November 2024 - Beyond Chron

Photo shows The author with Leroy Looper

Celebrating Leroy Looper’s 100th Birthday

Posted November 25, 2024 by Randy Shaw

A San Francisco Hero Leroy Looper, the driving force behind the Tenderloin’s late 1970’s revival, would have turned 100 on November 24. Looper died in 2011. Leroy and I became friends after our first meeting in 1979. I was incredibly Read More »

Photo shows Zendesk's former Mid-Market headquarters

How Mayor Lurie Can Revive Mid-Market

Posted November 18, 2024 by Randy Shaw

New Economic Strategies Needed Zendesk officially left its headquarters at 1019 Market Street last week. It got little media attention. Sadly, Mid-Market’s dramatic downturn since 2020 has returned the neighborhood to its troubled pre-2011 status. It’s a huge loss for Read More »

Can Daniel Lurie Turn Van Ness Avenue Into SF’s Champs-Élysées?

Posted November 18, 2024 by Sebastian

Election of New Mayor Offers Hope A picture is worth a thousand words. The image of Van Ness Avenue shows planters, graffiti, and empty storefronts that captures SF’s ongoing problems and voters’ frustrations with the City government. Van Ness Avenue Read More »

New Book Highlights the Power of Zoning

Posted November 18, 2024 by Randy Shaw

How Zoning Reforms Improve Cities When I was promoting my book on the nation’s housing crisis—Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America—an editor for a housing publication asked me, “How come you are so obsessed Read More »

“All We Imagine As Light”–Review

Posted November 18, 2024 by Peter Wong

Well-made foreign films change the viewer’s relationship to the foreign land or people seen in their captured light images. Instead of abiding in the comfort of political or cultural imbalance to the peoples or places depicted, a viewer’s curiosity and/or Read More »

photo shows Daniel Lurie, Jackie Fielder, Bilal Mahmood, No on D

A Political Shift in San Francisco?

Posted November 12, 2024 by Randy Shaw

Progressives and Millionaires Fight to a Draw Was there a major rightward, millionaire-driven political shift in San Francisco? Was Daniel Lurie’s defeat of Mayor Breed a victory for “moderates.”? Did voters replace a Board of Supervisors allegedly controlled by leftists Read More »

Mayor Lurie, Supervisors, Can Revive Tenderloin

Posted November 12, 2024 by Randy Shaw

A Fresh New Opportunity to Revitalize Tenderloin, Lower Polk Incoming mayor Daniel Lurie, new D5 supervisor Bilal Mahmood and incoming D3 supervisor Danny Sauter have a great opportunity to revive San Francisco’s Tenderloin and Lower Polk neighborhoods. It’s time for Read More »

Festival Films–”Apple Cider Vinegar,” “Searching For Nika,” “From Ground Zero,” and “Tax Wars”

Posted November 12, 2024 by Peter Wong

Sofie Benoot’s delightful essay film “Apple Cider Vinegar” turned out to be one of the recent Green Film Festival of San Francisco’s highlights. Call it an entertaining exercise in cinematically curious world-hopping free association led by narrator Sian Phillips. The Read More »