{"id":36658,"date":"2024-10-03T14:02:31","date_gmt":"2024-10-03T21:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=36658"},"modified":"2024-10-03T14:02:32","modified_gmt":"2024-10-03T21:02:32","slug":"san-francisco-is-changing-before-our-eyes-just-like-it-always-has-been","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/10\/03\/san-francisco-is-changing-before-our-eyes-just-like-it-always-has-been\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco is changing before our eyes \u2014 just like it always has been"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0John King<\/a>,Urban Design CriticOct 2, 2024 (SFChronicle.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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San Francisco\u2019s skyline has changed in the last 25 years, and the Chronicle\u2019s Urban Design Critic John King believes it will continue to change in the coming years\u00a0\u2014 even if it\u2019s not just located downtown.Guy Wathen\/The Chronicle<\/em><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there\u2019s one thing I could change from my 23 years as the San Francisco Chronicle\u2019s urban design critic, it would be how I spent my first day on the beat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of doing whatever it is that I did, I should have grabbed a good camera from one of our photographers and clicked my way through a roll or two of film. Capturing a city where the skyline ended at Mission Street, and the Ferry Building was a construction site<\/a>. The Giants\u2019 ballpark was vibrant and new, but most of the Embarcadero was dormant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mission Bay existed in planning documents, not real life. The Presidio was an atmospheric question mark, and\u00a0freeway ramps still shadowed parts of Hayes Valley<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the San Francisco landscape of 2001, which explains why my gig has never grown stale. More importantly, that architectural upheaval suggests we\u2019re likely to see similarly profound transformations in the decades ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Which isn\u2019t a bad thing. If they\u2019re anchored in a firm set of civic priorities, map-shifting changes can open new frontiers while renewing familiar scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This city is troubled at present, no question, especially in such high-profile areas as Union Square, South of Market and the Financial District. The human toll of our current strains is palpable, whether in the fentanyl addicts who can\u2019t stand straight<\/a> or the unseen employees of businesses in those areas that clung to life through the pandemic but finally gave up the fight during the past year. Economically, empty office floors and declining property values could translate to vast City Hall budget deficits<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this is true. But here\u2019s what is true as well: The pieces are in place for San Francisco\u2019s inherent creativity to re-emerge. Where the essential qualities of hills and bay and idiosyncratic neighborhoods are flanked by unexpected new attractions \u2014 ideally while helping a more equitable city take shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some aspects of what the future might hold are obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Treasure Island, for instance, where five residential buildings, including a 22-story tower, are open or nearing completion. Given the economy, there\u2019s no telling when this first phase might be followed by others.<\/a> But with brisk, fun ferry service from the Ferry Building and an expansive shoreline park set to open next year, the elements are in place to start luring visitors from across the Bay Area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

At the opposite end of the city, near Lake Merced, the Board of Supervisors this summer approved the swap<\/a> of 30 acres of parking lots at Stonestown Galleria for a mix of public spaces and 3,500 housing units. The still-popular mall will remain open; roughly 20% of the housing will be reserved for lower-income people, as is also the case on Treasure Island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once construction gets going (two years?), we could see large-scale growth that feels like a thoughtful addition to the long-settled neighborhoods around it. In other words, nothing like the developer-driven excess of last year\u2019s proposal for a 50-story tower three blocks from Ocean Beach, a ludicrous pipe dream that finally fizzled out<\/a> in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What really makes me hopeful, though, are the more subtle shifts that will alter how we view the city \u2014 and, in the process, enrich the tapestry of a city already more varied than most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Case in point: The waterfront south of the Giants\u2019 ballpark, best experienced on bicycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The age-old path toward Bayview from SoMa involved driving down Third Street \u2014 a route that in 2000 consisted largely of empty land and weary blue-collar buildings. Now, everything from veterans\u2019 housing to Chase Center and a UCSF campus lines the wide artery<\/a> in Mission Bay, followed by Dogpatch\u2019s colorful residential revival<\/a> amid industrial survivors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

But another route has emerged: Pedal across the Third Street bridge and then follow the Bay Trail and well-marked bicycle lanes past three large new parks and a side of Mission Bay that feels more humane than Third Street\u2019s slog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first, China Basin Park, opened in April and is an urbane triumph. The second, Bayfront Park, debuts on Oct. 22 with sculpture-sized anchors and other maritime relics scattered amid grass-draped hillocks and a plaza with barbecue grills perfect for car-free tailgating before the next Warriors\u2019 game at Chase Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third is Crane Cove Park, developed by the Port of San Francisco with the delightful juxtaposition of a kid-friendly beach and the Ramp, one of the waterfront\u2019s last dives. That is followed by Pier 70 and by the former Presidio Power Plant, two once-industrial zones being reborn as edgy but urbane blends of old buildings and new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this in less than two miles. Even so, it\u2019s an invigorating lesson in how cities can flourish within a familiar frame. Add the ambitious remake of India Basin occurring two miles to the south \u2014 the costliest project ever attempted by the city\u2019s Recreation and Parks department \u2014 and the southern waterfront, in a few years, could be an integral part of city life, with amenities that don\u2019t just target the well-to-do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cynic will point out \u2014 rightly \u2014 that big plans move forward slowly and sometimes don\u2019t happen at all<\/a>. But we\u2019re also seeing small-scale experimentation take root in the Financial District, which has withered since the pandemic began and office workers left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider the recent news<\/a> that the young Institute of Contemporary Art will move later this month from Dogpatch to the former Bank of America banking hall at Montgomery and California streets \u2014 a prime corner back when this area was the vaunted Wall Street of the West<\/a>. Now dubbed \u201cthe Cube,\u201d <\/a>the five-story granite shell is being made available rent-free for two years by the owner who had pre-pandemic visions of a lucrative coworking temple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Ah, the heady days of 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what makes a beachhead by a small nonprofit so welcome? Because cultural experiments like this might attract people to \u201cFiDi\u201d who don\u2019t have tech or business degrees. It builds on the also-welcome presence of small entrepreneurs being invited downtown by building owners who want something besides \u201cfor lease\u201d signs in their storefronts \u2014 such as Haight-Ashbury\u2019s Flywheel Coffee Roasters opening its first-ever branch alongside the historic Mechanics Plaza at Battery and Market streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Individually, these are random sprouts in a parched field. Together, and joined by others, they begin to redefine the city center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why, despite the prospect of more pain in the next few years, I\u2019m fully confident that San Francisco will elude the much-hyped \u201cdoom loop.\u201d<\/a> We might even see a needed reset so that the extremes of rich and poor in recent years aren\u2019t amplified when the next round of good times come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is crucial. It\u2019s also inseparable from what constitutes good urban design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the Chronicle blessed me with this beat \u2014 to survey the landscape and try to make sense of what I see \u2014 the city\u2019s physical upheaval has been startling. Call it the shock of the new: When high-rises pop up where you don\u2019t expect, or neighborhood parking lots sprout dense infill housing, you can feel unmoored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this same time, though, the city\u2019s northern shoreline has been reclaimed as a public treasure, starting with the 2001 transformation of Crissy Field <\/a>\u2014 a paved-over mess when the Presidio was a military post \u2014 into an irresistibly naturalistic shoreline. The Embarcadero is a robust promenade lined with treasures like the Exploratorium, a cruise ship terminal and the again-public Ferry Building. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Salesforce Tower pushed past the Transamerica Pyramid as San Francisco\u2019s tallest building \u2014 accompanied by the stylishly futuristic transit center<\/a> next door, complete with a 5.4 acre rooftop park. Old neighborhoods like Hayes Valley and new ones like Mission Bay have come into their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, plenty of bad buildings were built \u2014 but great cities like ours have always absorbed bad buildings. More ominously, the blurring of the old boundaries between San Francisco and Silicon Valley unleashed demand pressures on housing and commercial space that, by 2019, had all but undermined one of the most important attributes that allow cities to truly prosper: room for people of all backgrounds and income levels to pursue their dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If San Francisco is lucky, this won\u2019t be the case when the next boom comes: The pandemic and its grim aftermath will have relieved the pressures that, some say, threatened its soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As downtown does <\/em>stir back to life,and new frontiers emerge, City Hall needs to make a priority of smart urban design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allow developers more flexibility in terms of how a building looks and how it is used? Sure. At the same time, don\u2019t allow them to get away with anything they want, out of misplaced gratitude that they are doing anything at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Insist on generous public spaces. Roadways should provide enticing safety for pedestrians and cyclists as well as automobiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Insist on adding truly affordable housing to parts of the city where growth will be encouraged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More From John King<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

These 11 buildings tell the story of 21st century San Francisco, warts and all<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A star architect reflects on his visions for San Francisco that never got built<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One final note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in the Bay Area, everyone I knew referred to San Francisco as \u201cthe City.\u201d Not with braggadocio or boosterism, just as a matter of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has continued through cultural tumult and economic upheaval, suburbanization and working from home. This peninsula is our urban anchor, no matter how the particulars might change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because here\u2019s what hasn\u2019t <\/em>changed: San Francisco has so much more going for it than doomsayers will admit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story isn\u2019t over. It never is. For if San Francisco\u2019s history teaches us anything, it\u2019s that tomorrow rarely brings quite what we expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reach John King: jking@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @johnkingsfchron<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oct 2, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

John King<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

URBAN DESIGN CRITIC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John King is The Chronicle\u2019s urban design critic and a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist who joined the staff in 1992. His new book is \u201cPortal: San Francisco\u2019s Ferry Building and the Reinvention of American Cities,\u201d published by W.W. Norton.<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0John King,Urban Design CriticOct 2, 2024 (SFChronicle.com) San Francisco\u2019s skyline has changed in the last 25 years, and the Chronicle\u2019s Urban Design Critic John King believes it will continue to change in the coming years\u00a0\u2014 even if it\u2019s not just located downtown.Guy Wathen\/The Chronicle If there\u2019s one thing I could… Continue reading → <\/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":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36658"}],"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=36658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36660,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36658\/revisions\/36660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}