Is San Francisco an American City?

Recently, we had a house guest from the South. He was a young college graduate who had attended on a full academic scholarship. He was a nice kid.

As the first few days of his eight-week visit unfolded, I realized that there were many things that we do here that people where he’s from don’t. The number and variety of these differences grew as the days progressed. Here is a sample of our differences.

I knew that he came from a state with an abundance of water and very low utility rates. I told him that in San Francisco water and resultant sewage costs are very high and that we try not to waste water. The same is true about gas and electric charges. We also showed him how we always use our own bags when grocery shopping to save on paper and plastic bag creation.
He said he understood.

In response, he limited his time away from his running kitchen faucet (while he went into another room) to under two minutes, kept his showers to only 25 minutes, and tried to keep the refrigerator door open for less than 10 minutes at a time.

I told him about recycling our glass, paper, aluminum and plastic. He told me that they have it in his town but it costs extra so most people don’t bother. He didn’t either. We noticed that he even threw his paper grocery bags away in the garbage.

It was then that I began to wonder if it was them or us who were different.

San Francisco was the first American city to ban smoking in restaurants, then bars, then parks. San Francisco was the first to create domestic partnerships for unmarried couples leading finally to gay marriages, which were just recently upheld by the state supreme court.

San Francisco was also at the forefront of the decriminalization of marijuana movement, first with medical marijuana, then with allowing dozens of retail outlets to sell it, then with making it official policy to not arrest for possession of the weed, and soon will be the first to celebrate its inevitable legalization.

Jesse Jackson not only carried South Carolina, when he ran for the Democratic nomination for President, he also carried San Francisco which has only a 5% African American population. And when Bush-Cheney made clear their intentions to invade Iraq, San Francisco was first to turn out en masse to object to an attack which would go on to cost a hundred thousand lives (including the Iraqi dead) and trillions of dollars (including the future disability costs for wounded soldiers and the predictable aid to millions of Iraqi refugees who will move to America when we withdraw our troops).

Now, San Francisco is offering medical coverage to all of its residents, paid sick leave for all those who work in the city, and a living wage that is 50% higher than America’s minimum wage.
The City even had planned to issue resident i.d. cards to undocumented (read ‘imported, paperless’) residents. In San Francisco, members of the police and sheriff’s department do not cooperate with federal agents (as in American government) in their efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants (read ‘paperless imports’) who commit crimes in the City.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has repeatedly let the United States Navy know that its ships were not welcome near our shores because of its policy toward gay members and because of its intrinsically belligerent nature. And the San Francisco school board is trying to eliminate ROTC from its campuses for the same reasons.

So what do you think? Is San Francisco an American city or will America someday become a San Francisco country?

October 2008