A Tale of Two Cities; Community, Gentrification, and Art in San Francisco and Los Angeles

Saving San Francisco
In Richard Walker's article "An Appetite for the City; The Battle to Save San Francisco," the author outlines the ways that members of marginalized communities sought to save the city from upward expansion in the form of skyscrapers in Downtown. Planning in Downtown SF took the form of clearing out the communities that had historically lived there. Walker argues that "The tragedy is not that Downtown grew...rather, it is the way thousands of ordinary people...were cleared away with the rubble." He notes that blacks were driven out of Fillmore and aging workers were pushed aside from south of Market. Many communities came together to resist the reformation of Downtown. Middle class advocates of the historically significant cable cars and Golden Gate Park Panhandle. Fillmore Blacks gathered together to protect their housing, and traditional union coalitions resisted being pushed out of their housing. Walker details how, with some successes and failures, San Francisco was "saved."
Not So Distant Relatives
Walker juxtaposes the two dominant cities of the West, namely San Francisco and Los Angeles. He argues that the bohemian, anti-establishment strain in San Francisco led to anti-gentrification movements that were absent in Los Angeles. At various points he contrasts San Francisco resistance to progress with Los Angeles' steamroller of business progress. He calls Los Angeles more "conservative." Walker makes valid points. The vapidity of Los Angeles doesn't beget the kind of environment to resist potentially harmful development projects. And, in many ways, Los Angeles is more conservative. But while Walker seeks to paint San Francisco as a multi-colored multi-cultural banner of gay, brown, black, Asian activists, he erroneously paints Los Angeles with a white paintbrush signifying the conservative establishment. I think the differences between Los Angeles and San Francisco are overstated. Both West Hollywood and The Castro are bastions of gay culture, embedded in affluent portions of the city. San Francisco had its swath of Russian residents, living on their eponymous hill. So did Los Angeles, but LA's Russians could be found among its gay and Jewish residents in West Hollywood. Unfortunately, San Francisco is catching up to Los Angeles in terms of its capitalist-oriented development with the growth Silicon Valley. Walker notes that San Francisco's homelessness increased, and Los Angeles remains the city with among the highest rates of veteran homelessness.
Art in the City
Walker contends that the literary renaissance of San Francisco added to the bohemian, left-values of the city that helped the resistance of gentrification. Between San Francisco and Los Angeles, the dominant literary giant is irrefutably San Francisco. But Los Angeles contributed its own left wing art with pop artists like Culver City based Ed Ruscha and contemporary LA based artists like Shepard Fairey. Below are some examples.

Ed Ruscha attempted to capture Los Angeles through a photography book of apartments throughout the city. 

Shepard Fairey, a South Carolina born but Los Angeles based street artist is known for his political artwork. This mural can be found on Melrose Avenue. 

Ed Ruscha simultaneously celebrated and lampooned Los Angeles, and acknowledged "it's all facades here." This inverted image of the Hollywood sign highlights this fact.