By Joel P. Engardio -- By evolutionary standards, San Francisco should be headed for extinction. We have fewer children than any major American city. More dogs than kids live here. It's not that we aren't making babies. The first generation of Google and Facebook engineers are 30-somethings and starting families. Lots of gay couples are having children. The problem is many parents flee San Francisco when their kids reach ages four or five.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- If you are excited about bike sharing coming soon to San Francisco, the best advice is to be patient. If our experience is anything like New York's version, expect plenty of glitches.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Gays are discovering the historically conservative San Francisco Westside as a nice place to settle down. “A traditional neighborhood is blending into a 21st Century version of Mayberry,” said Mark Norrell, a business owner on West Portal Avenue. “We haven’t lost our small town feel. We’re just updating it. You could call it Gayberry.” But there’s some resistance to Norrell’s push to modernize the area's shopping experience. "Our meetings can be soap opera dramatic," said Maryo Mogannam, president of the West Portal Merchants Association. "Get the popcorn."
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- The debacle known as City College of San Francisco appears to have entered its darkest-before-dawn phase. How dark did it get? Last summer, the college was told it would lose its accreditation and public funding if it didn’t comply with the standards every other community college in California has to follow. Then it got darker when the college failed to meet the requirements. So where's the dawn? No more trustees to mismanage the college. They were stripped of their authority, giving the college hope to survive.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Beware the new social fax pas in the age of same-marriage equality: Asking gay friends when they are getting married.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- There was a time when suntans were "healthy" and cigarette ads featured doctors. We found true health by questioning what we thought was good for us. The elixir that charms San Francisco today is rent control. It's the only tonic we trust in a housing crisis where a million dollars can't buy a modest home and renting costs thousands a month. Yet home prices continue to soar. Is our cure making things worse?
Read MoreJoel Engardio interviewed on ABC 7 News San Francisco on eve of Supreme Court ruling against Proposition 8 to make same-sex marriage legal in California. June 25, 2013.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- It looks like the swampy soccer field riddled with gopher holes in Golden Gate Park will finally get fixed. But it will remain a battleground for San Francisco's soul. Tech newcomers versus retirees. Parents versus no kids. Sports players versus bird watchers. The rough, grassy area behind the Beach Chalet polarized them all. While everyone talked about a soccer field, the real debate was over identity. Is San Francisco a city of apps or should it be preserved in amber?
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- The students at San Francisco’s Lowell High School weren’t entirely bored with my guest lecture on the history of media and political campaigns. They laughed at the vintage TV ads, especially the “I Like Ike” cartoon from 1952. But they had no idea who President Dwight Eisenhower was. Hormones and a warm, spring day can explain the lack of interest in dead presidents. Two boys in the front row held hands the entire time I spoke.
I wanted to stop the lecture and tell the affectionate boys they should thank Eisenhower if they’re going to the prom together. The Glee-era high school experience they enjoy today is connected to Eisenhower’s purge of gay people from the U.S. government 60 years ago.
By Joel P. Engardio -- We love dogs in San Francisco. About 150,000 live here, which means we have more canines residing in The City than kids. But in finding park space for all those dogs to play, there's an escalating debate: Are they our best friends or dogs gone wild?
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- On the same week the Supreme Court heard its two historic cases on gay marriage, Google announced the first lucky test subjects who would get to try Google Glass -- history-making eyewear that puts the Internet in your field of vision. None of the justices were selected, but maybe Google should lend them a pair before they reach a decision in June.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Today's price to live in San Francisco is $1 million for a modest home or thousands a month for a market-rate apartment. That's the reality of supply and demand when 800,000 people want to live on a tiny peninsula where Tartine scones and a Bi-Rite Creamery can be found on the same Mission District block. It's especially tough on middle class families fleeing San Francisco. We have fewer children than any major American city and the ones we have are often relegated to sleeping in converted closets. We can do better.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- In San Francisco, there are plans to cut down large numbers of trees and replace them with native grass because ancient San Francisco was naturally treeless. The issue is ripe for parody because the call for tree destruction is coming from environmental activists who favor native plants. Meanwhile, many longtime residents and retired homeowners concerned with loss of windbreak and property value play the role of unlikely tree-huggers.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- I'm a gay man inspired by Harvey Milk, but renaming SFO after him is a bad idea.
Read MoreJoel Engardio appears on the "Face-to-Face with Stu Smith" show. San Francisco cable TV. Engardio discusses San Francisco politics, his background and his run for supervisor. September 2012.
Read MoreJoel Engardio introduces end-of-life care topic for the Harvard Law School negotiation workshop as an example of handling a difficult conversation. January 2012.
Read MoreJoel Engardio tells the story of Harvard's infamous gay purge. Graduation week falls on the purge's anniversary. Engardio imagined how a commencement speech could acknowledge the injustice and subsequent rainbow. The text was published in USA Today, a few days before Engardio graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School on May 26, 2011.
Read MoreJoel Engardio's video submission to the "It Gets Better Project" dedicated to giving hope to LGBT youth confronted with harassment and thoughts of suicide. It was created in 2010 in the wake of a rash of LGBT suicides across the United States. This video is from October 2010.
Read MoreMormons took a lot of abuse for helping pass Proposition 8 in California, where 52% of voters banned the right of gay couples to marry in 2008. But will anyone thank Jehovah's Witnesses for their role in getting the law declared unconstitutional?
Read MoreJoel Engardio's NPR essay "Learning True Tolerance" broadcast on Weekend Edition Sunday as part of the "This I Believe" series.
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