We have always been told that necessity is one of the biggest drivers of entrepreneurial activity, something which should give us all hope for a lot of positive outcomes from the current economic crisis.

Never have I seen this more clearly illustrated than at the Pride march along Market Street in San Francisco last weekend.

Market Street starts at the touristy Embarcadero and runs through the fincancial district and shopping district.  In then runs through some poorer neighbourhoods before hitting Civic Center where the march ends.

We watched most of the march from the Financial District.  Here many of the businesses (such as Peets Coffee) were closed in spite of the hungry, thirsty crowds in the streets.  Others had signs up "No Public Restrooms".  MacDonalds had a huge queue.  The only vendors selling rainbow goods were homeless wanderers,

Later on we walked down to Civic Center, to see the concert there.  As we went along Market Street the nature of the shops and the maintenance of the buildings made it very clear we were on a sliding scale of decreasing wealth.  Almost in direct opposition to this, we saw an increase in entrepreneurial activity.  Far from closing their shutters, every shop had stalls out on the street selling water, soda and snacks.  Most shops had gone to the effort to buy rainbow coloured goods to sell - including a laundrette!  Signs on doors said "toilets available,, $5 per person".  Even a strip club was charging for the use of their toilets, and advertised a range of "pride specials".  Given what one could observe for free in the streets that day, the mind boggles...

Almost by definition those of us participating in this fellowship are not in poverty.  We all walked away from successful careers to join the program, and we have to finance a small part of the cost ourselves in addition to paying the mortgage at home without a salary for a year. 

I hope that in spite of our relative affluence, we will (metaphorically speaking!) be the guys with the store on the street and the $5 toilet, and not the ones closing our shutters in case we get too busy...