Rebecca Solnit on San Francisco

[Robert Mahnke]

Just ran across this:

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/facebook_george_lucas_and_nimbyism_the_idiotic_rules_preventing_silicon_valley_from_building_the_houses_and_offices_we_need_to_power_american_innovation_.html

"Mandatory suburbanism" is a good name for the problem.

On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 3:50 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oakland, indeed most of surrounding SF is suburban sprawl. And, shitty as
> they are, they are very expensive too.  And they are shitty.  Unfortunately
> US City/regions are too young to know better than letting or stopping
> sprawl.  And zoning (always made by the squatters against newbies) keeps the
> rich in their Big Lots,  undisturbed  by the rabble.  At least SF has a not
> bad extended public transit system.  Better than lots of cars, but worse
> than walking.
>
>
> On Tuesday, March 5, 2013, Phillip Greenlief wrote:
>>
>> it's also too late for (most) cultural diversity - most people of color
>> (due to economics) have been driven out of SF - and now it's happening in
>> oakland - to some extent, not as widespread as SF.
>>
>> Phillip Greenlief
>> 1075 Aileen Street Apt B
>> Oakland, CA 94608
>> 510-501-7110
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>> To: Phillip Greenlief <pgsaxo at pacbell.net>
>> Cc: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>; Robert Mahnke
>> <rpmahnke at gmail.com>; Prashant Kumar <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com>;
>> pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Sent: Tue, March 5, 2013 7:30:34 PM
>> Subject: Re: Rebecca Solnit on San Francisco
>>
>> On Tuesday, March 5, 2013, Phillip Greenlief wrote:
>>>
>>> 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.
>>
>>
>> SF isn't too late, if NIBYs don't rule.
>>
>> Too late for Bohemia? Yes.  Too late for a populace beyond the 3%?  Yes,
>> unless government steps in, and not just for the poor.  SF has lots of 2 & 3
>> story residential areas that could use more density.  And the hills of SF
>> allow for view corridor over everything.
>>
>> But remember NYC.  Now mostly for the very right, but politics and old
>> density keep certain hoods vital.  Old urbanism still rules in the hoods of
>> NYC.
>>
>> Montreal might be an ideal City Model, with dense nodes situated along
>> very good train/transit lines.
>>
>> Politics rule, and are local. And US urban design is mostly non-existent.
>> But Green urbanism is Old-City, plus some towers.
>>
>> Little known fact: Florence, a small fortressed walled city, very dense
>> with very wealthy merchant-kings palazzos, enacted a law to eliminate most
>> of the residential personal watchtowers because they were urban kudzu.
>> Moral:  limit tower density.  A simple thing. Many ways to do so.
>>
>> Real good urbanism has been the rule in Yurrup for centuries.  US urbanism
>> is OK in the Original Colonies, but the developments to the West were Wild,
>> even the Near West.  Boomtown, if all goes well.
>>
>