San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities

by Michael Shellenberger

occupancy hotels occurred within the broader progressive movement. Democrats until the late 1960s were pro-development, and had led efforts to demolish slums, build public housing, and revitalize the inner city. But starting in the late 1960s, Baby Boomers and the New Left turned against redevelopment. They were inspired by an influential 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, which blamed redevelopment, like that which had occurred in the Fillmore neighborhood of San Francisco, for destroying neighborhoods with freeways and high-rises, evicting low-income residents, and making them unlivable, as compared to highly walkable neighborhoods like Greenwich Village. But redevelopment occurred in Greenwich Village whereas the city of San Francisco increasingly subsidized housing for the homeless in the Tenderloin’s single resident occupancy hotels, which have for decades been dominated by a culture of heavy substance use and prostitution. “Of the people in supportive housing in San Francisco, 93 percent have a major mental illness that we can name,” said a housing policy maker. “That is very, very high. Eighty percent use cocaine, speed, or heroin every thirty days, or get drunk to the point of unconsciousness.”72