Newly-elected San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is coming out of the gate strong on what's probably the dominant issue in local politics there: the city's intractable homeless population.

This Sunday SF Chron article lays out what he's up to; real progress may occur. A key policy objective is low-cost "supportive housing" for the 60 to 66 percent of the local homeless population NOT defined as "hard-core."

I don't know what impressions conservatives and moderates have of the City by the Bay. But despite its pockets of squalor, I find it one of the most magical places around.

I say that having traversed almost every last inch of (three-quarters) of San Francisco on foot, and via public transit in the last several years; sometimes with one or two of our kids in tow.

(My first visit was in The Summer of Love, although I was a bit too young to get in on the action).

More here and here on my impressions of San Francisco and the body politic, from my regular, alternate-Wednesday, opinion section guest columns in The Seattle Times. (Reminder - the free Times registration is easy, so just do it!).

I prefer Seattle as a home, and place to raise kids. But SF's pulsating vibe is like few other U.S. cities. As in Seattle, you have to get away from the usual tourist haunts. It's all about the neighborhoods. Bernal Heights, Portero Hill, The Mission District, Noe Valley, Sunset, and the tree-less, multi-culti splendor of The Richmond. I could go on.

One great spot, north of Geary Blvd., way out west, is Ansel Adams' old neighborhood, Sea Cliff - with great Bay, Marin headlands and Golden Gate Bridge views, from China Beach. Unfortunately, we have no friends in Sea Cliff, or Pacific Heights.

Some SF friends of ours live right in the Mission. They love their neighborhood and city, but aren't too crazy about the discarded needles and gunfire in the alley behind their over-priced, cramped home.

Former Board of Supervisors member Newsom was a key political ally of termed-out Mayor Willie Brown, a classic wheeler-dealer hated by "progressives" for his coziness with developers and his oily political personnae. Yet Newsom, though also supported by the city's business establishment, is no Brown clone. And he's young.

Watch Newsom. I think he's ready to take names, kick butt, and make this great city even greater.

Gavin's got to be eventually charting a course to higher office. And he's a Democrat who managed to survive a Gore endorsement, beating rabid Green Matt Gonzalez in the final December run-off.

Maybe Newsom dukes it out with The Governator in a few years?

There'd be a contest. I like Arnold so far. He's really trying. Who, exactly, keeps all their campaign promises, anyway? To skeptics, I say, track his performance, outreach and coalition-building. Then the results. Same with Newsom.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at February 1, 2004 06:00 PM

---

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.rosenblog.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/20

---