[seandougall]

> No one would need to leave the city - they would just need to leave the hipster hoods.

And find something affordable, until the hipsters find that neighborhood, and then shove over again to make room... I hope I'm misreading your statement, because that attitude is really distasteful. It's not the less-affluent person's fault for living in a neighborhood before it becomes cool.

Maybe the Excelsior has escaped this phenomenon, but the Mission, the Inner and Outer Sunset, the Richmond, the Castro, the Tenderloin, and even Oakland haven't. And those are just the places where I personally know people who are getting priced out. Just because the author can explain gentrification with microeconomics doesn't mean that it isn't real or that it isn't detrimental to the city and its inhabitants.