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

News this month

It could happen here

Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans roused fears that the Bay area could suffer a similar fate. Northern California’s delta region is at high risk from flooding: well below sea level, it is protected by 1,600 miles of levees that contain major rivers before they join and empty into the San Francisco bay. And the land is as valuable as it is vulnerable, containing some of America’s most productive farmland and thousands of new homes.

Experts warn that there is a two-thirds chance that the levees will be damaged by an earthquake or winter storm over the next 50 years. The levees, some built 100 years ago, have not been well maintained: the $90m that Congress approved for repairs has yet to be put to use. California has decades of experience with levee collapses, prompting some local officials to say they know how to respond quickly in an emergency—unlike their counterparts in Louisiana.
Last year, burrowing rodents created a breach that wrecked crops and caused $100m of damage. In 1997, floods from melting Sierra snow broke more than 50 levees, driving at least 100,000 people from their homes, damaging or destroying 24,000 residences and killing eight people.

Out with the old

Arlene Ackerman can boast some notable achievements in her five years as superintendent of San Francisco’s troubled public school system. But on September 6th, she announced that she would resign at the end of the school year, having agreed with the local school board that she and some board members were “incompatible”.

On Ms Ackerman’s watch, test scores for the district’s 57,000 students improved considerably. As the district’s first black superintendent, she received particular praise for improving schools filled mostly with poor, black students. She also straightened out the district’s finances, bringing in the FBI to expose corruption that had festered under her predecessor. But she clashed with the three most left-leaning members of the city’s leftish school board. They complained that she adhered too rigidly to state educational standards, and that she often failed to include parents and school-board members in her decisions. With Ms Ackerman on her way out, the board is now bickering over who should replace her.

Steps forward (and back)

California, a long-time centre of the gay-rights movement, has had a particularly heated few months. The courts advanced gay rights in two key decisions. In early August, the California Supreme Court declared that businesses cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Just weeks later, the court ruled that same-sex parents should have the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual couples. The latter ruling was in a case of three lesbian couples, two from northern California and one from Los Angeles, who had raised children before ending their relationships. The parents sued because, unlike heterosexual couples, they were not automatically entitled to visitation or child support.

Meanwhile, the debate over same-sex marriage rages on. The Democrat-led state legislature passed a bill in September to legalise same-sex marriage, but Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s Republican governor, has promised to veto it. He argues that voters, not the legislature, should define marriage. Mr Schwarzenegger has also said he would not outlaw Proposition 22, an initiative passed by voters in 2000, which bans same-sex marriage in California. San Francisco briefly sanctioned gay marriages in 2004, marrying nearly 4,000 couples before the Supreme Court ordered the city to stop.

New school

This month the University of California opened its first new campus in more than 40 years in Merced, an agricultural town in the San Joaquin valley, east of San Francisco. Although its inaugural class has only 1,000 students, UC Merced hopes to house as many as 25,000 by 2035.

The new campus has been planned for almost 20 years. In 1988, the UC Board of Regents decided that the increasingly crowded university system—which will serve 208,000 students this year—needed a tenth campus. Seven years later, the Regents finally decided to build the campus in Merced. The population in the San Joaquin valley has boomed in recent decades, but until now has not been directly served by a state university. Community leaders hope that UC Merced will revitalise the valley, bringing economic diversity to an area where low-wage agricultural jobs are the norm.

Though UC Merced opened on September 5th, only a handful of buildings were ready for use; the campus now consists of some dormitories, a dining hall and the library, where most classes will be held in the first semester. But the university does have a mascot, a bobcat recently christened “Boomer”.

Under God no more

For the second time in three years, a federal court has ruled that it is unconstitutional for public schools to require their students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. According to Lawrence Karlton, a judge who issued his decision on September 14th, the phrase “one nation under God” violates children’s freedom from religious coercion.

Mr Karlton ruled on a case brought by three Sacramento-area parents who objected to their children being forced to conform to “the government’s embrace of monotheism” in the daily classroom ritual. The parents are represented by Michael Newdow, an attorney and atheist, who lost a similar case on behalf of his own daughter before the Supreme Court last year. A federal appeals court ruled in Mr Newdow’s favour in 2002, but the Supreme Court rejected his case, not on constitutional grounds, but because he lacked full custody of his daughter. Mr Karlton, who said he was bound by the 2002 appeals court to rule the pledge unconstitutional, has reopened a touchy debate; his decision will apply to only three school districts in the Sacramento area, but with religious groups eager to overturn the ruling, the case may well reach the Supreme Court.

Catch if you can

October 2005

Mill Valley Film Festival

October 6th–16th 2005

Though not as famous as its counterpart in San Francisco, the Mill Valley Film Festival, just to the north in Marin County, is beloved by cinema buffs for its diverse array of independent features and documentaries. (Fans don't mind the red-carpet appearances by indie icons either.)

This year, the festival will screen 150 films from 55 countries. Top attractions include the latest screen adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” (pictured), starring Keira Knightley and Donald Sutherland, and “Bee Season”, a family drama starring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche, based on a novel by Myla Goldberg. Those honoured at the festival include Mr Sutherland, Jeff Daniels, an actor who stars in “The Squid and the Whale”, and Felicity Huffman, an independent-film actress and a cast-member of “Desperate Housewives”, a popular television show. The festival will also pay special tribute to the late Michael Powell, who directed “The Red Shoes” and “Black Narcissus”.

The Mill Valley Film Festival, CinéArts @ Sequoia, 25 Throckmorton Avenue in Mill Valley; 142 Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton Ave in Mill Valley; and the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Centre, 1118 Fourth St in San Rafael. Tel: +1 (925) 866-9559. For more information, see the festival’s website.

More from the San Francisco cultural calendar