By Lawrence Sylou-Creutz Ojermark

I’d like to put forth an old idea that has been tried and tested the world over: Pedestrian only street closures.  It is not a brash or bold idea as far as San Francisco is concerned, being a world-class, transit first, services-based city.  It is not an expensive, highly engineered project that would take years to implement. And the benefits are numerous.  There are many narrow streets, plied heavily by foot traffic and not overly used or needed during the daytime hours that could be converted to pedestrian only use.  Three such examples could be Powell St. from Market St. to Union Square, Grant Ave. running through Chinatown and the last is Jefferson St. through Fisherman’s Wharf.  Imagine covering these streets with appropriate landscaping.  Red bricks continuing from the cable car turnaround for Powell St., with benches, trees and sidewalk cafes spilling out onto the flow of people walking freely and without fear of the traffic.

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By Christopher B. Leinberger
Visiting Fellow, The Brookings Institution

For better and for worse, the now middle age baby boomers were the first generation to grow up on television. This huge age cohort was raised on Leave It to Beaver in the late 1950s, Dick Van Dyke Show in the early 1960s and The Brady Bunch in the early 1970s, some of the most popular situation comedies of the era. These shows had one thing in common; they were all set in the suburbs.  Fast forward to the 1990s and early 2000s to see the most popular television shows of that era: Seinfeld, Friends, and Sex in the City;  all set in the city. The unifying sub-text of these series was the appeal and desirability of walkable urbanism. Even though only 41 percent of all residents in metropolitan areas in 1990 lived in their central city, television research and viewer-ship indicated a desire to at least watch their favorite characters live and work in walkable urban places. Gatherings of young adults in restaurants and apartments in these shows made urban life exciting, engaging and offered that most attractive attribute of any era; being hip. Read more »