Tend to agree with Pete, Chum and Kim (to the surprise of nobody, i'm sure). if you're renting in an oppressively expensive city, the most obvious and easiest solution seems to be "move to where rent is cheaper."
Yeah I get how it's easy for people who grew up in KS and chose to live in like the cheapest most undesirable cities in the US to think that way.
aside, I lived in Chicago for years and heard a lot of people bitching about how expensive housing was -- and they were right. It was very expensive.
yeah I think a big difference is working class people can still afford to live in Chicago. I think SF has a $15 minimum wage but it doesn't really matter if you can't find a 2 BR under $2k (I looked and only one of these wasn't actually just a room)
compare the same scale to the north side of chicago
also (you would know better), but Chicago still has places that haven't been gentrified. like the south side is just too big (and dangerous) for the people complaining about rent in Lincoln Park to invade and I feel like the places becoming more expensive were pretty yuppie-ish to begin with and less about yuppies forcing out poor latinos. (again, defer to your expertise on this). Like chum alluded to, there's not much space left in SF to gentrify other than small pockets who are clinking and have pressure from all sides. Oakland is seeing a lot of folks displaced too but I think East Oakland will take a while. (Historically black West Oakland is too convenient to SF to not gentrify)
Chicago is enormous land wise compared to SF
South side starting to gentrify some in specific adjacent neighborhoods, i.e. South Loop ->Bronzeville and Hyde Park -> Kenwood.
Parts of the northwest side has had (and still has) a lot of yuppies forcing out Latinos, previously in Wicker Park, now in Logan Square, moving into Humbolt Park, etc.
I’ve always had a hard time wrapping my head around the gentrification debate. I understand not wanting to displace current residents who may be marginalized in some way, but also “no, don’t make this neighborhood nicer, safer, and more desirable” is a weird argument.