Ocean Beach Sand Project

Over the past few decades, natural and human-caused factors have resulted in shifting sand levels at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. The North end of the beach has grown increasingly deep with sand while the South end has rapidly eroded. The city has been working to equalize the sand levels between the North and South ends of the beach by transporting sand via large bulldozers. The project has been ongoing since 2012.

In the spirit of San Francisco poetics, the shifting sand at Ocean Beach could be said to represent the shifting economic levels of the San Francisco population. With the twenty-first century tech boom, the lower economic class has greatly eroded while the upper and middle class population has seemingly overflowed. The result has been a housing crisis that has topped any market worldwide. The median home price in San Francisco as of early 2015 is $1,300,000 in a city with a minimum wage of $12.50/hour.

A housing market that does not allow affordable opportunities for lower-wage workers is not sustainable over time. In a service-dominated economy, low wage workers are essential in the economic chain, and pushing them out creates problematic erosion effects similar to the ones observed at Ocean Beach since the 1970's.

Perhaps, over the next decade, we will see construction crews bulldozing high the tech-industry workers out to create room for a city with a more even distribution of economic wages, more affordable housing, and a city that continues to cultivate the artists, writers, and revolutionaries that the San Francisco culture is know for.