The latter two were a part of a statewide cultural district program that protects 14 districts across the state. The city has three additional protected cultural districts: the Japantown Cultural Heritage District which was established in 2013, as well as the Calle 24 Latino Cultural and SOMA Pilipinas districts instituted in 2014. District proposals tend to include a budget measure to help support the area’s economic development.
The goal is to preserve an area’s history, identity, and community in the face of SF’s rising commercial and housing costs. The selection of cultural districts typically involves comprehensive zoning regulations, imposed by either the city or state government, in addition to granting the area legal status as a protected space. An effort is also underway to form a Castro LGBTQ Cultural District. San Francisco has been a well-known site of LGBTQ culture for decades, and made a groundbreaking move last year by appointing the Compton Transgender Cultural District in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood as the nation’s first transgender district.
