New Loft Housing Boosts San Francisco’s Tenderloin
by Randy Shaw‚
May. 23‚ 2013
In July, a dynamic new San Francisco building opens with lofts, city views, a rooftop movie theater and barbecue pit, and a ground-floor café---and it is in the Tenderloin. After a long development process at the former site of KGO television studios, the Lofts at Seven is preparing for occupancy. It joins the recently opened Philz Coffee at Larkin and the renovation of the historic YMCA at Leavenworth in the revival of Golden Gate Avenue, whose steep decline in the 1990’s negatively impacted the entire neighborhood. The Lofts at Seven revives the Tenderloin’s historic legacy both by referencing the KGO-7 building and by its cutting-edge architecture, which reflects the area’s unifying of style and grit. The project is one of many that are helping to redefine the Tenderloin as a happening place.
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What “Mad Men” Can Teach Us About Employment in 2013
by Michael Bernick‚
May. 23‚ 2013
Mad Men is one of the few television programs, outside of the work-based reality programs, that takes employment and business seriously. Many of the storylines center on the business activities of Sterling Cooper Draper Price (SCDP), the advertising agency in New York at which Don Draper, Roger Sterling and the other main characters are employed.
The 1960s in which Mad Men is set was a different job market than the present in California and the United States. The California unemployment rate was below 5% throughout 1968, going down to 4.1% in December 1968. Our aerospace, banking, shipping and retail trade giants dominated their industries in the 1960s, and were able to offer the stable employment more widespread in the 1950s and 1960s California. [more]->
CRPD, Rejected by U.S., Brings Access Victory in Hungary
by Lainey Feingold‚
May. 23‚ 2013
Szilvia Nyusti and Péter Takács are blind advocates in Hungary who wanted the largest bank in their country to install Talking ATMs so they could bank independently. After all, they paid the same fees as sighted customers, why shouldn’t they have the same access to banking services and technology? After a five-year legal battle in Hungary, Nyusti and Takács took their claims to the United Nations. Earlier this month, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities issued an historic ruling finding that Hungary violated the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD) by failing to ensure that Hungarian banks had Talking ATMs. While the Republican Party blocked ratification of this very same treaty in the United States in December 2012, it is great to see the treaty bringing equality to people with disabilities in countries that have recognized the treaty’s value.
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Hack’s 191 Highlights Skewed Statistics in Baseball’s Pre-Steroid Era
by Randy Shaw‚
May. 23‚ 2013
Baseball is a statistically-driven sport, which is why the 1998-2010 steroid period wreaked such havoc with fans. First, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds all broke Roger Maris’ cherished 1961 homerun record. Bonds then exceeded Henry Aaron’s career total. And then the supposedly “honest” star who would restore integrity to the career homer record---Alex Rodriquez— proved himself among the biggest cheaters of all. But after reading Bill Chastain’s Hack's 191: Hack Wilson and His Incredible 1930 Season, I realize that baseball’s stat problems well predated the steroid era. As much as I thought I knew about 1920’s and 30’s baseball, I had no idea of the unusual hitting explosion of the 1930 season. And while Chastain wrote his book because he felt Wilson deserved greater acclaim for his ongoing RBI record, he instead proved the opposite. I’m glad that Hack has the record and is in the Hall of Fame, but he and other stars whose hitting stats were unduly embellished by the live ball of 1930 have records as tarnished as the steroid era---though Wilson and his colleagues were not cheating.
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Garcetti, Backed by Tenant Groups, Wins LA Mayor’s Race
by Randy Shaw‚
May. 22‚ 2013
Eric Garcetti has won a 53%-46% victory in the Los Angeles mayor's race following a tough campaign against Wendy Greuel. Greuel sought to become the city’s first female mayor, but was a bland candidate from the Valley who failed to energize women voters. Although the media framed the candidates as ideologically similar--- the New York Times claimed they “did little to differentiate themselves on major issues like jobs and the city budget”--- the city’s big landlord and realtor groups backed Greuel while tenant groups like the Coalition for Economic Survival supported Garcetti. Greuel pledged to decimate the city’s vastly improved housing code enforcement program, while Garcetti has long backed tenants and affordable housing. I wrote on April 3 that Greuel faced an “uphill battle,” and that New York City’s Christine Quinn, another real estate backed moderate woman candidate, had a greater chance of success. Quinn’s chances still look good, particularly because she does not face an opponent as strong as Garcetti.
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How America Became a Third World Country (2013-2023)
by Mattea Kramer and Jo Comerford‚
May. 22‚ 2013
The streets are so much darker now, since money for streetlights is rarely available to municipal governments. The national parks began closing down years ago. Some are already being subdivided and sold to the highest bidder. Reports on bridges crumbling or even collapsing are commonplace. The air in city after city hangs brown and heavy (and rates of childhood asthma and other lung diseases have shot up), because funding that would allow the enforcement of clean air standards by the Environmental Protection Agency is a distant memory. Public education has been cut to the bone, making good schools a luxury and, according to the Department of Education, two of every five students won’t graduate from high school.
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There Are Plenty of Reasons Why Parents May Read More With Their Daughters
by Nanette Fondas‚
May. 22‚ 2013
Understanding a new study that finds girls get more reading time with their parents than boys
May is the month parents freak out about children's academic progress. It could be their eight-year-old's below grade-level reading; or their middle-schooler's weak standardized test scores; or their high-school student's failure to keep up with the Jones' whiz kid who somehow aces three AP classes while playing two varsity sports and a musical instrument. Parental anxiety boosts demand for information about how to give kids a head start early in life, in the hope of avoiding academic trouble later.How well and how much children read, in particular, is a hot topic at playgrounds swarming with toddlers, whose parents often intensely invest in their intellectual and social development, education, and well-being. In a new study, Michael Baker at the University of Toronto and Kevin Milligan at the University of British Columbia examine how such parents interact with their pre-school children. Baker and Milligan analyze surveys done in the United States, Canada, and Britain to delineate how parents spend that coveted one-on-one time, for example, in play, sports, reading, talking, singing, or arts and crafts.
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As Cities Prosper, Poor People Relocate to Suburbs
by Randy Shaw‚
May. 21‚ 2013
According to a new Brookings Institution report, the number of low-income people living in suburbs increased 67% between 2000 and 2011, altering longstanding perceptions of a rising middle-class fleeing from cities to achieve the American Dream. Reasons for the shift include urban gentrification, the foreclosure crisis, greater access to suburban affordable housing and the rapid expansion of suburban areas. Paris and other European cities have long had the wealthy living in central city areas and the poor outside the city’s core, but the post-World War II growth of suburbia sent the United States in the other direction. This shift of the middle-class to the suburbs and corresponding central city decline continued until the the late 1970’s, and urban America's dramatic comeback continues at full speed today. Now that cities offer walkable, bicycle-friendly, public transit-available neighborhoods with desirable restaurants and a high quality of life, the poor are being shunted to car-dependent suburban areas in economic decline. Activists now face the challenge of helping the suburban poor while still pushing for public housing residents and those living in non-gentrified urban neighborhoods to get the resources they deserve.
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Fighting Big Food With Social Media
by Dana Woldow‚
May. 21‚ 2013
Big food and beverage companies are spending less on advertising their products to kids, and yet their presence in children's lives feels greater than ever. How can that be? Two words - social media. Using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to bring their message to children is vastly cheaper than traditional media, and it may not even be perceived by youngsters as "advertising", making it all the more insidious. Now one fed-up mom is fighting back, taking advantage of social media's low cost and ease of distribution to get her message about processed food out to kids.
A December 2012 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report on food marketing to children and adolescents examined data from 44 major food and beverage companies. Comparing 2009 spending to 2006, the report found "total spending on food marketing to youth dropped 19.5% in 2009, to $1.79 billion. Spending on youth-directed television advertising fell 19.5%, while spending on new media, such as online and viral marketing, increased 50%." [more]->
How Far Does 2/3 Go?
by Brian Leubitz ‚
May. 21‚ 2013
When the Legislature hit the magical 2/3 mark after the November 2012 election, a lot of progressives started dreaming big. Prop 30 just passed, and a statement had been made for a progressive vision of California. A majority of Californians had just voted to raise their taxes. Whether thanks to the strong field campaign around Prop 32 or through changing demographics of a presidential election, the Democrats gained big on the Legislative front.
May 23, 2013
