SF Chronicle readers picked the Richmond District over sunnier neighborhoods as the place they'd most want to live. The city's own records show what that corner actually looks like right now: 28 eviction notices filed in 90 days, 675 311 requests last week, and six-figure permits reshaping Clement Street.

On the corner of Clement Street and 23rd Avenue, the 4 Star Theater's marquee still throws light onto one of the foggiest strips in San Francisco — and, according to a new reader poll, one of the most coveted.

When the San Francisco Chronicle asked readers where in the city they'd most like to live, columnist Peter Hartlaub reported this week, the winner wasn't a sun-trap like Noe Valley or Potrero Hill. It was the Richmond District, the gray-skied western edge that its advocates praised for movie theaters, parks in every direction, comparatively affordable homes and food from more or less everywhere. Nineteen of 130 respondents picked it, the most of any of 30 neighborhoods named. Bernal Heights came second with 13, then North Beach with 10, and Glen Park, the Sunset and Noe Valley tied at eight. The once-trendy Mission drew five.

"It is a diverse, bustling city within the city FOR FOODIES!" wrote one reader, Laura Elmore, in a testimonial the Chronicle published, cataloguing dumplings, noodles, tea leaf salads and dim sum. It's the kind of civic affection that reads well on a Sunday. What it doesn't show is the churn underneath.

The city's own records fill that in. Across the Inner and Outer Richmond, 28 eviction notices have been filed with the Rent Board in the last 90 days — 16 in the Outer Richmond, 12 in the Inner — including two filings on the 400 block of 34th Avenue on Aug. 3 and one on the 2500 block of Balboa Street on July 31. In the past seven days alone, residents logged 675 requests to 311 across the two districts, the ordinary friction of a lived-in place: 420 in the Outer Richmond, 255 in the Inner.

The block people say they want is also a block being rebuilt. On Clement Street, a $161,000 alterations permit was issued in June for 3641 Clement; a $100,000 job was filed for 130 Clement in late July; a $31,000 permit cleared for 1555 Clement on Aug. 4. None of it is dramatic on its own — an interior here, a storefront there — but it's the quiet math of a neighborhood that stays desirable by never quite holding still.

A poll measures longing. The permit log and the eviction filings measure what longing costs. Someone walking Clement tomorrow will pass both: the marquee still lit, and the scaffolding a few doors down.