There may be a "black flight" because of job loss of working class and unionized jobs as well. Every city is seeing this (for the most part), except those cities like Oakland and Los Angeles that have managed to build large container ports. I was out in Landover recently to pick up a package and saw how much of the shipping and warehouse industry for Metro Washington is in suburban Maryland. I suspect that not building the 95 through the city only added to this issue. Or at least contributed to it. American cities are becoming more European styled, in many ways, wealthy urban enclaves surrounded by an inner ring of light industrial areas. And so the people that would be working in those industries, if they aren't pushed out by rising costs, may be pushed out to be closer to jobs.
This is "merely" part of the center city deindustrialization trend from 1950 onward. It's one of the reasons that I say that transit is one of the only urban industries left.
Speaking of your beloved SF, the city Planning Office has done a lot of important work on planning for "production, distribution, and repair." I think it was the model for DC's industrial lands study.
Although other cities, especially for the Brooklyn waterfront, and Baltimore, have done similar studies.
I saw a presentation about the SF work at the 2004 Am. Planning Assn. meeting. The SF point is because of the landlocked nature of the city, they can't move stuff over to Oakland, because it still has to come back over the bridge...
It is not the case that DC "must" provide more services to its residents who are lower on the economic ladder. This is a choice DC is making. During the golden years of American cities, such social welfare spending was dramatically lower, and cities were dramatically healthier. I'm not saying there is a correlation, just that the health of the city is not dependent on huge outlays of social services.
A tremendous amount of this spending is completely blown in large cities, as I'm sure you are aware.
see _The Future Once Happened Here_ and the discussion of the "riot ideology" and "dependent individualism."
We didn't spend very much on anyone in those days. And frankly if you look at tenement situations and crime in say the 1920s, just to pick a decade, you'd find a situation of living that we'd never be able to live with in contemporary society. Much higher crime, more racism, more heavy handed police activities and worse living conditions. Also, it's all very well to see pictures of street cars and teaming streets in the early 20th century American cities -- but do you see things like street trees that we take for granted these days? Not very often. Nostalgia doesn't always lead to sound decisions about the future. We need to make ethical decisions based on contemporary ethical ideals. It's the best way for progressivism to work.
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