John King comments in the SFGate on Joel Kotkin's San Fran "exposé". updated...
Update: SF's mayor looks to get some urbanism ideas from Chicago. When city leaders from across the country descend on Chicago in June for the U.S. Conference of Mayors, "I plan on taking thousands of Polaroids," said Mayor Gavin Newsom. Examiner
13 Comments
I think Kotkin's diagnosis of SF's emerging patterns of an ephemeral city are spot on, and feather-ruffled King could do more to highlight them with his own concerns rather than offer another "don't say those things about my city" response. King cites some superficial cultural cases as evidence for a resistant SF, but Kotkin is referring to the disneyification as the output for a shift much greater and less visible than the bitsy remains of SF's ethnos that King points out.
Kotkin's connection to the Mayors of Today are interesting too, as Newsom represents perhaps an Ephemeral City mayor breed.
"This indifference to old-fashioned reality might explain how Gavin Newsom, the mayor presiding over this spectacular economic and demographic drubbing, can be mentioned among the nation's best mayors by the geniuses at Time magazine. In the old days, mayors got kudos for creating jobs and building a middle class. Today, they evidently get them for good looks, personal charm and wanton acts of political correctness. "
the Polaroids, Bryan, he takes Polaroids.
yeah, he's just that cool.
lets hope he at least brings back some good shots of the Bean!... oh and that cool bike station too. wait, do they have signs posted about the public space copyright issue there? that might make a cool guerilla project for someone...
...But I have my problems with Kotkin, actually... who the hell are the "restless leeches living off them (the nomadic rich)"? In his article he says "No longer populated mainly by middle class families and a diverse set of industries, it is dominated by a wealthy elite, part-time sojourners, hordes of tourists and those that serve them.." Then he spends a lot of time on the first two groups of people and completely forgets, or conveniently ignores, " those that serve them..." What city do those masses belong to? They live, breathe and breed not where the nomads choose to go. But they have a city as well. For this third group, much like the forgoten third world, making a living wage is getting harder. That doesn't mean that a whole sector of people in the city, mainly Latino, are "ephemeral." Hardly. Are they the "leeches"? I find that entire sectors of the population are invisible to Kotkin in order for him to portray everyone else as these shallow, unworshipping, yoga-mat beings. Look at him say: "It even violates the holy grail of diversity: San Francisco is one of the few cities in America where the African American population is dropping." Selective eye-sight. San Francisco is hardly losing in the diversity sector. I doubt that the hispanic/latino numbers are dropping. And even if the city has a low percentage of children, like he points out, I'm pretty sure that the immigrants are the ones that keep that percentage even alive. In the end, he implies that there won't be another Silicon boom and that's a faulty assumption. His final prediction is that tired one about the (expensive) city-as-theme-park. That might be only partially true. The people who keep the theme park moving are the ones who are building a real city from within the underbelly of the ephemeral one.
Kotkin has got a whole thing about religion, morals and cities... He despises the secularization of cities. He sees religion as a central part of city formation. I, personally, could not care less. The problem is that people in the coastal cities are practicing religion and it is playing a part in city formation. It's just the kind of worship that he doesn't recognize. It's the religion of the Equinox sports clubs, the mishmash of Eastern practices filtered into the yogas, the spas and the tea places and yes, that other cult he despises, museums.
oh, I even have more to say... Because it really bothers me how he thinks that the marketing of the arts and culture is any different from previous eras when the draw was religious pilgramige. The piglrim was also a consumer and the church was as much an economic and develpment powerhouse as the modern museum is a cornerstone of urban renewal.
Well put Jav. from my very meager delvings into Kotkin, it seems more like he is just microfocussing on a demographic shift as it challenges the terrain from a more global level, he is mapping patterns, and is right i think about a lot of shifts SF is undergoing, culturally in ultimately a generic and increasingly exclusive way.
I certainly need to read more though, but i like your point about his ignorance to real culture, as set up by his own model for classifying the ephemeral city. and the religosity of his experience suggests certain personal projections, perhaps his work becomes almost accusatory, or overwrought with bitter envy? his may be an old critique refreshed, i am not sure.
but much of what he says is really about SF, because of its size and position, nature of its economy or relation to the economy, and the host of old and new outsiders it serves, and in relation to the transient nature of our population. SF is barely hanging onto affordability, affordability may be the only anchor for preventing this city from getting away form itself, in SF you wouldn't really notice the drop offs in diversity or multiethnicity unless you lived here and understood the local war on the poor to middle class, the spatial economic layers are wrestling into place like plate tectonics, and this new image of SF urbanism I am not sure resembles ideal or sustainable. the working class that does anchor SF is constantly being challenged, they are far from safe, without rent control the entire landscape of SF changes. i am not sure if he guages the ephemeral city as anything brand new though, but more as an alarming culmination, where culture keeps reculminating in a ratcheting ascent to dillution, translating to worse exclusivity, generic cultural programming, and snobby-cool self-clonedom. i think he has offered a valid stencil for guaging the costs to local culture by fixing on an ephemeral economy, that have been brewing all along, he is just classifying the latest stage of pedling global urbanism.
I really need to do some more serious reading though ....
But the entire concept of the "Ephemeral City" is just itching for a remake by some crazed Chamber of Commerce types and their PR crazed minions as why their city is so superior to the others offering discount hotel rates for their latest convention. Any city that kicks the homeless and ignores the working class and has an opera will qualify. That Florida guy has now targeted Estonia as a "hot" place for the "creative class" to congregate.
As a former east bay dude (Oakland) we always thought it was crazy that you had to pay to get into SF but it was free to get out... just like a theme park. Man, if they had charged both ways on those bridges they could have built some Caltrava or Rogers East Bay bridge about 6 years ago...
What's the line? SF is the city that knows how? It might, but the creative class might just be looking over its' collective shoulder as they trundle down the streets of that chocolate truffle infested intellectual ghost town.
The vanity in thinking SF is unique is the entire problem. The commonality with other cities is more interesting. Uh, you're all being screwed.
do i smell a "view" brewing?
on a related note.., the mall goes undercover:
http://www.slate.com/id/2116246/
on the type of back room development that is taking place in SF, pushing million dollar condos for out of town elites, around baseball and stem cell research, instead of critially needed affordable housing.
starting to sound a lot like Billyburg/Greenpoint, BKN.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.