1) Neighborhood Name Update! NoPa Makes Cut, Dogpatch No: Neighborhood Name Update! NoPa Makes Cut, Dogpatch No: "Actually, Barbary Coast is an excellent name, being that the Financial District is the home of the local money pirates and casino gamblers.
'In the West, the name commonly evokes the Barbary pirates and slave traders based on that coast, who attacked ships and coastal settlements in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic and captured and traded slaves from Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.'
Sounds good! :)"
2) Head to Head: Brick & Timber or Victorian for $899,000: "House. Especially since the condo isn't a two bedroom at all. You see, I was raised in a time when 'rooms' had these things called 'walls'. Just call me old fashion.
You put me, my wife and my teenage son in that condo and one of us would kill another one of us inside of three months."
3) The Overdesigned City: "...Dear Dwell, if there was ever an example of fussy over-design leading to a physical space so controlled, so tight-assed, that the only creative thing left to do it is to break out the paint ball gun and have at the walls painted oh so deliberately in cream of asparagus from Ralph Lauren paint, its the very places celebrated in the pages of -- you got it -- Dwell. As for cities becoming over designed in the fashion you propose? Hogwash. From Amsterdam to Paris, Venice to Venice Beach, the process of refining a city (or town) block by block with deference toward the peccadillos of the designer's whimsy, is only for the best. On the other hands, when city planners themselves jump into the fray, and try to gesso the canvas of the town with mind-boggling zoning schemes, now that can lead to a rash of shit buildings, as we have seen here in the Fillmore and swaths of SOMA. So to close, dearest luddite dwellites, ask not what your Corian countertop can do for you, but what you can do on your Corian Countertop. Besides staging fruit."
4) Soon to Market: Glen Park Trophy Property: "...whatever happened to free will and to each there own? If you prefer to live in a 10 year old house, drive a Model T, use a dial phone and a typewriter, please, go right ahead. Me and my family prefer to live in the 21st century, we drive a hybrid, use cell phones and computers and we like clean, simple, minimal, creatively detailed houses. We are not "showing off", unless you think good design is somehow a crime. We are "experimental" to be sure, but we are working hard to save resources and use technology to achieve this. Our goal is not to "be noticed", but to create livable, warm, yes warm, comfortable houses that have interesting space, lots of light, expressive and creative materials, etc."
5) Thanking the Guy Who Stopped the Bike Plan: "...I walk, drive, and bike (roughly in that order), and sorry to say, San Franciscans are terrible at all three. Too many pedestrians wander aimlessly into streets without looking. Too many Muni/BART riders step on/off trains and don't move aside, thereby blocking the line of people behind them. Too many drivers can't be bothered to stop at signs/red lights/human beings in their way, and still gab on cell phones illegally, which risks their and our lives. And too many bikers are either sloppy or daredevils who don't wear helmets (I'm not saying "most," just "too many"). Ticket and fine them all!..."