And he in fact bought me lunch because I found it for him.

.. lol. So allow me to reword this…. Thanks for the meal!
! But yeah, thanks for spending some time to talk about
this matter here on your website.

that said, i think the one thing that “progressives” fail to take into account – for all their flawless intent – is change. change in demographics, change in needs…all sorts of change.

while i agree 100% that protection of “affordable” housing is important for a million reasons (ie tenant’s rights, rent control, etc)….i also think that adherence to a dated idea of what’s “affordable” and “when” and for “whom” is not “progress”.

the general “progressive” view, as i understand it, is an arcane ideal, and – better or worse – will never prevail over a free market where there is demand and money to be made. no judgments there….it’s just the facts.

that’s why i see progressive politicians as full of hot air. they’re espousing an empty truth that can never exist. they make promises they will never be able to keep. they offer dogma, but no solutions based in the world we have today.

look at the D9 candidates. they’re largely “progressive” clones of one another, all fighting in a dogmatic way for largely “housing activist” causes. no real thoughts for safety issues, homeowner issues, business issues, environment issues, quality of life issues, growth issues…

D9 has changed a lot over the years…the rhetoric of D9 “progressive” candidates is exactly the same. they certainly don’t represent me & my needs (i know, i’m yuppie scum and don’t deserve representation)… i’d bet they don’t represent the needs of most of the folks on this blog (not all, obviously).

other hand, government – local or otherwise – in the pocket of business interests is also a bad thing. duh. so if it’s true that “Housing policy in this city revolves almost entirely around the interests of the developers”….well, that’s bad too. not unusual, mind you, but equally, hatefully bad.

but the goal should be to find a balance, no? see Carla’s post above. this should be the ideal…not one or the other. my view, “progressives” should strive to find a compromise, and loosen up on the dogma, because “conservatives” will never let up, and with money and demand on their side, well, let’s just say it’ll be really hard for “progressives” to prevail.

why not be realistic and live in the word we have? strive for balance and moderation?

(maybe because for progressives, even to maintain current position, without being eroded at every step by moneyed interests, they need to be rabid dogmatics, never giving an inch, always fighting. i do get that part, and respect it begrudgingly…it’s an unfortunate ecosystem…but if a “progressive” is all about “progress”…how about a new take on the system??)

so anyways, for me…

sleazebag real estate developers with an eye toward nothing but profit = bad.

AND

snake-oil “progressive politicians” living in the past and making empty promises = bad

to me they’re basically the same: parasites.

my advice (as if anyone cared): vote moderate.

This is not true, and i suspect is a reaction to too many conversations with people who can;t explain why rampant condo development and condoization are bad things. But they are. Housing policy in this city revolves almost entirely around the interests of the developers. As I said higher up in the thread, a housing policy that requires 15% affordable units also guarantees 85% unaffordable units. All progressives want is to stop giving the developers want long enough to come up with a real, comprehensive plan to build housing that meets the needs of the city, not of the developers. Developers can make plenty of money doing that, so don;t cry for them because they could have made more slashing and burning.

And our condoization process has serious flaws, the most fundamental of which is that it is the largest factor int he shrinking pool of affordable housing in the city, and especially in the Mission. To say nothing of how out of pace we are at building new affordable housing, to have a policy that encourages the removal of existing affordable housing is insane. Again, all progressives want is to stop the hemorrhaging. A tourniquet is not the solution, to carry the analogy further, but you need to apply one before you can begin to get anything done.

hey, maybe we can get a non-shithead supervisor for district 9 in november (half the current BOS really sucks.) the cops arrest, but our pussy-ass DA releases. only recently have they tried cracking down on mish gangs…probably because the ‘yuppies’ and soccer moms actually complain.

this is plain wrong-

“Do people seriously think that the Mission, or San Francisco even, is all that diverse? Really? Where are you people from? I guess if you’re from Des Moines it could seem diverse, but if you’re from say, LA or NYC, not really. ”

SF is very diverse- about 33%asian, 20% latino/hispanic, 12% black. nyc and la are not more diverse. and thanks (sic) to rent control & SRO’s SF is economically diverse as well, inspite of the high market rate housing.

and this is just ridiculous-
“yuppies your economic status is based upon the explotation of the working class and Imperalism.”

um, i believe carl left the room, oh say sometimes in the 1980′s.

i am trying to get folks who read this blog to expend some energy on the hood (proactive energy), instead of just living here (or worse, getting displaced) and snarking about how as the hood changes, it doesn’t live up to their progressive / hipster / yuppie / immigrant / gangbanger / whatever ideals. poor fucking Mission. never good enough for anyone (me included).

you want to expend some energy, i am on your team. you want to disagree with me, i can deal, and i am happy to learn. i’m no fucking genius, lord knows.

but if all you want to do is sit on the sidelines and complain (which is mostly what you’ve done here, from what i can see), we’ll go ahead and try it without you. or you can join us later. whatever.

that said, i once went into the redman’s rooms he had on 16th in hose SROs that were between guerrero & valencia. he invited me there for a drink, because i used to buy him drinks at those bars all the time, and i asked him where he lived. both rooms were packed, floor to ceiling, front to back, with stuff. one room had a clear space for a single mattress and a chair with a TV on it, and a big box of (you guessed it) red makeup. we had a drink (vodka in 2 paper cups), in the hallway.

Since we go way back like this, I think I have changed my mind. Let’s DO get that army of cops and occupy this bitch like Baghdad. I appreciate that you see the subtlety of my position, z, and recognize that in disagreeing with you, I am in favor of shit and shooting.

they were gross.

i do miss smoking at the bar.

My one plea for our neighborhood is that we use the word “procative” as much as possible. That, and the army of cops.