Market Street Milk Shake is an ironic term used in San Francisco to signify the city’s continuing quality-of-life and homelessness problems. The term is derived from an ironic description of the slurry produced by street cleaners when they wash the sidewalks on Market Street between Fifth Street and Van Ness Avenue, a line historically accepted as the border between the Tenderloin, Civic Center, and South of Market neighborhoods. This area is characterized by extremely dense concentrations of homeless people and street crime, with the resultant effluent left behind.
An urban legend has developed around Market Street Milk Shake, to the effect that drinking it gives people the ability to accept the conditions in which they live, instead of actually doing anything about them. Some variations include the incorporation of belief systems such as those espoused by Carlos Castaneda, or Santeria. Without corroboration, such inferences are difficult to verify.
