San Francisco - Alison Bing [33]
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URBAN PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT
In poll after poll, the number-one concern in San Francisco is traffic. Add residential vehicles to increasing commuter traffic from the East and South Bays, and you’re looking at a compelling case for additional improvements to intercity public transportation. There is a consultative body of Bay Area governments that supposedly addresses this sort of thing, but it lacks the power and finances to get much done.
Housing shortages in the city itself are being met with new construction, mostly in the SoMa area. The vast avenues of warehouses in this part of town are gradually being converted or replaced with small, smartly designed and inevitably expensive loft spaces. SoMa and the bayside slope of Potrero Hill are characterized by long, monotonous blocks, with parks few and far between. Recent development nearer the bay has started to address these shortcomings, integrating some greenery into future building plans. Extensions of the once-limited streetcar system, with new lines along the Embarcadero and 3rd St, are also helping to draw these communities more closely into the city’s broader fabric, reducing commuter reliance on cars.
High-density housing is a fine green idea to conserve resources and contain sprawl, but the problem of parking in San Francisco remains. San Francisco may be a compact city, but the same cannot always be said about the cars that roam its streets, and street parking is perennially at a premium. Take public transportation Downtown and you may save yourself half an hour looking for parking at either end of your trip, not to mention saving parking garage fees and the environment.
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GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
The City and County of San Francisco is a peculiar creature with a single body run by different minds, which sometimes makes it futuristically forward-thinking and other times as unruly as a many-headed monster. The city government consists of a mayor and an 11-member Board of Supervisors, which is headed by a president. At any given time, the board is internally conflicted and/or at odds with the mayor, which makes open meetings lively and occasionally soul-searching affairs worth sitting in on. Like the mayor, the supervisors serve four-year terms and are limited to two terms.
Although the city has an active multiparty system in which Greens and other independents do get elected, San Francisco tends to vote overwhelmingly Democratic, and it’s not uncommon for the mayor and all 11 supervisors to be affiliated with the Democratic Party. The Board of Supervisors also tends to reflect the city’s diverse population – women, gay, lesbian, transgender, Chinese, Latino and African American candidates have all been voted onto the board. There are pockets of conservatives in the city, but for the most part they keep a low profile.
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MEDIA
NEWSPAPERS & MAGAZINES
The San Francisco Chronicle is the Bay Area’s number-one daily, with one of the nation’s largest newspaper circulations – but perhaps not for long. Its website, www.sfgate.com, has been among the top five US news sites on the internet, yet since its purchase by Hearst Newspapers in 2000, the Chron has been losing money. The paper has been recently redesigned in a smaller format, and while it continues to show some chutzpah with investigative journalism and outspoken columnists, it’s now heavily padded with soft news. Its future remains uncertain.
The city’s most prominent locally owned free weekly, the Bay Guardian, is a prime source of local news, although its zealous muckraking can be tiresome even to the most devoted local politicos. Most readers flip to the extensive arts and entertainment reviews and features, and the sex-advice column. While not locally owned, SF Weekly offers decent news and entertainment listings