What's the matter with San Franciso?

Gabriel Metcalf of SPUR has an excellent article describing the strange evolution of NIMBYism in San Fran and how it became aligned with progressive politics. The analogy to What's the Matter With Kansas? is particularly apt:

As the city got more and more expensive, progressive housing policy shifted gradually to a sad, rearguard movement to protect the people already here from being displaced. No longer would San Francisco even try to remain open as a refuge for immigrants and radicals from around the world. The San Francisco Left could never come to terms with its central contradiction of being against the creation of more “places” that would give new people the chance to live in the city. Once San Francisco was no longer open to freaks and dissidents, immigrants and refugees, because it was deemed to be “full,” it could no longer fulfill its progressive values, could no longer do anything for the people who weren’t already here.

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