First Advisor

Moriah McSharry McGrath

Date of Award

Spring 6-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Community Development and University Honors

Department

Community Development

Language

English

Subjects

Urban Renewal, Gentrification, San Francisco

Abstract

What is the disconnect between what the people living in the city say that they want, what the politicians say they’re doing to address it, and where does that disconnect come from? Using a case study of San Francisco’s Fillmore District, this study investigated discourses of gentrification in media coverage. As a historically Black neighborhood that was severely disrupted by post-World War II Urban Renewal programs, the Fillmore’s story mirrors that of many other neighborhoods in the United States. Today, there are heated debates about how to move forward with development given this history and the declining numbers of African Americans living in the city–despite the enduring importance of the Fillmore as an African American cultural touchstone. By reviewing newspaper articles and articles from local neighborhood interest groups, I analyzed the discourses of community change and identified the ways that different stakeholders have divergent perspectives on how to address the ongoing gentrification of the area. I found that there wasn’t much research being done within the literature to connect Urban Renewal to gentrification, which was puzzling given that in the United States gentrification directly followed Urban Renewal and borrowed a lot from the structures put in place by Urban Renewal. I found that Fillmore residents respond to gentrification by searching out authenticity, a strategy that I directly relate to the history of community resistance to  respond to Urban Renewal in the 20th century. On the other hand, elected officials speak in logic of economic development and also aim to appease powerful development interests. As a result, these two groups have the same stated goal of stabilizing the neighborhood economically and socially, yet they “speak past” each other because of these different vantage points. As residents deepen their commitment to authenticity and elected officials push for growth, in the context of high construction costs and the post COVID 19-pandemic economy, the result is a policy gridlock that exacerbates the housing crisis and political alienation of the long disenfranchised of Fillmore residents. The importance of the findings is that, despite the research being done on better understanding the root causes of gentrification and what can be done to alleviate the pain communities are feeling, the status quo will continue as long as there remains a disconnect between community members and policy makers. These findings suggest that urban scholars and policy makers pay closer attention to historical and inter-generational dynamics of neighborhood change for the purpose of addressing policy stalemates and generating contextually appropriate development goals.

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