City within a City: Historic Context Statement for San Francisco's Mission District

City and County of San Francisco Planning Department

From introduction: "The City within a City: Historic Context Statement for San Francisco’s Mission District is a guide for conducting historic resource surveys in one of San Francisco’s most historic and multilayered areas. The context statement facilitates identification and evaluation of the many types of historic properties that are found in the residential neighborhoods and commercial corridors of the Mission District. This is accomplished in this document through the identification of historical time periods, themes, events, and patterns of development in the Mission, descriptions of historic property types and resource registration requirements, and analysis of expected resource locations and distributions within the area. This context statement complements the San Francisco Planning Department’s Mission Area Plan, which is a part of the broader Eastern Neighborhoods planning program. The Mission Area Plan calls for a survey and preservation program for the area’s historic resources so that current and future generations may continue to appreciate the rich heritage of the Mission District. This context statement guides survey activities in the Mission area as well as informs implementation of the Mission Area Plan’s overall goals and objectives by identifying historic character and cultural elements of the district that should be considered for retention and enhancement. The study area that is the subject of this context statement covers the portion of the Mission Area Plan that is traditionally characterized by residential neighborhoods and commercial corridors. This is the majority of the Mission Plan Area. It encompasses the swath of densely developed residential blocks and dynamic commercial strips that define the Mission District proper. Excluded from study in this document is the northeast Mission Plan Area, which underwent separate and more recent development as a primarily commercial-industrial area. The historic contexts of the northeast Mission Plan Area are considered elsewhere in another document, along with Showplace Square, an adjacent area that shares a similar and related history. The Mission District is, in many ways, the heart of San Francisco. For much of its history, the Mission developed as a semi-independent “city within a city” with its own rich cultural and architectural heritage. The oldest settled area of the city, the Mission has retained distinctive identity and character even though subsequent historic events have continued to transform it. The Mission, long a working-class stronghold, is a mixed-used district centrally located between the downtown districts and the outlying residential neighborhoods. More recently, it has become the center of Latino culture in San Francisco and an incubator for countercultures and bohemia. The district is also fast becoming a desirable residential enclave for upscale professionals, a phenomenon that raises issues of gentrification, displacement, and identity. Within this environment, the San Francisco Planning Department’s Mission Area Plan proposes new land use and zoning controls that are intended to balance growth with preservation." Funding was provided in part by a 2006 Historic Preservation Fund grant to the City of San Francisco (project number CA-06-47) administered by the California State Historic Preservation Office (grant number 06-06-21507) and the State, Tribal, and Local Plans and Grants Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. San Francisco, California is a Certified Local Government.

City within a City: Historic Context Statement for San Francisco's Mission District

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