Real Estate, Take II
Yes, home prices here are high, but we could be worse off. We could be La Jolla.
Coldwell Banker's national survey of 2,200-square foot homes finds that La Jolla is the most expensive place in the US: A four-bedroom pad there costs an average of $2.12 million. San Francisco's four-bedrooms are practically cheap by comparison, at (only) $1.36 million.
SF is (only) the 6th most expensive place in the country. Neighbor Palo Alto is 4th, and San Mateo 10th.
Our state, in fact, is quite a stand-out. Of the 10 costliest markets in the country, only two (Greenwich, CT, ranked 3rd, and Boston, 7th) are outside California. The Golden State also boasts the biggest price gap, a nearly $1.96 million difference between La Jolla's four-bedrooms and Lancaster's (a steal at $165,205).
An even bigger steal is Grayling, MI, which Coldwell Banker calls "the most affordable market in America"--you can swoop up the same sized house for a mere $112,675.
Where does NYC fit? The study excludes Manhattan because of its lack of sprawling single-family homes.
Real Estate: The Price of Living in Paradise
Many out-of-towners I've talked to can't believe that multiple offers and cash bids above the asking price are still common in SF. The headlines about incredible housing deals just don't apply to us, unfortunately. Last month, 536 homes were sold in the city, with a median price of $650,000--only a tad less than the median of $675,000 in September 2008, according to real estate reporting service MDA DataQuick.
For the Bay Area as a whole, the median price paid in September was $365,000, about 9 percent lower than the price a year earlier, MDA DataQuick says. State-wide, the median price was $251,000, down 11.3 percent from September 2008.
Rent continues to decline. San Francisco rent--which averages $2,270 a month--has dropped 5.6 percent during the past year, says the SF Chronicle, citing a real estate report.
That's of little solace to tenants, though, who've faced a 26.4 percent surge in rent over the last four years.
SF's Braininess, Part II
The SF-Oakland-San Jose area's IQ is 165 (out of a max 200), putting us second in the country in smarts.
The Daily Beast news website's survey examined the per capita college and grad school degrees, nonfiction book sales, universities and voter turnout in 55 U.S. metropolitan areas with populations of at least 1 million. Raleigh-Durham, N.C. was the smartest, with an IQ of 170.
But the ratings came with a mind-blowing conclusion: The Bay Area fell short of Raleigh-Durham "because of a relatively low score in political engagement," according to the news site run by former New Yorker editor Tina Brown. The Beast admits its methodology is "flawed" and plans to refine it--maybe next time it should check out our persistent sidewalk petition-signature solicitors, letters to the editors and Civic Center rallies.
We're Hot Stuff
--To Visit
We're the best city in the U.S. to visit, according to the Condé Nast Traveler's 2009 Readers' Choice Awards.
Actually, nothing new here; this is the 17th year in a row that the magazine's readers have awarded this title to SF. Our restaurants are a big factor, but we also rate high in atmosphere/ambiance, culture and sights, friendliness, accommodation and shopping.
After us come Charleston, S.C.; Santa Fe, N.M.; New York; and Chicago.
--For Brains, or Brain Studies
In neurotechnology (the study of the cranium and nervous system), the Bay Area is the world's leader, ahead of such rivals as Boston, New York, London and Los Angeles.
The Neurotechnology Industry Organization (NIO)'s ranking considers a place's neuroscience-centric companies, local risk capital and related infrastructure (universities, hospitals, research institutions). Neuroscience is big business; nearly 2 billion people worldwide suffer from neurological disease and mental illness, NIO says.
Naysayers might grumble that SF had a home-team advantage, though, because NIO is based here.
State Apologizes for Past Anti-Chinese Discrimination
My freedom withheld; how can I bear to talk about it?
--Anonymous
Barred from San Francisco in the early 1900s, a Chinese emigrant wrote that poem on the barrack walls at the Angel Island Immigration Station. He was being detained and interrogated because under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, no Chinese were allowed to enter the US except merchants, diplomats, students and children of American citizens.
If the Chinese poet got past the Exclusion Act and into the country, he'd find other racist laws preventing him from owning property and marrying whites.
California has now formally apologized to the poet and tens of thousands of other Chinese. The state legislature adopted a resolution expressing deep regret for the persecution of Chinese immigrants who worked the gold mines and were recruited to build the Transcontinental Railroad starting in the mid-1800s. Other ethnic groups resented the Chinese, who were willing to accept less pay, and the outrage led to anti-Chinese riots and the passage of the Exclusion Act.
About 175,000 Chinese, mostly male, were detained for an average of three weeks at Angel Island Immigration Station, which operated from 1910 until 1940. The majority was eventually allowed into San Francisco, about two miles away, but some Chinese were held on the island for months and even years. Many detainees wrote or carved their thoughts on the barrack walls, and thanks to a meticulous restoration effort, about 200 poems are legible. The barracks and other facilities, closed during the multi-year restoration, were reopened a few months ago for public tours.
Assemblyman Paul Fong (D-Cupertino), whose grandfather was held at Angel Island for two months, co-sponsored the California bill. He's taking it to the next level, proposing that Congress officially apologize for the Chinese Exclusion Act--the only federal law to prohibit immigration purely based on race.
Related: Chinese-American history
The Art of Homelessness
San Francisco laws might be unfriendly toward the homeless, as a survey by homeless advocates concludes, but we're not turning a blind eye toward them. They're the focus of a stirring show at the California Historical Society, Hobos to Street People: Artists' Responses to Homelessness From the New Deal to the Present. The exhibit of works by more than 40 artists expresses the inhumanity, despair, inequity and complexity of homelessness, sometimes by satirizing the sanguine icons painted by Norman Rockwell and others.
Hanging next to each other are two photos shot in California. One, by Dorothea Lange, is of a weary mother and her bedraggled young children in 1939; the second shows migrant farm workers in 2005 living in a tent on a dirt hill. The clothing has changed, but otherwise the photos aren't that different.
Although the exhibit includes dark shades and woodblock printing that convey somberness and tragedy, Jane "In Vain" Winkelman uses eye-popping colors and animation-like drawing in showing desperation turned into nothing-to-lose outrage. "Feed the Poor or We'll Eat the Rich!" is the chant of the crowd in one of her paintings. Winkelman began learning art in a Tenderloin training program when she was homeless.
San Francisco artist Jos Sances says he occasionally parodies Thomas Kinkade's work. His Holiday Home looks like a Kinkade, depicting a Christmastime house party glowing with old-fashioned cheer--except for the hunched figure pushing a shopping cart in the foreground. And Sances says the doors in the painting, ala an Advent calendar, cover subliminal messages. Once you see them, though, they're difficult to forget.
Hobos to Street People is a multi-layered message that'll cause you to think. It runs through Aug. 15.
SF Ranked 7th Meanest Toward Homeless
Several adjectives come to mind when I think of San Francisco, but "mean" isn't one of them. But apparently we are--er, the city is--when it comes to homeless people. A national survey by advocacy groups for the homeless ranks San Fran seventh among the "Ten Meanest Cities" in treating the homeless as criminals.
The ranking is based on criteria such as the number and enforcement of anti-homeless laws in the city (e.g., prohibiting eating or sitting in public areas) and the city's "general political climate" toward homeless people. LA tops the mean list. Berkeley is No. 10.
In the report by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and the National Coalition for the Homeless, San Francisco is criticized for energetically citing people for blocking sidewalks, camping and drinking in public, which the organizations say is costly and ineffective. From 2004 to March 2008, San Francisco spent about $9.8 million to issue 56,500 such "quality of life" citations that targeted homeless people--money that would've been better spent on housing, detox programs or counseling, the study says.
In a similar survey three years ago, San Francisco was No. 11 of the 20 meanest cities. But we're not the only ones who've become less friendly: Nationwide since 2006, there has been an 11% increase in prohibitions against loitering and a 7% increase in prohibitions against "camping."
Are we that uncharitable? Does our relatively balmy weather and open-to-all reputation attract disproportionately more homeless people than the city can handle--whether hospitably or inhospitably? If so, then what? What do you think?