Posted on 05/12/2005 10:50:22 AM PDT by SmithL
News flash: Cities aren't what they used to be.
Follow-up question: What is?
This rather obvious query popped into my head Sunday after reading Joel Kotkin's sniffish dismissal of San Francisco as an "ephemeral city," one that "differs dramatically from traditional urban centers." Instead of smokestacks and stevedores we have tapas and trust-fund liberals.
He's absolutely right, and he totally misses the point. If San Francisco is a far cry from the boisterous Big Cities of yore, that's because Big Cities continue to evolve. The successful ones still draw strength from immigration and a central address, but they're no longer the engines driving the region around them. They're a lifestyle choice.
Simplistic? Yes. But no more simplistic than parachuting pundits who judge the present by their definition of How Things Ought to Be -- ignoring the fact that today's actions and trends are shaped by decades of social and economic history.
For instance.
As Kotkin surveys our "overpriced urban amusement park," he bemoans the loss of "small factories, dockworkers and dives specializing in carved turkey and roast beef," and frets that the new ephemerality "threatens the existence of the middle class urban family."
I echo his regret with regards to all that has passed; the Financial District hofbrau my dad would take me to in the 1970s is long gone. What's absurd is the notion that these shifts are the result of current leftish politics, or somehow unique to San Francisco.
Take the loss of dockworkers: Burly laborers weren't chased from the waterfront by the folks running that silly caviar bar at the Ferry Building; they're the victims of the shipping industry's shift from loose cargo to sealed containers in the 1960s.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The funny thing - you could vacation at Disney Land all year long for nearly what it would cost to live in S.F. for the same year...
I think both are pretty gay places.
"If San Francisco is a far cry from the boisterous Big Cities of yore, that's because Big Cities continue to evolve. The successful ones still draw strength from immigration and a central address, but they're no longer the engines driving the region around them. They're a lifestyle choice."
Hmm, someone should tell the people of Prague. It's only a 1,000 year old city.
Paul Kantner of The Jefferson Airplane:
"San Francisco is 49 square miles surrounded by reality."
I rest my case.
Actually, SF is a mere tectonic wiggle away from being a National Park.
...and gangbangers, and crack whores, and Asian massage parlors, and junkies, and potheads, and psychos, and thugs, and feces, and urine, and really good burritos.
That's not what's happening here in Frisco. The middle class is shrinking, but so is the lower class. This town is increasingly populated by the rich!
San Francisco is a union town. The lefties there would rather die than adapt. A friend of mine suffered extortion of $10k to hire a union electrical contractor before the inspector would sign off on the work. Nothing changed except the union label. He will no longer bid on San Francisco contracts, so the only contractors left who will are those who are union controlled.
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