Sitting here talking philosophically,
about the fin of humanity,
in the throes of a heat wave,
shaded by the towers of Fault Line Park.
One has to ask,
does the name they gave this place,
lurking like something about to go terribly awry,
more so than the “Out of Order” sign
permanently etched on the restroom door,
serve as a preemptive warning
that everything can change,
catastrophically,
in an instant? [Read more…]
A New Grand Pedestrian Promenade Through Downtown San Diego?
Report of the planning workshop for the proposed 14th Street Promenade
By Michael-Leonard Creditor / UrbDeZine
The idea for grand pedestrian routes through downtown San Diego is not new. In 1908, John Nolen famously had vision of a Promenade from Balboa Park to San Diego Bay along what is now Cedar Street. Just imagine how that would be today if it had been implemented 100 years ago, with the beautiful County Administration Building at the bottom of the gentle hill from Park to Bay. Sometimes I think ‘so many opportunities lost’ should be San Diego’s motto.
But, in the fertile minds of planners, this idea hasn’t died. Now, they are being called Green Streets, and six are planned for downtown. [Read more…]
Land Use Planning in a ‘Post-Fact’ World? Looking Back on Measures B and C in Our Recent Election
By Lawrence A. Herzog
One of the disturbing trends in this turbulent season of national electoral politics was the explosion of uncertainty about information and truth in reporting. The talking points and tweets often wandered so far from actual facts, they left behind an exhausted citizenry. We are still recovering.
This “post-fact” world has brought the nation to an odd juncture. Fake news stories, Internet hacking, and websites that pump out false information remain a point of contention.
Has this “post-fact” epidemic trickled down to our local elections? [Read more…]
San Diego Sandbags Efforts to Shelter Homeless People
City snubs California law for emergency shelters
By Jeeni Criscenzo
If the City of San Diego really wanted to solve the ever increasing problem of homelessness, they might be willing to try something more innovative than eliminating 98% of the areas previously designated as suitable for emergency shelter without a Conditional Use Permit.
I first became of aware of a map in the City of San Diego General Plan, Housing Element called Figure 1 Areas Suitable for Emergency Shelters – November 2006. Amikas, a non-profit I founded with four other homeless advocates in 2009 to work with homeless women and children with a focus on veteran women, was considering the Midway Post Office as a potential site for veteran housing. The map was required by California Senate Bill 2 (SB2) also known as the Cedillo Bill.
This Statute became effective January 2008. Chapter 633 clarifies and strengthens housing element law to ensure zoning encourages and facilitates emergency shelters and limits the denial of emergency shelters and transitional and supportive housing. [Read more…]
Black Lives Matter San Diego Rally: Photo-Essay
By Bree Davis
I’m Bree and I had the privilege and honor to attend and support the Black Lives Matter: San Diego rally in downtown San Diego outside of the Convention Center on July 10. It was strategically timed so we would be meeting and marching as the All Star Convention was opening it’s doors. Black Lives Matter: San Diego is not yet an official chapter, however they are working hard on becoming one, so hopefully soon this will happen. [Read more…]
We Need a New Public Use of the Old Central Library
By Joe Flynn
“Planning? We don’t need no stinking planning!” No, I am not talking about The Treasure of Sierra Madre, I’m talking about the treasure of our old Central Library. One would think after decades of working to build a new central library, some thought would have been given to a new use for the old library.
And it is not just another old building; this one has a lot or treasured memories for many San Diegans, especially those who spent hours there doing school projects and term papers or just for the pure enjoyment of literature. [Read more…]
San Diegans Condemn Militarization of Barrio Logan by Mayor Faulconer and Chief Zimmerman
Community is urged to report incidents of police abuse, mistreatment, and arrests during Trump protests
By Alliance San Diego
For many years, San Diego community leaders have engaged with city leaders and law-enforcement officials to dialogue about public actions involving protected First Amendment speech. This had been done in order to ensure that the right to peacefully assemble occurs without the encumbrance of disproportionate and unnecessary force. But on Friday May 27, that right was undermined by law enforcement and city leaders, which turned Barrio Logan into a militarized zone, threatening residents and scaring families.
Press conference scheduled today, May 31 at 11:00 am in Barrio Logan. Details inside. [Read more…]
Mr. Trump Gets Fired In San Diego
By Brett Warnke
With their motorcycles stacked like dominoes beneath the shade of the bright art in Chicano Park, SDPD grimly lined the streets in absurd riot gear in an enormous overreaction to a brief, spirited and peaceful march held on Friday May 26.
Unión del Barrio planned the protest—“Donald Trump: Fuera de San Diego”—which drew over a 1,000 marchers who rallied in the park and walked to the city’s Convention Center. Five or six other groups planned similar rallies. In the merry crush, there were loud and sometimes obscene chants in Spanish and English as bullhorns, posters, and groups vied for a break in the din. [Read more…]
San Diego Homeless Advocates Rock the City Council
Anatomy of a successful press event
Some days I marvel at the value of the network of good people that has grown in our community—people involved in so many different areas, all so critical, who come together to support one another in our various efforts. Without that, we could have never pulled off the very successful action on Tuesday April 19 in protest of the City’s reprehensible decision to fill an underpass in Sherman Heights where homeless people take shelter with rocks.
This was a case where all systems were running at peak performance. For the sake of all of those younger people who are just starting to dip their toes in the art of community organizing, here’s how it goes when you have a cadre of like-minded friends to call upon for a cause. (I’m using actual first names here because all of those people deserve the kudos.) In the end, that’s more valuable than a pile of money and hired hands. [Read more…]
San Diego’s Old Central Library: Public Benefit or Profit Center?
A not-so-common idea for a building that belongs to us
For three years, 150,000 square feet of space in downtown, belonging to the citizens of San Diego, has stood vacant. Each night, for these past three years, impoverished human beings have spread their cardboard beds on the brass inlays of the terrazzo at the entrance of the old Central Library on E Street.
But any suggestion that this place could provide shelter for homeless people is dead on arrival, so I won’t be wasting words on that idea. But I do think we need to come up with a fair and just use of this building that retains the spirit of its original reason for being built. After all, it belongs to us, if we are willing to fight for it and put a little imagination into its transformation. [Read more…]
Hogarth at the San Diego Public Library
By Brett Warnke
“What’s your proposal? To build the just city? I will.” –W.H. Auden
What does it mean to construct the just city today? San Diego is admittedly no Flint. As I write this, there are unpunished poisoners like Rick Snyder still giving speeches, doing fundraisers, outside of a prison cell, with the craven media establishment recording every utterance. And even further east, goldbricker frauds on Wall Street giggle their way through new swindles—ones we won’t discover until we once again stand at the lip of another recession when “tough choices” will again “have to be made” in order to “save Main Street.”
But San Diego is a city not immune to corruption. Our streets, too, are peopled with the chalked bodies of unarmed black and brown men. In July 2015 we even played host to the American Legislative Exchange Council (or ALEC), that great instrument of business elites to capture the regulatory powers of the state for its own tax loopholes and favors. And just this year our local democracy was used by the Chamber of Commerce to thwart wage increases for thousands of workers.
What does it mean to construct a just city in such a corroded republic? “America’s finest city” is a city 41% more expensive than the rest of America, where people of every shade are scrabbling at the lower slopes of the wage scale and where 38% of residents, regardless of their neighborhood, are unable to earn enough to make a living. One method of coping is to laugh. Ours is a golden age of satire. [Read more…]
Tiny Village of Tiny Shelters for San Diego Homeless: Small is the New Sexy
No question about it—being involved in a coalition to build a tiny village of tiny shelters for people who are without a place to live, is damn exciting! I can’t put my finger on exactly why this is taking over my brain activity—from waking up in the morning ready to get online and share ideas, to dreaming about it at night. Maybe it’s what someone at our community meeting last week said about it—tiny homes are sexy! [Read more…]
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