Solnit deglamorizes 1960s era San Francisco by focusing on gentrification and displacement and focuses primarily on the forced relocation of artists from neighborhoods such as North Beach. Because of the prices of housing and living expenses, people of the artistic community were pushed out by the rich and relocated to Haight-Ashbury, impoverished neighborhoods, and the streets. Solnit documents the rapid decline of the artistic community in San Francisco in the research she presents and by the photographs she includes in her account. Through these two mediums, Solnit's vision of San Francisco is a habitat that is selling out to yuppies and the internet phenomenon, confirming Snyder's fears that San Franciscans would forget their artistic and cultural foundations, converting to the "dark side" that is corporate America.
As Solnit points out, "It was homogenization, a loss of complexity, rather than absolute removal that most complained of" (83). With artists spread out across the city and in the streets due to gentrification, the artistic center no longer exists, leaving the habitat vulnerable to yuppification and to domination from corporations such as Starbucks. Currently, this is the state of San Francisco. Solnit literally illustrates this by including a collage of old shops that have been converted into Starbucks shops (148-151). Also, because of continual gentrification and the disastrous economic impact of the hippie generation, today "...young people going to the city to make it can't afford to live the way artists used to live...It contributes to an enormous anxiety for the young, who are the people who become artists in an environment where other people are artists. They go there and they can't survive there" (98). The news seems grim all around for young hopefuls who dream of living in the city and for current residents of San Francisco.
However, the book ends in a slightly uplifting note. Solnit encourages anti-gentrification coalitions and grass roots organizations to take charge to make changes in the city to prevent displacement. She also discusses various propositions that protect San Francisco citizens from gentrification. But, it is much more difficult to find the solutions Solnit presents to the issues she describes throughout the book after wading through the seemingly hopeless information she gives readers. The purpose of the book is more focused on raising questions and filling in the blanks when it comes to "the crisis of American urbanism".
Question: What kind of response do you think authors like Ginsberg, Brautigan, and Kerouac would have to Hollow City?
2 comments:
I think what Solnit, as you point out, is getting at is the whole "yuppification" that is inevitable within such places as San Francisco that have a high potential of becoming touristy. These hotspots are becoming more commercialized because of this influx of people. I just hope that places like Haight-Ashbury and other unique, historically significant areas will not be subject to this yuppification.
I agree that in most cities, "yuppification" is inevitable. I think that writers like Ginsberg and Kerouac would agree with Solnit, but I don't think that they would be terribly overcome by it. Both writers, though highly involved in SF culture, seem more interested in the transformation of humans nad their emotions, and less in the general state of a city's population. Snyder, on the other hand, I think would be much more involved in an analysis of the gentrification of 1960s SF. Great comments!
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