http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/05/BAG5JM6E5L1.DTL

See link. Read my rant.

As we are on the heels of moving and leaving the wonderful life in the East Bay, I have to make one statement as we pack up. Berkeley is no longer a liberal city. Shocking I know. I have had this conclusion for sometime as the old hippies of the 60's have now turned into business executives, professionals, and people with jobs. Of course what follows is wealth creation. I don't care what people's idealistic political views are, when it comes to taking care of your family all bets are off. So if you take all the typical Berkeley leftist views and then throw in the fact that all these hippies have purchased homes when they were cheap, you have the new Berkeley politics.

What I'm trying to say is that Berkeley folks will continue to do the weird things they think make up their culture, but they are now wealthy homeowners. The average home sales price in Berkeley is $600,000, the cheap homes in the hills are 1 million plus, and nobody can afford to buy except for the previously wealthy. So you have a rare combo of old 60's hippies and new money that believes in the left Berkeley lifestyle.

This all leads to strange contradiction when it comes to the new ideals. Yes on environment, yes on social issues, yes on city maintenance, yes on affordable housing. No on business, no on retail (non mom and pop), no on growth, no on cars.

I am going to focus on the development side cause it all I really know about. Any new project in Berkeley is fought from a condo job to a new Trader Joes on University. Growth is a bad word because it adds supply of homes to the market and thus drives prices down. Stopping Growth does all the good things for the new Berkeley-ite. It does all the great social things like not adding traffic, not burdening schools, maintain open space, blah, blah. But on the other side it excludes people, closes doors, reduces affordability, and the best one - RAISES THEIR HOME PRICES. And don't get me started on these street closures that people get the city to pass that turns their public road that we all pay for into a private street!

With all that, I proclaim the Peoples Republic of Berkeley to be the United Quirky Elitist Exclusionary Town of Berkeley.

Maybe the true Hippies should sell their homes, donate the profits to the Sierra Club and move to Montana where they can form a new Commune.