The Tenderloin is a dense residential, retail and nightlife neighborhood in downtown San Francisco. It has a rich history and a diverse international and artistic community but also significant poverty, homelessness, and crime. It is known for its immigrant populations, ethnic restaurants, bars and clubs, alternative arts scene, large homeless population, public transit and close proximity to Union Square, the Financial District, and Civic Center.The Tenderloin is a historic place full of preserved hotels from the early 20th century, some of which have been renovated into boutique tourist hotels and others into supportive housing. Squalid conditions, homelessness, crime, drug sales, prostitution, liquor stores (over 60), and strip clubs give the area a seedy reputation. However, these conditions have also kept rents in this area more affordable to low-income and working-class families in a city that is among the priciest in the country. The Tenderloin has one of the city's highest concentrations of children.With some of San Francisco's most prestigious real estate only a few blocks to the north, and the Financial District's high towers, a major retail area, and hotels just to the east, the Tenderloin often surprises tourists to the city. As with other lower-income neighborhoods such as the Mission and SOMA districts, many artists and writers make the Tenderloin their home.While the streets close to Market Street are among San Francisco's most undesirable neighborhoods, a gradual but distinct rise in income levels occurs as one travels north, ascending to the Nob Hill sector. Relative to other areas, the Tenderloin is the only largely working-class neighborhood within the downtown area.The Dot Com boom in the late 1990s brought a great deal of redevelopment and resident inhabitation to the SOMA district in particular, but some revitalization funds put into the Tenderloin made a prominent impact — evident today by a much broader section of new ethnic restaurants and bars, as well as a more long-term young working class.