Economist.com Cities Guide: San Francisco Briefing - August 2005

News this month

Out with a whimper

For the past two years, an investigation into BALCO (the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative) has drawn attention to steroid use among superstar athletes, and prompted drug-testing reforms. Many hoped for a trial, which would have put premier professional athletes on the stand. But this is not to be. The case fizzled out suddenly on July 15th when a deal was struck between BALCO and federal prosecutors.

Victor Conte, BALCO's founder and president, and Greg Anderson, a personal trainer for Barry Bonds, a star baseball player, each pleaded guilty to two counts of money laundering and conspiring to distribute anabolic steroids. James Valente, BALCO's vice president, pleaded guilty to a single conspiracy count. Remi Korchemny, an athletics coach, is expected to plead guilty later this summer. Federal prosecutors dropped most of their charges, and the defendants who pleaded guilty will get probation or prison sentences of less than six months. Critics complain that these sentences are too light, and that the revelations of grand-jury testimonies will never be aired. But even without a trial, news leaks and vacillating testimonies before grand juries and Congress have already damaged the reputations of some athletes, such as Mr Bonds, Mark McGwire, another baseball player, and Marion Jones, an Olympic sprinter.

Moving forward, finally

It seems that there will finally be a new, earthquake-resistant eastern span of the Bay Bridge. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislators struck a deal in July that will allow construction to resume, after being bogged down by 16 years of political wrangling, construction delays and skyrocketing costs. Under the compromise, the Bay Area will get the soaring, single-tower suspension design that local leaders have long wanted. But the hundreds of thousands of motorists who use the bridge each day will have to pay $1 more in tolls ($4 total, starting in 2007) to cover an additional $630m in building costs. The full bill is expected to reach $6.2 billion when the project is completed in 2012.

A new bridge was needed after a section of the eastern span collapsed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Years went by as San Francisco and Oakland city leaders sniped over the location and design. Construction finally started, but was put on hold last year after news surfaced of a $3.6 billion cost overrun; Mr Schwarzenegger then pushed Bay Area officials to agree to a more simple skyway design. Bay Area leaders would not budge, instead insisting on toll hikes to build the span as it was originally designed.

What's in a name?

The US Patent and Trademark Office has rejected a request to trademark “Dykes on Bikes”, the name of a group of lesbian motorcyclists famous for rolling through San Francisco’s streets every June, at the head of the gay pride parade. The Dykes on Bikes sought trademark protection after learning that a Wisconsin woman wanted to sell motorcycle leathers and other clothing under a label of the same name.

Federal patent attorneys ruled that the name was vulgar, and offensive to the general public—they cited Webster’s dictionary, which says “dyke” is often disparaging. But that ruling seems to have missed the (admittedly post-modern) point the group is trying to make. They argue that appropriating a derogatory word like “dyke” subverts its power as a slur, just as gay men regularly use “queer”. To prove their point, they have recruited linguists, psychologists and scholars to help explain the evolution of the word “dyke” over the past 40 years, and they plan on appealing against the office's decision.

Cruel and unusual

The warden of San Quentin State Prison has been fired over the sorry state of inmate health care there. Jill Brown had been in charge of San Quentin, California’s oldest prison and the site of the state’s death row, for little more than a year. She has also been under investigation for allegedly threatening reprisal against a doctor who spoke to investigators about health-care problems at the prison.

San Quentin seems to be the worst example in a listing system: Ms Brown’s dismissal came a week after a federal judge decided to appoint an administrator to take over management of the state’s $1.1 billion prison health-care plan. California runs the largest prison system in America, with 33 facilities, 164,000 inmates and a budget of $6.5 billion a year. The judge said the “horrifying” medical care in California prisons violates the rights of inmates and has led to unnecessary injuries and deaths. That ruling hurt Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger: he has promised big improvements in medical care at prisons, which have yet to materialise.

Not so small anymore

Not long ago, Dionne Warwick could ask, “Do you know the way to San Jose?” and expect few to know exactly where the sleepy town was. Then came the dotcom boom and bust. Now, according to new US Census figures, the de facto capital of Silicon Valley is the tenth-largest city in the United States. With a listed 904,522 residents, San Jose overtook the once-bustling Detroit. San Francisco is in 14th place, with 744,230 residents.

San Jose has endured a few hard knocks recently. In addition to the high-tech downturn, the city's beloved hockey team, the Sharks, has been dormant for the past year, owing to a National Hockey League lockout (recently settled), and the mayor is embroiled in a scandal over a city waste contract. But the city's charms are hard to argue with: it has a highly educated workforce, one of the lowest crime rates among big American cities, and Reader’s Digest magazine recently named it one of the country's cleanest cities.

Catch if you can

August 2005

The Art of Richard Tuttle

Until October 16th 2005

Thirty years ago, the Whitney Museum of American Art created a stir when it showcased the works of Richard Tuttle. There was nothing offensive or terribly avant-garde about his sculptures, paintings and assemblages, yet few knew what to make of “important” art that was not showy or dripping with meaning. Mr Tuttle’s works were often small and shockingly simple, as though they had been slapped together as an afterthought.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art offers the first full-scale retrospective of Mr Tuttle’s work since the show at the Whitney. Over the years, he has been identified as a member of the post-Minimalists—a group that includes Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman and Richard Serra. His multimedia constructions, improvised wire wall-hangings, and quirky wood reliefs in bright, sunny colours certainly define a kind of informal bareness. But in the end, his work is hard to categorise. His odd, playful creations, which seem to float in space, radiate playful curiosity.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St. Tel: +1 (415) 357-4000. See the museum's website.

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