City planning is important, it allows having some coherence within cities.
Well that's the popularized fantasy often promoted by said governments and their spiritual brethren. However, if SF is evidence of 'city planning' then I think it's more than fair and completely logical to question the value of this practice.
I've seen people claim it's supposed to be for safety: where are the highways? SF roads are a constant mess, there's plenty of industrial and frivoulous trendy housing projects approved over the years (coincidentally some have been granted 'historic landmark' status). As far as basic planning, SF is a completely fail. It's almost a completely rectangular piece of land only about 12x60 miles , that's pretty hard to screw up. Yet it's 2013 and there is one convoluted freeway, diverted and elbowed down to a highway, then an immediately right turn into a bridge that's been under various forms of major construction for about 30 years, that's it.
Want to get to the Golden Gate? Then you're on city streets, each with traffic lights about every 50ft. Parking? Forget it, it's not a city priority in the slightest, because parking fines are a HUGE revenue generator for SF. They have zero interest in the public good, if they are making money. At least corporations have to sell a product that someone wants or they fail.
But yeah, the Ruth Asawa (wtf?) fountain behind the jean store in the business district filled with almost exclusively uniform gray rectangles, that's what government planners worry about. I'm sure they do some mythical public good, but I'm kinda tired of paying more and more for this type of religious spectacle to watch the government pray for the supposed inherent sins of mankind. It's a lousy show, and it's beyond overpriced for what we're getting.
If you're reading this and noticing a pattern with some SF 'logic', then you probably won't be amazed to learn that almost anything of a technological value is done almost 40 miles south, well away from the clunky, government-controlled, tourist mall at the Golden Gate bridge. It's interesting that the bridge was entirely financed, personally by Bank of America CEO, Amadeo Giannini - a guy from San Jose/Silicon Valley. His other company, the Transamerica Corporation, built the only other major notable landmark in SF, the Transamerica Pyramid Building.
City planning is an illusion. It's just another supposed reason used by an increasingly elitest, power hungry government to justify their importance. They even have a useless European cloned
palace in SF for the royalty. You're even forced to drive past it slowly, because they end the freeway a couple hundred feet before it. Wanna see the bridge (the only reason you even left Disneyland and the beaches) you gotta drive by the monarchy, but slowly because they wouldn't want to be disturbed or have their view of the peasants obstructed.
I'm all for the corporations, these guys built SF and all of the actual landmarks there. Remove as much of the government as humanly possible and let them keep their Ruth Asawa fountains. Knock down their gaudy out of place city hall and put a super cool giant space ring of glass, a perfect infinite loop... never mind, Apple is building that in Silicon Valley.
