A Sustainable Vision for the Heart of San Francisco
San Francisco's Civic Center sits at the core of one of the most visited cities in the world.
Our city has always been a leader -- willing to think differently and act boldly. And now, San Francisco's Civic Center will stand as a global model for how we achieve a more sustainable future.
Today in New York City joined by former President Bill Clinton I announced that San Francisco has agreed to a formal partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) to transform our Civic Center into a first-of-its-kind sustainable resource district over the next three years.
Our new and improved government center will maximize energy and water efficiency, reduce waste, and increase the use of wastewater. The sustainable resource district will also create jobs, improve our environment and demonstrate that if government can go green anybody can.
Sustainable strategies will be implemented on the Civic Center's buildings and public spaces to provide measurable and replicable results for cities worldwide and create a global center that educates the public on sustainable concepts.
The goals of the sustainable resource district are:
• 80% potable water use reduction
• 45% wastewater discharge reduction
• 35% peak power demand met by renewables
• 33% annual energy reduction
• Reduction of the community carbon footprint by 2,225 tons annually; the equivalent of the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 1,286 San Francisco households
Although implementing the overall vision will take several years, this 3-year Commitment to Action is anticipated to launch on October 20th, 2008 with a formal partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI), followed by planning and evaluation with the community and experts, design development, identifying potential funding, and public outreach, with installation of the first projects set for late 2009.
Potential initial projects include the installation of solar rooftop photovoltaics, water conservation fixtures, living roofs, and a public Wi-Fi connection, among others.
What better way to educate the world on sustainability than by transforming that heart of our city government to showcase how we can use water more efficiently, promote food security, and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
Follow Gavin Newsom on Twitter: www.twitter.com/GavinNewsom
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My sustainable vision for San Francisco includes:
1. Reducing the cringe-factor of the Tenderloin (the neighborhood in which Civic Center sits). Having been a student in the area, I became overwhelmed by the homelessness, crime, heavy drug use (I've seen people shoot needles into their veins, literally), grime in the streets and overall nastiness of Tenderloin.
2. Eliminating the irony of skyrocketing rent in SF, including the nasty Tenderloin. A one bedroom apartment in the Tenderloin can go for $1995. With few grocery stores in the neighborhood, cars constantly getting broken into on the street, shootings and other poverty-related crimes, I can't help but to wonder what San Francisco is trying to sustain-- Perhaps the ever-expanding gap between rich and poor?
3. A modern public transit system, where Muni runs frequently, on time and all night. BART would go to ALL neighborhoods, even out in the Bayview, and SF would stop patting itself on the back just because it's transit is "better than LA." It's not that much bettter in LA, and it's sure no better than New York or Chicago. Have you ever tried to actually use Muni to go multiple places? At night?
4. A city where people of color are not pushed out of their neighborhoods because this city has become too expensive, overly gentrified and rather uncomfortable for anyone with brown skin. Even professionals of color have fled SF. The city is no longer cosmopolitan. It is elitist.
Here here.
5. A city where the public transportation system doesn't have one of the highest pedestrian kill rates of any city.
6. A city where you might see a tree or two every once-in-a-while.
7. A city where the middle class, of all colors, is not hanging on by a thread.
8. A city where you don't have to worry for your life when you visit the zoo. (sorry, that was mean, but I was at the zoo that day).
I miss trees the most. It's gotten to where I'm like a child when I see a tree-lined street: "Ooh, look at that! They're so green!"
It's like magic to me.
See Rick Siegel's Profile
Gavin, hopefully Los Angeles will soon join our northern neighbor in this initiative; thanks for your leadership. And thanks for you interest in helping eradicate single-use plastic bags from drycleaners as you have from grocery and retail stores.
Mr. Newsom, you must do something about the homeless problem in San Francisco and the open drug use in the near downtown community. I mean, the city is beautiful, but many of the streets near downtown smell of urine and it almost looks like Calcutta with so many lost, bedraggled homeless milling about.
I just got back from beautiful Crissy Field. It's another gorgeous day in San Francisco, I am blessed to live in such a wonderful open diverse city. Give us the Vietnam vets, the tired, the weak, we're trying. Gav. 4 Gov.
Okay, I don't like seeing the homeless around either, but look into Newsom's projects with regard to homeless people - he has a kind of "help me help you program" where the homeless have to do certain things to gain benefits from the city - they do not just get a hand out. Too long to go into detail here but look into the plan.
However, many homeless are just out of their minds, unable to work at all and think that pink elephants are walking down the street. The mental health/medical system is an atrocity. Working in the medical field, I see day by day how this so-called great system is "working' while the greedy denounce any form of universal health care (do you want a beauracrat making your medical decisions? Uh, doesn't happen, but too many bozos think it does).
As long as we live in a rabidly greedy society, the homeless are going to keep piling up.
Two points: One: McCain not only wants to ration healthcare but wants our war vets to pay for their care. A good percentage of our veterans are homeless and that really bothers me. Two: Bureaucrats already make our medical decisions! I never talk with a doctor or nurse practitioner when I call my healthcare provider. It's always a clerk somewhere far away from where I live. I'd bet this is true for most who have medical insurance.
I wouldn't live anywhere else. Not anywhere. What have we seen since the dollar has been in the tank? Hundreds of thousands of Western European tourists - more than I've seen since I moved here in 1992. They're not staying in NYC anymore, but are taking the trouble to travel on. To where? San Francisco. What are we doing with all that revenue? Greening our city - an absolutely vital maneuver to help stop global warming. Do we have a homeless problem? Yes. But I was raised in Dallas. Do you know what they do with their homeless people? With brute force, they corral them beneath dangerous underpasses and along the toxic Trinity River, like prisoners. Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they're not there in every major city across the map.
Wow, Gavin Newson wants to completely destroy the area where there is a great farmer's market. It is the only one that the middle-to-lower class in the city can afford. so of course, they will destroy it. I love that this is a priority over other things like Muni and the spiraling murder rate in the mission. urgh.
There's the Alemany farmers market, so Civic Center isn't the only Farmers Market that's affordable. I do agree with you, though, that there are other problems -- like the ones mentioned in the posts here -- that should be treated with equal urgency and be given equal resources.
My home in 1990, San Fran had a threatening homeless problem then as it does now. I came from Chicago and the characteristics of their homeless were nowhere near as aggressive and confrontational as the homeless in San Fran. Clearly this epidemic problem has not been addressed in at least twenty years. While laudible that the city government wants to name the sewage treatment plant after G.W. Bush, they need to find a model to help these homeless. Community organizing anyone..?
As a tourist who have visted San Francisco several times, it is a great city, but the homeless are completely out of control.
See K.J. Dwyer's Profile
Gavin,
While I no longer call San Francisco home, I'm a fifth generation San Franciscan and I'm so proud that you have taken the lead on not only this issue, but a whole range of issues including gay marriage and the homeless situation.
San Francisco has always been at the epi-center of progressive politics and it's key that you continue to relfect that tradition and advance the progressive agenda. You're a great example of the political model for our present and future leadership.
Kudos.
Great plans!
Tell me, what are you doing to get homeless people back into homes, and to work?
I Echoe the comments regarding the homeless. This is by-product of the governement of that city, you have more rights as a homeless person than you do as a responsible citizen.
You cannot walk on Market street past 9 PM for fear of being accosted.
It's not much better on Union Square.
thank you for walking the walk!!! if only schwarzenegger and villaraigosa would DO some of the things they promise, instead of BOASTING then doing nothing or obstructing good projects and programs others are trying to implement!!!
we need to call a stop to all these horrible, devastating industrial wind and solar projects which will kill off millions and millions of acres of our open spaces, and look instead to the POINT OF USE and work on conservation, efficiency, smart metering, and renewable generation. NO massive power plants, new road systems and gigantic transmission lines are needed, and they will do far more harm than good (the GHGs emitted by building and maintaining these scams will FAR outweigh the GHGs offset by them). We need local solutions, owned by US, not monopolistic infrastructure paid for by us, but owned by Big Energy,
so, thanks for doing so much within your city to relieve the unfair, disastrous burdens on our open spaces due to urban over-consumption and unsustainability. keep it up, there is a lot more to do!
I hope you can spread this vision to ALL of the city, because then we will be making real progress.
Our daughter lives in SF, we visit often. I think you are doing a great job and represent the city like I never thought possible. BUT, I too have a huge problem with the homeless on Market. This is the tourist area, and they are all over, it is very disconcerting. Again, they cannot help that they are homeless, but right in the Union Square area is NOT something that the city should allow.
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