I’ve loved SPUR ever since I moved to San Francisco, but this SF Examiner interview with Gabriel Metcalf, its Executive Director, had me floored.  The narrative is not particularly fascinating but Metcalf is spot on when it comes to density, and not just as an abstract idea, but adding density here, in this very place (trying to convey this with a Rachel Maddow grin).   You can see in the comments to the original article that this is not so popular.

One of the biggest issues for Metcalf is the lack of development in The City, which he said is the root of most problems. The City would be much more affordable if housing at all price levels was allowed to proceed without San Francisco’s strict zoning codes, he said.

Metcalf says making it affordable for suburban home dwellers to move to The City will solve some social and environmental problems, a philosophy that has been reinforced after having children.

[...]

San Francisco also needs to focus on fighting climate change. We can accomplish that by channeling all Bay Area growth in San Francisco and by making public transportation so appealing and enticing that it encourages people to leave their cars at home.

[...]

The buildings of The City, the infrastructure of a city, changes over time. Cities are not static unless you want to make it a museum piece.

How twentysomethings are coping with the recession, an article by Emily Bazelon in Slate:

Apprehension, with an enduring edge to it. That’s the general mood among the twentysomethings I’ve heard from during the last several weeks in response to a question I asked about how the recession is making them feel. The fear isn’t just about the present but about the long-term future. Octopuslike, it has many tentacles. But the most strangling aspect, I think, is the perception of my Gen Y e-mailers that they dutifully set up their lives based on assumptions that suddenly no longer apply. They’re anxious because they can’t tell what the new rules of the game will be—or because they think they can tell, and they don’t like what they see coming at them.

The recession is one of the primary reasons I have been so quiet on myurbanrevolution.com this year.  Not only has it been difficult to delight in my usual interests long enough to transmit them from my brain through the keyboard and into something intelligible on the screen, but it’s been a time of inner retreat, of reevaluating priorities, and of focusing on survival (in both a completely serious and simultaneously non-Darwinian sense).  I’ve always been a big planner (I knew I wanted to go to Stanford at age six then implemented) and consequently a big worrier, so my “healthy” short-term post-graduation approach focused on adjusting to the working world and positioning myself within it without much regard for the future in financial terms beyond the next rent payment or so.  This was partially based on the prospect of eventually attending graduate school which would put me into so much debt that any saving I did in advance would be negligible based upon the income I was at least initially making.  It was also a lifestyle choice because I refused to completely postpone enjoyment.  (Aside: last year, friends of mine in the Class of 2003 returned to the farm for their five year reunion to find that five names of 1600 or so already had been marked “deceased” in their programs.  It’s foolish to hang your happiness only on the future, something overachievers are wont to do.)  After all, this was what I had worked so hard for my whole life–to get to this point of opportunity and complete self-determination.

I took for granted that I would always have an income so long as I chose–and a growing one at that so that all things would become increasingly possible and life increasingly better with time.  If anything, I was training myself in patience, doing my best to tone out the nagging frustration that, for all my potential and for all my success, it would be a long road to the urban American Dream.

Out of nowhere, a paycheck became the new status symbol.  That’s not to say I hadn’t thought at length about the flaws in our economic system (how can my generation buy houses off of our parents’ generation if the houses had quadrupled or more in supposed value over twenty years without corresponding increases in income or relative income?), but there was no particular reason to think it would fall apart at this specific moment more than any other.

At the beginning of my awareness of the recession, I had actually already started a semi-serious savings plan, but the wrong kind!  Based on what would normally be considered the sound advice of my elder coworkers, halfway through the year, I started aggressively withholding from my paycheck in a 401k which focused on long-term security to the detriment of my short term security.  This offered both tax benefits and prevented me from deciding one day that my savings would buy a great new piece of technology or furniture or group rental of a ski cabin for the winter.  Fortunately, I was smart enough to funnel my 401k earnings into cash and bonds since it was already apparent that even low risk stocks were not performing.  Since early November, I have been in panic mode–thinking of little but saving ten more dollars here, twenty more dollars there, needing to build a reserve fund and fast.  I count my savings in terms of how many months of rent I am ahead.  I refused to let go of my 401k plans which made this all the more difficult as it did not feel like there was a lot of room for improvement in my monthly budget given the fixed costs of modern urban life (rent, health care, utilities, cell phone, basic hair and make up).

But my, I have learned to live cheaply.

I wouldn’t say I am at ease now, but I have adjusted my expectations and done what I can to spin the challenges endured so far and those that lie ahead in the most positive light possible.  As Mayor Gavin Newsom said in a recent speech I attended, everyone always says we’re in a crisis when in fact it’s only a crisis before you have a plan.  On the bright side, for those of us not too invested in the status quo, the economic adjustment (such as housing prices) will ultimately benefit us.  So long as I have a job, my buying power has actually increased for now ($30 for a full tank of gas, for example, though that’s negative progress for the sustainability movement).  Already, newspapers are saying that longtime renters in San Francisco who never expected to own a home finally are considering it.  Similarly, the rental market has gotten less cutthroat than it used to be.  These days it has become socially acceptable to reference your budget in declining invitations to expensive activities (which I used to consider social obligations) whose enjoyment does not outweigh their cost.  I’ve always thought about life a little in terms of an operating expense budget (how much does it cost per day to breathe, for example, if you have asthma?).  Previously, if I explained that ordering a bottle of wine with dinner would surely throw my $16/day food budget, I would have come off as anal and perhaps a bit odd.  Today I might be respected for my self-control.

I’ve curbed wants so that they don’t feel unfulfilled.  I attended a black tie wedding and put the desire for a new dress out of mind.  I cut back on Christmas gifts and made some of them.  I haven’t completely stopped eating out (take out is still a good option, especially when dishes can be split or left overs can be made into lunch), but I learned to cook dishes good enough to distract me from the desire to do so every day.  I’ve been on a health kick in general to aid focus and drink only sparingly, another way that my generation tends to blow money sans the requisite satisfaction.  And, overall, I am thankful to be in the position that I am in.  I have renewed appreciation for the fact that I am able to live independently and have the resources to find a way to stay independent–creatively finding supplementary income, drawing on my 401k if necessary, downsizing apartment or even car if squeezed.

In a lot of ways the timing couldn’t have been worse.  Two more years down the road, I would have had enough savings to comfortably take advantage of the lull to skip town for a cheaper (or maybe not) foreign city.  I could probably afford a year of reading books in Barcelona, or much longer in Antigua.  Either way, it would be easy to rationalize a break.  Extraordinary times offer the excuse to do what we really want to do.  But at the same time, I suppose that the current timing forced a sort of second adulthood on me that will shape my long term character for the better.  Meanwhile, thinking outside the box in terms of future possibilities and being nudged outside of my comfort zone will certainly alter my path in some interesting way sooner or later.  It’s a lot easier to be entreprenurial when there’s nothing (or much less than before) to lose.