Envisioning a Better Neighborhood

Playland at the Beach, Sutro Baths, the Cliff House, Topsy’s Roost – these are some of the former attractions that used to bring people out to the western half of San Francisco.

Not just a sleepy bedroom community to house workers that would head into their downtown jobs, the Richmond District used to be a vibrant part of the fabric of San Francisco. A home to a rich variety of businesses and communities nestled just north of Golden Gate Park, I want to see the Richmond become a vital part of San Francisco’s future.

Other than just the closures of landmarks on the far western edge of the district, I have seen longtime staples in the community face closure and disrepair. As someone who grew up going to Sugar Bowl Bakery and catching new releases at the Coronet Theater, I’m left to wonder “what are the places and stories we are leaving to the next generation?”

While there are many colorful stories and cultural artifacts from the 1960s and ’70s that dominate the narratives of San Francisco, holding onto the past sucks the oxygen from creating a new identity for the Richmond. With the challenges and changes brought about by COVID, tech companies and working from home, what’s the next chapter for the Richmond District and San Francisco?

For this future vision, I wistfully recall summer’s past of Shaw Brothers’ movie marathons at the 4 Star and hope they might return one day. But the new owners there are charting a new path with a gallery and cafe environment.

Holding out for things to remain the same would be burying my head in the sand about how hard it is to run a business in San Francisco. Every business is a risk and an experiment – supporting them creates an opportunity for our neighborhood business corridors to be the place for neighborhood residents who now work from home to connect with each other and grow roots in the neighborhood. While City Hall focuses on how to restore downtown, we need to understand our own role in deciding this future.

The past year has been full of elections that are going to lay the groundwork of the City for another generation. Based on the results of these elections, it is clear to me that education, public safety, small business and the public use of streets appear to be the topics du jour, with housing and homelessness seemingly a lower priority in the Richmond. Unfortunately, elections have a way of making decisions on these complex issues too binary and leave out a lot of the discussions and compromises.

As a community we can take a more direct action in affecting the direction of our neighborhood by voting with our dollars and our feet.

With these myriad challenges we all face, let’s explore the next steps we can start taking to put us on a path to fixing them. Building back a vibrant Richmond will not be easy, so let’s begin a conversation and start thinking creatively! There is no silver bullet to these challenges, and it will take all of the above solutions from building more housing, creating safer streets, increasing public transit and supporting small businesses to be effective.

As found in a 2019 National Institute for Transportation and Communities study, improved bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure was shown to have positive impacts on sales and employment in the retail and food service sectors. Envisioning a vibrant community allows these synergies to build upon each other where making streets more lively and safe for people walking and biking and helps small businesses.

One of the obvious things to me that I see working in this vein is the usage of car-free/car-lite spaces for “events” such as farmers’ markets, Sunday Streets like Car-free Grant, the eastern portion of John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park and the Upper Great Highway on the weekends to draw crowds of people. This isn’t a war on cars since these do have some negative impacts, but rather a call to see what improvements on the whole we can work together on to achieve better outcomes. These changes in some fashion are going to need to be part of this vibrant future, so we need to take care how these impacts are perceived. Engaging small business owners, families and seniors on ways to improve access to participate in these community building events is the starting point to sustainable solutions. When we communicate and converse about what is and isn’t working, we can work to iterate and improve on this moment to create those new experiences and landmarks for a new generation to enjoy.

Brian Quan is a Richmond District native, co-leader of Grow the Richmond, president of the Chinese American Democratic Club, member of the Park Presidio-Sunset Lions Club and participant in monthly Refuse Refuse S.F. street clean-ups.