The Urban Antiregime

Abstract

San Francisco is in transition between two urban regimes, a crumbling business-dominated progrowth regime and an emerging progressive slow-growth regime, which is best described as an antiregime because it functions mainly to obstruct the exercise of power. To convert an urban movement into a regime, the city's progressive leaders must reconcile the divergent political interests of coalition elements, renegotiate a partnership with the private sector that is consistent with slow-growth objectives, and settle disputes surrounding Mayor Agnos's tenure. The progressive coalition's exclusive reliance upon a small-business economy is not sufficient to resolve contradictions between materialist and postmaterialist goals in the progressive agenda.