San Francisco Metblogs » recession

That cluck you hear

Mark Pritchard — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:33:45 +0000

The urban chicken renaissance — an impressive phrase that just means that city people have begun in larger numbers to keep backyard chickens again — has come to Oakland foodies, according to an LA Times article about the Temescal District’s Pizzaiolo restaurant (map).

SFGate was on this trend in February. And in fact, if you search for “backyard chicken coops” in Google News, you’ll get dozens of articles from cities across the country. They’re doing it everywhere.

Like most trends, however, it probably started in the Mission District. A friend of mine on Shotwell has been keeping chickens — almost secretly at first, but now more openly as it becomes more widely accepted — for three years.

Recession around the Bay

Mark Pritchard — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 06:38:41 +0000

A friend visited the Emeryville branch of Borders Books and found it half-empty. Must be a little rough in Emeryville these days, considering that the big Circuit City there closed when that chain went down.

Also today, I was in Noe Valley and saw employees of the AAA storefront there literally carrying equipment out the door. A sign posted in the window said the branch was closing that day.

Meanwhile, the Chronicle carried an unintentionally funny story about how something called the Bay Area Council Economic Institute is meeting to split up funds from federal stimulus bills. Great quote:

“If we all work together in the next 66 days and get a great plan, we win,” said John Grubb, spokesman…

Yeah, that’ll definitely happen.

Vegas’s loss is San Francisco’s gain

Mark Pritchard — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:41:51 +0000

After President Barack Obama Monday told an Indiana audience that companies should “not give out these big bonuses until you’ve paid taxpayers back. You can’t get corporate jets — (applause) — you can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers’ dime,” the investment bank Goldman Sachs announced it was moving a conference from Las Vegas to San Francisco. (Update: here’s a link to information about the conference in question.)

Not because San Francisco is cheaper, because it’s not. No, money was “not the driving reason behind (the decision),” a spokesman said. “The decision to relocate the conference is based on our best efforts to operate according to the requirements of the new landscape of our industry.”

Goldman Sachs got $10 billion in the TARP bailout last fall. Wells Fargo, based in San Francisco, recently canceled a trip to Vegas for some of its employees. They received $25 billion. (The bank, not the employees.)

Now Las Vegas’s mayor is demanding an apology from Obama for implying there’s something wrong with going to Las Vegas. “What’s a better place, as I say, than for them to come here,” Oscar Goodman told a Las Vegas TV station. “And to change their mind and to go someplace else and to cancel — and at the suggestion of the president of the United States — that’s outrageous.”