Left Coast City: Progressive Politics in San Francisco, 1975-1991When Art Agnos campaigned for mayor of San Francisco in 1987, he articulated and defended the "left" isms—liberalism, environmentalism, and populism. He won. Seeing Agnos as a defender of slowgrowth vs. progrowth, the city's progressives had high hopes. But to their disappointment, in the wake of the passage of Proposition M—the most restrictive growth control legislation of any large U.S. city—Agnos supported waterfront development and proposals to build a new baseball stadium in China Basin and a large residential and business development in Mission Bay. In 1991 Agnos ran for reelection. He lost. Left Coast City provides insight into how San Francisco's progressive coalition developed between 1975 and 1991, what stresses emerged to cause splintering within the coalition, and how the coalition fell apart in the 1991 mayoral campaign. Focusing on San Francisco's turbulent political history, non-conformist traditions, and ethnic and cultural diversity, political scientist Richard DeLeon analyzes the successes and failures of the progressive movement as it topples the business-dominated progrowth regime, imposes stringent controls on growth and development, and achieves political control of city hall. Although the movement has achieved national recognition as a possible vanguard of social and political change in this country, DeLeon argues that a new progressive regime has not yet emerged to replace the defunct progrowth regime. Having helped to create chaos out of order, progressive leaders now face the task of creating order out of chaos. "What the city has now is, at best, an antiregime, a transitional political order set up defensively to block the Lazarus-like re-emergence of the old progrowth regime," DeLeon writes. "Such an order cannot last." The key to survival of the progressive movement, he contends, is creation of a progressive urban regime, where public and private entities function together. |
From inside the book
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Contents
The Invention and Collapse of the Progrowth Regime | 40 |
The Birth of the SlowGrowth Movement | 57 |
Political Hardball in China Basin | 107 |
The Mission | 123 |
The 1991 Mayoral Election and Beyond | 160 |
Appendix A Data Sources | 177 |
Regression Analyses | 185 |
| 221 | |
Common terms and phrases
activists affordable housing African American Agnos's Alioto analysis antiregime Art Agnos Asian ballot Ballpark Bay Area Bayview-Hunters Point Board of Supervisors Bob Lurie building business community business leaders campaign Candlestick Park capital China Basin citizen city hall city's coalition conservative construction corporate district downtown business elites Downtown Plan economic election electoral environmental environmentalists Feinstein Franciscans Frank Jordan gay and lesbian George Moscone Giants goals groups growth controls Harvey Milk high-rise Hispanic Ibid ideology issues labor Latinos leadership liberal Mayor Agnos Mission Bay mobilize Molinari Moscone neighborhood November organized percent population populist Potrero Hill precinct voting progressive leaders progressivism progrowth regime proposal Proposition H Quoted in SFC Redevelopment residents San Fran San Francisco Plan San Francisco politics San Francisco Tomorrow SF Weekly SFBG SFBT slow-growth movement small business social Tim Redmond tion Transformation of San U.S. cities University Press voters waterfront
