in this issue

BACK IN THE bad old days, when Dianne Feinstein was mayor and high-rise office buildings were sprouting all over town like mutant Lincoln Logs, the mantra over at City Hall was "jobs." Sure, office buildings blocked out the sky and created cold, sterile canyons and caused massive environmental impacts (more traffic, more energy use, skyrocketing housing costs, etc.). But we had to accept all of that because development created jobs.

Well, as it turns out, that was completely untrue. Back in 1985 the Bay Guardian exposed that lie for what it was – and by now, I think, the case is long since closed. Small local businesses create the jobs; headquarters offices aren't doing much for the economy at all.

Now the word we keep hearing everywhere is "housing." More housing. Everywhere. Build it; we need it. Housing is always good.

But stop and think about it for a minute: Is there really a shortage of million-dollar condos in this city? Are people with incomes in the upper 5 percent of all San Francisco residents really desperate for places to live? Is housing – all housing, any housing – necessarily a good thing?

Or is it the case, as Tony Kelly of the Potrero Hill Boosters points out, that San Francisco doesn't have a housing crisis – we have an affordable-housing crisis?

Once again, I'm afraid, what's happening in San Francisco – where as many as 40,000 new housing units, almost all of them "market rate," could be built in the eastern neighborhoods in the next 20 years – is a lack of city planning.

Sure, the developers want more housing; just like office buildings once were, housing construction in SF today is a ticket to big money. But as we point out in this issue, the damage to the city could be massive and lasting. Build all the pricey condos some city officials (and a lot of developers) want, and you lose light industrial jobs – as many as 17,500 jobs, a new Planning Department study shows. You also drive out locally owned businesses. (You see any mom-and-pop stores around Fourth and King Streets? 'Cause I couldn't find them.) And in the end, you drive out longtime residents.

That's what this special 39th anniversary issue is about. It's almost blasphemy in some circles to say it, but I'm not sure we need any more high-end housing. At the very least, we need to ask that question.

Tim Redmond

tredmond@sfbg.com