Charming 60s footage documents San Francisco’s ‘drastic facelifting’

Combing through the amazing British Pathé archive on YouTube yesterday, I found this gem called the “Changing Face Of San Francisco.” It’s from 1963 and talks about development, the population boom and the struggle to hang onto neighborhood character. In other words, pretty much what’s going on in the Mission today. An excerpt:

The brutal fact is the lovely old city is bursting at the seams. The old must give way to the new. San Franciscans hope that it is the worst of the old that goes and that the new is worthy of the tradition that it inherits. 

Feels pretty familiar, doesn’t it?

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