Rebecca Solnit on San Francisco

Tue Mar 5 18:20:59 CST 2013

look, it's already too late - SF has been gentrified. the alarm should have gone 
off 20 years ago. i don't care what the buildings look like, the majority of art 
spaces pre-2000 are gone. period. the buildings don't even exist anymore. a lot 
of small, family run businesses have disappeared - which includes every kind of 
retail or food service. there are zoning laws that keep certain kinds of 
businesses out of SF (there is a limit, for example, on how many fast food 
restaurants can operate in SF), but the independent shops are disappearing 
quickly, and have been over the past 15 years. 

there are SF suburbs that could eventually be bulldozed (the way they were in 
santa monica - which continues to occur), but mostly, if you live out here, you 
realize that the surburban sprawl is heading in all directions. the real rape of 
the land, etc., is happening if you travel north - just go over the golden gate 
bridge and into marin - it used to be that there was a LOT of open space from 
sausalito until you get to, say, ukiah, in mendocino county. that open space is 
disappearing quickly. soon, like the constant concrete sprawl that spreads from 
los angeles to san diego, the small remaining bits of open space will disappear 
from SF to humboldt county (pynchon's VINELAND). the same is happening if you 
travel east on 580 - it's pretty much pure concrete from oakland to livermore 
... soon it will spread to martinez, where the 580 hits interstate 5 .... for 
years, people have been buying cheap houses out in martinez and make the 
hour-long commute into the bay area (that's if there isn't any traffic).

or, you can look at the concrete sprawl from berkeley on out highway 80 to 
sacramento - same issues - there was once a lot of open space - now it gets more 
and more populated.

if you head south, the sprawl is consistent until you get past morgan hill ... 
so you can drive for more than an hour in any direction out of SF and find dense 
suburban constructions, countless mini-malls, and multi-national restaurants and 
clothing outlets. 

is it any better to take 37 out to napa? not really... and i won't even get into 
a discussion about how the napa wineries (that are making huge wads of cash as 
california wines become more and more popular) continue to steal 10s of 
thousands of gallons of water annually from the pomo indian reservation ... and 
make hella bank off said water and refuse to reimburse the pomo tribe for 
robbing their water supply.

 Phillip Greenlief
1075 Aileen Street Apt B
Oakland, CA 94608

________________________________
From: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
To: Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com>
Cc: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>; Prashant Kumar 
<siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com>; pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tue, March 5, 2013 10:54:47 AM
Subject: Re: Rebecca Solnit on San Francisco

There you have the guts of David's and my difference. The money, of course, will 
win. SF will be trashed, but the result will not be a lightening of the carbon 
footprint, but an increase, as more businesses and people pile into the small 
tip of the peninsula and continue to spill over into the surrounding area, each 
selfish one demanding the most historic place he can buy and gentrify. It's a 
nasty business. The world loses another fine city, and gains another overcrowded 
dormitory.

On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 10:14 AM, Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com> wrote:

Geek-driven gentrification threatens San Francisco's bohemian appeal:
>
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/05/san-francisco-geek-gentrification-threatens
>
>
>
>
>
>On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 5:15 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The failings of Pruitt Igoe and Modernism's anti-urbanism embodied by Le
>> Corbusier's Model city (
>>http://www.google.com/search?q=le+corbusier+model+city&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=he01UYKzHebR2QXP_YCQBA&ved=0CC0QsAQ&biw=1024&bih=625
>>5
>> ) have been well known for a long time.  Density ain't its root problem.
>> The destruction of urban space and fabric in favor of free-standing towers
>> surrounded by a void are.  Density in the city would Ideally look more like
>> the Paris Le Corbusier sought to replace.
>>http://www.earth-photography.com/Countries/France/ChampsElysees_subgallery/France_Paris_ChampsElysees.html
>>l
>>
>>
>> On Monday, March 4, 2013, Prashant Kumar wrote:
>>>
>>> Take this as the timid question it is, David (M.), but how does one
>>> achieve high density urban areas without creating Pruitt Igoe like
>>> hellholes?
>>>
>>> In Sydney we have a community housing building modelled after Le
>>> Corbusier, but instead of parks, car parks. The Northcott building
>>>
>>>
>>>http://m.theaustralian.com.au/arts/public-housing-private-hell/story-e6frg8n6-1111112988132
>>>2
>>>
>>>
>>> Needless to say it became a concrete slab of despair and social
>>> distinction. (I do agree with your larger point; I think Sydney for example
>>> would be much the poorer without the contrast high density allows. Where I
>>> was born in New Zealand has become a horrible stretch of motorways and mall
>>> complexes, the kind with attached buildings and surrounded by a sea of car
>>> parks.)
>>>
>>> P.
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, March 5, 2013, David Morris wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>http://www.google.com/search?q=seattle+public+library+rem+koolhaas&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=wW41UcDxDYPW2gXdz4HYCg&sqi=2&ved=0CC0QsAQ&biw=1024&bih=673
>>>>3
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20130305/5d94debf/attachment.html>