High rents elbow Latinos from San Francisco's Mission District

San Francisco

LUXURY condominiums, organic ice cream stores, cafes that serve soya lattes and chocolate shops that offer samples from Ecuador and Madagascar are rapidly replacing 99-cent stores, bodegas and rent-controlled apartments in the Mission District, this city's working-class Latino neighbourhood.

As San Francisco has become the preferred bedroom community for Silicon Valley, the Mission, with its urban edginess, has become the hottest location. Close to the centre of the city, it has historically been home to Mexican and Central American immigrants whose large families live in small apartments in narrow Victorians and older buildings.

Taquerias, bakeries, bars and car mechanic shops line the streets where Spanish is spoken. Like Chinatown, this distinctive neighbourhood helps define San Francisco, but the gentrification - fuelled by technology workers and the popularity of Airbn…