In the land of Walgreens and Starbucks
It’s Thursday night, and I’m sitting here with Justin trying to think of things I want to blog about. I could go on about how wonderful the Castro is, and the fact that I have been there three times since we arrived in San Francisco is pretty telling. I could talk about the amazing people here and how everyone is super nice; again this is saying something coming from a stereotypical “Minnesota Nice” person. However, I feel like I should focus on something a little less meaningful and point out little things I have noticed.
First of all, San Francisco has an unhealthy obsession with Walgreens. I swear, I have not seen this many Walgreens, ever, and they are all concentrated in this one city. There are so many that they have become the butt of many jokes on this trip. I thought about documenting this by taking a picture of every one I saw, but since there are so many, it would just be obnoxious. I got to thinking about SanFran’s obsession with putting Walgreens everywhere, and it hit me. Walgreens is able to offer basic needs to the people of San Francisco and with this city having a large homeless and low income population, I feel like these Walgreens are strategically placed to cater to the needs of the people who live are living a rough lifestyle. As funny as the Walgreens situation is, it is interesting to think that they may be there for a higher purpose than observant tourists to chuckle at.
If you read the title, you know where this is going. Starbucks. Being who I am, it would be a crime to not mention coffee at some point in this blog. Now, I am all for coffee and I would not make it through my days if not for that Venti Latte from Starbucks, but really, three within less than two blocks of each other? This is also quite shocking to notice. The city of San Francisco has a very diverse economic community. From one perspective, you see classy people walking out of Starbucks, heading down Market Street, into a designer bag store. And from the other, from the time they leave the coffee shop until the time they enter the designer store they will have passed at least five homeless people. The divide in this city between the upper and lower class is very frightening to me.
Overall, the observations of the awkward obsession with Walgreens and Starbucks in San Francisco are comical, but I feel like it is one of the ways we are able to notice little things and still learn from them.
Whoa, you're right... in the process of gentrification, businesses get involved. It would follow that businesses offering luxuries would pop up where the people with money are, like Starbucks. I hadn't thought about it before, but your post made me realize that it's no accident that there's a concentration of Starbucks wherever there are people with money.
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