Berkeley has been a hotbed of political protest for a long, long time. While I lived there, the Oak Grove protests, (protesting the cutting down of some trees to build a stadium) were going on. Most of the fellow Berkeley residents I talked to were not in favor of the tree protesters, simply because the university was planting more trees in other places, so that there would actually be a net gain of trees due to the construction. Prior to Oak Grove, there were the protests surrounding the army recruitment offices. And prior to that, I'm sure there was another cause, all the way back to Vietnam, where Berkeley was also a famous center of protest.
The protests in San Francisco are very different from the ones in Berkeley. The San Francisco ones are basically concerned about the effect the Google buses are having on the composition of the neighborhood. The idea is that SF is perfect as-is and must not change. There were similar worries when gays started moving into SF in the 70s and 80s.
I think the reason why you're "talking past" me and the other people here is that you haven't really visited most of the neighborhoods outside SF, and you think they're all the same. Hence the apparent non-sequiturs like bringing up Oak Brook, Illinois, or trying to decide whether something is a "city" or a "town." The reality is that different places are different. Berkeley is not SF. San Mateo is not downtown San Jose. And downtown San Jose is not east San Jose.
An "us versus them" mentality, coupled with lack of knowledge of "them," lies behind a lot of ugly things in human nature. Do we really need to have more of it here? Maybe there are places outside of SF that are (gasp) as good as parts of SF. Maybe there are places in SF that kind of suck. Is it possible?
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Berkeley has been a hotbed of political protest for a long, long time. While I lived there, the Oak Grove protests, (protesting the cutting down of some trees to build a stadium) were going on. Most of the fellow Berkeley residents I talked to were not in favor of the tree protesters, simply because the university was planting more trees in other places, so that there would actually be a net gain of trees due to the construction. Prior to Oak Grove, there were the protests surrounding the army recruitment offices. And prior to that, I'm sure there was another cause, all the way back to Vietnam, where Berkeley was also a famous center of protest.
The protests in San Francisco are very different from the ones in Berkeley. The San Francisco ones are basically concerned about the effect the Google buses are having on the composition of the neighborhood. The idea is that SF is perfect as-is and must not change. There were similar worries when gays started moving into SF in the 70s and 80s.
I think the reason why you're "talking past" me and the other people here is that you haven't really visited most of the neighborhoods outside SF, and you think they're all the same. Hence the apparent non-sequiturs like bringing up Oak Brook, Illinois, or trying to decide whether something is a "city" or a "town." The reality is that different places are different. Berkeley is not SF. San Mateo is not downtown San Jose. And downtown San Jose is not east San Jose.
An "us versus them" mentality, coupled with lack of knowledge of "them," lies behind a lot of ugly things in human nature. Do we really need to have more of it here? Maybe there are places outside of SF that are (gasp) as good as parts of SF. Maybe there are places in SF that kind of suck. Is it possible?