what has been the outcome of all this? that's what we have found out because we started to study how the city was used. we can come back and prove with hard data what has happened in you really are sweet to people and try to invite them to use the city to walk. they are now 40 percent more pedestrians in melbourne on weekdays. in the weekend there are twice as many and three to four times more people who sit and stand and listen to music t whole city center has come alive. the aws strail i can't answer aws strail i australians austrae started to come alive and walk. it's very much got the ambience

of paris. people pass sidney and go to melbourne for holiday. where would you spend your holiday. also we have found in melbourne in all the picture misdemeanor of economy, it's -- pyramids they have better money. much more than they would like to go to city shopping centers which are the same all over the world. cities are different. more jobs, higher real estate values, more turnover, whatever, parameter is positive. they have just decided to instale at copenhagen a bicycle system so now the australians shall not only walk, they shall also bike. some cities believe that making

a funny or interesting monument can put them in the world. barcelonia, copenhagen is thinking about it. everyone, every day and only for the tourists and make a better city and much shorter than making a building or two than ark technical ts who fly in and plunk down build eggs and fly out. so in the end, i mentioned we had this nine reconquered cities

and i mentioned bogata should be another one. in this book of mine, i have the eight pages in the end left blank more san francisco when you decide to turn your city around. thank you very much. [applause] marshal,ly thank you. yan, he's left us already. i've just been told my marshal the mayor is coming down the stairs here so we're going to pause before we have allen here to hear from the mayor. marshal, is he out there?

okay. hang on. maybe he doesn't know where the room is. [laughing]

do you see him? çó marshal tells me that he has been slightly side tracked, so i think we're going to go ahead with our program since no one brought a guitar. by the way, save your questions because there's going to be time for questions of yan and allen. i think most of us know allen jacobs. he's been a professor at

berkeley, he's been a codesigner on octavia boulevard. i've known him since he was the planning director and hired me as assistant directory and i think he's had doubts ever since as my capacity to do this job. that's allen and his idea of excellence. it was under allen's leadership that san francisco urban design plan was done. i think you all know it's had a lot of renowned status and i believe the best thing that describes allen is the list of his honors and awards. a fullñr bright scholar, a argur

g ugenheim, and many other awards. with all that, let's say hello to allen. [applause] >> thanks, dean. hi, there. nice to see you. why do you keep changing the color of your hair? jesus christ. that's good. you do good. you know, if you add together the areas of all of san francisco's public parks and open spaces, golden gate park,çi

the presidio, the golden gate national recreational area, mcclaren park, the public building, add all that together, it doesn't come close to the amount of space in public rights of way streets. it doesn't come close. more over, that's by and large the case inmost most -- most ci, even small one or medium ones. and you wouldn't be here if this weren't true, san francisco streets ain't what they ought to be. that's why marshal wanted me to talk at this wonderful

gathering. you can't trump yan gail, i'll talk about san francisco. i talked to marshal and he heard me say and you'll hear me say it again, san francisco streets are amongst the meanest in america. if you don't know that, you ought to, before we get to that, good things are happening. and we also should know that. the water front, along the water frontt northern water front from golden gate bridge down to mccovy cove and beyond to that tiny ballpark is a strange and

wonderful promenade has started. elizabeth and i increasingly do use it on our bicycles. we do the bicycle in honor of yan gail. to start out at the center of copenhagen to do that, you go through three countries. [laughter] but also because we like it. start at chrissie field, greater walk, the other walk, ride on it. arguably san francisco's best promenade. on to marina green through it, through and around fort funston. i can make it going east that

hill is a little tough for me going west. through the maritime museum, past it, the expanded fisherman's wharf area, it's a wonderful on stackable course. for the cyclists, you know, you can't go fast, it's scary, you fall off the curb, maybe, you know. then you hit the embarcadero, a kind of ballet gliding between people and experiencing the new open spaces. on through and past the ferry building and then the embarcadero south of market, under the bay bridge and beyond. you can pick up speed if you wish, but it's great for walking, and people do.

around the ballpark, over the bridgeçó to mccovy cove, to that new spectacular teeny ball field, miniature ball field, about six and a half miles of strange kobling together of the water front promenade. it can be done. it could be a lot better. it could be done. the new planting on portola from diamond heights up from diamond heights boulevard through forest hills, all these new trees that have gone there. if you haven't seen them, you should. they're -- you know, it's one of the few times they did them where the spaifg is right. i don't have if they have enough planting space and they're going

to live, some of them, but the spaifg spacing is good. the broad way leading up from embarcadero to columbus could be berlt, but, wow. it's month test but impressive. i hope in time you will like hayes green, the street and especially the park. don't put anymore of those little turdy things to keep the -- that look -- they look like turds that keep the skate boarders off. oh, my, god, how did you choose those? some kood things are being done. why are you laughing? but san francisco, by and large,

is a city of mean streets. as mean as nizzi i know. think, if you will, first, of some of the major streets guerrero, cesar chavez, 18th. when was the last time you took a stroll down 19th? >> mission street down to 24th. it's longer from there to daly city or whatever it goes than it is to downtown. have you ever gone on that and spent some real time on that street? poor people live there are

not -- no, not well to do people live there. lombard street, gerrery boulevard, any of the east-west streets through richmond. pick balboa if you have nothing else to do. the east-west streets through sunset, pick va vacenti if you e nothing else to do. if you have a choice, would you live along any of them? if you would, i would be interested to know where you live. then there's the local streets. pick any of a thousand of them. it's hard to find good ones, let alone areas of them.

as other cities improve and as urban people come to realize the importance of streets that is public rights of way as essential, could we have those two slides, i just -- i'll just let those sit there. that's a street in vancouver and the other the 19th, but it could be any of a number of others in san francisco. as other cities improve and as urban people come to realize as yan has just pointed out to brilliantly the importance of streets as public rights of way as primary essential source of the public realm as public places, as social and

recreational places, especially when local public parks are few and often noninviting, what does san francisco get left with? views and topography? views have distant. they are wonderful. but they are pictures. they're not where people live. they're good for picture books. and i'm truly afraid that san francisco is in danger of becoming a second class city when compared to other northern american cities are doing, particularly with their public rights of way.

why? what is it about the streets of san francisco that make them so mean and hard to deal with? it's not difficult to figure it out. you're -- so many of you sitting here are pros. you know. the width, the amount of space for vehicles curb to curb dimensions are incredibly too wide. you have to know that. every time i'mñr on castro street, ani live between noe valley and diamonds heights, and i pass 24th street and castro and i look at that space and i know that in the center, in the

center you could have a wonderful local park going three blocks long that would be -- could be every bit as promises as is hayes green. so the width. curb cuts. the incredible problems associated with curb cuts. but there are solutions to that especially in any new development and in changing what you have. the wide walks without any planting and the obliqueness

ness -- bleakness that comes with that, with no trees or strange stragly asormenting. generally, though, very few trees and when they exist, they's discordens. many will not want to hear this or deal with it. i guarantee you as long as -- on the local streets as long as each property owner is allowed to put whatever tree he or she wants in front of his or her house, the streets will remain lousy. çó that's why that one isn't, because they have a simple, simple rule. at least for every block, the

species is the street. that's all. then there are overhead wires and lighting problems. oh, okay. what do you do? what do you do? before you were laughing. this is not a laughing talk. i'm a planner, after all. i'm the city planner and designer. you need a plan and you've talked about doing one. you need a plan. a coherent plan by the san francisco city planning -- department of city planning and public works staffs to be done by them, and i'm sorry all your wonderful visitors and friends of mine, by the staff, not by

consultants. if the staff wants to do it and not fight like crazy to do it themselves, they ought to get different jobs. that damn simple. why are you not business? the plan should be for major streets, basic schematic, howo reconfig and plant existing streets to deal with typical situations. look at the bose triangle.

i'm a planning director. that's another age. why haven't we done more of that? if you go talk to people, we want that. why haven't you done that? when we were working on the plan for the hayes valley, that's what we heard over and over. why don't you do that? it's not so hard. a maintenance program that is funded. i don't want to underestimate that. [applause] somehow, that's got to be -- that's a critical thing. the department of public works used to drive me nuts when i was planning director about who the hell is going to maintain your trees, jacobs, that we're

putting in. no one will take care of them. i remember getting money. a hundred bucks a tree, whatever it was, to -- as an endowment. whatever happened to the money? [laughter] it has to be in there. opportunities. there's -- it's huge numbers of opportunities, people, and we all know them. we also did folsom street, that's one by the way that needs maintenance now. we were told that the same tree, chinese elm, runs the wholeñi length. when we did that, quickly because we got some money, do it, we were told because we didn't have big participation

and all the people of the mission didn't like trees, they were going to trash them. they didn't get trashed. how come they didn't get trashed? now, if you ask the people on south van ness , they'll say why don't we have trees 't we have ? think aboutñi the potential of park presidio and park central. those streets could have trees. think of the bicycle pleasure drives, parks, you know, linial park, think of the possibility both for commuting and po work and pleasure for pleasure like bikes. 19th is a hugely difficult problem.

cesar chavez is less difficult but worthy of our attention, both. our attention and action. virginia vicente in the sunset could be so easily made into a wonderful street. those are examples. best of all if you think about it, guys, and we're talking about the public realm, we could be having a lot of fun doing this. we could be having a lot of fun thank you. [applause]

>> well ladies and gentlemen, the mayor is here. mayor, why don't youñr come on . let me say that one of the pleasures for me in coming back at my age is being able to work with mayor newsom. he has been terrific for planning and i can say this with certainty, he is one man who can't wait to have a master plan for streets so we can get on with it. mayor newsom. [applause] >> thank you all very much. i was getting depressed listening to allen until he ended by saying, and we can have some fun. i know he meant that literally and figuratively. by the way, that's exactly right, not as we are but as we can be. it is very exciting what's happening in san francisco. there's a constellation it seems

to me of frustration but of people that want to put their frustration to work by manifesting some of their ideas and vision that's existed for decades in san francisco but hasn't been fully materialized. we can do so much more and be so much better. there's no doubt about that. the old days of being this or that is over. i talk about the tierney of war versus the jean use of man. you have to have one thing or the other. fix the potholes or do new tree planning. that's nonsense. you can fix the potholes and plant new trees. the genious of man.

there's been creeping immediate m ediocrity-- immediate -- get everybody on the same page rather than pointing fingers and blaming folks get the transportation board to work with puc, the airport, the planning department, to work with dbi, dpw and the community groups and the expertise in the room together and stop pointing fingers and taking cheese shots talking about the way the world should be but to collect and advance and implement those