houses. But now, those people who had jobs during WWII are getting old. And their children probably don't have jobs in the area. Like lots of people's kids, they may have found jobs and more affordable housing elsewhere. So are the kids who have planted themselves elsewhere keeping the Bayview houses? The houses are getting cashed out, and the neighborhood gradually gentrified - and African-American children are cashing them out and getting the benefit of that (provided there is equity, which is another story).

Let's look at another group of people... the artists and liberal hipsters, who are actually the vanguard of the gentrification crowd. What happened to them when the dot-com boom happened ? They got priced out and moved to Oakland -- traditional black areas. So Oakland is getting gentrified as well, but is Oakland saying, "we gotta do something! We don't have enough black people here ?!" I don't think so (though they may be annoyed at some of the artists and hipsters moving in).

So what do we want to do, have a 'Marshall Plan' to swap some dot-com folks with some black folks from Oakland (many of the dot-com people are gone by now anyway)? Never mind a discussion of what percentage of the dot-com folks were African-American. The reality is SF is one of the more expensive cities in the Bay Area, in spite of our both good and bad neighborhoods. The ethnicity will grow to reflect the cost of living here and who has jobs here. Oh sure, maybe we could roust out some illegal Chinese and Mexicans, and make some room for the blacks who can't afford to live here, but they'd have to live in overcrowded conditions, work in the backs of kitchens, garment sweatshops and the other places the illegals are working ? Nobody who's living out in the suburbs wants to do that (regardless of their ethnicity).

I've considered moving to Oakland. There's more middle class over there, which is what I am. But since I work evening shift and BART stops at midnight, I might have trouble getting home. Now there's an idea... extend BART hours, I'll move to Oakland, and give an African-American my apartment in SF. If we're going to "Marshall Plan" this, then both of us should get a moving subsidy. Then again, if we're extending BART hours, maybe more African-Americans who can only get 2nd or 3rd shift jobs (or work 2 jobs, like many people) will be able to save transportation money and move to SF ? No, we don't want to do something that might help the economically challenged of all races.

p.s. in case anyone hasn't noticed, there are still shipping industry jobs in Oakland. Do we want to move the people who have those jobs and live in Oakland to San Francisco ? Do we want to prevent the heirs of Bayview Homes from selling those homes to anyone who can afford them ? I'm not sure how this "Marshall Plan" would work.