Urbanity

Lots of media coverage lately about city plans to create a new downtown, or maybe just an extension to the present downtown, in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. [map] The neighborhood has been many things, but most people who live in SF now think of it as a light-industrial zone with housing mixed in, with a leather queen zone along Folsom St. between 4th and 13th, and lots of new condos along Harrison and in what has recently been dubbed the South Beach district.

Some people think more urban density is a good thing. I wouldn't mind having lots of six or eight story buildings, instead of the two or three story buildings that represent most of the older housing South of Market. (The area burned entirely in the 1906 fire, so all of them date from after that, though there are many examples of post-Victorian apartment flats on the side alleys.) I've always liked the eight or ten story apartment buildings you see around town, in the Mission for example -- like the ones near 25th and Valencia (such as the one on the left side of this photo). That would be a good kind of urban density. But I have the feeling that's not what they're planning.

technorati: San Francisco, urbanism, South of Market