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Left Coast City: Progressive Politics in San Francisco, 1975-1991
When Art Agnos campaigned for mayor of San Francisco in 1987, he articulated and defended the "left" isms--liberalism, environmentalism, and populism. He won.
Seeing Agnos as a defender of slowgrowth vs. progrowth, the city's progressives had high hopes. But to their disappointment, in the wake of the passage of Proposition M--the most restrictive growth control legislation of any large U.S. city--Agnos supported waterfront development and proposals to build a new baseball stadium in China Basin and a large residential and business development in Mission Bay. In 1991 Agnos ran for reelection. He lost.
Left Coast City provides insight into how San Francisco's progressive coalition developed between 1975 and 1991, what stresses emerged to cause splintering within the coalition, and how the coalition fell apart in the 1991 mayoral campaign.
Focusing on San Francisco's turbulent political history, non-conformist traditions, and ethnic and cultural diversity, political scientist Richard DeLeon analyzes the successes and failures of the progressive movement as it topples the business-dominated progrowth regime, imposes stringent controls on growth and development, and achieves political control of city hall.
Although the movement has achieved national recognition as a possible vanguard of social and political change in this country, DeLeon argues that a new progressive regime has not yet emerged to replace the defunct progrowth regime. Having helped to create chaos out of order, progressive leaders now face the task of creating order out of chaos.
"What the city has now is, at best, an antiregime, a transitional political order set up defensively to block the Lazarus-like re-emergence of the old progrowth regime," DeLeon writes. "Such an order cannot last." The key to survival of the progressive movement, he contends, is creation of a progressive urban regime, where public and private entities function together.
Seeing Agnos as a defender of slowgrowth vs. progrowth, the city's progressives had high hopes. But to their disappointment, in the wake of the passage of Proposition M--the most restrictive growth control legislation of any large U.S. city--Agnos supported waterfront development and proposals to build a new baseball stadium in China Basin and a large residential and business development in Mission Bay. In 1991 Agnos ran for reelection. He lost.
Left Coast City provides insight into how San Francisco's progressive coalition developed between 1975 and 1991, what stresses emerged to cause splintering within the coalition, and how the coalition fell apart in the 1991 mayoral campaign.
Focusing on San Francisco's turbulent political history, non-conformist traditions, and ethnic and cultural diversity, political scientist Richard DeLeon analyzes the successes and failures of the progressive movement as it topples the business-dominated progrowth regime, imposes stringent controls on growth and development, and achieves political control of city hall.
Although the movement has achieved national recognition as a possible vanguard of social and political change in this country, DeLeon argues that a new progressive regime has not yet emerged to replace the defunct progrowth regime. Having helped to create chaos out of order, progressive leaders now face the task of creating order out of chaos.
"What the city has now is, at best, an antiregime, a transitional political order set up defensively to block the Lazarus-like re-emergence of the old progrowth regime," DeLeon writes. "Such an order cannot last." The key to survival of the progressive movement, he contends, is creation of a progressive urban regime, where public and private entities function together.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 16, 2019
This is largely a book about how San Francisco’s “Progressive” movement became a force that blocked new building in the city. In the light of the current YIMBY movement in the Bay Area, it is strange to see former-era progressives focus so completely on stymying development, and to see that force so celebrated by this book's author. This opposition to growth wasn’t all love and flowers either. When progressive Mayor Art Agnos’s Planning Commission approved a Thrifty drug-store chain outlet in the Haight-Asbury neighborhood, residents shouted down the commission, and then the store burned down in a suspected arson.
From 1971, when local businessman Alvin Duskin placed an, ultimately unsuccessful, universal 40-foot height limit initiative on the ballot, to 1986, when Proposition M, which set a maximum square footage limit on office space and told planners to focus on neighborhood preservation, passed, much of politics in San Francisco was about how to limit growth. In general, the city’s Asian, wealthier white, and poor Hispanic and black groups supported more growth, but middle-class renters and homeowners, neighborhood groups, and liberal activists fought against it. In each initiative, from 1971, to 1972, to 1979, to 1983, the liberal activists got closer to a majority, and finally pushed one over the top in 1986 with just a few thousand votes to spare, against then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein’s vociferous opposition.
The author points out the divisions among the progressives between liberals (who fought capital in general and supported redistribution), environmentalists (who wanted conservation and open-space), and populists (who protected homes and communities), but only at the end of the book does he acknowledge the conflicts even inside the progressive vision. He shows how neighbors in Potrero Hill and Bernal Heights used the new intrusive planning regime to sabotage affordable housing construction. In the end, it looks like these progressives were not anti-capital, they were anti-development, and against the development for the poor perhaps even more than the rich. Although this Marxist-infused book doesn't recognize it, that is probably their great, although unacknowledged, legacy to the present.
From 1971, when local businessman Alvin Duskin placed an, ultimately unsuccessful, universal 40-foot height limit initiative on the ballot, to 1986, when Proposition M, which set a maximum square footage limit on office space and told planners to focus on neighborhood preservation, passed, much of politics in San Francisco was about how to limit growth. In general, the city’s Asian, wealthier white, and poor Hispanic and black groups supported more growth, but middle-class renters and homeowners, neighborhood groups, and liberal activists fought against it. In each initiative, from 1971, to 1972, to 1979, to 1983, the liberal activists got closer to a majority, and finally pushed one over the top in 1986 with just a few thousand votes to spare, against then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein’s vociferous opposition.
The author points out the divisions among the progressives between liberals (who fought capital in general and supported redistribution), environmentalists (who wanted conservation and open-space), and populists (who protected homes and communities), but only at the end of the book does he acknowledge the conflicts even inside the progressive vision. He shows how neighbors in Potrero Hill and Bernal Heights used the new intrusive planning regime to sabotage affordable housing construction. In the end, it looks like these progressives were not anti-capital, they were anti-development, and against the development for the poor perhaps even more than the rich. Although this Marxist-infused book doesn't recognize it, that is probably their great, although unacknowledged, legacy to the present.
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December 26, 2025Ahhh and then I entered my SF land use// housing politics era… This book was quite academic, for better and worse. Parts of it were hard to get through but overall gave me great insight into how being anti-housing development became a progressive cause… and why there are *so many* strange bedfellows in sf’s progressive wing. Also learned more about the politics of the Harvey Milk murder which was interesting as well. This book ended in the 90s, though, and it was clear that ppl were not expecting the tech boom (and what it would do to rents…)
April 16, 2013
A perfect example of how small urban politics can be as a field of scholarship.
It's too slim of a book to of much consequence, and what it chooses to study don't add up to much more than a string of limited statistical exercises and case studies.
The first major problem with the book is that it assumes you agree with its underlying premise that pro-growth policy is bad, and slow-growth is good. Yet it spends barely any time giving the reader a reason to agree. It makes a few hand waves towards why the citizens were against continued Manhattanization, but it never builds into a convincing or full argument. Instead, we're assumed to agree, so that way the author can move along.
The second major problem is that the book seemingly has no interest or idea about how the power of San Francisco is disrupted. Was the power during the time period covered mainly through the Mayor's office, or was is the Assembly, or in its commissions, or in non-political actors? How did it change over time? Virtually all of the quotes, it seemed, were pulled from newspaper clippings, instead of quoting directly the people involved.
It's too slim of a book to of much consequence, and what it chooses to study don't add up to much more than a string of limited statistical exercises and case studies.
The first major problem with the book is that it assumes you agree with its underlying premise that pro-growth policy is bad, and slow-growth is good. Yet it spends barely any time giving the reader a reason to agree. It makes a few hand waves towards why the citizens were against continued Manhattanization, but it never builds into a convincing or full argument. Instead, we're assumed to agree, so that way the author can move along.
The second major problem is that the book seemingly has no interest or idea about how the power of San Francisco is disrupted. Was the power during the time period covered mainly through the Mayor's office, or was is the Assembly, or in its commissions, or in non-political actors? How did it change over time? Virtually all of the quotes, it seemed, were pulled from newspaper clippings, instead of quoting directly the people involved.
September 15, 2007
this book is probably only interesting for people that like politics and/or live in san francisco..i thoroughly enjoyed reading this in college
October 2, 2007
Awesome history of SF local politics, particularly the "war" between the progressives and liberals. Gave me a lot to think about in terms of how city policy is and should be made.
November 13, 2012
Great history of the lefts in San Francisco. Only wish there was a similarly good book for the last 20 years!
July 4, 2014
A nice overview of San Francisco politics in the 1980s. A bit dated to be sure. But interesting.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews