In San Francisco, as in many other cities, the boundaries of "desirable neighborhoods" are changing as real estate prices turn stratospheric. In the midst of that transition, members of the black middle class have found -- at last -- a slight advantage. PNS commentator Joseph Simon, who was born in San Francisco, lives and writes essays in that city.

Bill called recently, for the first time in months. The last time we spoke, he was not his normal jolly self, but gloomy after his most recent run-in with his landlord over a leaky pipe. At 41, Bill felt he had had enough. He vowed to buy his own place.

He talked about becoming more frugal and tapping into his veterans' benefits to put together enough for a condominium. "I have to lower my rent," he said. "Shelling out a thousand a month isn't getting me anywhere."

"What are you going to do?" I asked. The situation seemed hopeless to me -- Bill's rent was about as low as it gets these days, and I knew he loved the life of the City so much that moving to a cheaper suburb was beyond him.

"Maybe I'll move in with some people or stay in a hostel," he continued, ticking off his options. "I have a buddy who has a mother-in-law unit that's open, that might be a possibility."

All this sounded desperate for a guy who always greets me with Brie or pate during my visits to his impeccable one-bedroom apartment. Years of military service in the Mediterranean had made him a man of good taste and good housekeeping.

These times are forcing many of us to adopt a sort of urban monasticism -- live simple and tight or end up on the streets.

I did not hear from him for a long while. However, he would cross my mind from time to time. I would imagine him in one of the scenes he suggested -- in a fight with a roommate over the dishes, or with his 6 foot 2 inch frame curled up on a bunk bed next to Euro retro-hippies and their musty backpacks, or stooped in an illegal sub-unit breathing car fumes from the garage, awakened each morning by his alarm clock and the thumping of the landlord signaling to him to turn it off..

In fact, he told me on the phone last week, the mother-in-law unit came through, and he was saving $300 a month in rent. He asked me over -- it was actually quite nice and seemed legal. We could stand up straight, though we had to keep our voices down. As usual, he offered me bread and pate -- which I was glad to accept as I was starving.

"My VA loan was approved!" he said with joy.

"Great!" I congratulated him.

His joy did not obliterate his new frugality, so I had to offer him five bucks for more pate.

"Where are you going to buy?" I asked.

He described a possibility in an area that I knew well -- a place I avoided when strolling late at night. I hesitated to voice my concern -- we big black guys are supposed to be fearless and feared. But I blurted out something like, "Isn't there some spillover from the projects there?"

"Aha!" he grinned -- I was about a quarter second behind him. We both knew we had finally found an advantage to being black in the housing market. There are still a few places in town where most whites and Asians would have second thoughts about investing -- this could mean a few tens of thousands knocked off the price.

"I can deal with those young brothers," he confidently declared.

"Yeah, I can too." Which for me really means I would be further ahead on the learning curve than white college graduates from the Midwest.

About ten years ago it started to seem the rule that young black men had to stand on the street in multi-layered baggy clothes passing the time. My reaction was that they were essential factors in the downfall of black communities. Their turf wars seemed petty and childish.

What a fool I was to hold myself above them. Despite differences in education and mannerism we all came on the same boats and we are in the same boat. They are holding on to the turf that might otherwise go like the rest of the city -- where we feel like James Baldwin's "fly in the buttermilk" amidst the confidently white and Asian upwardly mobile.