One local business owner offers up his two cents on the topic of recent criminal activity at Valencia Gardens:
Here’s the funny thing, I own New Jack City the vintage throwback clothing store on the corner of 15th and Guerrero, AKA VG’s Territory, and on a daily basis deal with black women of all ages yelling, dudes rolling spliffs, and overall thuggish sh*t going on daily. So “why” you ask did I move into this location? I did it because it still has the heart of what SF was years ago. You need ghetto and richness living together in harmony to sustain a dope environment. Look at NY, LA, Chicago, DC, hell even Miami…all cities mixed with poverty and the rich, and all places Id rather live and own a business, then be stuck in the midwest with no mixed culture.
Read on for his take on why exactly there’ve been problems at Valencia Gardens lately.
I’m sadden that we can’t just accept it as a tragic situation, and help foster programs that provide upward mobility to the Mission’s communities.
Pedro, let’s talk. I’ve got ideas for programs up the proverbial culo.
I’ve sent you an email. Thanks!
Wait, he said he’d rather live in Chicago than in the Midwest? I think you can do both.
Brillo, I believe you and I to be kindred spirits; For I, too, while fully understanding the point this shopkeeper was attempting to make feel an overwhelming inclination to post a comment pointing out this semantic inconsistency while adding nothing of value to the conversation myself!
Hooray for blogs!
Hooray indeed… Cheers to you, my new friend.
dude needs to actually check the midwest before he tries to say what up. ignorance
Agreed. Sick of people hating on something they’ve never even visited. #minneapolis
Never met more, uh… Minneapolitans anywhere else but San Francisco, and I’ve only heard awesome things.
So why’d they all leave?
Yeah! Mankato, Duluth and St. Cloud are hotbets of racial diversity.
Calm down midwestern transplants, the guy was just generalizing. As a person who HAS lived in the midwest, you have to to admit that out of the major metro areas it’s a pretty white washed.
And for the record I love Minneapolis. One of my favorite cities.
Actually, quite a lot of Kansas has an awesome number of black citizens (who are not drug-running, plaza-residing slackers), because it was a free state. And no one ever accused Michigan of being “white washed”. I think YOU must be from a special case.
“The Midwest” is just a lazy metaphor for “boring places”. As a slur, it’s pretty mild. But this guy seems to value other people’s poverty a little too much. I wonder if he’d like to try opening a shop in Detroit (which is, I know, another lazy metaphor for “urban decay”).
Hating on fly over states! Not kosher
People want to live in a diverse environment, yet many get taken aback when they realize what “diversity” actually entails. The overwhelming majority of the black folks in the projects and the latino folks in the Mission are good, decent people. But the small, violent minority is a reality, and as another commenter astutely observed there’s going to be more violence, not less, as the economy continues to deteriorate.
Gosh, you people act like you’ve never lived in environments that were economically and racially diverse before. Oh. Okay.
ugh, what an a**hole. that store predominantly profits off of borrowed black, 80s hiphop culture and he has the gall to say that crap??? NEVER setting foot in there.
This quote represents ignorance about urban environments that are not on the coasts.
Chicago is actually hyper-segregated. Not a whole lot of mingling between the classes. But I wonder if the author has ever even been there.
I think it’s clear that things have deteriorated because those two rad roof-dogs are no longer on top of that building across 15th street. You need fido and bitches living together on balcony to sustain a dope environment. Upward mobility, y’all.
HAHAHA I remember them! Good lookin out! Arf Arf!
In the rebuilt VG, they designed a wide street in the complex, in which to park cars. How is it that subsidized housing allows for car ownership by tenants? There are buses and there’s walking.
dude sounds like he wants a white boy trophy for “[dealing] with black women of all ages yelling” (what does that even mean?) And has the nerve to call his place New Jack City? fuck this guy and his wannabe store.