Quote:
Originally Posted by eburress
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.
|
Part of the problem is SD has the perfect storm of NIMBYs on both sides of the political spectrum. In other cities you have conservatives who are pro business, growth, and development, but here the conservatives are more old cranks who moved here from the Midwest, many are retired military, and they don’t want anyone else coming here to “spoil” their paradise. They believe “if you don’t build it, they won’t come” which we all know is faulty logic.
In other cities you have liberals who are all for density, and thinking big and bold with regards to iconic architecture and investing in infrastructure. But in SD, you have old crank liberals who actually think like the old crank conservatives I mentioned above when it comes to development. These aren’t the progressive minds fueling the tech industry in the Bay Area, or even the arts in other cities, these are dried-up NIMBYs who choose SD because they think LA, SF and NYC are too busy and fast for them.
Anyway, I don’t mean to be too negative or stereotype, but these are my honest impressions of SD compared to other large cities. I CHOOSE to live here because I think the positives outweighs the negatives, but I’m also not going to pretend SD is managed well like some posters are suggesting. I agree with you, it’s not. I mean look at all the corruption and problems with SANDAG, who can say that’s managed well. The politics here, and I stress again on BOTH SIDES, are ridiculous.
Here’s an example of what I mean: the people promoting the 4am booze curfew are Democrats in the legislature (the author of the bill is from the Bay Area). Democrats across the state support it. But one of our Democratic representatives, Lorena Gonzales, is apparently a large part of the reason SD isn’t included. She is actually quoted as saying “nothing good happens after midnight” when asked about her opposition to the bill. It sounds like she doesn’t even like having a 2am curfew. So she goes against her liberal colleagues and sides with the old cranks who want SD to be a sleepy bedroom community. It’s like SD has its own brand of old crank NIMBYism that straddles the Republicans and Democrats here.