City’s unattractive side

Press, 24 April 1984, Page 25

City’s unattractive side

By

JOHN HUTCHISON

San Francisco

The city of San Francisco is a legend to tourists who want to see it but never have. It is a legend, too, to the residents who knew it “way back when.” But to a committee of 201 of its citizens that has studied its problems for IVi years, San Francisco has become a discouraging city lacking in leadership and unity, losing its yeasty character and mellow charm to the exploitation of tourism and impersonal corporate life. Once proud to be called “the city that knows how” because of the phenomenal vigour with which it rebuilt from the ruins of the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco has been harshly appraised by its own — a select, blue-ribbon jury of its peers. The favourite image is that of a free-thinking, freedrinking, fun-loving culturally rich and socially advanced centre, with fine old buildings and a bohemian, melting-pot population of unique tolerance and creative energy. The committee has published a report that tears ragged holes in the myth. It expressed deep gloom for the city’s future, in a 90page critique which strikes at many sectors of the city’s life. The city’s policy of attracting large corporate headquarters, is condemned. It calls San Francisco’s politicians weak, responsive only to special interests, and too intent on re-election to make hard decisions for the city’s future. The report decries “the poor plight of the schools,” criticises the transportation system, and declares that rich people, the homosexual population, and other special groups are driving out “blue-collar” workers and middle class families, while the impoverished elderly and the underprivileged immigrants are being steadily compressed into crowded areas. The committee, which included many representa-

fives of the very institutions and interests being castigated by the report, rapped knuckles right and left. “There are too many different interests with strongly entrenched positions for consensus to be realised ... the ideas and energies of the city’s population have become too splintered and are no longer productive,” it said. Without expressing hope

of fulfilment, it listed some goals it would ike the city to reach. They included more attention to residents’ needs and less to making San Francisco a tourist haven or corporate centre. Preservation of the city’s unique architecture while avoiding the development of a megalopolis like New York or Los Angeles, was recommended as was the retention of the “rambunc-

tious quality and unusual spirit” of San Francisco. The report has emerged in a year in which a record Jnflux of tourists is expected and numerous large hotels and skyscraper office blocks are under construction. The city, with less than 700,000 permanent residents, already has more than 25,000 hotel and motel rooms considered suitable for tourist and convention use.