{"id":27506,"date":"2023-07-22T12:41:52","date_gmt":"2023-07-22T19:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=27506"},"modified":"2023-07-22T12:41:53","modified_gmt":"2023-07-22T19:41:53","slug":"many-san-franciscans-never-liked-downtown-now-theyre-learning-they-cant-live-without-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/07\/22\/many-san-franciscans-never-liked-downtown-now-theyre-learning-they-cant-live-without-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Many San Franciscans never liked downtown. Now they\u2019re learning they can\u2019t live without it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/author\/john-king\/\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/author\/john-king\/\" target=\"_blank\">John King<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>July 21, 2023 (SFChronicle.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"1-image-24059712\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s.hdnux.com\/photos\/01\/33\/61\/75\/24059712\/3\/1200x0.jpg\" alt=\"Downtown San Francisco is more than the crime and filth often focused on in reports. For instance, the recently reopened public rooftop terrace at 343\u00a0Sansome in the Financial District.\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Downtown San Francisco is more than the crime and filth often focused on in reports. For instance, the recently reopened public rooftop terrace at 343\u00a0Sansome in the Financial District.Michaela Vatcheva\/Special to The Chronicle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"2-image-24059713\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s.hdnux.com\/photos\/01\/33\/61\/75\/24059713\/3\/1200x0.jpg\" alt=\"Wayfare Tavern on Sansome Street sits in San Francisco\u2019s Financial District, which has been the target of much coverage about the city\u2019s woes.\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"3-image-24059775\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s.hdnux.com\/photos\/01\/33\/61\/75\/24059775\/3\/1200x0.jpg\" alt=\"Pedestrians walk in the Financial District of San Francisco. The city has been dogged by coverage of its \u201cdoom loop\u201d scenario.\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>If nothing else, the ongoing&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sf\/article\/city-economy-doom-loop-17846412.php\">travails of San Francisco<\/a>&nbsp;are driving home a point that many residents in recent decades have resisted or ignored:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sf\/article\/mayor-breed-s-f-downtown-workers-18207161.php\">Downtown matters<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not only does the world east of Van Ness Avenue generate money for services throughout the city, it shapes&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/projects\/2023\/sf-downtown-doom-loop\/\">how San Francisco is viewed around the world<\/a>. And when the drumbeat of bad press is unrelenting, as it has been for the past 18 months, every neighborhood suffers collateral damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe are going through an educational process, if you will,\u201d said Dean Macris, the city\u2019s planning director in the 1980s. \u201cYou can\u2019t have a healthy functioning city without a central area that is productive and creates vitality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The onslaught has been so persistent and pervasive&nbsp;\u2014 \u201cSan Francisco hogs limelight for wrong reasons,\u201d a China Daily headline proclaimed this month&nbsp;\u2014 that even the most boosterish politicians are forced to confront it, sometimes in creative ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was the case late last month when elected officials turned an innocuous event celebrating&nbsp;<em>plans<\/em>&nbsp;for&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theeastcut.org\/sportsanddogpark\/\">a public park near Salesforce Transit Center<\/a>&nbsp;that won\u2019t start construction for another 18 months into a civic pep rally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhat other city on the planet would attract international attention because a Whole Foods and a Nordstroms close?\u201d asked state Sen. Scott Weiner, referring to two high-profile members of San Francisco\u2019s ongoing retail exodus. \u201cNo one else! That\u2019s because we\u2019re the best city on the planet, they\u2019re all jealous of us, and they love to kick us when we\u2019re down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The problems cited by naysayers are legitimate, no question, from the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sf\/article\/sf-drug-crisis-fentanyl-tranq-fluoro-fentanyl-od-18207563.php\">deadly scourge of fentanyl<\/a>&nbsp;in and around the Tenderloin to the threat of annual City Hall budget&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sf\/article\/sf-budget-deal-breed-cuts-homeless-taxes-18205572.php\">deficits climbing past $1 billion<\/a>&nbsp;by 2026, due in part to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sf\/article\/city-economy-doom-loop-17846412.php\">the sinking value<\/a>&nbsp;of downtown towers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But not all of San Francisco is on the ropes, as anyone who has lingered in Hayes Valley or North Beach during the past year knows well. The extravagant Presidio Tunnel Tops is thronged on weekends. Clement Street in the Richmond district is an upbeat scene.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even within the Financial District there\u2019s sign of renewed life. Visit the recently reopened&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/bayarea\/place\/article\/Views-makes-downtown-SF-rooftops-worth-the-walk-9547620.php\">public rooftop terrace<\/a>&nbsp;at 343 Sansome Street, or take in the one-two punch of a Blue Bottle Coffee and the upscale Treasury bar facing each other across the historic lobby of 200 Bush St., both doing good business on a recent afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These spots, however, lie outside the core of visible decay. The ones that media observers use to reduce a city of 49 square miles to a handful of lurid set pieces, such as Union Square\u2019s empty storefronts, or the open dealing of stolen goods in the United Nations Plaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Neighborhoods west of Van Ness Avenue or south of Mission Creek might as well not even exist.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s this imbalance that shows how the fates of downtown and the neighborhoods are intertwined&nbsp;\u2014 a seemingly obvious notion that runs counter to much of the city\u2019s discourse for a half-century or more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The idea that downtown San Francisco was some alien<em>&nbsp;other<\/em>, a generic counterpoint to the essential city, dates back to at least the 1960s and the rise of grassroots political activism. The Financial District \u2014 in particular the developers erecting high-rises and the corporations inhabiting them \u2014 was viewed as an evil force to be contained, so much so that in 1971, a ballot initiative sought to restrict all new buildings in the city to six stories or less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOnce there was a San Francisco that was light and pastel, hilly, open and inviting,\u201d was the opening page of a coloring book distributed by opponents during the quixotic anti-highrise campaign. Two pages later, cue ominous music, comes the plot twist: \u201cThen rich men built tall buildings and San Francisco began to look stiff and forbidding like any other American city.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That proposition&nbsp;\u2014 hatched by dress designer and San Francisco native&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/bayarea\/article\/Alvin-Duskin-a-creative-crusader-against-16449620.php\">Alvin Duskin<\/a>&nbsp;\u2014 lost handily. But the same decade saw a successful quest by progressives and their allies to elect members of the Board of Supervisors from geographic districts rather than the city at large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt comes down to one issue&nbsp;\u2014 the neighborhoods versus the people who gave us BART\u201d and other projects intended to boost the city\u2019s status as a regional center, argued Harvey Milk in 1977, the same year he was elected as the supervisor from the Castro in the first district elections.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Similar rhetoric played a role in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spur.org\/publications\/urbanist-article\/1999-07-01\/proposition-m-and-downtown-growth-battle\">1986\u2019s Proposition M<\/a>, which limited the amount of annual commercial development to about the size of one Transamerica Pyramid. In the words of one ballot handbook argument, \u201cSan Franciscans must decide if San Francisco belongs to them or to the downtown speculators who are mining it.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Simplistic or not, such rhetoric resonated in a city that always has been distrustful of central authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere was a belief set that downtown was the Great Satan,\u201d said Rudy Nothenberg, who came to City Hall as the budget director for George Moscone and later served 10 years as city manager. \u201cI don\u2019t know to what extent this was political theater, but they (neighborhood activists) were good at it and they continued doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Macris and his efforts to manage downtown growth&nbsp;\u2014 preserving older buildings while finding space for new towers, for instance&nbsp;\u2014 were frequent targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe left controlled the narrative, and there was a genuine hostility about business \u2014 \u2018these are just fat cats in it for the dollar,\u2019\u201d said Macris, who returned to City Hall as planning director under then-Mayor Gavin Newsom. \u201cA lot of people genuinely care about the city, and they bought into the notion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That view of downtown as a place apart is something that Woody LaBounty grew up with in the Richmond District.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis was a very parochial city&nbsp;\u2014 you did everything in your particular sphere,\u201d recalled LaBounty, 57, who still lives in the neighborhood and recently became president of the preservation group San Francisco Heritage. \u201cPeople looked at it as a destination, or something to fight with.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These days, downtown office vacancy rates hover around 30%. Storefronts large and small wear \u201cfor lease\u201d signs. Whole buildings are being offered for sublease by tech firms whose ascendency triggered a fresh wave of hostility toward corporate forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is why Mayor London Breed\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sf\/article\/small-business-grants-18202562.php\">various initiatives to revitalize downtown<\/a>&nbsp;have received little pushback from supervisors, including&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sf\/article\/sf-budget-deal-breed-cuts-homeless-taxes-18205572.php\">tax breaks for companies<\/a>&nbsp;who move workers there. The board also joined with her on legislation to make it easier to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sf\/article\/s-f-supes-cut-red-tape-fill-downtown-s-empty-18150947.php\">convert office buildings<\/a>&nbsp;into apartments or condominiums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s a strong argument to be made that such efforts, in the long run, could create a more sustainable and even neighborhood-like downtown. Similarly, any signs of recovery in the coming year could fuel larger national stories that maybe, just maybe, there\u2019s life after dystopia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPeople might be feeling different about downtown these days,\u201d suggested LaBounty. \u201cIt was always seen as the bully. Now it\u2019s down on the mat.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reach John King: jking@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @johnkingsfchron<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/author\/john-king\/\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Written By <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/author\/john-king\/\" target=\"_blank\">John King<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/johnkingSFChron\/\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JohnKingSFChron\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>John King is The Chronicle\u2019s urban design critic and a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist who joined the staff in 1992. His book \u201cPortal: San Francisco\u2019s Ferry Building and the Reinvention of American Cities\u201d will be published by W.W. Norton in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/img\/logos\/black\/logo.svg\" alt=\"San Francisco Chronicle Homepage - Site Logo\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/img\/core\/hearst_newspapers_logo.svg\" alt=\"HEARST newspapers logo\">\u00a92023 Hearst Communications, Inc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John King July 21, 2023 (SFChronicle.com) If nothing else, the ongoing&nbsp;travails of San Francisco&nbsp;are driving home a point that many residents in recent decades have resisted or ignored:&nbsp;Downtown matters. Not only does the world east of Van Ness Avenue generate money for services throughout the city, it shapes&nbsp;how San Francisco&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/07\/22\/many-san-franciscans-never-liked-downtown-now-theyre-learning-they-cant-live-without-it\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[475,838],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27506"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27507,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27506\/revisions\/27507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}