How “Urban Renewal” Destroyed San Francisco’s Fillmore District
By Carl Close • Monday July 21, 2008 3:28 PM PDT • 17 Comments
The great urban journalist Jane Jacobs probably had New York City in mind when she wrote about the potentially devastating effects of government-sponsored “redevelopment” on the inner city, but her lesson applies in many cities across the world. San Francisco’s Fillmore District is a prime example of an “urban renewal” disaster.
“The agency’s time there has not been a happy story,” Fred Blackwell, the new executive director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, recently told the San Francisco Chronicle. “There is no way to make up for clearing large swaths of land and displacing thousands of people.”
In 1948, city officials declared the Fillmore, an ethnically diverse but largely African American neighborhood, to be “blighted” under the California Redevelopment Act of 1945. Over the next few decades, and with the help of eminent domain and federal funding, 4,729 businesses were forced to close, 2,500 households were pushed out of the neighborhood, and 883 Victorian houses were demolished. What the Fillmore got in return for its troubles—a high-rise residential project, some fast-food restaurants, and, late last year, a posh jazz nightclub—was too little, too late.
What went wrong? Several things. First, the urban planners of the day got it wrong: Rather than being “blighted,” the Fillmore was the center of the city’s vibrant, black commercial district, providing goods and services, gainful employment, and upward mobility for thousands. If it wasn’t broken (and in the eyes of many of the Fillmore’s residents and shopkeepers at the time, it wasn’t), it didn’t need fixing. Second, the economic opportunities and complex social networks that fostered economic empowerment and community spirit were fragile things: Hoping that they would boldly spring forth years after they had been dramatically disrupted was no more realistic than trying to unscramble an omelet. Third, the powerful politicians, bureaucrats, and contractors who profited from “redevelopment” had different short-term interests than those displaced by program.
What can be done to prevent future “urban planning” disasters? Several things. First, eminent domain must be drastically curtailed. (That’s no real loss: Bruce Benson argues forcefully that the “holdout problem” is a bogus rationale for eminent domain.) Second, rent control, which, as Paul Krugman notes, inhibits the creation of new rental property and contributes to the deterioration of existing rental properties, must be dismantled. Similarly, below-market housing mandates, which curtail the creation of new housing and therefore drive up housing prices, should also be scrapped. Third, the power of politicians to dole out favors to special-interest groups should be greatly restricted. (The harms of interest-group politics and other sources of “government failure” are ably explained in Beyond Politics, by William Mitchell and Randy Simmons.) Fourth, urban planners and residents themselves must better learn the nature and positive potential of the voluntary institutions, networks, and patterns that arise without government planning. (For details, see the Independent Institute book The Voluntary City, edited by David Beito, Peter Gordon, and Alex Tabarrok.)
San Franciscans better learn these lessons fast: Last June, the city’s voters passed a redevelopment initiative for the Bayview/Hunters Point area.
Tags: Economics, Housing, Property Rights 
Here’s wishing the world were wonderful! Scrap rent control? In San Francisco? Dreaming: two-thirds of voters are renters. Do away with politians doing favors for interest groups? How? That’s what fuels politicians. These are fantasies, with no chance of happening in the real world...at least until Armageddon or some Kathrina like disaster rearranges the world. Idealists with no anchor to reality do not help.
Steve Lawrence | Jul 27, 2008 | Reply
San Francisco suffers from tax parasites out voting the tax payers. With this condition, there is no solution to the tax and spend welfare state. 45,000 housing project and Section 8 residents plus 45,000 city employees plus 8,000 homeless plus a whole poverty pimp industry all gorge at the public trough. The Fillmore was razed and replace with crime infested housing projects that continue to this day as festering carbuncles defacing our beautiful city.
JR | Aug 4, 2008 | Reply
I have watched urban renewal in the State of Idaho become the evil empire. It is routinely used to circumvent voters rights to approve massive public works projects nobody asked for nor are needed.
Urban renewal money comes from property tax dollars in the districts they exist. They answer to nobody on the millions they dole out to developers and cronies for pet projects and other goodies.
paul | Apr 5, 2009 | Reply
There’s no rent control on newly built rental properties, so the argument about rent control being a disincentive to build more rental property is bogus.
Larry Roberts | May 12, 2009 | Reply
San Francisco’s rent control is very moderate, but makes a good whipping-boy for “free enterprise” extremists. Since being passed in 1979, our rent ordinance has exempted all buildings built since 1979 from rent control. But this is one of those points conveniently ignored by those who hate the concept of rent control (and moderate profit-taking in other areas). It’s ignored the same way that enemies of minimum wage ignore the fact that small businesses have always been exempt from that law, too.
Richard Hack | May 12, 2009 | Reply
Urban development has been exploited in San Francisco for the past decade. The poor redevelopment of the Fillmore district is a prime example showing how our “modern” approach to development is garbage. In the Fillmore rent has gone up, blacks have decreased by half (since the 70′s), no increase in jobs were seen, and crime hasn’t been greatly changed. Further, looking at places like SOMA, you see the same type of development, but at a more expensive scale. But in SOMA you have no night life, mediocre transportation, and more danger compared to the Fillmore (I’ve lived in both districts). It’s sad to see these rapists come into a district they haven’t lived in nor ever plan to live in, spread the profit margin as wide as possible, then take off grinning from ear to ear. I guess when you’re talking in dollars, the people’s lives and community you’re effecting comes second.
design8ed driver | May 12, 2009 | Reply
The Western Addition area might never have turned into an urban blight, or the black cultural center of SF, had the Japanese not been forced to give up their homes, businesses and such in the name of national security.
BD | May 12, 2009 | Reply
The Western Addition is looking better and better every day. Thirteen years ago, when I bought my home there, I was a little apprehensive. But, I figured that, if I could just get inside my garage and close the door, I’d be fine. I have witnessed many positive changes in the look of the neighborhood and the class of people (of all colors) who peacefully coexist here. Next, we need to demolish the entire Bay View and Hunters Point districts and the Sunnydale and Potrero Hill housing projects.
Webster | May 12, 2009 | Reply
I’m doing research on the Urban Renewal project that occurred in San Francisco from the late 40s into the early 60s. Can anyone recommend some good sources (books, websites, documentaries, articles, etc) on the topic? Thanks.
jawad qadir | Jan 6, 2010 | Reply
@ Webster your one of the reasons behind this article. You bum. How bout we demolish your house.
city dweller | May 10, 2010 | Reply
Here is to hoping that history doesn’t repeat itself.
Jays rental properties | Aug 30, 2010 | Reply
Yes Black people are being played in the Fillmore. Big government is funneling tax dollars back into itself, while using favoratism in awarding private contracts. All in the name of economic revitalization of the Fillmore.
Jed | Sep 1, 2011 | Reply
I’ve lived long enough to see my city devastated by urban renewal dealing a deathblow to our small neighborhoods. Bigger in this case was not better.
louis | Jul 8, 2012 | Reply