San Francisco’s many “15-minute” neighborhoods

Sometimes it is difficult to keep up with the New York Times position on San Francisco.

When I read this newspaper I’m never sure if I should worry about San Francisco because The City is inundated with tech people, or because it is losing tech companies to other cities, because The City is too crowded, or because people leave because it was adopted by the extreme left or because San Francisco is not as progressive as San Franciscans like to think.

So I was surprised to see on October 11th that New York Times newsletter writer Soumya Karlamangla not only took the time to write about one of my favorite streets in The City, but that she got it more or less right has made . Karlamangla described Clement Street as a great example of the “15-minute town” where residents can get almost all of their daily needs and more within a few blocks in an otherwise common residential area. She also explained why this has helped the neighborhood weather the COVID pandemic relatively well.

The bigger history of San Francisco and one big advantage over other cities is that we have a lot of Clement Streets.

There may not be a Green Apple Book or Good Luck Dim Sum on every street in San Francisco, but there are numerous streets like Clement that have great and sometimes affordable shopping, restaurants, and useful little shops all in one compact, walkable block are found in an otherwise residential area. A mile or two west of that strip of Clement Street is a similar looking business district on Balboa Street around 35th Avenue. Noe Valley residents know that 24th Street serves a similar role in their community. From Chestnut Street in the Marina to Third Street in Bayview-Hunter’s Point, The City is dotted with these local highways. Of course, San Francisco also has large shopping streets that are less accessible to pedestrians, as well as a handful of malls, but these walkable shopping streets in the heart of residential areas have proven to be surprisingly resilient.

It turns out that some of the habits we developed during COVID – like strolling to Balboa or Clement streets, which are much more desirable.

This seems obvious to the San Franciscans, but it is still true that we have organically evolved what city planners around the world want to create.

That there are so many of these streets that form the backbone of so many neighborhoods may be due to the hills that make it difficult to walk long distances. Outside of some parts of the city, walking 20 blocks in San Francisco is much more daunting than in New York, Chicago, or Boston. Ironically, the chronically inadequate public transportation and the difficulty of finding parking spaces in so many parts of the city – including Clement Street, Chestnut Street, and Columbus Avenue – are also incentives for people to stay in their neighborhood.

These little shopping streets may have helped San Francisco weather the COVID pandemic, reduce reliance on Amazon and other services that thrived during the crisis, and keep people safe as vaccination rates are so high in San Francisco but they should also be central to building a post-COVID San ​​Francisco.

It’s always been great to live in a city just blocks from a neighborhood institution like Clement Street, but as we move from the skillet of COVID to the accelerated fire of climate change, those institutions may become more important and attractive .

This also has a potential downside that cannot be overlooked. San Francisco has long been a city of neighborhoods, but that has often cut in more than one direction. In a city as diverse as San Francisco, divisions, even if at first glance benign, harden when we spend less time outside our neighborhood. If you live, work at home, shop and dine on Clement Street in Inner Richmond, you are unaware of the diverse economic and health effects that the pandemic has had on several other neighborhoods just a few miles away. On the whole, the 15 minute neighborhood is extremely convenient and enjoyable, but it isolates communities from one another and makes us believe that what we experience every day is what all San Franciscans experience. But that doesn’t apply to any of us.

Another danger is that roads like Clement exist in middle-class and affluent communities but cannot easily survive in areas with less money. It cannot be overlooked, for example, that there are more boarded shops on Third Street than in Chestnut. This reflects both the different economic circumstances of these communities, but it also means that low-income residents of Bayview-Hunter’s Point do not benefit from the quality of life and health benefits of 15-minute neighborhoods.

If only the middle class and the rich have access to roads like Clement, and if they are so coveted that only the rich can afford to live near them, as we see in other Bay Area counties, then we are as a city failed.

It has become a cliché to say that the pandemic and recovery exposed our deep inequalities, but it’s also true. To overcome the pandemic, we need to build a city with accessible, vibrant urban communities in all neighborhoods. It’s nice to see Clement Street get a good report in the New York Times, and it’s a good model for post-pandemic San Francisco, but it’s also a reminder that neighborhoods remain the driving force behind San Francisco and good public order should seek to maintain more roads, like the Clement section, which may not attract the Gray Lady’s attention, but are nonetheless indispensable to so many San Franciscans.

Lincoln Mitchell has written numerous books and articles on The City and the Giants. Visit lincolnmitchell.com or follow him on Twitter @LincolnMitchell.

Columnist San Francisco