Let Midtown grow up—but please still keep it kind of janky

This week’s cover story is pretty damn fair. Especially considering that I wrote it, and I definitely had to work hard to suppress my complete and total lack of impartiality when it comes to anything Midtown.

Because hell yes I have an opinion! Midtown is my home. I like it the way it is. I want Midtown to stay Peter Pan and never friggin' grow up. I embrace Midtown's small-town-in-a-big-city feel. I've lived in L.A., Europe, wherever, but Sacto is my speed. It's like that story with the bears and the porridge. Just. Damn. Right.

And so the D-word—density—and the prospect of another 20,000 people coming to the urban core invoke all sorts of anxiety.

Yet I'm not oblivious to Midtown's needs. I get that density has to happen. And not just to support local businesses, as most argue in this week's cover story (page 16), but also because of that whole climate-change thing. We need people to live in central cities and on transit corridors—not in Lincoln or El Dorado Hills—if we're going to make a meaningful dent in reducing carbon emissions.

But 50,000 people on the grid! Will we recognize little ol' Midtown in 10 years?

Two blocks from my apartment will be a new Whole Foods Market. That company itself doesn't bother me all that much—either shop there or don't—but I've seen how Whole Foods changed San Francisco's neighborhoods. I've seen what a few new lofts and shops and some streetscape has done to S.F.'s Divisadero 'hood. Is that what we want for Midtown?

Perhaps I'm just too old school. But I see those “Keep Midtown Janky” bumper stickers and hope that we can get dense and keep a little jank in our hearts, too.