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I think this quote really nails the mentality in the city: > As political scientist and longtime San Francisco observer Richard DeLeon puts it: San Francisco
by flomo 13y ago
I think this quote really nails the mentality in the city:
> As political scientist and longtime San Francisco observer Richard DeLeon puts it:
San Francisco has emerged as a “semi-sovereign city” — a city that imposes as many limits on capital as capital imposes on it. Mislabeled by some detractors as socialist or radical in the Marxist tradition, San Francisco’s progressivism is concerned with consumption more than production, residence more than workplace, meaning more than materialism, community empowerment more than class struggle. Its first priority is not revolution but protection — protection of the city’s environment, architectural heritage, neighborhoods, diversity, and overall quality of life from the radical transformations of turbulent American capitalism.
- jvm 13y ago> protection of the city’s environment, architectural heritage, neighborhoods, diversity, and overall quality of life from the radical transformations of turbulent American capitalism ...and ironically creating some of America's highest market rents in the process.
- flomo 13y agoSure it's semi-ridiculous to frame this in terms of left "progressivism", especially as the waterfront battles are being fought by rich people who live in skyscrapers who do not want other skyscrapers blocking their views. But I think the sentiment is broadly popular because it gets the heart of why people fall in love with San Francisco. It's not just the community (whatever community), it's the housing stock, the 'perfect' density, the hills, the views, the shops and restaurants, the smell of the air. That's what makes San Francisco San Francisco. One hundred years ago, Los Angeles looked a lot like SF. But they replaced 90% of the victorians, they flattened the hills, they built freeways everywhere. San Francisco was spared that, largely because the people fought back, and now the people want to fight to preserve what was saved. I'm of mixed-feelings about it. The Bay Guardian always warns of "Manhattanization", but the alternative endpoint is turning into a huge version of Carmel By The Sea.
- jvm 13y agoI guess my problem is I rather like Manhattan and if rents got cheaper in the process it seems like wins all around to me :-) I understand that other people don't feel that way, but at the same time I think if people were told the choices, which is basically Manhattanization and $1500/mo rent or stay the course and pay $3k/mo, people on the whole would pick the former. But because it's framed in terms of 'preserving our heritage', it's easy for people to wishfully think that they can keep things the same for free.
- flomo 13y agoKeep in mind this didn't just start up when Twitter moved into town. It's a long war that has been fought for 50-60 years now, and the preservation forces have won nearly every battle and aren't planning on surrendering. I upvoted kijin's comment. If you want to build another Manhattan full of gigantic buildings with computer cubicles and tiny apartments, do it in LA or somewhere, because it's probably never going to happen in SF.
- sbov 13y agoIs this really what would happen? I guess if they could mass produce them all at once it might. But it seems like every new condo or apartment building that is built in SF is more expensive than everything else already available.
- njr123 13y agoYeah, but they push down the rents on the older apartments. At least thats the way it worked in my city, which has a similar housing situation.
- akgerber 13y agoNew construction is unlikely to push down rents anywhere in the current market environment in SF. But it does limit upward pressure on rents elsewhere. The bigger supply also is likely to lead to big price cuts during the next crash. And new construction becomes old within a few years. There are plenty of perfectly serviceable condo towers of unfashionable age in downtown Chicago with very reasonably priced apartments.
- muyuu 13y agoI don't see anything ironic about it. It's pretty basic economics that higher [scarcity * demand] leads to higher prices. Someone thought that all that protection was free?
- Shivetya 13y agoLets be honest here. Its merely a means for the very rich to protect themselves. They simply limit who can live near them by dressing it up in fancy sound good, do good, terms. Protecting the environment, protecting history, and all, is just nice speak for keeping people we don't want away. As to one highly rated post about the benefits of socialism, it never has or will work. Socialism and capitalism are little different in the end, the first merely concentrates wealth and power in the hands of politicians directly, the later just adds another class that benefits.
- dasil003 13y ago> Protecting the environment, protecting history, and all, is just nice speak for keeping people we don't want away. I think this is a pretty groundless claim. San Francisco has been one of the most tolerant cities of alternative lifestyles and even homeless people compared to any other American city. It's easy to claim that the rich just want their gated communities, but if you can't even address the claim that they want to preserve the existing quality of the city without claiming a hidden ulterior class motive then how are we supposed to have an honest dialogue? You can't just unilaterally declare a whole group of people to be lying about their motivations and expect anything productive come out of it.
- pjmorris 13y agoSomeone better educated than me, please comment, but this sounds something like Paris. The old section of Paris has a great deal of law protecting its preservation. Would it be progress to tear down the Eiffel tower, or the Arc de Triomphe?
- raldi 13y agoWhen it was first built, the Eiffel Tower was decried as destroying the beauty of the city. And the Etoile of boulevards radiating from the Arc were built as part of one of the biggest demolish-all-the-history public works projects of all time. If those laws had been on the books in 1850, or if the Paris of that time had subscribed to modern-day SF's change-nothing philosophy, the city you love would not exist in anything like its current form. Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eiffel_Tower&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop#The_.22Artists_Protest.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eiffel_Tower&mobil... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann's_renovation_of_Paris http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann's_renovation_of_Paris
- mikeash 13y agoThis seems like a perfect example of the adage that "Europeans think 100 miles is a long distance, Americans think 100 years is a long time." Those particular Paris icons are extremely recent, relatively speaking. If Paris's timeline were fit into that of San Francisco, the Eiffel Tower would have been completed in 2001.
- raldi 13y agoThe fact remains, much of the Paris we love today was only made possible by their willingness in the 1800s to tear out so much of their history and build something better.
- mikeash 13y agoYes, I'm really just reinforcing your point. These examples of historic, static landmarks are relatively new.