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Neighborhood Postcard: Ingleside

Rai Sue Sussman

What is it that makes San Francisco the place many of us call home? Although the high cost of living is now many San Franciscan’s number one concern, there are still a few places in the city where people say it’s affordable. The Ingleside neighborhood is one. Set around Ocean Avenue and City College’s main campus in the southern part of town, Ingleside is predominantly middle and working class. More than half of the residents own their homes, and ethnically it’s fairly diverse.

Rai Sue Sussman asks some residents of Ingleside to describe the neighborhood.

Leroy Riley has lived here for fifty years. “I love the neighborhood, it's a friendly neighborhood, neighbors are all friendly,” he says.

“Before, there wasn't much at all. It was on the downward, going downhill, instead of going uphill like it is now.”

Lara Ortiz de Montellano moved here in 2008. “It was a mix of the old black community, and a lot of recent immigrants;  immigrants who have got their foothold in, and are kind of moving on,” she says.

“Even the McDonalds turns out to be a real social center. Which you wouldn't expect. It's a McDonalds, but it turns out that the student populations, and the older residents and the younger residents, we all mix. There's one of the old dudes there, and people bring him coffee. It's just a nice thing.”