By Josh Stephens.

The grungy holes-in-the-wall of San Francisco’s Mission District have long been known for some of the world’s largest, most beloved burritos. But the neighborhood is also known for something a little less savory: gentrification. With an infamous influx of young, well-paid tech workers fueling higher rents, many businesses, restaurants included, are threatened. Even when they’re the size of a wrestler’s bicep, burritos can sell for only so much, and the merchants selling them must cope with increasingly high real estate costs.

“We’ve all heard about what’s happening on the housing front. A lot of tenants have been evicted, a lot of people are being pushed out because it’s so expensive in San Francisco,” says San Francisco Supervisor David Campos. “That’s manifesting itself on the business side as well.”

Campos has proposed a ballot initiative that, while it will not save every threatened legacy business, may buoy enough of them to prevent the city’s commercial landscape from being overrun by Starbucks and Chipotle. It’s an acknowledgment that local businesses can be community amenities and public goods even as they pursue their core capitalist missions.

“These long-term businesses … are not just businesses but really are part of these communities,” says Campos. “There’s a personal, emotional attachment that comes with a lot of these businesses.”

The city’s budget office estimates that San Francisco’s commercial property values rose 256 percent between 1999 and 2013; rents have been known to double from year to year. The same report indicates that closures and relocations of established business is rising, with an estimated 4,378 in 2014, compared with 3,657 in 2011.

[divider] [/divider]

Read the full story at Next City.