The SF Examiner's "Mess on Market Street" Draws Criticism

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For the past three months the San Francisco Chronicle has been running a front page series called "The Mess on Market Street," which refers to the city's Mid-Market neighborhood. Poor Magazine reporter Lisa Gray-Garcia writes that "The series is part of a well-crafted propaganda campaign in support of the upcoming gentrification-Sweep- New York Style that the Mid-Market Redevelopment Project Area Committee is planning, modeled after the newest embodiment of economic and racial cleansing in the U.S.: The Business Improvement Districts (BIDs). The BIDs were established over the last ten years by a collective of corporate and private business interests whose main aim is to 'sweep' panhandlers, vendors, artists, street newspaper vendors and other micro-businesses owners out of downtown business districts across the US by bypassing the police departments and hiring private security firms to 'patrol' these districts."