San Francisco Detours Into Reality Tourism

SAN FRANCISCO — Visitors know all too well this pretty city’s sights, what with the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf and the clang-clang-clangy cable cars.

But now San Francisco’s civic boosters have decided they want to add a highly unlikely stop to the tourist itinerary: the Uptown Tenderloin, the ragged, druggy and determinedly dingy domain of the city’s most down and out.

And what is the appeal?

“We offer a kind of grittiness you can’t find much anymore,” said Randy Shaw, a longtime San Francisco housing advocate and a driving force behind the idea of Tenderloin tourism. “And what is grittier than the Tenderloin?”

Indeed, after years of neglect and bitter battles over its gentrification, the Tenderloin remains one of the most stubborn challenges in San Francisco, a city that prides itself on its looks, its way of life and its bold solutions to social ills, whether they involve offering universal health care (the city was the first to do so) or banning plastic bags (ditto).

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/us/12tenderloin.html?th&emc=th

:argh:

Bullshit. Try looking around any large US city. You'll find it. Here in Cincinnati we have Over-The-Rhine. Same shit, different city.

Maybe they hope the attention will result in some revitalization. But, the tenderloin is certainly not "the grittiest" part of SF. Not the scariest part, anyway.