AFS Cinema
Frustrated and Disappointed by Cover Story
RECEIVED Wed., March 28, 2007
Dear Chronicle editors,
As a Downtown resident, I was frustrated by your recent cover article “We Were the Urban Pioneers” [News, March 23]. Your premise was to understand who are the “urban pioneers” moving into Downtown but, in a glaring oversight, failed to talk to any. Instead we are provided with two reporters who mockingly dress up as stereotyped residents and then proceed to cast judgment on this, my neighborhood, all the while holding themselves up as the ideal occupants.
Surely you did not waste all of this ink to make fun of the pitches of salespeople, which is a trite exercise. It also couldn't have been to understand Downtown residents because you didn't talk to any. So why then did you write this article and put it on your cover? If I am left to guess that this article was designed solely to protest the types of residents moving in Downtown – an attitude that may well have stemmed from good intentions but is sadly deprived of perspective.
My immediate neighbors are a secretary, a retiree, a small-business owner, a military serviceman, and a schoolteacher couple with a small child. None of us are wealthy, most of us contribute to the creative life of this city, and all of us are proud Downtowners. I do not recognize your “Burton” and “Shanti” characters but would argue that, were they to exist, they should have an equal right to live in this neighborhood free of prejudice or parody just as anyone else.
Downtown has not been called home by “artists, musicians, and slackers” as your article suggests or really too much of anyone for the past 25 years. That in large part has been the problem, and now that people are finally moving here and are trying to improve their community, your publication complains that those individuals are not sufficiently like yourselves.
Affordable housing remains an ongoing concern, but an attack on this neighborhood is misdirected when there are numerous other areas that are far behind Downtown in both acknowledgment and action on this issue.
Lastly, your article failed to mention how all of those who visit, work, and play in Downtown benefit from having 24-hour residents here. You made no mention of how the presence of residents attracts new retail and services that make the area safer and more vibrant; no acreage equivalent to what 25,000 residents would consume in suburban sprawl nor what it would cost in utilities or roadways.
In the end, I am left to conclude that your article was a disservice to both your readers and to this city.
As a Downtown resident, I was frustrated by your recent cover article “We Were the Urban Pioneers” [News, March 23]. Your premise was to understand who are the “urban pioneers” moving into Downtown but, in a glaring oversight, failed to talk to any. Instead we are provided with two reporters who mockingly dress up as stereotyped residents and then proceed to cast judgment on this, my neighborhood, all the while holding themselves up as the ideal occupants.
Surely you did not waste all of this ink to make fun of the pitches of salespeople, which is a trite exercise. It also couldn't have been to understand Downtown residents because you didn't talk to any. So why then did you write this article and put it on your cover? If I am left to guess that this article was designed solely to protest the types of residents moving in Downtown – an attitude that may well have stemmed from good intentions but is sadly deprived of perspective.
My immediate neighbors are a secretary, a retiree, a small-business owner, a military serviceman, and a schoolteacher couple with a small child. None of us are wealthy, most of us contribute to the creative life of this city, and all of us are proud Downtowners. I do not recognize your “Burton” and “Shanti” characters but would argue that, were they to exist, they should have an equal right to live in this neighborhood free of prejudice or parody just as anyone else.
Downtown has not been called home by “artists, musicians, and slackers” as your article suggests or really too much of anyone for the past 25 years. That in large part has been the problem, and now that people are finally moving here and are trying to improve their community, your publication complains that those individuals are not sufficiently like yourselves.
Affordable housing remains an ongoing concern, but an attack on this neighborhood is misdirected when there are numerous other areas that are far behind Downtown in both acknowledgment and action on this issue.
Lastly, your article failed to mention how all of those who visit, work, and play in Downtown benefit from having 24-hour residents here. You made no mention of how the presence of residents attracts new retail and services that make the area safer and more vibrant; no acreage equivalent to what 25,000 residents would consume in suburban sprawl nor what it would cost in utilities or roadways.
In the end, I am left to conclude that your article was a disservice to both your readers and to this city.
Best regards,
Michael McGill
Michael McGill