Gentrification, Urban Development, and Belonging in the Mission
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2016
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Sociology & Anthropology
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Abstract
In much of the existing literature on gentrification, much of the focus is placed on the
causes and effects of gentrification, whether they are seen as positive or negative. This
thesis argues that it is equally important to consider residents’ experiences with
gentrification as it affects their everyday lives in different ways depending on their
personal networks and connections within the neighborhood. Building upon the work that
has been done by the Anti- Eviction Mapping Project in San Francisco and drawing inspiration from the San Francisco Chronicle’s documentary A Changing Mission, my
research engages with a more diverse group of residents with vary levels of connection to
the Mission, assessing the ways they make sense of what gentrification means. Adopting
Nancy Raquel Mirabal’s “oral history” approach, my thesis highlights the ways in which
residents come to understand what the neighborhood of the Mission is about, the ways
that they experience the changes in the area, and how they negotiate their own positions
in the community, whatever they interpret that to be. Connecting this to existing theories
of local belonging, I argue that residents’ experiences with gentrification are much more complicated than just their positionality within the gentrification debates. Change in the
Mission can occur on multiple different levels and there are various dimensions to local
belonging that residents struggle with to maintain a sense of place in the neighborhood.