City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco, Revised and Updated Edition

by Chester Hartman

San Francisco is perhaps the most exhilarating of all American cities--its beauty, cultural and political avant-gardism, and history are legendary, while its idiosyncrasies make front-page news. In this revised edition of his highly regarded study of San Francisco's economic and political development since the mid-1950s, Chester Hartman gives a detailed account of how the city has been transformed by the expansion--outward and upward--of its downtown. His story is fueled by a wide range of players and an astonishing array of events, from police storming the International Hotel to citizens forcing the midair termination of a freeway. Throughout, Hartman raises a troubling question: can San Francisco's unique qualities survive the changes that have altered the city's skyline, neighborhoods, and economy?

Hartman was directly involved in many of the events he chronicles and thus had access to sources that might otherwise have been unavailable. A former activist with the National Housing Law Project, San Franciscans for Affordable Housing, and other neighborhood organizations, he explains how corporate San Francisco obtained the necessary cooperation of city and federal governments in undertaking massive redevelopment. He illustrates the rationale that produced BART, a subway system that serves upper-income suburbs but few of the city's poor neighborhoods, and cites the environmental effects of unrestrained highrise development, such as powerful wind tunnels and lack of sunshine. In describing the struggle to keep housing affordable in San Francisco and the seemingly intractable problem of homelessness, Hartman reveals the human face of the city's economic transformation.

Genres: Nonfiction, Urban Planning

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Chester Hartman, an urban planner and author, is Director of Research for the Poverty & Race Research Action Council (where he was founding Executive Director from 1989-2003) in Washington, DC, and Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Sociology, George Washington University. Prior to taking his present position, he was a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, and of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. He holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from Harvard and served on the faculty there as well as at Yale, the University of North Carolina, Cornell, the University of California-Berkeley, American University, and Columbia University.

- excerpted from http://www.prrac.org/about_staff.php

Reviews

[Devin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't usually make broad comments like this, but anyone interested in the postwar history of SF should read this book. It's written by one of the key lawyers in several of the lawsuits against the Yerba Buena Center redevelopment project in the South of Market during the 60s and 70s — and, as you might expect, is an extremely critical look at the topic. Hartman provides a background on the organizations which led up to the formation of the Redevelopment agency, then goes into a thorough blow-by-blow of the South of Market story. Note: readers interested in the Western Addition RDA projects should look to other histories, this one is specifically about Zone D.

[Edrick Willie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did NOT have the stamina to power through this (which is a skill issue), but that is not to suggest that this isn't an absolute achievement of a book.

Hartman's writing is so comprehensive (and dense), and the book offers a play by play breakdown of the neoliberal actors who have ushered San Francisco into the twenty first century.

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A concise, diligent read.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a week written informative book on the growth of San Franciso and it's movement into the present at the cost of the lives of the simple people who populated its past. They were blue collar workers of the lowest pay scale whose jobs started to disapear or could not keep pace with the growing cost of Housing,

Poor people used to live in hotels paying just for the rooms as they did for rooming houses. As progress destroyed their neighborhods, demolition for new projects,they could not afford places to live elsewhere and became the homeless who are being dirven from the City.

Groups helping them won a lot of important cases, but winning in court doesn't always mean winning. Time and economic growth were the enemies they couldn;t defeat, Greed, profit and other incentives divided the poor from the developers and politicians.

This book is for the few, who are interested. Certainly not the majority of readers looking for entertainment or intereseting scenarios.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am LOVING this book so far.