Not In My Backyard, Forest Hill Edition Earlier in 2018, the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development dropped a proposed development in Forest Hill that would have changed the lives of 150 low-income, formerly homeless seniors by providing them with permanent, affordable housing. The city and Supervisor Yee’s stated reason for torpedoing the development was that the …
Op-Eds
Op-eds
Exiting the Magic Kingdom
Burned by the junta in Chile, and effectively banned from the US over copyright infringement claims, How To Read Donald Duck is a guide to exposing the ideology in mass culture and a call to extricate the aspects which teach us to subjugate and be subjugated. If It Looks Like An Empire… On September 11, 1973, a coalition …
San Francisco’s Chamber of Horrors
Editor’s Note: The SF Chamber of Commerce relaunched its website after this piece was written, sending much of their record of supporting anti-worker/anti-tenant policies into the memory hole. Several links in this article will make use of the Internet Archive and Google’s cache to source the history of the Chamber’s policy agenda. Given the severity …
The Gall of Galles
On July 20th the SF Chronicle ran an op-ed arguing against rent control. In an extreme case of headline abuse, they slammed rent control and inclusionary housing as “self-interested and harmful.” In a city that is majority renter, with more than 60% of renters protected by rent-control, aren’t the real self-interested parties the corporate developers …
The Board of Supervisors Did the Right Thing on Tasers
Yesterday, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors did the right thing. During a meeting of the Board’s Budget and Finance Committee, which has oversight on the city’s disbursements, Supervisors voted 3–2 to deny the funding that would have equipped the San Francisco Police Department with Tasers. This vote effectively and indefinitely denies SFPD access to Tasers. …
Our Pride: None of your Business
Why do we celebrate LGBTQ+ pride? Pride is a celebration of LGBTQ visibility, community, and resilience. The exploitation and persecution of LGBTQ+ people by bigots and the American state has been persistent, strategic, and often violent. Not long ago, police raids on LGBTQ gathering spots were common; raids in the 1960s at places like Gene …
London Breed Hates Your City
Are you voting in the mayoral election? Do you live in San Francisco? Do you love San Francisco? Would you prefer a beautiful, multicultural city to a grim Ayn Rand dystopia? If so, then London Breed is going to disagree with you. Unless you are super-rich, London Breed is not on your side — and here is …
Building an Ecosocialist Housing Policy: Lessons from SB 827
SB 827 is done and dusted, at least for now. Throughout the debate on the controversial bill, one critical factor remained mostly unexamined: what effect would this proposed housing and transportation legislation have had on the environment? Now, though the specter of SB 827 is in California’s collective rear-view, it is important to discuss the …
Red and Ted Talk Private Transit in San Francisco
TED: Hey Red, sorry I’m late. Traffic was bad and Muni was lagging, as usual. While I was waiting I saw like three Chariots go by. I think I might sign up, at least they seem like they have their act together. RED: Chariot? As in… horses and Romans and giant wheels? TED: Hah! No, …
No Good Breed Goes Unpunished
I. What the hell is/are Identity Politics? “Identity politics” is a term that gets thrown around a lot in political or social contexts. And like similar phrases that float through the zeitgeist (think: cultural appropriation, neoliberalism, etc.), it can be tough to grasp the effects without a firm handle on the meaning. So before we …
Rent Control Works: A Response to Business School Professors’ Misguided Attacks
Editors’ note: This piece was originally published by Dean and Shanti here and is cross-posted on The Phoenix with their permission. The housing world is abuzz about a new study: a former Goldman Sachs asset manager and a former UBS investment banker, both Assistant Professors at Stanford’s School of Business, have concluded that rent control — not …
Red & Ted Talk Tasers
TED: Red! What the hell is going on with Tasers in San Francisco? I saw on the news back in November that something called the “Police Commission” voted to approve the use of Tasers by SFPD cops. But THEN this past week I read something that says the SF Police Officers Association is putting an …