But most would rather try their luck with farm girls in Omaha.

"support for a tidal-energy project in the San Francisco Bay, despite a recent study's conclusions that the project would be more expensive than it's worth"

equate with

"even greener"?

Last I checked, "Green" doesn't mean "blind pursuit of purportedly environmental technologies, regardless of effect". The word for that is "greenwash".

Remember, wave tech is still really young, and most new tech when it's really young is expensive, 'specially in the research phase.  It has to go into mass production before it becomes economically viable.

It's not "greenwash" it it costs more (economically), so long as it still as a positive impact on the environment.  I buy products sometimes that are more expensive than other brands, but I buy 'em because of their positive impact (like 7th Generation, for example), so just 'cause something costs more doesn't mean it's greenwash.  

Politicians talk endlessly about doing the right thing but rarely ever do the right thing and show the rest of us how it can be done.  Every city should have for decades now been running on alternative fuels and practicing green tech.  By now we would have had mature technologies that we can all use and afford.

Even though it should be our governments that are practicing and promoting true green tech they are also the wrong people to ask.  yes I'm beyond cynical.  but green away.

Then there's the great views, the history, and culture of the area.  Add in alotta niche demographics, and it becomes a very interesting melting pot of people.

So basically it's part supply-demand, and part atmosphere that makes it so expensive.

Look at the craigslist housing board.

You don't buy housing in San Francisco, you inherit it. Prices are insane but you save money because you don't need a car; there's nowhere to park them anyway.

I lived in San Francisco when I was a kid, both my parents worked in civil service for the city of San Francisco when Difi was a city councilwoman. It's not the same.

It's a museum city now like Venice; there are very few families with children and lots of young, single people willing to pay the outrageous rents to be on top of the action.

The reason it has so many homeless is that California doesn't take care of it's people any better than the rest of the US does. In the burbs they jail you for being homeless and SF doesn't do that. The homeless go to where they can get food and medical care just like any other refugees.

In general I would say you can come visit California but please leave after a few weeks. We really don't need any more people here. Oh, it's probably Eliot Spitzers favorite city besides TJ.  The place is on hormonal overload. It's the fog or something.

Put the Carbon Back

The other big ecological issue here is a proliferation of dogs, which are run off leash in parks.  The large increase in dog numbers is due to the cost of housing, which encourages wealthier people to move here, and those people often have dogs.  (It's not that only wealthy people have dogs, but people with money are far more likely to have dogs than people without.)  These dogs chase, harass, and kill wildlife, dig holes, and urinate and defecate all over, but Newsom refuses to enforce the leash laws and actually advocates for more off leash areas when he should be reigning them in.  The wealthy dog problem has spurned a "dog walker" industry, where people "walk" as many as 10-15 dogs at once, often off leash.

Conclusion:  Gavin Newsom is just a phony, yuppie-type environmentalist.  In addition to the problems noted above, his agencies have stalled the large solar project that San Francisco is supposed to implement and a bike project that would get people out of cars and onto bicycles.  He's just like Governor Schwarzenegger; they give the environment plenty of lip service, but when it comes to making the significant changes that require some sacrifice, they do nothing and often cause harm.

Reconnect people with our fellow creatures, the natural world, et cetera, and demonstrate the benefits of low-tech solutions to our modern problems.