5 ms·

Lots of mentions of bars and hip restaurants, no mention of school districts; I think this blog is coming from a fairly narrow perspective which reduces its cre

Lots of mentions of bars and hip restaurants, no mention of school districts; I think this blog is coming from a fairly narrow perspective which reduces its credibility.

natrius 14y ago
Good school districts already exist on the peninsula. The author suggests merely densifying them, which is anathema to the people who currently live in them.
nickpinkston 14y ago
A very good point - it would seem that Noe Valley exists for families with pre-school aged families that eventually move south to better schools. In my hometown of Pittsburgh, the city has enough housing for 700K people (currently 300K) and the county has like 2M+. Pittsburgh is where people go to have fun in many great, vibrant neighborhoods, but the school system is abysmal, so young, professional families have no interest in living there without being able to afford the private schools.
civilian 14y ago
I think schools were included in the umbrella of "basic human infrastructure". Even if the author didn't intend it, that's where my mind went.
rayiner 14y ago
The "quality" of the schools is almost entirely a function of the economic/racial makeup of the district. If you moved all the middle/upper middle class whites and asians from the Valley into San Francisco, boom you'd have "good" schools.
- rdl 14y ago
  Even the white or Asian parts of SF have kind of shitty schools compared to the peninsula.
  - philsnow 14y ago
    Doesn't SF allocate kids to public schools on some kind of hippie lottery system ? If so, we shouldn't expect correlation between a part of the city being "white or Asian" and having good or shitty schools.
    - rdl 14y ago
      Ah. I just know people with $10mm houses in Pac Heights who sold them (a few months after buying) for a combination of "ugh, SF weather is shit and I hate it" and "ugh, we'll have to pay $30-40k/yr for each of our kids to go to school" -- buying a house in Hillsborough or Palo Alto saves money overall.

Lots of mentions of bars and hip restaurants, no mention of school districts; I think this blog is coming from a fairly narrow perspective which reduces its credibility.

natrius 14y ago

Good school districts already exist on the peninsula. The author suggests merely densifying them, which is anathema to the people who currently live in them.

nickpinkston 14y ago

A very good point - it would seem that Noe Valley exists for families with pre-school aged families that eventually move south to better schools. In my hometown of Pittsburgh, the city has enough housing for 700K people (currently 300K) and the county has like 2M+. Pittsburgh is where people go to have fun in many great, vibrant neighborhoods, but the school system is abysmal, so young, professional families have no interest in living there without being able to afford the private schools.

civilian 14y ago

I think schools were included in the umbrella of "basic human infrastructure". Even if the author didn't intend it, that's where my mind went.

rayiner 14y ago

The "quality" of the schools is almost entirely a function of the economic/racial makeup of the district. If you moved all the middle/upper middle class whites and asians from the Valley into San Francisco, boom you'd have "good" schools.

rdl 14y ago
Even the white or Asian parts of SF have kind of shitty schools compared to the peninsula.
- philsnow 14y ago
  Doesn't SF allocate kids to public schools on some kind of hippie lottery system ? If so, we shouldn't expect correlation between a part of the city being "white or Asian" and having good or shitty schools.
  - rdl 14y ago
    Ah. I just know people with $10mm houses in Pac Heights who sold them (a few months after buying) for a combination of "ugh, SF weather is shit and I hate it" and "ugh, we'll have to pay $30-40k/yr for each of our kids to go to school" -- buying a house in Hillsborough or Palo Alto saves money overall.