Jane Jacobs predicted what's happening to SF

From yesterday's SF Chronicle (‘How to Kill a City,’ by Peter Moskowitz):

Midway through “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” one of the most influential books on urban ecology, Jane Jacobs sounded an alarm. Writing from the West Village, the book was in part a love letter to her neighborhood, which worked, she argued, because it was quirky and diverse, a swirl of tight-knit humanity that looked out for each other.

But that could all change. “First, we must understand that self-destruction of diversity is caused by success, not failure,” she wrote. People would gravitate to a neighborhood like the West Village, causing rents to rise. Soon the area would be filled with the “winners of the competition” who “form a narrow segment of population of users.” The quirk disappears. “Both visually and functionally,” she predicted, “the place becomes more monotonous.”

The book was published in 1961, amid white flight and disinvestment from urban cores; some readers might have wondered what Jacobs was so worried about. Now, of course, we know. Today, the West Village is 90 percent white, with a typical one-bedroom apartment fetching $4,000 a month. It is safe and sparkling and dreadful. The small townhouse where Jacobs wrote her defining work is now a real estate office...