Janet Delaney's "South of Market" series documents an early wave of the city's transformation—in the 1970s.

Janet Delaney, Saturday Afternoon on Howard between 3rd and 4th Streets, 1980.
Janet Delaney, Saturday Afternoon on Howard between 3rd and 4th Streets, 1980.

"I don’t think I’d ever heard of the word 'gentrification'," says Delaney, "But I was fascinated by issues of urban living, in part because I'd grown up in south L.A. when the freeways were being built, and houses were disappearing. The idea really troubled me."

Fast forward nearly 40 years, and Delaney's photographs and interviews are on view now in "South of Market," at San Francisco's de Young Museum. The show presents an almost eerie mirror of the development wars being fought in San Francisco today.