Rebecca Solnit on San Francisco

[Phillip Greenlief]

i moved to SF in 1979, and it barely resembles the place i discovered then. 
indeed, it is a pretty city and still has some culture to it - but it was mostly 
put to waste by the dot.com boom, when most of the art spaces were purchased and 
bulldozed - many never to recover in any form. there was a splendid article in 
the guardian years ago about mayor willie brown's legacy, which left dozens of 
cultural centers in ruins - buildings were purchased before the boom went bust, 
buildings were demolished, the money ran out and nothing was put in its place.

most of us moved to oakland, which remains an interesting city with its own 
problems, but it remains a more thriving cultural center, while SF is haven to 
mod cafes and hipsters with money to burn. the working class population, which 
once dominated SF, fled when rents skyrocketed, driven sky high by the boomers. 


it's not like many cities in america haven't suffered the same fate ... plans 
for development - gentrification - big boom - big collapse. so much has changed, 
the young tech barons do not invest or contribute to the arts (or much of 
anything other than their own retirement accounts) the way the wealthy once did 
in this country. 


ack. 

anyway, there are still a lot of us fighting the good fight for the arts here, 
it's mostly underground - like it is in many cities in the u.s. ... same as it 
ever was.



 Phillip Greenlief
1075 Aileen Street Apt B
Oakland, CA 94608






________________________________
From: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
To: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
Cc: "“pynchon-l at waste.org“" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sat, March 2, 2013 9:53:27 PM
Subject: Re: Rebecca Solnit on San Francisco

richard romeo wrote:  I looked in dismay at the
>pretty old house where a family’s possessions had settled like silt
>over the decades: drum set, Bibles, faded framed portraits, furniture
>grimed with the years, cookware, toys. It was a display of what was
>about to be lost.

Sounding much like Mucho, here, Rich, almost 50 years later. I remember SF when 
it was the city of dreams, when a walk in Park was trip into a reality like 
nothing I could have imagined from the little Central Valley farm town where I 
was reared. It will never likely become the beige mall those sprawling cities 
have become, so alike it's hard to know which one your in, but it has begun to 
feel a bit like a beige mall with an extraordinarily pretty face. The Park is a 
haven of rules where dogs aren't allowed to play frisbee, and no Grateful Dead 
or Jefferson Airplane will ever be allowed to set up and play without $300 
ticket prices and carefully contrived security to avoid any spontaneous 
outbreaks of peace, love, and understanding. Even City Lights is more like a 
yuppie hot spot than the freak show it was. Sometimes when I go into San 
Francisco I feel a little like Chrissy Hinde visiting Detroit. But I still love 
The City like no other this side of Florence.


On Sat, Mar 2, 2013 at 6:32 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n03/rebecca-solnit/diary
>
>good piece on the effects of Google and its ilk on the culture of San
>Francisco. interesting contrast with Gold Rush in the 19th century and
>the mining rush in Wyoming, North Dakota and other places today. lots
>of Pynchonian echoes
>
>Rich
>
>'All this is changing the character of what was once a great city of
>refuge for dissidents, queers, pacifists and experimentalists. Like so
>many cities that flourished in the post-industrial era, it has become
>increasingly unaffordable over the past quarter-century, but still has
>a host of writers, artists, activists, environmentalists, eccentrics
>and others who don’t work sixty-hour weeks for corporations– though we
>may be a relic population. Boomtowns also drive out people who perform
>essential services for relatively modest salaries, the teachers,
>firefighters, mechanics and carpenters, along with people who might
>have time for civic engagement. I look in wonder at the store clerks
>and dishwashers, wondering how they hang on or how long their commute
>is. Sometimes the tech workers on their buses seem like bees who
>belong to a great hive, but the hive isn’t civil society or a city;
>it’s a corporation.'
>
>Last summer, I went to look at a house for sale whose listing hadn’t
>mentioned that the house was inhabited. I looked in dismay at the
>pretty old house where a family’s possessions had settled like silt
>over the decades: drum set, Bibles, faded framed portraits, furniture
>grimed with the years, cookware, toys. It was a display of what was
>about to be lost. The estate agent was on the front steps telling
>potential clients that they wouldn’t even have to evict: just raise
>the rent far beyond what the residents can afford. Ye who seek homes,
>come destroy the homes of others more frail.
>
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