By Joel P. Engardio -- We have a reactionary housing policy that plays whack-a-mole every time rent control creates another market distortion. Our gut always says, “Tighten rent control!” Perhaps it’s time to try a counterintuitive solution, like steering into the skid to avert a crash.
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By Joel P. Engardio -- Few people live to see a section of interstate freeway named after them, so Quentin Kopp doesn’t need to be reminded that he’s a San Francisco legend. But I wanted to know what battles remain for the 85-year-old, why he keeps going to his office every day and how he feels when the Chronicle dismisses him as “everybody’s favorite crank.”
“I’m old school and I’m going to articulate old-school criteria,” Kopp said in a raised voice as he banged his fist on the desk for effect. “It might just be in 20 years that people will agree with me.”
Yet Kopp admitted he's out of touch with younger generations, saying his 14-year-old granddaughter is “going to do things differently.”
“I do need to keep up, otherwise I’m totally mystified by what I see,” he said. “Don’t ask me what Justin Bieber does or why he’s successful.”
By Joel P. Engardio -- Ask any parent remaining in San Francisco (a city with more dogs than kids) to describe the process of applying for public school and you'll often hear "nightmare."
"I was willing to excuse some of the negative stories -- the anger, the frustration, families leaving San Francisco -- because our crazy system had a bigger goal of better outcomes," said School Board Commissioner Matt Haney. "Now I question if it is all worth it. If the system isn't accomplishing its goals, then what's the point?"
By Joel P. Engardio -- While Cher and Elton John debated the best way to protest Russia’s anti-gay laws (she wouldn’t sing there and he was willing), my stand for LGBT equality in Russia was limited to likes on Facebook posts. Then I received a surprise email from a Russian television channel. They wanted permission to broadcast a documentary I made for PBS. Now I had to decide: Be like Cher and refuse to do business with a country that discriminates? Or follow Elton John’s example and be a gay man who supports gay Russians by trying to engage the nation?
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Students of history know that “Nixon in China” is a metaphor for difficult change that requires a push from an unexpected advocate. Maybe “Seniors on the Westside” will become a similar catch phrase for solving one of San Francisco’s most vexing problems -- not enough housing for everyone who wants to live here.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- While city voters yawned through this month's low-turnout election, Supervisor Mark Farrell managed to do something unthinkable in San Francisco: He got a proposition approved with the support of both the Republican Party and those on the firebrand left. Farrell's initiative won big with nearly 70 percent of the vote and the support of every labor union -- except one. Why did activists from SEIU Local 1021 follow Farrell across a parking lot, screaming at him every step of the way?
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By Joel P. Engardio -- If you fear romping dogs and poop on your shoe, then beware of a U.S. National Park Service plan that will overrun your neighborhood parks with thousands more dogs.
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Joel Engardio introduces first-ever meeting of the Alice B. Tolkas LGBT Democratic Club on San Francisco's historically conservative Westside. October 7, 2013.
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By Joel P. Engardio -- When you see the words "unfunded liability" please think of cat videos, sex or any other Internet obsession. Don't click away because "unfunded liability" is boring. The future of San Francisco needs you to crave this topic like it's a cronut.
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By Joel P. Engardio -- Based on the venture capital dollars flowing into San Francisco, we’re already being called the “new” Silicon Valley. But we deserve a unique name. Welcome to the Cloud Corridor.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- It’s easy to romanticize the Barbary Coast because that was historic debauchery. But what about today’s sin and sizzle on Broadway? Consider the dive bar with a porn shop next door and an illegal brothel upstairs. An 88-year-old woman living in Hawaii currently holds the title, which made it easy for tenants to trash the property. When her grandson Jordan Angle found out, the 34-year-old made it his mission to save his family's building -- and Broadway along with it.
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By Joel P. Engardio -- You know it's a slow election year when a vote on a condo development along The Embarcadero becomes a referendum on all that is good and evil in San Francisco.
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By Joel P. Engardio -- When French writer Alexis de Tocqueville studied democracy by traveling across America in the 1830s, he encountered people like Todd David -- a New Jersey native who came to San Francisco in 1998. David embodies the can-do DNA that impressed Tocqueville about early Americans: How they formed their own groups to solve problems rather than rely on a government solution that might never come.
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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.
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By 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.
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By 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."
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By 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.
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By Joel P. Engardio -- Beware the new social fax pas in the age of same-marriage equality: Asking gay friends when they are getting married.
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By 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?
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Joel 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.
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