Interview of urban historian Mike Davis
This program takes you back to the year 2000, it is the third of TUC Radio’s four part series on the fate of California cities and the forces that shape them. When Davis spoke in San Francisco he was already widely known as author of Beyond Blade Runner: Urban Control, The Ecology of Fear; Prisoners of the American Dream; and City of Quartz, Excavating the Future in Los Angeles.
This conversation between Mike Davis and the editor of the SF Bay Guardian, Tim Redmond, was recorded at a benefit for the SF Anti-Eviction Coalition. Standing room only audience had come to see the man who had taught Los Angelinos to see their city with new eyes. In his book, the City of Quartz, Davis recalls the citrus groves and cooperative farms of the turn of the century that were replaced with unregulated urban growth driven by a blade runner style capitalism. Unearthing the forces that now shape cities Davis says that Los Angeles, San Francisco and other American cities might share a common future and that we all might share a common strategy to protect the places we need and care for.
Mike Davis had come to San Francisco at a very difficult time. A wave of gentrification had begun in 1997. An investment boom, driven by the nearby Silicon Valley Computer Industry, had already raised rents to the highest of any major American city. Official statistics reported seven evictions per day. At the same time a vibrant grassroots movement emerged that used direct action, political organizing, art and music to oppose the pro development policies of San Francisco’s major and city administration. The evicted, soon to be evicted and those who were determined never to be evicted made up the audience in this benefit.
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