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Old Posted Nov 11, 2013, 8:11 PM
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tech12 tech12 is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Oakland
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JWS View Post
The waterfront should be preserved for affordable housing for teachers, artists and others, Agnos said, and if Lee won't budge from what he calls his "legacy project," the same group that defeated the 8 Washington condos will sponsor a ballot measure to defeat the Warriors arena, too, he said.

I had to stop and pause to make sure this wasn't an Onion style satire piece. This is unreal. I have to stop following SF development, as much as I love urban planning and architecture, we have to be the ONLY city in America that actively and aggressively fights world class projects like the Warriors Arena.
And its not even "the city" that fights these projects, but rather a minority of mostly wealthy NIMBYs who think they're entitled to manipulate the city for their own benefit, and who use fantasy scenarios (teachers, artists, affordable housing!), scare tactics, and lies to con others into backing them...because they know they'd get little support if they admitted it was about preserving their views and property values, and admitted that opposing development will actually make it harder for the poor/middle class to live here (it's great for property owners though!). And of course there's the other minority that simply thinks anything above 4 stories is ugly and bad, and/or think that we live in make-believe land, where literally every single new housing unit must be affordable, even when it's on prime, ultra-expensive waterfront land. And some people will also vote against what the city itself is backing, just because "the government is bad and corrupt".

Meanwhile, the majority of more reasonable city residents who are either supportive or ambivalent to increased development pay less attention to any of it to begin with, don't pay hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars on scary lie-filled propaganda/ballot measures, etc, don't vote, and then we all get stuck with the horrible result.

But, in regards to the Warriors arena, I think that in SF there are enough basketball fans and people who would like a new arena for things like concerts, that once the they hear some people are trying to kill said arena, they'll get off their asses for once and vote to save it.
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