(By Sara Miles) San Francisco's reputation as a food mecca is well-earned: farmers' markets spill over with the bounty of the region: dazzling arrays of fresh fruits, sparkling seafood, exotic vegetables. The 2005 Census shows that more than 150,000 people in San Francisco live with the threat of hunger. Most of the people at risk are the “working poor” and their children, who often have to choose between paying the rent and buying enough food. Read more »

IDentifying a Solution By Emma Andersson, Stella Burch, Margot Mendelson & Marisol Orihuela Yale University [1] Jeff Holtz, This Summer’s Surprise Hit: An Elm City ID, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 16, 2007,  (last visited October 2, 2007) [2] See Margot Mendelson, The Legal Production of Identities: A Narrative Analysis of Conversations with Battered Undocumented Women. 19 BERKELEY WOMEN’S L.J. 138, 189-97. (exploring the social consequences of denying immigrants identification cards, specifically with respect to battered undocumented women in Northern California).   [3] See Pew Hispanic Center Fact Sheet: Estimates of the Unauthorized Migrant Population for States based on the March 2005 CPS, available at http://pewhispanic.org/files/factsheets/17.pdf [4] Read This Post »

How States Are Driving Cuts in Global Warming Pollution By Elizabeth Ridlington, Policy Analyst, Frontier Group Rob Sargent, Energy Program Director, Environment California [1] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2006 Annual Climate Review: U.S. Summary, 1 May 2007. [2] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policy Makers, 5 February 2007. [3] P.J. Webster, et al., “Changes in Tropical Cyclone Number, Duration, and Intensity in a Warming Environment,” Science, 309(5742):1844-1846, 16 September 2005. [4] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Summary for Policymakers, 13 April 2007. [5] California Environmental Protection Agency, Air Resources Board, Read This Post »

Neither Too Slow Nor Too Smart: Contemplating the Growth of the Bay Region Further Reading and Footnotes By Prof. Richard Bender, UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design John Parman, UC Berkeley’s Urban Construction Laboratory [1] At Risk: The Bay Area Greenbelt, 2006 edition, Greenbelt Alliance (San Francisco – 2006), pp. 2-3 [2] According to Greenbelt Alliance’s Executive Director, Tom Steinbach, in answer to a question posed at a lecture given at SPUR in San Francisco on 21 February 2007 [3] For a full discussion of the chains controversy, see John Parman, “San Francisco’s ‘Formula Retail’ Ordinance Considered,” LINE, Summer 2004 [4] John Parman, “Pleasures of the Read This Post »

A Laptop in Every Backpack Further Reading and Footnotes By Alec Ross, One Economy Corporation and Simon Rosenberg, New Democrat Network [1] Intel Corporation and Pew Report: Digital Divisions. Pew Internet and American Life Projects, 2006, http://www.pewinternet.org. [2] American Youth Policy Forum, Connecting Kids to Technology: Challenges and Opportunities, http://www.aypf.org/forumbriefs/2002/fb071802.htm. [3] John Carlo Bertot, Charles R. McClure, Paul T. Jaeger, & Ryan J., Public Libraries and the Internet 2006: Study Results and Findings, For the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the American Library Association, Sep 2006, http://www.ii.fsu.edu/plinternet_reports.cfm. [4] ITU Strategy and Policy Unit Newslog - ITU Broadband Statistics for 1 January 2006, http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/newslog/ITU+Broadband+Statistics+For+1+January+2006.aspx [5] Horrigan, John.  Read This Post »

Alleviating California's Prison Crisis Further Reading and Footnotes By Megan Corcoran [1] See Madrid v. Gomez, 889 F.Supp. 1146 (N.D. Cal. 1995), in which Pelican Bay State Prison was placed under the supervision of a special master.  The role of the Special Master was subsequently expanded to consider the entire CDCR after findings of systemic dysfunction.  See Plata v. Davis, Case No. C-01-1351 TEH in the District Court for the Northern District of California, in which Judge Henderson found the health care system “broken beyond repair” and causing unconscionable suffering and death at a rate of approximately one inmate every six days due Read This Post »

SF Stem Cell Leadership, Vital for the Future of Medical Research Funding Further Reading and Footnotes By Robert N. Klein and David Bluestone  [1] For the underlying recombinant DNA scientific discovery, the Nobel Prize was awarded to Paul Berg of Stanford University and David Baltimore of Cal Tech.   [2] Cochrane, Michelle, When AIDS Began: San Francisco and the making of an epidemic, Routledge (UK), 2004, p.29 [3] Office of the Mayor, “Mayor Newsom Unveils San Francisco’s Stem Cell Headquarters Package”, 3/17/2005. Available online at http://www.sfgov.org/site/mayor_page.asp?id=31124.   [4] Office of the Mayor, “Mayor Newsom Unveils San Francisco’s Stem Cell Headquarters Package”, 3/17/2005. Available Read This Post »

Green Growth and the Future of San Francisco Further Reading and Footnotes By Matthew E. Kahn [1] Glaeser, Edward L, Jed Kolko, and Albert Saiz. 2001. “Consumer City.” Journal of Economic Geography 1, no. 1: 27–50. [2] Jacobs, Jane.  The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1969. Random House. [3] Glaeser, Edward L., and others. 1995. “Growth in a Cross-Section of Cities.” Journal of Monetary Economics. [4] Shapiro, Jesse 2006.  Smart cities: Quality of life, productivity, and the growth effects of human capital. Review of Economics and Statistics, May 2006 [5] Becker, Gary, and Casey Mulligan:. 1997. “The Endogenous Determination of Time Preference.”” Quarterly Read This Post »