Surrounded by Union Square’s posh retailers to the north, upscale Hayes Valley to the west and the Twitter/Mid-Market tech scene and affluent SOMA to the south, San Francisco’s Tenderloin remains a primarily low-income, ethnically diverse neighborhood in a city of vast wealth. How has it survived? The new book, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco, answers this question and shows that not only can residents act to avoid the “inevitability” of urban gentrification, but also that low-income communities can enjoy the benefits of neighborhood improvements without them becoming a harbinger of displacement. Join the book's author for a lively and opinionated history of this fascinating neighborhood.
+ Randy Shaw / Tenderloin Housing Clinic