flâneur

It’s Time for Greater San Francisco

palladiummag.com · 4,684 words · saved by 1 readers

If there’s one thing that the millions living across the San Francisco Bay Area can agree on, it’s this: things are falling apart. From homelessness and fentanyl to rents that are unaffordable even on six-figure median incomes, the lack of tangible progress on these issues gives the impression that the Bay Area is fundamentally ungoverned, and maybe even ungovernable. This is strange because governments are the one thing the Bay Area does not lack. The region is made up of 101 municipalities distributed among nine large counties. In addition, numerous agencies and institutions operate across these boundaries. One might expect that the fight for talent and capital in the region would force these myriad administrations into competence, but this never seems to happen. In reality, the large number of governments is the root cause behind why nothing ever seems to get fixed in the Bay Area: the economy is regional, but governance is local. There exists a fundamental mismatch in scale that me

Cedric Letsch/San Francisco at evening If there’s one thing that the millions living across the San Francisco Bay Area can agree on, it’s this: things are falling apart. From homelessness and fentanyl to rents that are unaffordable even on six-figure median incomes, the lack of tangible progress on these issues gives the impression that the Bay Area is fundamentally ungoverned and maybe even ungovernable. This is strange because governments are the one thing the Bay Area does not lack. The region is made up of 101 municipalities distributed among nine large counties. In addition, numerous agen

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