[eburress]

Originally Posted by spoonman

The point is not that there is anything wrong with SD in and of itself, it’s that SD is content to let itself get behind other cities when it doesn’t have to be that way. Look at Seattle, it is roughly the same size, but is thought of much more highly on a national level. I’d rather live in SD, but much of SD’s situation is self inflicted. The airport (although improving), height limit (probably only important to us geeks, but places like Austin having taller buildings is just sad and lowers SD’s stature), losing Chargers and NBA, potentially losing conventions due to ineptitude, lost leadership position in LRT, lost airline service at Carlsbad, etc. I’ve lived in a number of other cities as well, but have never seen a city mess up so completely and thoroughly. Perhaps what is remarkable is that SD is great despite all of this. But damn, this stuff is just hard to watch.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s an unfortunate irony that such a well-positioned city is so poorly managed, and it doesn’t help that much of its populace seems to prefer stagnation to growth. I’m constantly frustrated by what goes on here but despite the best efforts of the bunglers and NIMBYs, there are still occasional glimmers of hope.