Posted on 04/29/2008 7:51:27 AM PDT by SmithL
Sometimes Berserkeley isn't so berserk after all.
Many ideas spawned in Berkeley - and roundly mocked by the rest of the country - have taken root and have been adopted by cities everywhere. Among them: police radios, a ban on Styrofoam, health benefits for domestic partners and a switch to biodiesel for city cars.
These and other Berkeley firsts are part of a painstakingly researched show at the Berkeley History Center that chronicles the city's long history of civic innovation. "Berkeley, a City of Firsts" covers dozens of ideas that started there, including some that flopped and a few that Berkeley claims credit for but really happened elsewhere.
"There's no small city in the U.S. more known in the nation and world - for better or worse - than Berkeley," said Charles Wollenberg, chair of the history department at Berkeley City College and author of "Berkeley: A City in History" (UC Press, 2008). "For a city of 100,000, it has a huge influence."
Berkeley's creative approach to government goes back to the city's early days, when the University of California moved there from Oakland in the 1870s. The mix of academic intellectuals and Bohemian castoffs from San Francisco's Gold Rush era made for a very independent, quirky population, Wollenberg said.
Besides the innovations from City Hall, Berkeley has been the birthplace of less tangible ideas, such as the Free Speech Movement, the disability rights movement and California cuisine....
But Berkeley has had its share of embarrassments as well. In 1972, the City Council decided to send $1,000 to North Vietnam, which led to a riot in the council chambers. The 1970s saw a series of initiatives to legalize marijuana that ultimately flopped. In 2002, voters trounced a measure to mandate fair-trade, organic and shade-grown coffee in the city.
But occasional failures are the price...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Don’t forget tree-squatting.
Police radios is the only one of the items listed which has “taken root and been adopted” elsewhere on any kind of a LARGE scale that I am aware of.
And that probably means the writer is either lying or severely mis-informed about Berkeley having been the genesis of that idea.
Nevertheless, I’d be willing to live without police radios if only Berkeley would go away forever.
Only from the San Freakcisco Pravda....
Yup and I'll bet we could come up with some other firsts that they left out.
Berserkeley is and probably always will be the strangest place I have ever been. And when you consider that I have been to France, that's really sayin' somethin'.
Looks like Berkeley is trying to do a little damage control after their Marine recruiting station fiasco by telling people what wonderful ideas they have. Right. That’ll work.
“Police radios is the only one of the items listed which has “taken root and been adopted” elsewhere on any kind of a LARGE scale that I am aware of.”
I was thinking the same thing.
Ooops! Looks like the first police radio was in Detroit.
http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/history_center/one_way.html
Being somewhat associated with that business and familiar with its history, I've never heard of this. I'd like to look into it. Do you know of any references?
See Post #9, above.
JWS
If Berkeley hadn't been first with police radios, I don't know what we would do. Obviously this radical, free-thinking idea only could have come from the forward looking progressives in Berkeley.
If not for Berkeley, our police forces would be yelling at each other with megaphones or 2 tin cans connected with a string.
Thanks again, Berkeley...the world owes you its unwavering gratitude. (sarc off)
Here. Let me correct that for them.
Many ideas spawned in Berkeley - and roundly mocked by the rest of the country - have taken root and have been adopted by cities everywhere. Among them: Lying about being the first to adopt police radios....
Hope that helps heaps.
my stepson lives in Berkeley.
It is nasty. You feel as if the STD’s are airborne there.
“For a city of 100,000, it has a huge influence.”
Smallpox had a huge influence, too, but it’s not one I celebrate.
Yes, large parts of Berkeley are nasty, dirty and dangerous, but some of the residential areas up in the hills are very nice and some houses have spectacular views. Parts of the campus are very pretty—best seen on a Sunday morning when it’s virtually deserted.
BOYCOTT BERKELEY
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