Miami has an abundance of affordable housing alternatives outside the urban core. These are attractive in the same way that Silicon Valley's bedroom communities are except that their affordability makes them even more so. San Francisco is gentrifying because it is the least expensive desirable location.
This. The more desirable suburbs of SF (Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton) have housing stock that sells for 10-20% more per square foot than housing in prime San Francisco itself. Is there any other major city where this is true?
That would depend on your definition of "prime San Francisco". North Beach, Russian Hill, and Telegraph Hill are the most expensive per sq foot in the bay area. Pacific Heights and Presidio Heights are equivalent to any of the more expensive parts of the peninsula and valley...
