Visions of SF

Solnit's Hollow City paints a portrait of a San Francisco that is culturally barren. She rages against the stereotypical image of San Francisco as a liberal, artistic enclave. Instead, her image of San Francisco is one of increasing gentrification, dot-com industry takeover, and cultural spaces being razed to make room for hip nightclubs that cater to a white middle-class patronage. Much of her argument is based on interviews of San Francisco working-class residents and anecdotes about her friends' experiences. But according to an October 16, 2008 article from San Francisco's Sun Reporter, "San Francisco became the first American city to make substantial reparations for the racist city policies that were embodied in urban renewal[...when] The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted unanimously last week to give housing priority to over 5,000 former residents of Fillmore and Hunters Point that were displaced from the city in the 1950s through the '70s due to San Francisco Redevelopment Agency use of eminent domain" ("SF Supervisors"). You can (probably) read the rest of this article here once you are logged onto the UCSC library system. Perhaps the state of affairs isn't so bleak after all? Also, although she gives accounts of dwindling minority populations, her claims aren't backed up by actual census data ("Numbers"). Her vision certainly carries clout, but I'd like to see her answer the questions she asks in her conclusion about why quality of life is going down and how power and resources ought to be distributed. If you're going to be a cynic, at least have a better idea.

Maxine Hong Kingston's Tripmaster Monkey chronicles Whitman's experiences as a Chinese-American in San Francisco. While the diction is rather grim and has an almost palpable texture of grittiness, it is nevertheless not the vision of deadness that Solnit presents. Instead, San Francisco becomes a dynamic space of dialogue and negotiation between seemingly contradictory identities and cultures, the essence of a creative space. This vision of San Francisco speaks to Solnit's vision in that Solnit doesn't have Whitman's dual perspective, half-outsider in two different communities. Instead, Solnit is quite the insider: there is no internal negotiation to mirror the outer negotiation that is the space of San Francisco. The result is that she represents only one element of the negotiation, the starving artist who fears technological advancement. Thus, her vision of the city is necessarily one-sided and "hollow", whereas Tripmaster Monkey's, although also cynical at points, is nevertheless dynamic.


Works Cited

"S.F. Supervisors Award Displaced REsidents Housing Priority." Sun Reporter. San Francisco, CA: Oct. 16, 2008. pp. 1-2.

"Numbers Of African Americans In San Francisco Increasing." Sun Reporter. San Francisco, Calif.: Apr. 10, 2008. Vol. 65, Iss. 15; pg. 1, 2 pgs

Other articles of interest

NAACP To Hear Report On Out-Migration Of Blacks From S.F. Anonymous. Sun Reporter. San Francisco, Calif.: Jan. 24, 2008. Vol. 65, Iss. 4; pg. 2, 1 pgs

The Fight Over New Power Plants In Southeast San Francisco Continues
Anonymous. Sun Reporter. San Francisco, Calif.: May 8, 2008. Vol. 65, Iss. 19; pg 2, 1pgs