The Pitter-Patter of Tiny Minds

San Francisco politicians are remarkable--not just because of how far left they are compared to the rest of the country, but in the lengths they will go to spite anyone who does not share their beliefs. It's hard to say who is the meanest, most small-minded politician in San Francisco. 

Take, for instance gay Supervisor Tom Ammiano. Recently, Ammiano pitched a bitch when an official delegation from San Francisco went to the Vatican and presented Cardinal William Levada, formerly the archbishop of San Francisco with a glass paperweight bearing an image of the official city seal.  The reason?  Ammiano, a Roman Catholic had authored a resolution "urging Cardinal William Levada, in his capacity as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, to withdraw his discriminatory and defamatory directive that Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco stop placing children in need of adoption with homosexual households."

Of the offending paperweight, the SFGate article quotes Ammiano as saying: "I think it is a significant breach.  You can't be cavalier about things like that."

Or perhaps the tiniest mind belongs to San Francisco Assemblymember Mark Leno. Last week when a Christian group called BattleCry staged a rally in San Francisco, Marky-Mark told them they should "get out of San Francisco".  And the San Francisco Board of Supervisors?  They passed a resolution condemning BattleCry because they could "negatively influence the politics of America's most tolerant and progressive city." That was too much even for the Chronicle, which couldn't overlook the irony of a Board resolution by America's most tolerant and progressive city condemning a Christian youth group that is pro-life, pro-chastity and anti-drug.  Of course, the true measure of tolerance is how well you cope with the views of people you disagree with, and on that measure San Francisco fails miserably. 

I don't agree with Levada's or BattleCry's positions on gay marriage and gay adoption, but I do respect the beliefs that led them there.  Respect for another's position must be given in order to be gained.  When Ammiano disrespects Cardinal Levada's position to score a point with his political base, he demeans his office and offends not just the Church Visible, the established authority of Roman Catholicism, but the Church Invisible, the silent majority of the community of faith.  I don't care what problems Ammiano has with the Church in private, he has no business airing them in public in his official capacity as Supervisor.  As Assemblymember, Mark Leno should be promoting the City and County of San Francisco to all people, not telling them to get out.  Such naked bigotry on the part of public officials will only feed into the bigotry of those who hate gay people.  Ammiano and Leno are poor excuses for politicians.  I am embarassed that they represent my city. 

Reiner Quits as First 5 Chairman

About time and good riddance!  Dear Rob:  Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out...

The United States of Latin America?

About once or twice a month I take BART from my job in San Francisco to visit my parents in the Fruitvale District of East Oakland, in the house where I grew up, and where my father grew up before me.  In the 30 or so years that I have been making this trek, I've noticed a lot of changes along East 14th Street, or International Blvd. as it's now called.  The storefronts that were empty a few years ago are now filled with joyerias, mueblerias, carnicerias, (jewelry shops, furniture stores and meat markets). and stores that sell ropas para damas y ninos (clothes for ladies and children).  The sidewalks and streets are filled with families doing their shopping, where once there were just drug dealers selling nickel bags, alkies buying Night Train at the corner liquor store and ho's in fishnets and glitter miniskirts plying their trade on the street corner. 

The Fruitvale isn't without its problems, but on the whole it seems decidedly better than it was a few years ago. My suspicions were confirmed when I read in the Chronicle that:

The number of Latino-owned businesses in the United States grew by 31 percent between 1997 and 2002, more than three times the rate for all businesses. In California, Latino businesses grew 27 percent, more than twice as much as businesses overall, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

I can see it now: On the right, Patrick Buchanan will issue another screed about the impending takeover of the United States.  On the left, this will be seen by Mechistas as a sign of the coming of Aztlan, the supposed Chicano polity located somewhere in the American West. The far left and right agree that immigration from Latin America must inevitably lead to the reconquista of the United States by a Spanish-speaking majority, but is it so?

On balance, I think the answer is no.  Immigrants come to the United States for the opportunities this country offers. We are not like Europe, where Muslim immigrants want to supplant their adopted country's values with the values of their homeland.  Though Americans and immigrants are separated by language, traditional values like family and religion are important to both groups.  When I think of the immigration issue in this country, I think of an embroidered decal on the back of a denim jacket I once saw being worn by an immigrant--crossed American and Mexican flags, surmounted by an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. 

Illegal immigration is worrisome.  No one except criminals are benefitted by having a lawless zone on the southern border, but legitimate concerns for security should not be used to fuel nativist fear.  The President seemed to recognize this as he reaffirmed his position on visas for temporary guest workers in his weekly radio address.  I hope that a sound, reasoned approach to immigration reform will emerge from the debate as Congress takes up the issue next week.

UPDATE:  Marc Cooper has an interesting perspective of the massive immigration reform rally in Los Angeles and what it means.

Make No Little Plans

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. ---Daniel Burnham

I confess to being an urban planning junkie from way back.  I love looking at architectural renderings and reading blogs like Steve Boland's San Francisco Cityscape.  My fascination with the built environment even helped give a name to this blog.  But lately I have begun to notice something of a dark side in urban planning discussions; the "we know what's best for you" attitude that design professionals take toward the likes and dislikes of the people that their designs are ostensibly supposed to benefit.  It wasn't always this way; Burnham's quote suggests that he saw the urban planner as visionary, inspiring people with the greatness of his designs, so what happened? 

I think perhaps it was Modernism.  In the first half of the 20th Century, architects such as Le Corbusier presented grand, sweeping designs for the city of the future--giant highrises in green parks linked by busy expressways.  Think of Norman Bel Geddes' Futurama design for the General Motors exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair.

After World War II, there was a general consensus among intellectuals in the West that the Soviet Union held the winning hand and that it was a simply a matter of time before Socialism would take over the world.  The best we could do would be to soften the blow.  Hence the socialistic emphasis on top-down planning.  Men like Le Corbusier and Bel Geddes had created the designs; now all that remained was to build them. During this period in the United States, we saw urban redevelopment projects that replaced whole neighborhoods with modern highrises.  But despite massive public investment, the promise of Modernism went unfulfilled. The sparkling, modern highrise public housing developments like Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis succumbed to vandalism and crime and were demolished. 

Today, even urban planners reject the heavy-handed approach of their predecessors.  Touchy-feely designs like New Urbanism that feature walkable, bikeable communities are all the rage. With slogans like "Giving more people more choices about where and how they want to live" what's not to like?

So far, so good but what if people don't want walkable, bikeable communities?  Studies have shown that many people continue to prefer traditional, suburban living and resist the denser development that New Urbanism favors.  "But this contributes to sprawl! wail the New Urbanists.  What they need to do is take a leaf from Daniel Burnham's book and use their designs to inspire; but instead, inflated with a sense of their moral superiority the New Urbanistas make snarky remarks about Bush voters with their gas-guzzling SUVs.   

It's a complicated problem.  I don't pretend to have an answer, but to solve it there first needs to be dialogue.  Design professionals need to come down from their mountains and walk among the common people.  Their designs may not be like the Modernists, but they do share some of their prejudices.

Beware the Ides of March

And so it begins!  Welcome to Urbanities, my little corner of Sedulous Apes.  Many thanks to my partner and fellow simian, Anthony for his work researching, designing and creating this site. Check him out over at Monkey Tricks. 

The food section in today's San Francisco Chronicle featured an article about Marion Nestle, an NYU nutrition professor (and social activist) who is doing a guest stint at UC Berkeley.  She has been called a "diet scold" and "food cop" for taking on the food industry for--gasp! --marketing its products to unwary children.  Her first book was called "Food Politics" and her latest book is called "What to Eat".  Yes Ma'am!

It irritated me to find a political screed in the section that usually contains recipes for acorn squash soup and petit fours. Is nothing sacred from politics?  In this article we see once again the same tiresome, left wing scenario:

• Industry is evil because, it's well..industry.  Usually prefaced by the word "Big" as in Big Tobacco or Big Pharma.  I'm surprised that the article didn't refer to the food industry as "Big Food".
• And the reason Big Food is evil is because it's only interested in...profits!  Oh the horror...
• Average, every day people (who aren't the minions of big whatever) are gullible, innocent children who are easily hypnotized by industry's marketing tactics into doing things that go against their self-interest.  They need left-wing crusaders like Professor Nestle (such a deliciously ironic last name) to protect them from themselves.

While I do think that obesity, especially childhood obesity is a problem, it seems that the solution would be for people to take responsibility for what they put in their mouths.  Just because high-fat, high-sugar food is available doesn't mean you should buy it.  The article does offer the ray of hope that sales of natural foods are on the upswing. My local Safeway just introduced a whole selection of organic food. Guess what Professor Nestle, the free market works!  People are choosing healthier food on their own, without the help of a "diet scold" to tell them what to do.