Opinion

Anyone who’s lived in Northern California for a few years is bound to have mixed feelings about October. It is arguably our most beautiful month: warm sunny days, crisp fog-free nights, clear enough to see the moon and all the stars even in the city. But October’s gorgeous weather stirs memories in many of us of two October events in the last twenty years that reminded us of our mortality, and of the fragile grip we have on our lotus-eater lives even in this perfect-seeming region. -more-

As Berkeley prepares to remake its downtown once again at the behest of the University of California, we had the pleasure of spending Friday night in downtown Santa Cruz, which remade its downtown at the behest of the Loma Prieta fault. After the 1989 earthquake, the city hastily demolished many of the buildings on Pacific Avenue, and has been rebuilding the streetscape there ever since, with the aid of a redevelopment authority to coerce reluctant property owners into going with the flow. Berkeley won’t have the Draconian power that the earthquake gave Santa Cruz (G_d forbid we should have such an earthquake here!) But it’s useful to take a look at what works and what doesn’t, in a situation where almost everything’s possible. -more-