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When and how does a neighborhood become a political actor? How does a collective identity take shape out of local politics? In his fantastically precise and well-illustrated study of the Mission District in San Francisco, Ocean Howell draws together the perspectives of formal and informal groups, as well as city officials and district residents, as they together work and occasionally fight to establish the bounds of "the public," "the public interest," and "what the neighborhood wants." Howell also articulates the development and nuances of Latino political power in the district, bringing out stories and context that have received little attention until now. In the process, he shows that national narratives about how cities grow and change are always insufficient; everything is always shaped by local actors and concerns.
San Francisco is well-known for its beautiful vistas and fascinating destinations. However, many places that were once part of the San Francisco experience have vanished from the land--lost to earthquakes, fire, development, and other forces that led to their disappearance--but not from memory. Sand dunes have been replaced by buildings and streets, homes now cover previously desolate areas where cemeteries once stood, and beloved buildings are gone due to various reasons. San Francisco's lost treasures also include the popular Hamm's sign, the former two-toned foghorn, and the first insect to go extinct in the United States due to human behavior. Like most cities, San Francisco is constantly changing. Places appear and disappear, and the city grows and changes, always ready to rebuild and remake history.
While architects have been the subject of many scholarly studies, we know very little about the companies that built the structures they designed. This book is a study in business history as well as civil engineering and construction management. It details the contributions that Charles J. Pankow, a 1947 graduate of Purdue University, and his firm have made as builders of large, often concrete, commercial structures since the company's foundation in 1963. In particular, it uses selected projects as case studies to analyze and explain how the company innovated at the project level. The company has been recognized as a pioneer in "design-build," a methodology that involves the construction com...
"Cities require infrastructure as they grow and persist; infrastructure requires funding, typically from the bond market. But the bond market is not a neutral player. In this groundbreaking book, Destin Jenkins suggests that questions of urban infrastructure are inherently also questions of justice because infrastructure requires financial mechanisms to come into being. Moreover, these mechanisms abstract cities into investments controlled from afar, which exacerbates local inequalities of race, wealth, and power. Ultimately, Jenkins opens up far larger questions, such as why it is that American social welfare is predicated on the demands of finance capitalism in the first place"--
In the decades following World War II, municipal leaders and ordinary citizens embraced San Francisco’s identity as the “Gateway to the Pacific,” using it to reimagine and rebuild the city. The city became a cosmopolitan center on account of its newfound celebration of its Japanese and other Asian American residents, its economy linked with Asia, and its favorable location for transpacific partnerships. The most conspicuous testament to San Francisco’s postwar transpacific connections is the Japanese Cultural and Trade Center in the city’s redeveloped Japanese-American enclave. Focusing on the development of the Center, Meredith Oda shows how this multilayered story was embedded wi...
A major urban history of the design and development of postwar San Francisco Designing San Francisco is the untold story of the formative postwar decades when U.S. cities took their modern shape amid clashing visions of the future. In this pathbreaking and richly illustrated book, Alison Isenberg shifts the focus from architects and city planners—those most often hailed in histories of urban development and design—to the unsung artists, activists, and others who played pivotal roles in rebuilding San Francisco between the 1940s and the 1970s. Previous accounts of midcentury urban renewal have focused on the opposing terms set down by Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs—put simply, development...
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Rancho Caada de Guadalupe, La Visitacion y Rodeo Viejo was named in July 1777 by a party of Spanish priests and soldiers who lost their way in heavy fog while en route to the Presidio. Now called Visitacion Valley, this area was the only Mexican land grant within San Francisco deeded to an Anglo. Windmills pumped water to irrigate the fields of early settlers cattle farms, nurseries, and vegetable gardens, leading to the nickname Valley of the Windmills. Over the years, however, the pastoral scenery gave way to a mix of housing and commerce, and today Visitacion Valley is one of the citys most ethnically diverse neighborhoods.
Covers receipts and expenditures of appropriations and other funds.
In the quarter century from San Francisco's devasting fire of 1906 to the beginning of the Great Depression, as automobiles exploded in popularity, new buildings had to be conceived and constructed to provide parking space and repair facilities. This book studies a number of the resulting public garages that featured facade designs based on historical architectural styles. Considering the garages' function, the facades exhibit a surprising grace and nobility. Through an analysis complemented by photographs (including sixty by noted architectural photographer Sharon Risedorph) and drawings, the author dissects the architectural and cultural factors that lie at the heart of this unexpected mer...