Issue 504
Can Market Street Be Great Again?
Linked Fortunes: Mid-Market and the Uptown Tenderloin
They thrived together, then declined together. Now these
key neighborhoods are primed for a joint revival.
San Francisco’s recent payroll tax exemption for the Mid-Market and Uptown Tenderloin reaffirmed a century-long connection between these neighborhoods. From the 1890s through the 1950s, Mid-Market theater patrons and shoppers dined and drank in Uptown Tenderloin bars and restaurants. Through the 1930s, Market Street movie theaters picked up their films from the many film exchanges in the Uptown Tenderloin. Market Street also attracted people to…
A Walk Down Market Street
The story of San Francisco's main drag embodies the history of the city itself.
The story of San Francisco's main drag embodies the history of the city itself.
Four Ways to Transform Mid-Market
Strategies for a vital economy in San Francisco's central district
After many years of fits and starts, San Francisco's Mid-Market area is stirring with prospects for transformation. Projects about to begin, as well as those still in planning, will bring new vitality to our long-neglected civic concourse. The already-approved CityPlace project, a new 250,000-square-foot retail development, will extend the commercial vibrancy of the San Francisco Centre to the stretch of Market Street west of…
What Makes an Arts District Successful?
Cities across the country are using arts districts as a redevelopment tool. Here’s why the best ones work.
Cities across the country are using arts districts as a redevelopment tool. Here’s why the best ones work.
Street transformations: Lessons from London, Melbourne and New York
Physical changes at street level can not only make a street work better — they can transform it into a great public space.
Physical changes at street level can not only make a street work better — they can transform it into a great public space.
Urban Field Notes: Trek Links Green Spaces in SF's Emerald Necklace
As the end users of design, we are often limited to the prescribed use of a space. Yet, to be everyday urbanists means to liberate ourselves from that prescriptive logic and find the uses we need in the spaces we have at hand. In the same way that little kids find forts in trundle beds, we must enact what we desire from a city in the city we have.