In Defense of San Francisco

In Paul Graham’s famous essay Cities and Ambition, there’s this idea that some cities are centers for some type of ambition, and when you come to one of those cities, you can feel the message the city is sending to you. For example, the message that you can feel in New York is “You should be richer,” while Berkeley’s is “You should live better,” Pa... See more

Anyhow—we shouldn’t even be having this discussion .

We’re the richest country in the world. Heck, California is one of the richest countries in the world. And, in favor of our shitty rugged individualism , we have let the greater good go by the wayside. To put it kindly.

Melisse and I observed that—at least—in San Francisco, we could roll out of t... See more

“The ultimate question that I have: how can we create cities that are big enough to give people economic opportunity, but small enough to give people love and others in their lives that touch their hearts?”

After all, cities are where people are supposed to have serendipitous encounters—as the writer and critic Jane Jacobs said, “The metropolis provides what otherwise could be given only by traveling; namely, the strange.” By comparison, the cliché goes, people become more atomized the farther they move from urban environments into the clinical, safe,... See more