San Francisco city of true caring for fellow man

Triangle columnist makes assumptions about west coast mecca; diversity and respect featured characters

By: Jessica Hemerly

Posted: 3/4/05

William Mulgrew's commentary two issues ago ("An engrossing tale of two congressional districts," The Triangle, Feb. 25, 2005, p. 13) demonstrates such a high degree of ignorance regarding the city of San Francisco, I feel it necessary to address Mr. Mulgrew and the students of Drexel University to correct possible misconceptions.

To characterize San Francisco as "the epitome of 'vertical America'" is, in a word, moronic. Compared to powerhouse cities like New York and Chicago, San Francisco has very few of them. Dallas and Houston both have considerably more of than San Francisco, but I bet Mr. Mulgrew didn't know that.

While our most notable "sky-scraper," the Transamerica Pyramid, is the tallest building in Northern California, it is only the fourth tallest building west of the Mississippi River. The Transamerica Pyramid and its handful of sister skyscrapers in the Financial District hardly qualify San Francisco as the "epitome of 'vertical America.'"

Mr. Mulgrew's premise - the contrast between "vertical" and "horizontal" Americas - already finds itself on shaky ground. San Francisco is a city renowned for its many unique neighborhoods and residential communities; ask anyone who has actually visited here. I would feel comfortable saying Mr. Mulgrew's piece suffers due to a lack of familiarity with what he's talking about.

I also take issue with Mr. Mulgrew's use of the American Conservative Union's ranking numbers and his comparison to their places in a "parliamentary system." The voting setup alone in a parliamentary system is fundamentally different from that of our own system that any such comparison is purely superfluous. And just as Americans for Democratic Action scores are based on a liberal slant, the American Conservative Union's rankings are equally slanted towards proving support for a conservative bias. A more accurate and objective ranking system would have been that of National Journal, a non-partisan political publication based in Washington, D.C. National Journal's lack of bias makes it the most well-read publication inside the Beltway. Even when writing an Ed-Op piece, it's important to back his opinion up with objective information - it makes for a stronger argument.

It is no secret that the San Francisco Bay Area is predominately liberal and always has been. People choose to live here for that reason. This city has a rich history of progressive culture and politics, from the Beat Generation to the gay rights movement. I find it interesting that he doesn't acknowledge the name of the mystery "Green Party Candidate" (Matt Gonzalez), nor does Mr. Mulgrew mention the man who held the position for eight years prior to Newsom's election, Willie Brown. Had he been looking to make a valid comparison with some heft in the logical argument department, he certainly would not have chosen the epicenter of the Summer of Love and most other major counter-cultural movements during that era. Perhaps a city like Chicago, home of the Daley Machine, would have been more appropriate than San Francisco.

Mr. Mulgrew clearly makes no attempt to sketch out a plausible scenario for comparison and simply needed an excuse to lay into a city and the people of that city, about which he know svery little. Without saying as many words, he is guilty of the same finger-pointing that he accuses the blue states of embracing.

He praises the values of Hastert's horizontal America yet condemn what he sees as a wealthy city who gives hand-outs to its homeless and trounces on the middle class, using only out-of-context quotes from a book written by British "political observers." He naively portrays the city of San Francisco as a den of Godless heathens who close down churches to embrace Satan. What he doesn't understand is that San Francisco is the true embodiment of Pluralism: here, cultures co-exist in the same city and people live as they choose to live, not as values are dictated to them. There are many, with the current administration would be a glaring exception, who feel that this is a very American

The high crime rate Mr. Mulgrew speaks of is not in the city of San Francisco itself. I am not sure what he was thinking of, but perhaps he was referring to San Francisco's neighbor across the bay, Oakland. And here, we take care of our homeless instead of sending them outside the city or leaving them on the streets to die. We don't tell two people that their love is wrong because we may have different values, we allow them to live and love without judging.

As a recent college graduate myself (2003), I sure as hell do not live like the characters in Sex and the City, nor do the majority of my friends. We work regular jobs and sleep in beds at night like the rest of America and enjoy and embrace the culture of our city.

Mr. Mulgrew's argument lacks depth to such a degree I would have found it unprintable. I certainly would not have been so bold as to call it an "engrossing tale." "Grossly inaccurate," certainly.

Jessica Hemerly is a graduate of the class of 2003 New York University, and a resident of San Fransisco, Calif.