City Brights, SF Gate's online column written by "Bay Area luminaries," tackled the "paradox" of San Francisco planning yesterday with an essay by Michael Cohen, the director of San Francisco Economic & Workforce Development. Speak more of this paradox, you say. Well, as a city, we love change, innovation, reinvention — but we also love our city just the way it is and don't need or want to "reinvent" it. "At the same time," writes Cohen, "growth is not only inevitable, we should embrace it. ... Stasis is not an option." Perhaps the challenge, then, is in finding a balance between the two desires? Does the city give too much leeway to condo-happy developers, or do we listen too much to obstructing preservationists? Dunno... the answer to this and perhaps other questions implicitly raised is simply to build in otherwise undeveloped or postindustrial areas: Mission Bay, the Transbay District, Treasure Island, Hunters Point, etc. Ah! Paradox: solved.
· Solving San Francisco's Planning Paradox [SF Gate]
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