“One time I was in Stanford and I seen this guy get his head run over. He was walking around all alive with his brains hanging out, and we were all like, ‘Man!’ Really, it’s true.” So said the painter of George’s BBQ on 24th and Capp in San Francisco this morning.
Today I embarked on another outreach campaign for Sunday Streets in the Mission. SS is a city-wide campaign to encourage people to get outside and enjoy their neighborhoods as they’ve never seen them before — without cars! It’s also a way to bridge neighborhoods and to encourage visiting communities that one would otherwise never encounter. This year, Sunday Streets took it to the Embarcadero, the Bayview, and now it’s in the Mission (with future events along the Great Hwy).
This classic idea of building better cities has come with some opposition. Critics say that Sunday Streets is gentrifying the Mission and the Bayview even more by showcasing the vibrant neighborhoods as novel places to live, which encourages rent gouging and yuppie shopping — just compare Philz $3 lattes to Jelly Donuts $1.25 Hazelnut brew….
But haven’t the Mission and the Bayview already been changing? Don’t programs like SS support local businesses and give the communities better reputations in the public sphere? And don’t car-free zones encourage safe play? I know I don’t want to end up like that dude from Stanford….
