Yerba Buena Center / SoMa Arts District (1980s-1990s)
San Francisco invested in a major arts complex, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, to turn a blighted, largely vacant area south of Market Street into a cultural destination. The city used redevelopment agency powers to assemble land and subsidize development.
The district attracted national attention, new museums, and residential and hotel development, transforming SoMa's eastern edge.
It created a model for using arts as an anchor for urban revitalization—and a cautionary tale, as some critics argued it displaced existing communities and prioritized tourists over locals.
The current pilot is a smaller, less government-directed version of this approach, relying on private capital and tenant subsidies rather than redevelopment agency power, and targeting an area that has not yet seen the benefits of the earlier boom.